Monday, November 07, 2016

Oregon's Owyhee Canyonlands are focus of monumental debate

Everybody with a vested interest in the Owyhee Canyonlands feels the same about the land: It's beautiful. It's spiritual. It's a special place that deserves our respect. Their disagreement stems from a philosophical divide: How should we respect this wild desert along the southeast Oregon border? Should we preserve it solely as a pristine natural wonder? Or should we utilize its natural resources to support the local community? Both sides say they're open to compromise - a process that has been hammered out on public lands for more than a century - but have instead found themselves embroiled in a bitter battle that dives headlong into land-use politics, and divides Oregonians into two stubborn camps. Behind the slogans and beyond the talking points, there are people with real fears and real frustrations. Their feelings mirror a much bigger conversation about federal land management in the 21st century - recently amplified by the occupation of the Malheur wildlife refuge - but for now they're focused on Owyhee, a vast and beautiful piece of southeast Oregon. What makes a monument? The national monument designation is designed to protect historically, culturally or environmentally important areas with some flexibility. Federal land managers typically allow existing mines, timber harvests and grazing allotments to continue on monuments, but ban any new projects from starting up. Currently, two proposals are being considered in Oregon: the proposed 2.5-million-acre Owyhee Canyonlands National Monument, and a 65,000-acre expansion of the existing Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, originally established by President Bill Clinton in 2000. Both would be big wins for conservationists, but big opposition stands in their way. Owyhee under threat There is significant mining potential in Malheur County, according to a recent report by the Oregon Department of Geological and Mineral Industries, but it's unclear whether mining within the boundaries of the monument would be economically feasible. A spokeswoman for the department said while mining might be feasible, "the economic potential remains to be studied." According to department records, there are already four active mines within the proposed monument - two for industrial minerals and two for gemstones - and four more just outside it. That's a cause for concern among environmentalists, who don't trust the industry to leave well enough alone. And while the oil and gas industry hasn't drilled a well in Malheur County since 1962, landowners around the county have signed oil and gas leases over the last few years in anticipation. No new wells have been actually approved, but it's enough to raise a big red flag for the people trying to protect the Owyhee...more


The only immanent threats mentioned in this article are mining and possibly oil & gas drilling.
Do you need a National Monument designation to protect this area from these two uses?
The answer is NO!
If the administration truly felt the resource warranted protection from these uses, they can implement an administrative withdrawal from all forms of mining and energy leasing using their authority in Section 204 [43 U.S.C. 1714] of FLPMA. This can provide protection for up to twenty years.
For permanent protection Congress can pass a legislative withdrawal from all forms of mining and energy leasing.
Under either scenario, the lands are protected, while the surface uses remain the same.

Federal land managers typically allow existing mines, timber harvests and grazing allotments to continue on monuments, but ban any new projects from starting up.
This is written as if the land managers have flexibility in making these choices.  They don't.  They must comply with the management language in the Presidential Proclamation. One person, the President, determines whether mining, timber harvests, grazing, roads, etc. will continue, and if so, under what guidelines and conditions.  

The Antiquities Act allows existing allotments to be grandfathered in, but local ranchers simply don't trust the government to honor that agreement.
That is not correct. The Antiquities Act does not even mention livestock grazing. Again, whether livestock grazing is banned, limited or continues as currently practiced is completely up to the President and whatever language he chooses to insert in the Presidential Proclamation creating the monument. The land managers then implement that language. And, the grazing language can vary widely from one proclamation to the next. Look at the different grazing languages in these two recent proclamations by President Obama, here and here.  See my comments on the differences in these grazing languages here. Also see my comments on livestock grazing language in National Monument designation here and here.

And remember, the Presidential Proclamation is not put out as a draft inviting public comment. What one person - the President - says is determined without public hearings or input and is final.

How Soda Taxes Crush Freedom and Enrich Government

by Daren Bakst 

Next week, four cities are holding ballot measures on soda taxes (i.e. taxes on many sugar-sweetened beverages).

Not surprisingly, the four cities are far-left havens, including the California cities of Albany, Oakland, and San Francisco, as well as Boulder, Colorado. In 2014, voters in Berkeley, California, passed a soda tax, and this past June, the Philadelphia City Council (not voters) passed a similar measure.

Soda taxes are a dangerous idea that demonstrate the willingness of some people to trample on individual freedom. These taxes, first and foremost, are efforts to limit our ability to make our own personal dietary decisions.

Sugar-sweetened beverages, from sodas to juice drinks, are legal products that aren’t unsafe and, for that matter, aren’t necessarily going to lead to negative health outcomes. Dietary decisions are very complex, and individuals who enjoy sodas can have much healthier diets overall than people who don’t drink sodas.

Ironically, if people are incentivized to drink less soda, they may make up for the sugar intake through other sources, which could be even higher in sugar or calories, or harmful in other ways to their health.

Even if soda consumption does decline, this doesn’t mean that overall sugar consumption will decline or that there will be reductions in obesity. It simply means that soda or other sugar-sweetened beverages won’t be consumed as much as before the tax.

To even try to socially engineer diets is chilling due to its intrusion on personal choices. To think that the government (or anyone) has the knowledge or ability to develop the right dietary choices for individuals is arrogant and completely ignorant of the complexity of diets.

Also, quite simply and most importantly, if individuals want to drink sodas and consume a lot of sugar and calories, this is their informed and voluntary choice. It isn’t the government’s business to interfere with such choices.


 

Ecumenical Patriarch blasts ‘disgraceful’ inaction on climate change, says ‘survival of God’s creation’ is at stake

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who holds a primacy of honor in Eastern Orthodoxy, has written a message to participants in COP22, the upcoming UN climate change conference in Morocco. Noting that such international meetings have been taking place for over two decades, the Ecumenical Patriarch wrote on November 3 that 22 years “is an unacceptably long period to respond to the environmental crisis, especially when we are conscious of its intimate and inseparable connections to global poverty, migration and unrest.” “Twenty-two years, moreover, is an unjustifiably interminable period to tackle the expansion of fossil fuels, when scientists inform us we have less than two decades not simply to reduce but in fact to replace them with renewable energy,” he continued. “Twenty-two years is, indeed, disgracefully belated for governments apathetically to pursue the same politics, for corporations dishonestly to ‘greenwash’ the same policies, and for individuals arrogantly to continue the same practices.”...more

Sunday, November 06, 2016

Squirrel attacks residents of Deltona retirement community

"It’s jumping on people and biting them and scratching them. So we need help." WESH 2 News obtained the 911 call made when a squirrel attacked people in a local retirement community. Dispatcher: "How many people were bitten?" Caller: "At least three or four." There were tense moments inside Sterling Court Gracious Retirement Living in Deltona. Two residents and a staff member suffered from serious squirrel bites. "We need some care for people here," a caller told a 911 dispatcher. Soaking up the sun, a woman sitting outside encountered the unexpected when the wild animal latched onto her leg. A mammal that normally feasts off seeds began sinking its teeth into the resident. Unable to get rid of the rodent, the woman immediately ran inside the center for help. "Do you need an ambulance?" the dispatcher asked the caller. "Yes, yes," the resident said. As people attempted to aid the woman, an attack ensued. "It’s in our activity room, and it’s jumping on people and biting them and scratching them," the caller said. "It’s still in there, and people are bleeding."...more

Wal-Mart sets environmental plan as people seek green items

Wal-Mart is laying out its environmental map for the next several years as it tries to satisfy customers who want green products at affordable prices. The world’s largest retailer says it will seek to reduce emissions in its own operations by 18 percent by 2025, and work toward adding no waste to landfills in key markets like Canada and the United States. It also plans to be powered by 50 percent clean and renewable energy sources. Wal-Mart’s goals, being announced Friday by CEO Doug McMillon, follow a plan set in 2005 as the company sought to deflect criticism of its practices and burnish its image. Wal-Mart has extended its effort since then into its supply chain, which because of its size — more than 10,000 stores globally — gives it outsized influence on the overall industry. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer is under pressure from consumers, especially millennials, who want environmentally friendly items. Wal-Mart is looking at technology that will let shoppers scan food to learn its origins and other information, beyond just tagging products with “green labels.”...more

Ancient 400-pound salmon fought with dagger-like teeth

Giant, spike-toothed salmon that weighed almost 400 lbs. once made their home in the ancient coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean, according to new research. The now-extinct salmon species spawned in California rivers approximately 11 million to 5 million years ago, the scientists said. The fish measured up to 9 feet long, with spike-like teeth that were more than 1 inch long. Though its dagger-like teeth could have been deadly for prey, the ancient salmon was probably a filter feeder rather than a predatory species, meaning the fish took in water full of plankton as it swam, as modern Pacific salmon do, they added. The salmon's unusual spiky teeth were likely used to fight, helping them to defend their fertilized eggs, according to researchers from California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock, California. The new study found that teeth from the giant salmon found in freshwater environments were consistently longer and more sharply curved than those of the salmon found in the saltwater environments, and showed signs of wear. They added that these differences suggest that the salmon experienced changes prior to migrating upriver to spawn. The salmon's spiky teeth also may have been used to display a sign of dominance, the researchers said. "These giant, spike-toothed salmon were amazing fish," Sankey said. "You can picture them getting scooped out of the Proto-Tuolumne River [near Modesto, California] by large bears 5 million years ago."...more

Netflix announces New Mexico-shot ‘Longmire’ will be renewed for sixth, final season

The sheriff will take one final ride. Longmire, the neo-Western drama series with a die-hard niche of fans, has been renewed by Netflix for a sixth and final season. Production is scheduled to begin in March, said Eric Witt, director of the Santa Fe Film Office. The 10 episodes will be shot in and around Santa Fe, Pecos, Los Alamos and Las Vegas, N.M. “We are grateful to Netflix for the opportunity to compose a closing chapter for these beloved characters that inspires lasting memories,” executive producers Hunt Baldwin, John Coveny and Greer Shephard said in a statement. “Most importantly, we’re committed to delivering a dynamic and satisfying conclusion to our fans that rewards their longtime loyalty.” Longmire follows Sheriff Walt Longmire (played by Robert Taylor), the unflappable chief law enforcement officer of the fictional Absaroka County, Wyo. Henry Standing Bear (Lou Diamond Phillips) keeps the sheriff apprised of goings-on at the neighboring Cheyenne Reservation, where Longmire has no legal authority but nonetheless finds himself frequently entangled...more

Texas is Losing the War on Feral Hogs - video

More than two decades into Texas' ever escalating war against feral hogs, the wild swine continue gaining ground while Texas and the state's native wildlife, plants and ecosystems lose it. Despite taking millions of casualties - an estimated 750,000-plus feral hogs have been killed each of the past few years in Texas - the non-native pigs have continued their economically and environmentally destructive march across the state, with an estimated 2.6 million of them spread across at least 240 of Texas' 254 counties. Described by some wildlife managers as "four-legged fire ants," Texas' population of economically and environmentally destructive feral hogs has exploded to an estimated at 2.6 million and continues expanding despite hunters annuallly taking 750,000 of the swine.  "It's just getting worse and worse; no matter what we've tried, the hogs just overwhelm us," said Stuart Marcus, manger of the 25,000-acre Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge. "They certainly are having a negative impact on native wildlife and habitat - directly and indirectly." Texas holds, by some estimates, as many as 10 times the number of feral hogs it did barely three decades ago. "The first year this agency began removing feral hogs was 1982. They took 86 pigs that year," said Michael Bodenchuk, state director of the Texas offices of Wildlife Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture branch designated to address human/wildlife conflicts. "In 2011, we removed 24,746. That pretty much tells you how the problem has grown." And it continues growing. "The estimates I've seen are that between 2006 and 2010, Texas' feral hog population grew about 21 percent a year," Bodenchuk said. And that's with Texans taking an estimated 29 percent of the pig population each year. Texas law designates the non-native feral hogs as unprotected, non-game animals and imposes almost no restrictions on when, how or how many of the hogs can be taken. They can be hunted and killed year-round, day or night; shot from aircraft; trapped in pens; attracted by bait; taken in any number. And Texans have responded to the opportunity. Recreational hunters take an estimated 600,000 feral hogs a year, finding the wild swine a challenging hunting quarry and wonderful on the table. Commercial trappers using live-catch pens annually take and sell to wild game processors another 70,000 or so of the pigs. Another 50,000 or more are killed by Texas Wildlife Services and private firms hired by landowners to knock back pig populations damaging crops or property...more

Here's a video of 'helibacon' hog hunting by helicopter:

Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

The making of a legend

 by Julie Carter

This story has been told around campfires, roping arenas, beer coolers and white tablecloth restaurants with ongoing hilarity that is enhanced only by knowing the players personally.

It was the early ’90s in California and a cowboy and his bride had been to a high-fallutin’ paint horse sale. Conversation, barbeque and alcohol energized the crowd and encouraged hand raising and check writing.

Paul had been drinking some, but not a lot, and his wife Ineta had only one beer before they left the party and headed home. Paul was driving when they were pulled over by the flashing blue and red lights with a second patrol car behind the first.

The police officer told Paul he was speeding and also noted the open container of beer between his legs. He told him to get out of the pickup and proceeded to take him around to the squad car to begin the field sobriety test.

From her side of the pickup, Ineta could see Paul performing the clap, clap, clap, followed by a ballerina pose, a walk the line and touch his nose performance.

Passing the field test, Paul stayed with the officer while Ineta remained in the pickup upon the orders of the two patrolmen “guarding her,” --one a “buffed-up blonde cop” as she described him. She watched as they put Paul in the other patrol car and then she saw one of the officers hit him with his flashlight. That lit a fire in the cowgirl.

As Ineta attempted to leave the pickup, a cop slammed her back and told her to keep her backside (expletive downplayed) in the vehicle.

Ineta’s cowgirl-tough but not always smart instincts came to life. With her knee, she rammed the cop and took him to the ground. This tiny 5’4” cowgirl, was on the fight and had lost any of her good sense in the fray. The other cop, standing by, jumped in and even with two, they couldn’t take the kicking wildcat down.

They called for backup and the other two cops attending Paul joined in. It took all four of them, but they finally had cuffs on her hands and legs. They threw her in the back seat of the squad car.

Her only question was, “What are you doing?” The officers ignored her, talking on the radio and the words “assault on an officer” were heard.

She and Paul were separated and she wouldn’t see him again until the next day. Ineta was put in an isolation cell for booking and fingerprinting. Later she was taken to the cell where she’d spend the night.

With the slamming of the cell door, Ineta looked around, now smarter than she’d been a few hours before. She could see she was in a cell full of prostitutes representing the night’s roundup. There was a bench on the wall and a toilet in the middle of the room. The urge to pee that had seemed an emergency earlier, left her in fear.

Giving her an appraising eye, the tattooed, dressed-up “ladies of the night” resumed their conversation about the events of the evening and the tricks they’d turned. This was business as usual for them.

With her hair, clothes and general appearance looking like, well, like she’d been wrestling with cops, Ineta knew she was about to be quizzed. At some point, one of the girls turned to her and asked, “What about you, what did you bring in tonight?”

Ineta, once again in possession of her full mental faculties that had escaped her earlier, stuttered briefly, recognizing that for her safety she needed to fit in. This was a very intimidating, mean-looking bunch of women.

Her quick mind knew she’d better come up with a number they’d believe. “Twenty,” she said. “I did 20.” It seemed to satisfy the bunch and they accepted her as one of them for the night.

As the story was told and retold, both to the entertainment and embarrassment of the couple who did best in laughing at themselves, Ineta was forever tagged with the nickname, “20 Tricks.”

More than two decades later, her debut as 20 Tricks remains legendary.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com

Generations of Cattle Trails

A win for Cub fans everywhere!
Generations of Cattle Trails
Of People and Paths
By Stephen L. Wilmeth



            I stayed up until it was all over.
            When Cleveland came back to tie the game at 6-6, I had resolved in my mind that the Cubs would not regain the momentum to climb one more mountain and put the game away. After all, they were the Chicago Cubs and losing was not just expected but traditional faire.
            It wasn’t because I didn’t long to see them win.
            I consider myself a life long Cub fan having been influenced by my maternal grandfather from the start. He had traveled nearly a century ago from Grant County to western Illinois to visit his cousins, Glenn and Guy Sperry, in the small town of New Philadelphia. They had shown him the sights of their farm country and, together, traveled on to Windy City to visit Chicago. He had been smitten by the whole experience including one of the Sperry brothers’ favored big league teams, the Chicago Cubs.
While in the City he was dared to spar in a local gym which caught the attention of a resident fight promoter. He was offered a contract on the spot to fight with that stable of Chicago boxers. He declined, but 50 years later he speculated in a rare moment of nostalgia of what his life might have been like if he had taken that offer.
He came home to the Gila River and lived out his life within a mile of where he was born. For many years, his memories of Illinois were bolstered by yearly visits by his cousins, but one thing remained firm … his interest in the Chicago Cubs.
Honing the loyalty
He told me the story of the great Ruth, in the third game at Wrigley of the ’32 Series, when he pointed to the center field seats and hit the next pitch there. It was to be the Babe’s 15th and final World Series homerun and the mighty Yanks would eliminate the Cubbies.
My own allegiance became stronger when the Chicago flagship television, WGN, arrived in Grant County for subscribers. It was then that all Cub games became part of local culture. In the earliest days it was Jack Brickhouse calling the action and Burt Hooton and Fergie Jenkins were the big men on the mound. Joe Pepitone and Ron Santo were favorites in the infield and Rick Monday arrived in the outfield. Rick had endeared the nation to the cause of the Cubs when he snatched the flag from the hippie trying to burn it one day when they were playing at Dodger Stadium. Even Chavez Ravine Dodger fans stood and gave the Cubs a standing ovation.
Those were good teams, but never good enough.
By the time I was in graduate school and had some free afternoons to indulge, Jack was still calling play by play albeit for a short time and Rick Reuschel and Bruce Sutter were the kings of the mound. Billy Buckner and Ivan DeJesus were favored infielders and Dave Kingman and Bobby Murcer were outfield pillars. I saw DeJesus hit for the cycle, Sutter fill the relatively new role of reliever throwing his split fingered fastball, and Dave Kingman pound those towering fly balls. If the wind was blowing out, they went out as well.
Those were good teams, but never good enough.
It was always next year and Brickhouse, up until 1981, and the famous Harry Caray thereafter annually told us to be patient, to support our team, and to sing with gusto during the seventh inning stretch.
Then came the teams of Rick Suttcliffe, Ryne Sandberg, Greg Maddux, Andre Dawson, Joe Girardi and Sammy Sosa. Those were good teams, too, but they never won a pennant. It was always next year, but we remained loyal and patient. Our elders died off and the Cubbies still didn’t win.
Of Roots and Cattle
My grandfather’s family name was Rice and the family had roots in Illinois. They came from near Macomb in the black ground country with its white barns and fences. My great grandfather, Lee Rice, had left the turmoil of a family conflict resulting from the replacement of his recently deceased mother and headed south to Texas.
Working as a goat herder for his cousin, he was confronted one day by a small posse looking for a murderer. Leaning on his herding stick, he told them what he had seen and which the direction he had seen the suspect traveling.
“If I had a gun and a horse, I’d sure leave these goats and go with you,” he had informed them.
A day or so later, the posse reappeared with its leader leading a saddled horse with a gun belt draped over the horn up the young goat tender.
“Son, here’s your horse and a pistol,” he had said. “Be careful with both.”
By 1880, Rice was in the Texas Panhandle riding for another native son of Illinois, the famous Charles Goodnight. From what we now know of Mr. Goodnight, his cowboys were all expected to conform to his strict rules of conduct. There was no cussing, no card playing, no drinking, and no fighting unless the latter was in response to orders or protection of the JA assets.
We also know Lee left the ranch when Goodnight left to pursue other ventures. In 1888, the young Rice arrived in Grant County, New Mexico on the banks of the Gila River with a string of cattle branded PIT (very similar to the Goodnight road brand of PAT). The PIT brand remains in the hands of a Rice family descendent to this day.
The Illinois connection was about to be reengaged.
All major cow markets were a long, long way from New Mexico. Lee’s sister had married C.E. Sperry, and, together, they became the parents of Glenn and Guy who would eventually be the influences of Chicago baseball loyalty. C.E. served as a more important bridge. On their farms, the Sperry’s marketed a big portion of their corn production through cattle. They would buy cattle and fatten them on the farm. Through a relationship with the Rosenbaum Brothers and Company and the Chicago Stockyards, they would then sell their finished steers. By 1908, the last year the Cubs won the World Series, some Rice cattle from the Gila River in New Mexico were being transported by rail to New Philadelphia, Illinois, fattened with Sperry corn and forage, and harvested in facilities in Chicago. That relationship continued well into the century until the deaths of Glenn, Guy, and Glenn’s son, Edward, in the decade of the ‘60s.
Winners!
  As the last pitches were being thrown in Cleveland Wednesday night, the anticipation of a Cub World Series win was almost incomprehensible. As Cub fans, we were so used to losing that accepting another loss was not all that difficult, but the Cubs rewarded us all.
They prevailed!
As I sat down this morning to write this, I was reminded of a picture on the wall of my saddle shop. It was taken in the Chicago Stockyards in 1918. The caption reads, “Thirty-two head of prime 1458 pound Hereford steers fed by C.E. Sperry of New Philadelphia, Illinois, and sold on the Chicago market by Rosenbaum Brothers.” The date was August 13, 1918 and the price was $18.85 per hundred weight. That price beat the previously best price ever paid for finished cattle on any American market of $18.80 per hundred weight which was also obtained on cattle from Sperry and sold by the Rosenbaum Company.
A close inspection of that picture and that bunch of crowded steers in that alley revealed what I was looking for, and that was a PIT branded left rib. Yes, sir, it was a week of big circles that culminated in the first World Series win in over a century, and … generations of cattle trails.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “In my career in California agriculture, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was very important. When I first met Don Meinhold, then running the Met Ag portfolio, we found out we had surprising ties. Mr. Meinhold’s first assignment had been in Met’s Illinois field office. His very first ag loan was signed by one Glenn Sperry of New Philadelphia, Illinois. We were friends from that point forward.”

The Vote

The Vote
by 
Myles Culbertson


It all looked to be an easy morning.   The spring works were in full swing and we were already “up on top” - in the ranch’s mesa country.  The chuckwagon was set up at the Martinez corrals, and we were gathering the Creek Pasture to those pens.  I always liked the mesa; a little more rugged than the rest of the ranch, with heavier cedar cover and rocky canyons cutting past brushy slopes and flats.  It was a bit more of a test for good hands and good horses, something that appeals to our youth and to our denial that youth will finally fade.

The Creek hadn’t wintered a lot of cows so it would be a quick branding that day.  It was the first Tuesday in June, 1972, primary election day in New Mexico.  The light schedule worked in our favor, as my dad wanted to get the pasture branded up and turned back out, turn the horses loose, button down the camp, and take the rest of the day off for the crew to go home and vote.  Most of the boys lived in Dilia and Anton Chico, little farm villages on the Pecos River.  We’d told the boys to take the next day off, too, knowing that once the polls closed and the bars re-opened there would be celebration of the vote in the village, no matter which way the elections went.  We were registered in a precinct up in Las Vegas, some distance away.   When dad made the plan for this day, I was not surprised or particularly impressed that we would stop the spring works for a day or two just to go vote.  It was, I knew, the important thing to do, but I was mostly looking forward to getting cleaned up and spending a little time in town with my wife; maybe a little shopping and, after several days at the wagon, getting to eat a nice meal at a nice table inside a nice café.

The pleasant morning was bright and clear, under a flawless blue sky that canopied mixed greens and tans of emerging spring grasses and sandstone cedar-breaks.  Looking across the sloping pasture at the drive being thrown together, I could see my wife Georgia riding alongside my dad, coming up out of the little Aguilar Creek, following some cows and calves moving ahead of them in a hurried trot.   My bride and I had only been on the ranch a while, having mustered out of the military a month previous, so these spring works were for me a return to the familiar life, and for my wife a new discovery.   Watching Georgia impressively sit her horse with straight slender comfortable ease, I pondered just how big a change in life she was experiencing, and how fully she was embracing it.   Everything felt good and right that morning, right down to the horse between my knees.

Keno Red was his registered name; a handsome, modest sized, streak-faced, dark sorrel who had been my horse a long time, since well before I left for the service.  Though he had been in other strings while I was away, it was as if we had never separated; a good pair.  Four years away had not faded the familiarity that, after plenty of time and miles under the same saddle, settles into the bones of both horse and rider.  A good cowpony but a little dangerous, I knew Keno well, with all his abilities and attitudes, plus a particular quirk that demanded healthy respect.

Keno did not like anything going on around the left side of his head.  Whatever might be near him on that side, either in the air or on the ground, was a threat, and sometimes he would react.  I remember when Duane Brockman, a little overconfident, found himself in that 3 year-old’s strike zone and was knocked out cold by a lightening-fast front foot.    He was always wary out his left eye, but I knew how to get along with him on his terms and didn’t usually have much trouble that way.  I could bridle him with little trouble, something most men couldn’t do easily.  Other than that, Keno was a top cowpony by anybody’s measure.  Sometimes to show off I would pull Keno’s bridle off and work a herd, using just my feet to point him at selected animals and push them out of the bunch.

Keno and I joined the drive and pointed them through the gate of the picket corrals we called the Martinez.  As soon as all were in, the crew jumped to action, separating most of the cows from the calves and setting up the branding equipment.   “Dad, do you want to drag on my horse?”  I asked.  “OK,” he responded.  “I’ll just use your saddle.”  He reset and cinched up, shortening his rope and tying off on the saddlehorn.  Nobody in our part of the world dallied in those days, and roping “tied off” was a different more sophisticated art, requiring the roper to deftly handle the slack once an animal was caught.  The famous western poet, S. Omar Barker, in a poem about roping tied off, quipped “… either it’s yours, or your its.”

Irons hot, flankers ready, Dad and Keno eased into the bunch of bawling cattle, shaking out a loop and snagging the first calf.  The crew fell into its rhythm working each flanked calf quickly, with always another coming in on the end of Dad’s stretched rope.   Georgia and I were standing next the branding stove as she filled a vaccine gun and I shifted the irons in the fire.  We watched the roper pick up a big “early” calf, probably born as early as December.  He caught the calf deep, the loop closing around its flank and not loosening.  Then, things started happening fast.

Bucking and running, the calf darted around behind the horse as Dad lifted the rope, ducking his head slightly to skillfully guide it over his hat, looking over his shoulder at his quarry.   Dancing on the end of the rope, the calf ran up to the picket fence, ducked to the right, and then ran to the corral’s corner.  Dad started to pass the rope over Keno’s head when I saw the horse, white-eyed, throw his face up high and away from the twined threat.  I could see the wreck coming as the calf then ran full speed along the fence past and behind the right side of horse and rider through the crowded herd.

What happened next was probably over in less than three seconds, but the mind in a crisis can sometimes press the unraveling of events down into extreme slow motion.  The rope did not make it over Keno’s head, instead catching in the shanks of his bits.  I could see Dad reaching to get it untangled as Keno struggled fearfully to break the closing trap, the running calf heading for the end of the rope.   Slack ran out fast, hitting hard against twisting bits and tender mouth.  Helplessly, I watched horse, trapped, neck bent and head struggling - rider still in the saddle - flipping backward into the crowded corner of cows and calves.  I heard a sickening thump, cattle leaping away in mass, and then like a riptide off the corral fence they were jumping and stumbling over the stretched rope and fallen horse, his legs thrashing skyward trying to regain something, anything, solid.  Under Keno’s inverted body, Dad could be seen through the boiling mob of cattle and dust.  I ran toward the wreck as Keno tried to roll one way, then the other, panicked, pinning and mashing his rider into the ground.  Finally rolling to his side, he jumped up, frightened, kicking his limp prostrate rider as he leapt away.

The next thing I remember is kneeling over Dad, along with Georgia and one of the cowboys.  He was on his back and looked to be conscious but dazed.  I said something stupid, I think, like “are you alright?”  His eyes were half open and the trauma was obvious in his visage.  “I think my back’s broke,” his voice hoarse with strain.  Georgia comforted him as I dashed toward a pickup.  My mind racing, I knew I had to get help, and we were a very long way from it.  I had to move, no time, no time…

Frantically cranking a trailer off the hitch of one of the trucks, I looked back over my shoulder to see Dad standing, Georgia holding him steady.  Relief washed through me at the realization his back was not broken after all, but even at a distance he didn’t look very good.   He was pretty beat up - bent over a little bit, dusty and scuffed, but he said he was alright, just needed a little break.  Georgia and I helped him sit comfortable on the ground in the shade of the picket fence before I walked across the corral to Keno Red standing in the corner, still shaken by the event.  Picking up the bridle reins, I untracked him and stepped up gently, giving him time to settle down before shaking out a loop and restarting the branding.  I suppose nowadays everything would stop in favor of finding medical care, no chances taken; but maybe people were tougher back then, or maybe just resigned to the fact that the remote isolation of ranch life must accept the fact of injuries, short of broken bones, and keep going.  Anyway, he looked like he was resting so we finished up the branding and drifted the herd back out into the Creek Pasture to pair up.

The boys stayed back to put the campfire out and close up the chuckwagon while Georgia and I put Dad between us in his pickup to start the 15 mile trek back off the mesa to the ranch headquarters.  The road was rocky, with a lot of low rough obstacles and shallow washouts, making the journey slow as we tried to keep him as comfortable as we could.  I felt like we were creeping but I would cringe, maybe even more than he, whenever I misjudged the road’s ruts and bumps.  As we moved carefully down the road, he broke the silence: “Don’t tell Momma what happened.”  I wasn’t surprised at the instruction, as that was his nature, but this was going to be mighty hard to hide.  When I made that point, he simply said, “I’ll do the talking.”

Close to an hour had passed when we drove through the horse pasture gate and were in view of the headquarters.  Rolling slowly around the little hill by the house we pulled up next to the driveway as Mom came out to greet us.  Looking through the passenger window and seeing the obvious, her focused alarm was characteristic of a ranch woman who accepts the facts of a dangerous life, subconsciously braced for such eventualities, conditioned to respond instead of panic.

“What happened?” She asked intently, attention fixed on his condition.  Georgia and I sat in silence, under his instructions.  “I fell out of the chuckwagon.”  Georgia’s and my eyes simultaneously rolled toward the passenger between us with the same incredulity.  “That’s his story!?” I thought to myself, knowing that Georgia was thinking the same.  “You what?” Mom wasn’t buying it.  “What in the world were you doing up in the chuckwagon?”  “ … gettin’ a biscuit.”   I just slowly shook my head, and I saw my wife fighting off a smile at the new discovery about her father-in-law’s mischievous sense of humor.  Undeterred, Mom asked again; “Well, what really happened?”  “Keno fell with him, “ I interjected.  “We’d better get to town.  He may be clever but he’s hurt bad enough to need a doc.”  Mobilizing, she answered, “Let’s get him into the car,” starting back to the house to grab her purse and close the front door. 

In the back seat, Mom helped him get as comfortable as possible as the four of us started for the highway, another eleven miles of dirt road before reaching pavement.  From there we were still almost 30 miles from town and medical help.  Not having to worry about bumps in the road now, I was airing out that big Lincoln on the way to the hospital, figuring if a state policeman picked up on us maybe he would escort us on in.  In the rear view mirror it was easy to see, even though he wasn’t admitting it, he was in a lot of pain.  “Does it hurt to breath?”   …“kind of.”   “We’ll be there pretty soon,” I said, pushing the big car a little harder.

Pulling into town, I pointed the car up the main drag and caught the street leading to the hospital, when I heard a stir in the back seat and saw Dad trying to sit up and look around.  “Where we going?” he queried.   “To the hospital.  It’s up this street.”  He knew that; I just assumed he was a little disoriented.  “No, we have to vote, first,” he retorted, like he thought I should know that.  Georgia looked back at him as if maybe she didn’t hear right.  “No!” I argued.  “We’ve got to get you to the hospital.  Dad, you’re hurt.”  Why did I have to remind him of that, I thought to myself.  The expression on Mom’s face pretty much told it all, predicting the victor in this argument.  “If we go there first the polls will close,” he said, trying to sit straighter in the back seat.  “Lets vote first, then we’ll find a doc,” He said through a visible twinge of pain.  “Dad, look at you, we need to get to the hospital!”  Mom usually had no problem weighing-in when she knew what was right, but I could see by her resigned expression I was on my own. She already knew the futility of this one.  Dad dug in, stubborn: “We vote.”  His immovable resolve would not be challenged.  “We’ll find a doc later.”  All arguments summarily dismissed, I conceded defeat and turned at the next corner, headed for the polls.

The voting machines for our precinct were set up at McFarland Hall, an old gymnasium on the high school campus that held a number of memories for me, having played ball, watched games, danced, attended concerts, sneaked out of assemblies, and generally misbehaved on its old hardwood floors during my high school career.  Today, I was about to observe the singular event in my experience that dispatched those memories and embedded McFarland Hall as an emblem of a bedrock principle.

Parking at the curb, I peered up the walkway and stairs at the gym’s front doors.   What would normally have been a short walk with just a few steps up looked a little forbidding.  Dad was stiff and getting very sore having been cramped up in the back seat for over an hour.  We helped him get his sea legs under him while Mom went ahead to hold the door open.  She had plenty of time, because Georgia and I were his crutches, carefully helping him along.  The stairs were slow, each one a task in itself.  Once inside, we gingerly crossed the foyer through the big double doors onto the gym floor.  The voting place was characteristically dignified and respectful.  It seems when people vote they recognize that there is something important and sacred in their care.    The quiet but wide-eyed surprise of the voting officials reminded me we were a sight; dusty and tattered, having come straight off the cattle works.    I realized I hadn’t even removed my spurs.  We helped Dad over to the table to sign in, the lady at the roster a bit discomfited by this beat-up cowboy in front of her.  They all knew him, but none had ever seen him like this; smudged with dirt, banged up, not the usual nice shirt and necktie he normally wore when going to town.  Once signed in, Georgia and I helped him get to the voting booth.  The old style machines had a handle up high that simultaneously closed the curtain and reset the machine.  He couldn’t reach high enough so I pulled it closed for him.  In a couple of minutes he was finished with his vote, so we helped him to a seat then voted ourselves.  All done, in a grimace he said “Lets go find a doc.”


The nurse opened the front door of the little community hospital to help us limp in.  “Hi, W.O.” The doctor looked over the top of his glasses and asked,  “What in the world did you do now?”  “Hi, Doc.  Aw, a horse fell with me.”  He said, trying to front an all-OK attitude.  I filled in; “The horse went over backwards, Doc. …mashed him pretty good.”  “I can see that.  Sit here, W.O.  Let’s check you out.  You all can wait out in the lobby.  Nurse, we should set up for an X-Ray.”

Some time later the doctor came out to report.  “Looks like three cracked ribs, a bruised lung, and a bruised liver.  He’ll be fine, but he’s going to be pretty sore for a while.  I’d prefer to keep him here overnight just to make sure He’s OK.  You’ll need to keep him wrapped up pretty good because of the ribs.  Other than that, just keep him off any horses for a few weeks, especially the ones that fall down.  Tell him to take it easy for a while.”

Settled in to a hospital room, Dad was cleaned up and comfortable, having gotten a dose of some sort of pain reliever, while Mom, Georgia and I were scattered around in chairs, relaxed, glad that the scramble was over with.   “I should go back to the ranch tonight and bring you some clean clothes in the morning.  That way the kids don’t have to stay here.  They’ll probably discharge you in the morning so I’ll be back early.  Will you be OK?”  “Sure.  I think I’ll just stay here.”  “Of course you will,” she retorted, faking annoyance at the idea of him jumping up and doing the town.  “W.O., did you remember your mother is coming from Dalhart to see us tomorrow?”  We had all forgotten about that in the haste of the last several hours’ events.  “..Oh yeah, I forgot.   …Don’t say anything about this.”  Georgia smiled, warning him, “She’ll know, and you’re going to have to come up with something better than the biscuit story.”  “I’ll do the talking,” he grinned back.

Well, he did have a story for her, but I don’t recall what it was.  I do remember she didn’t believe him and started in on the ‘everymother’s lecture’ about being too old for such dangerous work.   Anyway, everybody was back on the ranch and into the routine, moving camp, branding, and attending to the spring works.  He was supposed to stay at the house, but didn’t.  It was, however, with those cracked ribs, easy to keep him out of the saddle.

Many years have passed since that first Tuesday of June in 1972, but I look back often into its memory and still chuckle at Dad’s hardheaded insistence about going to cast his vote.  My quiet laughter is nevertheless laced with a deep respect for what we, as well as the poll workers, the voters, the medical people, and others observed that day.  Folks often use well worn phrases, respecting the vote as a right, a franchise, a privilege, and all the rest, but that day we witnessed the action itself give enlightened meaning to those terms, rendering them alive and declaring the simple act of a vote as the most basic arbiter of a free society.  In 2004, my brother, W.O. III, part of a provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan, witnessed their first national election in 5ooo years.  He told of a young Afghan woman who wept inconsolably because she had lost her voter certificate and could not cast her ballot.  My son-in-law, Matt Peterson, a Marine whose unit provided security in Iraq’s first election in 2005, remarked “I will remember watching people vote for the first time in a democratic election for the rest of my life.  Self determination is an amazing thing.”  

Early in 2011, the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines at Sangin, Afghanistan, my son-in-law’s outfit, had so far sustained the heaviest casualties of any unit in the history of that war, taking a key Taliban stronghold that had resisted defeat for years.  The Secretary of Defense arrived for direct personal briefings from the battalion, accompanied by a Marine Lieutenant General who had lost his own son, right there, just a few months previous.  At the completion of his tour and briefing the Secretary, with the General standing beside him, asked “Is there anything I can do for you?”  They could have asked for any number of creature comforts, but the Marines, dirty and tired, the strain of constant battle evident in their faces, were silent.  After a long moment, a young Marine spoke up: “Don’t let them forget what we’ve done here.”

“…what we’ve done here…”  The enemy was on the run.  Markets were active again. Schools were reopened.  The provincial governor was able to travel at will for the first time in years.  The privilege of dipping a finger into a jar of purple ink and voting was brought to Sangin.  

The restoration of those nations is a rocky trail, fraught with danger and risk, but if they will hold on to the vote, they will make it; if they don’t, they won’t.   The courage and defiance represented by an ink-stained finger there or the secure confidence in a signature on the voter list at the polling place here, mean the same thing: the destiny of a society, ours or theirs, belongs to those who have the passion and the gumption to vote, no matter the obstacles.  It is a simple act, but with a price measured in inestimable blood and treasure paid out over history by those who know its value, often paid by those who have it for those who desire it.   It is the same act – quiet, secret, sacred - whether cast in a remote village by an Afghan peasant, or in a school gymnasium by a busted up cowboy.

W.O. Culbertson, Jr. was a man of insight and principle.  Had he lived long enough to see what my brother and son-in-law witnessed and experienced, I believe he would have enthusiastically wanted to hear every detail, and he would have said to them, “Well done. Remember what you’ve seen.”  He would have been amazed at the grasp for liberty being made by tribesmen in the middle-east and Asia.  He would have understood with clarity their implications, and what their success or failure would mean for his grandchildren and great grandchildren.  It would never have occurred to him that his own example would be the measure, the standard, by which I and my family follow the news of liberty on the other side of the planet.  He saw things in simple profound terms, and simply would have known – and would have told us all - “You have to vote.”  That’s about all he would have said about it. 

…and, in recollection I would add, even if a horse falls on you.

“Don’t let them forget…”

***
Myles Culbertson grew up in the ranching and cattle business in New Mexico. In his varied career he has been engaged in agriculture, banking and international trade and is the former Executive Director of the NM Livestock Board. 

Baxter Black: Part Indian

Cutter said to me, “I’m part Indian.”

I’ve heard that statement so many times from gringos that I’ve concluded I’m probably the only white man in North America who can’t claim to be part Indian!

But when you think about it, that’s a pretty positive comment on the improving race relations in our country. White men in the early part of this century did not brag about being part Indian. It also appears that Indians are having a renewed sense of ethnic pride. That’s a good thing.

I can understand the indignation regarding Columbus Day, although I’m not in favor of changing it. The battle’s over. Columbus won. And I question their objection to professional sport teams names like the Cleveland Indians, the Atlanta Braves and the Cincinnati Redlegs. Personally, I think it’s silly. But, I guess there’s a pen rider somewhere who takes offense at the naming of the Dallas Cowboys. I do believe Indians are entitled to the extras they receive in their reservation treaties, like fishing rights and tax breaks.

Most of the Indians that I know personally are cowboys. Just regular people with families and horse trailers, jobs and a little cow savvy. They live in places like Farmington, Winner, Ft. Belknap or Pawhuska. They go to rodeos, haul hay, attend high school basketball games, vote, go to church, shop at Wal Mart and saw Dances with Wolves.

Yet many urban citizens have no contact with reservation Indians. Therefore they depend on childhood Hollywood memories and the stereotypes created. Sometimes we embarrass ourselves.

Lee Pitts: Stealing my own money

Years ago I owned a livestock newspaper and a purebred breeder owed us a lot of money for advertising he purchased in advance of his bull sale. I paid all my own expenses to go work ring at his bull sale which was two states away from my house. Months passed after the sale and still no check was in the mail. Then I started hearing rumors the purebred breeder was in trouble and sure enough, the bank announced his complete dispersal.

The sale manager for the dispersal called and tried to place a big budget of advertising but there was no way I was going to go work the sale or give the breeder one inch of advertising until his bill was paid in full. The sale manager begged and begged, probably because all the other periodicals the breeder owed money to wouldn’t “sell” him any ad space either. After several calls I came up with a brilliant bit of cowboy capitalism: my repayment plan was that I’d work the two-day dispersal and sell ad space for the sale but I’d purchase a dollar amount of cattle in the dispersal equal to the breeder’s total outstanding bill and not pay for them. The sale manager thanked me profusely and readily agreed to the deal.

I thought I was the first person to come up with such a plan but my buddy Russell from South Dakota busted my high opinion of myself when he told me about a similar deal he struck in the first year he had his real estate office. It seems Russell was a member of the county school board which was in the mandatory process of bussing kids to school and changing where many kids went to school. One parent complained bitterly to Russell who half-jokingly replied, “Why don’t you sell your ranch and move closer to the school.” A month later the complainer did just that.

Russell got the place sold but the rancher owed so many people money that there wasn’t enough left to pay Russell’s commission, so Russell took a pony cart, a Shetland Pony, a harness to pull the cart and an IOU for $2,500. Two years went by and still Russell didn’t get his money. One day Russell saw a ranch auction advertised for the guy so Russell went to the banker, explained his predicament and the banker said he could deduct $2,500 off any amount he paid for cows.

Friday, November 04, 2016

DuBois Award recipients



The DuBois Award is a Curtis Fort original bronze presented to the all-around cowboy and all-around cowgirl at NMSU each year.  Recipients are determined by NIRA points won in more than one event.

We had had no rodeo coach in the Fall of 2015 so there was no bronc riding & calf roping event and no awards were presented at that time.  We made up for that at the awards luncheon this year and had the recipients for the 2014-2015 season and the 2015-2016 season present.

Here is some info and pics of the recipients, plus I would like to add my appreciation to each of these outstanding student-athletes and thank them for being part of the NMSU rodeo program. We raise money for scholarships each year so we can attract this type of individual to NMSU.

DuBois Award 2015

Nicole SweazeaReceived degree in Animal Science, currently a graduate student in Education. Competed in BW, GT & TR and a two-time winner of the DuBois Award.

Tyke Kipp -  Sr. majoring in Business Mgt, competed in SW, SB & TR.  Reserve National Champion Steer Wrestler and a two-time winner of the DuBois Award.




  
 DuBois Award 2016

Anna Barker - Jr. majoring in Animal Science and competes in GT, BW, BR.

Josh Davison -  Sr. majoring in Ag Business and scored NIRA points in every event except SW.