SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER


WHO IS A GOOD STEWARD?

by Welda McKinley Grider

It rained in l997. I remember it clearly since it’s only been recently that it’s rained since. One year total rainfall on this ranch was 3 inches and that was in 1/10ths increments. The wind blew so hard that it did no good.

We did it right. We rotated the pastures, we cut down on numbers, I even burned cactus one spring, then we fed. We finally leased a ranch and moved the cows.

As discouraging as it was, I didn’t lose hope. I am a rancher by birth. Ranching goes back four generations on both sides. Droughts have come and gone. This too would pass or so I thought.

My father once told a BLM employee, “If it rains, then I am a good manager – if it doesn’t….then I am a poor manager”.

We did have one good rain last fall. Grass grew briefly and hope raised and we re-stocked lightly. Didn’t rain again. We again went through the process of protecting the land. It looked hopeless – even for those of us who are programmed from birth to have hope and “wait for next year”.

My grandmother once said, “They said smile it could get worse. I smiled and sure as hell it got worse”!

It got worse. Over the years I would find hope that there was still something alive at the roots of the grass. I would pull a clump and find the roots alive and have hope.

Until June 2006. I went out and pulled grass and there were no live roots. The countryside was dead. Despair overtook me. The well – our only well (860 ft) went dry. There is nothing that will cause despair like watching 300 head of cattle bawl for water. Family stepped in and hauled water through several days and through the nights. I sat on the drinker in the middle of the night – keeping the cows off the float while I waited for the truck to return with more water as rain sprinkled on me. Not enough to do any good – just enough to make me cold and miserable in the dark. There are no words to describe June of 2006 unless you’ve been through it.

I am a religious person and part of what I believe in is that you give thanks always. I got to tell you…I had to LOOK for something to give thanks for. I found it. The broom weed was dying. You got to REALLY be trying to find something when all the hope you have is the broom weed is dying!

The first rain came. As happy as that made me…(the dirt tanks filled up) I knew with all the knowledge a lifetime of ranching gives – it would be three years if all went well for the land to recover. Turns out I was wrong. I forgot who the real steward of the land is.

The rains continued. The water gaps washed out. The tank dams washed out. The roads washed out. The well rejuvenated. Not that the cows needed water at that point but we do like clean sheets and dishes in this house! The grass is stirrup leather high. The gramma grass is heading out. This is not gramma grass country. Don’t know where that came from. The grass and weeds are so tall in the draw that seriously you can only see the cow’s backs as they graze. Even our “old girls” have slick hair and frisky babies.

Only a rancher can understand the joy of watching full-grown cows and their calves buck around acting silly in the brisk early morning air.

There is grass abundantly on the sides of the hills. We’ve got grass to last a couple of years if it doesn’t rain again. That is the beauty of this land we live in.
Science can’t do this. Good planning can’t do this. I don’t even think rain can do this much. Only the Good Lord himself can. He is the steward of this land we only live on.

I do have to tell you….half of the broom weed is still dead.

Welda ranches near Carrizozo, New Mexico. Amongst the other problems she faced during the drought she is married to Jim Grider.



Famous next-to-last cowboy words

By Julie Carter

The mindset of never turning down a rain when you ranch in the southwest has been pushed to the limits this year as ranchers saw almost double their annual average rainfall arrive all at once in a month's time.

Slow, if never, to grumble, ranchers have fixed water gaps that have been solidly in place since the last millennium, repaired washed-out roads repeatedly, and found leaks in the roofs of homes, barns and outbuildings that didn't exist until of course, it rained.

And still the rains came. Most recently, the moisture that was so welcome this year was falling on the backs of newly-weaned calves with the threat of bringing on job security to the guy in charge of doctoring sick ones and hauling off dead ones.

The tens of hundreds of cattle trucks scheduled for dirt road destinations will be standing by waiting to see if it is really going to happen the morning after Mother Nature has again dumped inches of rain on ranches that now have more grass than anyone has seen in their lifetime.

Making fall gathering and other assorted seasonal cattle work cold, miserable and hard to plan, the misery is simply accepted as part of the business. No one in the business dares wish it would stop raining. Who would accept the responsibility for such a bold statement if indeed it did stop raining for too long, again.

You can count on a few things as a cowboy and usually they have to do with those types of off-the-cuff statements followed by results that become legendary.

"Weatherman says there is a storm coming today but we'll be finished long before it gets here." Result: The hundred year blizzard hits just as the cowboy crew arrives at the backside of the ranch and 20 miles from headquarters.

"Send the city kid that came to help to the north end. No cattle ever go up there." Result: One pilgrim struggling with the entire bunch of cows and calves while the real hands hunt for cattle.

“It'll be a good day to ride the colt. We don't have any serious cowboying to do." Result: Hunters left the gates open on four pastures and 600 head of cattle are mixed or missing.

"Don't worry, they can't get plumb away. There's an ocean on both sides." Result: Four hard days of looking for wild cattle in heavy brush-covered country.

"Don't worry, they won't get away. They're afoot and we're horseback." Result: A corral of ridden-down horses, tired riders and cattle still running wild and free.

"The break-even on these cattle won't pencil out right now, but the market is bound to improve before shipping time." Result: The bank says they will extend the operating note one more time.

"That colt never saw a day he could buck me off." Result: The wife getting quite handy at doing all the riding, doctoring and feeding while he heals-up.

Another list for another day is the really incredibly "un-wise" things a cowboy will say, without thinking of course, that will land him in the dog-house and eating bologna sandwiches for an undetermined amount of time.

That list belongs in the "last cowboy words" category and usually starts with some brilliance like "What that woman doesn't know won't hurt her..."

© Julie Carter 2006



Did we dodge the bullet

by Larry Gabriel

Arctic air and fall hunting seasons have arrived in the Northern Great Plains. Geese and ducks from the north will soon follow.

However, the much feared deadly bird flu apparently will not be coming with the birds after all. At least, not this year.

Last year Congress appropriated $350 million to prepare for the possibility of a deadly pandemic that experts said could kill millions of people if the current Asian strain of bird flu (H5N1 virus) mutates to a human flu.

The federal government sent biologists in droves to Alaska to test migrating birds that could carry the strain from Asia and Russia. No deadly version of the virus was found. A milder version (low pathogenic H5N1) has been found in North America.

The big fear was that wild birds migrating south over the continental United States could spread the high pathogenic virus that has killed many thousands of birds, more than a hundred people, and a few dogs, cats and other mammals throughout Asia and Europe.

It appears that did not happen. Experts are saying this fall's American hunters have nothing to fear from the bird flu.

The other big fear constantly discussed by the media is the fear of a worldwide epidemic of human bird flu. So far, the world has dodged that bullet too.

What the media really means when it talks about "human bird flu" is a fear that the current bird virus will mutate when a mammal (usually a human or a pig) catches the H5N1 deadly strain from a bird while already sick with another highly contagious flu strain. If the two strains were to combine, they might produce something new and deadly like the 1918 Spanish flu that killed millions of people.

All human flu viruses are thought to have originated from bird flu viruses. So why is this one such a big deal? There are several reasons this so-called "bird flu" is so popular with the media and governments.

First, our technology is vastly improved, and scientists can track minute genetic changes related to virus mutation. When we did not know those things, we did not worry about them.

Secondly, the highly pathogenic version of H5N1 kills half the people who get sick with it. The theory is that a similar death rate might accompany a mutated human virus derived from it.

There are many horrible diseases in this world. I sometime wonder if fear of them does not do more damage to society than the actual disease.

It has always been wise to stay away from sick (or dead from unknown causes) birds.

In my book, just a little wisdom is worth more than a mountain of information any day of the week.

Larry is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture