NEWS ROUNDUP

Perdue declares state of emergency due to drought Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency in most of Georgia on Saturday, and called on President Bush to recognize that the historic drought had created a disaster for 85 counties. In a defiant plea Saturday at Lake Lanier, Perdue asked Bush to issue a federal disaster designation that would: • Empower the president to order less water released from Lake Lanier. • Make federal funds available to state and local governments. • Offer low-interest loans to Georgia businesses hurt by the drought. "We will continue to conserve," the governor said, "but we have to have help." Perdue's actions came as the federal government continue d to release water from Lake Lanier to protect endangered mussels in Florida at the expense of water-starved North Georgia. The governor, lieutenant governor, two congressmen and several legislators and state officials gathered at the top of a trio of now-landlocked boat ramps at Lake Lanier to deride the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife for "putting mussels in front of people."....
Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide For First Time The Kansas Department of Health and Environment yesterday became the first government agency in the United States to cite carbon dioxide emissions as the reason for rejecting an air permit for a proposed coal-fired electricity generating plant, saying that the greenhouse gas threatens public health and the environment. The decision marks a victory for environmental groups that are fighting proposals for new coal-fired plants around the country. It may be the first of a series of similar state actions inspired by a Supreme Court decision in April that asserted that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide should be considered pollutants under the Clean Air Act. In the past, air permits, which are required before construction of combustion facilities, have been denied over emissions such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. But Roderick L. Bremby, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, said yesterday that "it would be irresponsible to ignore emerging information about the contribution of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to climate change and the potential harm to our environment and health if we do nothing."....
Bush Aide Rejects Climate Goal The president's top science adviser said yesterday there is no solid scientific evidence that the widely cited goal of limiting future global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avert dangerous climate change, an assertion that runs counter to that of many scientists as well as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said at a news conference that the target of preventing Earth from warming more than two degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, "is going to be a very difficult one to achieve and is not actually linked to regional events that affect people's lives." A wide number of scientists, as well as European leaders and many U.S. lawmakers, have endorsed the goal of limiting global temperature rise to that level. That roughly translates to holding the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide or equivalents, compared with the current level of roughly 385 parts per million. The atmosphere has already warmed by 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit compared with pre-industrial levels....
U.S. Senators Propose Compulsory Greenhouse Gas Cuts A bipartisan bill introduced today in the U.S. Senate proposes mandatory, not voluntary, limits on greenhouse gases with the goal of reducing the nation's emissions more than 60 percent by mid-century. The bill's authors say the plan is a serious and viable effort to tackle global warming and key Democrats aim to get the legislation out of committee and before the full Senate by early next year. The proposal, introduced by Connecticut Independent Joe Lieberman and Virginia Republican John Warner, would impose greenhouse gas limits on about 75 percent of the U.S. economy, creating caps on emissions from the electric power, transportation and manufacturing industries. These sectors would be required to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, with the eventual goal of reducing emissions about 62 percent from 2005 levels by 2050. Lieberman said he intends to hold a subcommittee vote on the bill - called America's Climate Security Act - in the next few weeks, with the intention of passing it through the full committee before the end of the year....
Cape Cod panel denies permit for wind farm A proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm that has garnered international attention went before its toughest arbiter yesterday - the locals - and lost, as a commission charged with protecting Cape Cod's natural resources denied the project a permit. The Cape Cod Commission's decision, which Cape Wind Associates vowed to challenge, poses another obstacle to the long-delayed project and deepened the divide between passionate advocates on both sides of the issue. Although the wind farm would be located in federal waters - outside the reach of most state and local agencies - the project's transmission lines and other supporting networks pass through land where state and local governments have jurisdiction, leading to a series of other environmental reviews. The Cape Cod Commission has a role to play because the Legislature has given it power over any local development large enough to require a state environmental permit....
Acid Oceans Increasing Rapidly We've known for a while that ocean acidification is a bad bad thing. Now new research into corals using boron isotopes indicates the world-ocean has become about one third of a pH unit more acid over the past fifty years, reports the Australian Research Council. The acidity is caused by a CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, which then dissolves into the oceans—a development likely to be lethal for animals with chalky skeletons, who just happen to comprise more than a third of the planet’s marine life. Apparently this acidification is now taking place over decades, rather than centuries, as originally predicted, and is happening even faster in the cooler waters of the Southern Ocean than in the tropics. Corals and plankton with chalky skeletons rely on sea water saturated with calcium carbonate to form their skeletons. As acidity intensifies, it becomes harder to form their skeletons. According to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of the University of Queensland: "Analysis of coral cores shows a steady drop in calcification over the last 20 years. . . When CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach about 500 parts per million, you put calcification out of business in the oceans." Atmospheric CO2 is presently 385 ppm, up from 305 in 1960....
The Bottled Water Backlash Americans drank some 37 billion bottles of water in 2005, despite the inconvenient truth that in most parts of the country, tap water is not only perfectly safe, but also more tightly regulated that its bottled counterpart. At the same time, manufacturing plastic bottles for bottled water creates an astounding amount of pollution -- an annual equivalent of 1.5 billion barrels of oil, according to Food & Water Watch. Add to that the carbon emissions from transporting water from as far away as Norway (Voss), Italy (San Pellegrino), or Fiji (Fiji), and the billions of plastic bottles that end up in the waste stream, and drinking bottled water does start to seem a little bit of madness. Yet even at supposedly environmentally conscious stores like Whole Foods Market, bottled water is the No. 1 selling item. Over the past decade, sales have continued to grow 10 percent a year, a rate that would make most companies blush....
A Turning Point in the Global Warming Debate? August 2007 may go down in the history of science as the month when scientific research made a decisive turn away from dubious warnings of climate catastrophes and toward a much different thesis, that the modern warming is moderate and not man-made. First, NASA acknowledged it had accidentally inflated its official record of surface temperatures in the U.S. beginning with the year 2000. The revised data show 1998 falling to second place behind 1934 as the warmest year, followed by 1921, 2006, 1931, 1999, and 1953. Four of the top 10 years on record are now from the 1930s, before human emissions could have been responsible, while only three of the top 10 (1998, 2006, 1999) are from the past 10 years. New data are also emerging that the temperature record should be adjusted even further downward. Meteorologist Anthony Watts has launched an effort to photograph the 1,221 "most reliable" surface temperature stations in the U.S. to see if land use changes over the years may be contaminating their records. Images of the stations he's photographed so far (available at www.surfacestations.org) show many cases where the stations seem to be reporting warming caused by nearby buildings, parking lots, or heat-generating activities....
Pesticide spurs free speech flap If the state and federal governments get their way, night-flying planes will soon resume dousing the Monterey Peninsula with a moth-targeting pesticide, before they move on to other areas of Northern California. State regulators insist the chemical compound is safe. But they also insist they can't disclose much of what's in it. "Trade secrets," said Steve Lyle, spokesman for the state Department of Food and Agriculture. The mystery has opened a free-speech front in California's latest battle over potential health risks associated with aerial assaults on crop-threatening insects, in this case the light brown apple moth. Experts say the Monterey dustup pits the public's right to know against the needs of pesticide manufacturers to shield the ingredients of their products from competitors. Similar clashes between the 1st Amendment and trade secrets erupted over unauthorized leaks about an Apple Computer product and Internet postings of DVD decryption codes. Another skirmish came after a former employee tried to write about Oprah Winfrey, in defiance of a confidentiality agreement. The Monterey fight centers on whether the government, at the behest of a corporation, should refuse to identify the chemicals that it sprays over homes, businesses and schools, as well as orchards and vegetable fields....
Bush Visits Refuge to Tout Plan to Save Birds, Fish President George W. Bush visited a Maryland wildlife refuge and went fishing in the Chesapeake Bay to highlight his concept of ``cooperative conservation'' to protect fish and migratory birds. Bush, a frequent target of criticism by environmentalists on such issues as global warming, made his trip a day after unveiling several proposals for wildlife preservation. He also devoted his weekly radio address today to the subject. ``My administration is committed to protecting the environment that our sportsmen depend on,'' Bush said in his radio speech today. ``To meet the environmental challenges of the 21st century, we must bring together conservationists, fishermen, sportsmen, local leaders, and federal, state and tribal officials in a spirit of cooperation.'' Bush today signed an executive order prohibiting the commercial sale of striped bass and red drum caught in federal waters. While Congress in 1990 barred commercial bass fishing in federal waters, Bush's order protects the species if the ban is lifted and extends it to red drum. Bush also urged Congress to create tax incentives for conservation easements donated by property owners in order to help protect the areas where birds stop during their annual migrations. He also asked Congress to dedicate $50 billion over five years in farm legislation to continue the Conservation Reserve Program that encourages farmers and ranchers to set aside land for wildlife....
Judge upholds Montana's coal-bed methane water standards A judge has upheld the state's water-quality standards aimed at protecting rivers in the Powder River Basin from pollution due to coal-bed methane development. Some oil and gas companies sued the state, saying the standards adopted in 2003 and 2006 were too restrictive. They alleged the standards were not based on science, and were in some cases more stringent than naturally found in the environment. District Judge Blair Jones of Columbus ruled the state Board of Environmental Review and the Department of Environmental Quality followed the law in creating the standards. "When water quality is at stake, the BER and DEQ are mandated to afford protection," Jones wrote in the Wednesday ruling. Mark Fix, a Tongue River rancher and chairman of the Northern Plains Resource Council, which intervened in the suit on behalf of the state, was pleased with the decision....
Cows or Condos? Neither! There are three things wrong with the underlying assumptions behind the “cows are better than condos” idea. First, livestock proponents vastly underestimate the ecological costs of livestock production (or logging/farming). Growing cows in the West involves more than the mere cropping of grass. Livestock production impacts include dewatering of rivers for irrigation, replacement of native plant communities with irrigated hay fields, and killing of native predators, pollution of water, transmission of disease to native wildlife, consumption of forage that would otherwise support native herbivores, trampling and compaction of soils, pollution of water sources, truncation of nutrient flows and so on. (I could list a similar litany of ecological problems associated with logging). Such a full accounting of livestock production costs greatly increases the negative impacts of livestock production on western landscapes and wildlife. Just as a full accounting of sprawl’s impact should take in more than the physical footprint of the house site, and must include the added traffic on roads, the fossil fuel energy used for commuting, pollution of ground water from septic systems, loss of wildlife habitat, and so on, a similar full accounting of livestock production must include more than grazing effects. Second, livestock proponents ignore the vast differences in the physical, geographical footprint between development and livestock production. Livestock production affects nearly all of the non-forested landscape in the West in one fashion or another, whereas sprawl and its impacts remain relatively concentrated....
Fight Against Coal Plants Draws Diverse Partners Richard D. Liebert turned his back against a hard wind the other day, adjusted his black cap and gazed across golden fields of hay. Explaining why he is against construction of a big coal-burning power plant east of town, Mr. Liebert sounded like one more voice from the green movement. “The more I learn about global warming and watch the drought affect ranchers and farmers, I see that it’s wind energy, not coal plants, that can help with rural economic development. Besides, do we want to roll the dice with the one planet we’ve got?” But Mr. Liebert, despite his sentiments, fits nobody’s stereotype of an environmentalist. He is a Republican, a cattle rancher and a retired Army lieutenant colonel who travels to South Korea to train soldiers to fight in Iraq. He is also an example of a rising phenomenon in the West. An increasingly vocal, potent and widespread anti-coal movement is developing here. Environmental groups that have long opposed new power plants are being joined by ranchers, farmers, retired homeowners, ski resort operators and even religious groups....
Hard-core off-roader stymied in court A hard-line advocate for untrammeled motorized back-country adventure said Friday he would no longer fight efforts to turn federal land into wilderness, saying "stupid environmental pretexts" would always win the day in court. Rainer Huck, former director of Utah Shared Access Alliance, said a federal ruling handed down Thursday that upheld motorized travel restrictions in the San Rafael Swell signaled the end of his efforts to thwart conservationists. t's like battling the Borg: Resistance is futile," Huck said during a phone call from Blue Notch, a desert region near Lake Powell's Hite Marina where he was dirt-biking with his family. "We might as well just designate all of Utah wilderness now and get it over with." U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball's ruling Thursday actually said nothing about wilderness, but it did demolish every argument Huck, the Southeastern Utah OHV Club and seven individuals Huck described as "friends of the San Rafael" used to appeal the federal Interior Department's support for a Bureau of Land Management travel plan. The BLM's Price district was the first in Utah to finish such a plan after the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance successfully sued them to satisfy an executive order President Nixon issued decades ago. After a long environmental review process that included on-the-ground surveys of all of the trails and roads in the Price district, the field office decided to close 468 miles of trail to motorized access but keep open 677 miles of disputed area that, added to existing highways and roads, left 1,977 miles open to OHVs and motorcycles....
Filmmaker captures struggle for ranchers, wolves to co-exist If there's anybody around who doesn't understand why wolves give ranchers so much heartburn, there's a new movie they should see. "Wolves in Paradise," by Livingston filmmaker Bill Campbell, is a beautifully produced documentary that illustrates the burdens wolves create, both for traditional ranchers who rely on pounds of beef to pay the bills and for new ranchers spending time and money trying to find ways to live with the big predators. The hour-long film, which premiered Thursday night at the Northern Rockies Bioneers Conference at the Emerson Cultural Center, focuses on two very different ranch operations. One is the Davis family ranch in Paradise Valley south of Livingston, where three generations are holding on to their land amid the surrounding eruptions of trophy homes and rural subdivisions. Martin Davis has lost animals to wolves, he's seen his calves lose weight because of the stress they've caused, and he's spent countless extra hours protecting his herd....
Proposed rules wage new battle for energy industry Sweeping — and expensive — proposed changes in how companies drill for natural gas and oil come under discussion in Santa Fe this week. "Pit Rules" are the topic as the state's Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department and industry representatives make their opening statements Monday. After the statements are taken, the hearing will be recessed to Nov. 5, when evidence shoring up each side's arguments will be presented. The oil and natural gas industry estimates it will cost at least $100,000 per site to adapt from the open pit system now used for drilling cuttings and other waste to the "closed-loop" system mandated by the proposed Rule 50. Sitting across the table from producers and business reps is the state's Oil Conservation Division (OCD), which wants the changes "in order to protect fresh water, public health and the environment." It is joined by New Mexico Citizens for Clean Air & Water, Earthworks and other environmental groups, including ranchers....
Well Users Review Ruling On South Platte Basin Owners of wells along the South Platte River are sorting out whether a new court ruling will allow them to start using their wells again. Last week's ruling by a Greeley water court might allow about half of the 440 wells shut down last year to resume pumping water -- but only if tough new requirements to replenish river water are met. The wells in northeastern Colorado were ordered shut down when holders of senior water rights successfully argued that the wells were illegally drawing down the river. The decision issued Friday by Judge Roger Klein addresses a plan to replace water tapped by the wells. The Central Colorado Water Conservancy District, which represents the well users, is still reviewing the ruling to figure out how much additional water the well owners will need. District spokesman Greg Hertzke said the district is encouraged by the decree....
Easterners, Westerners argue over wilderness bill Eastern and Western members of the U.S. House clashed sharply Thursday over legislation that would designate almost 20 million acres of Western land as wilderness. Western members angrily criticized the bill, which is sponsored by two members from the East Coast -- Reps. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn. It would give a new level of protection to lands and rivers in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Western Republicans on the committee challenged Maloney and Shays, saying they shouldn't be interfering with land so far away from their own districts. Some Westerners are supporters, including Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., the subcommittee chairman, and Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she is also backing the bill, saying its consideration is long overdue. The bill has 115 co-sponsors....
Bitterroot group calls for giving wildfires less fuel Tom and Charlotte Robak have always considered themselves environmentalists. It was their love of everything wild that brought them to Montana in the first place a decade ago. Along the West Fork of the Bitterroot, the couple found a stunning landscape complete with clean water, fresh air and abundant wildlife. The long warm days of summer seemed almost perfect. That all changed in 2000 - the year that hundreds of thousands of acres of forest lands went up in smoke in the Bitterroot. Along with hundreds of others, the Robaks were evacuated from their home. When they prepared to move downstream that same summer, they found a firefighter camp set up on their front pasture. Since then, the Robaks - along with everyone else in western Montana - have lived with wildfire smoke for weeks on end through the summer months. Now they want their summers back. The couple believes that Montana's “silent majority” wants that, too. On Sunday, Nov. 4, the Robaks are hoping people will turn out by the hundreds at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds' First Interstate Building in Hamilton to take part in a 4 p.m. rally being hosted by the new Big Sky Coalition: Environmentalists with Common Sense. Their intent is to create a groundswell of common folk interested in pushing for changes in the way national forest lands are managed. “I believe we're at a tipping point right now,” Tom Robak said. “People want something different. They want some management for our forests.”....
Gov: Cancel Wyo Range leases Gov. Dave Freudenthal is leaning on federal cabinet officials to cancel suspended energy leases issued in the Wyoming Range and offer a refund to companies. Freudenthal wrote a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, saying the area is important to Wyoming and should be protected. He repeatedly referenced pending legislation from U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., that will likely seek to prevent further leasing in the area. The governor asked the two directors -- Kempthorne oversees Bureau of Land Management lands and Johanns U.S. Forest Service lands -- to cancel current leases in a 44,600-acre area and reimburse energy companies for the money they spent buying the leases. "To do otherwise would seem to controvert the clear intent of the proposed legislation and will of the people of the state of Wyoming," Freudenthal said in his Sept. 20 letter....
Feds round up wild horses in East Valley A half-dozen wild horses were rounded up in the East Valley, near Fish Springs, on Wednesday after the Bureau of Land Management received several complaints. Wednesday, Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist John Axtell loaded six horses comprised of three mares and three yearlings, into a trailer at the end of Horsebush Court for transport to another location. The catch-pen, still baited with feed, proved to be no temptation for a seventh mare. "These horses will either be adopted out, as is the case of the young ones, or they will go to a horse sanctuary," Axtell said. "I want to assure everyone that they are not going to be slaughtered or harmed in any way." No sooner had Axtell left the area to transport the captured horses to a new location, the vagrant mare was joined by eight more horses including the stallion....
BLM rejects conservation groups' protest of gas drilling The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has rejected a protest by conservation groups that claimed the agency failed to consider the full impacts on wildlife of a 139-gas well development near here. The Colorado Mule Deer Association, Colorado Wildlife Federation and the National Wildlife Federation said the BLM failed to require a plan detailing the full extent of natural gas development and to accurately disclose the extent of effects on mule deer winter range. The groups said the BLM didn't consider new information about the effects of energy development on mule deer in Wyoming. Last week, the BLM rejected the groups' call to reconsider and withdraw the plan for the 4,280-acre area. Lynn Rust, deputy director of the Colorado BLM office, wrote in a letter to the groups that the agency "adequately analyzed, disclosed and mitigated the impacts of the proposed action and is thereby upheld." Some of the state's largest elk and deer herds are in western Colorado. Concerns about the impacts of energy development on wildlife have grown as the area has seen record rates of gas drilling....
Barrier along NM ranch still under debate An offending stretch of vehicle barrier mistakenly built by the U.S. a few feet into Mexico has been removed. But now a humble cattle fence may be threatening binational relations. Columbus farmer James Johnson, vice president of Carzalia Valley Produce, was told that his fence, which runs along the border, might also be in Mexico. "We did our own survey and our fence was in Mexico as well." The Johnson fence, which in some areas is the only physical boundary between the two countries, was built following 1930s markers, as were the vehicle barriers, which are meant to stop vehicles smuggling drugs and migrants. Manuel Rubio, realty officer for the IBWC, said 1,900 feet of the Johnson fence was also trespassing into Mexico. Johnson said he'd prefer to go by historically agreed-upon markers rather than GPS, but he knows he may have to move his fence. Right now, "we've taken the attitude that it's not hurting anybody," he said. "If the Mexicans demand that we take it out, it will be as much a burden for Mexican ranchers....
Animal ID program loses steam Days after the United States recorded its first case of mad cow disease, then-Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman promised to speed development of a system for tracking the nation's livestock. The idea was to enable investigators to trace the whereabouts and history of any animal within 48 hours of a disease outbreak. Nearly four years later, that system is still on paper. And what's on paper, at least in terms of a revised plan that the Bush administration is due to release soon, seems to bear less and less resemblance to the system Veneman was talking about. Could animal identification be headed the way of Social Security reform? The chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., says he has given up on the program until there is a new administration. Peterson once introduced legislation to make animal ID mandatory. "We have our head in the sand if we think we can get by without having one," he said. For evidence of the congressional frustration or lack of interest, look no further than the USDA budget for 2008 as passed by the House. There isn't a dime for the department's work on the ID program....
Three honored as 2007 Foy Proctor Memorial Cowman's Award of Honor recipients "I think it's a great honor. Foy Proctor was a great cattleman and I have a few friends who've won this award. ... It makes me very proud to be among them," said rancher Gretchen Sammis, one of this year's recipients. This is the eighth year that the Haley Library has presented the award, director Pat McDaniel said. "It goes hand in hand with the library's mission, which is dedicated to the preservation of the range cattle industry of the Southwest," Haley Library Chairman of the Board of Trustees Brian McLaughlin said. Sammis has been a rancher for 82 years, all of her life, she said. Her ranch has been in her family since 1867 and it was her great-grandfather, Manley Chase, who began it, she added. Frank Beaver of Snyder and Edward "Smokey" Nunn Jr. of Deming, N.M., are this year's other recipients. With the addition of the three, the award has been given to 40 honorees, according to records....
Powell documentary filmmaker set for new Wyo. project A Wyoming filmmaker is setting out to do a documentary about the life of Tim McCoy, a star of Hollywood westerns in the 1920s and 1930s. Filmmaker Mary Ellen Lee says the life story of McCoy is rich in the history of the American West. In addition to his silver-screen career, McCoy was a Wyoming cowboy and rancher. He was a friend to American Indians and the adjutant general of the state of Wyoming. In the 1932 film, "Two-Fisted Law," McCoy had the starring role, while John Wayne was a supporting actor. Lee says she hopes her documentary on McCoy will depict the legacy of massive Wyoming ranches. She says she wants to show the cowboys and American Indians who became Hollywood legends, as well as the lives of cowboys on the range....
Boomtown San Angelo Where San Angelo is concerned, the 1940s were considered a boom time, and that heyday had a lot to do with wool. Because wool was a necessary war effort commodity, ranchers and shearers were excluded from the draft. And because this area was among the nation’s largest wool and mohair producers, life was pretty good here even while the nation as a whole was enduring sacrifices to support the war effort. The Texas state government estimated that there were 11-million sheep in Texas in 1943, most of them were concentrated in the Concho Valley counties, with Tom Green leading the pack. The Santa Fe Railroad was generating over $1 million in revenues per month hauling wool out of San Angelo by 1943. At the time, San Angelo was considered the inland wool capital of the nation. And with increasing imports from other wool producing countries, the United States Congress passed the Wool Act in 1956, which placed a tariff on those imports, protecting local producers for years to come....
Rancher’s girls just as good as any boy He was a good Dakota rancher with the stubborn Norwegian determination that allowed him to break even in the unforgiving country north of Mobridge. He raised four children on the ranch. They were his cowboys, farm hands, truck drivers, fence builders and horse breakers. They also learned to cook, sew, can fruit, butcher and do laundry. They were all girls. I, Baxter Black, have known many farm and ranch families who have had only daughters or the girls were better help than the sons. Most dads handle it well and soon realize a girl can run a hay baler, a squeeze chute or spirited horse as well as a boy. But it’s a different relationship. There’s always his nervous worry that maybe she won’t be able to do it, that his expectations are too high. In the daughter’s case, she actually tries harder, and usually becomes better to prove herself qualified in his eyes. Anyway, the daughters of our good Dakota rancher grew up and all married men with no cow knowledge or cowboy skills. They’d have even made poor chore boys....