The Summer in photos

In no particular order, here are a few photos of what we've been up to this summer. I hinted at several of these items a week ago, but now you can see what has been happening around here the last couple months.

The weather has been crazy. We are way above normal on average temperature, and number of days over 100 degrees here this summer. Plus, several nasty storms full of lightning, wind and black clouds have rolled over pretty regularly. But, one things these clouds don't have is much rain. For the month of June, average rainfall for Wyoming was .45 inches.

 Our house water pump quit working. Then the line airlocked. So, my dad rigged this system up to pump water back up the more than 2 miles of line to our storage tanks from our house.

 This photo was taken while getting the right shot to accompany one of several writing projects I had going on this summer. From new magazines to my regular work to multiple online projects, it's been fun and busy on the writing front lately!

This is Larry, who is one half of our new Hereford bull duo (the other is Moe) that are going to make us some black baldy calves : ) He has been hard at work.

A wind storm blew the tin off one side of our "new" trailer house. So, instead of finishing prjoects inside so my brother and I can move in, we had to concentrate on this. While move-in won't be for a while now, I am getting my office stuff moved in, which will be a huge help on my work end.

 Lots of time has been spent determining how to best manage our cattle on this very dry year. We've also been diligent in checking their water, grass and how they're holding their condition. We're very thankful that the grazing association where most of our mother cows are located is having a much better year than we are at home.

 We've fought fire, but not nearly as much as the folks east of us.

I watched my first litter of pigs be born, and are they CUTE or what?!

Here Lately....

I realize I have been very absent on here. It has been a hectic, hot, busy, hot summer, and for some reason those seem to suck the extra time and energy out of a person faster than cooler summers.

Among my recent activities:
- Helping with hauling water to our house because our house well pump quit working
-Watching a litter of pigs be born
-Photographing my second wedding of the summer
-Getting bulls out of heifers
-Moving heifers from the creek of kosha weed and Russian thistle to the pasture of year-old grass and sunshine.
- Having the most expensive bull we've (err...I bought him) ever purchased be hurt, badly.
-Spending approximately half my working hours for the last two weeks on the phone with Dell, trying to get my laptop to work, and stay working. Grrr... This particular point is one key reason why the blog has been seeing less action lately.
- Finishing the editing of the first wedding of the summer, in spite of this faulty machine I own.
- Working on writing assignments
-Fighting fire
-Sweating...it was over 100 degrees here for a week straight
- Re-tinning the side of our trailer house that the wind blew the old tin off of. Heaven forbid we actually get rain and not have tin on the "new" trailer house.
- Providing moral support when we had to haul more water because a toilet in our garage and one in the trailer house ran all the previously hauled water down the sewer.
- Running errands all over the state
- Spending a weekend at the Sheridan-Wyo Rodeo
- Family Reunion
- Starting the move into the trailer house, which is currently sporting half new and half old tin.
- Checking water
- Checking (looking hopelessly for) grass
- Being very relieved when the house well pump suddenly, with no explanation, started working again. Laughing as my dad called the company he bought it from and chewed on them again, telling them he either wanted it broke or working, why was it not doing one or the other (he is under a lot of stress)
- Preparing to wean and ship and pull more bulls, and getting ready to do the daily fall ranchwork mostly alone as my dad and brother are gearing up to start hauling a massive amount of hay.

I have lots of pictures, and several posts involving those photos, planned for on here. Hopefully I will have a chance to catch up on at least some of my summer activities in the near future! Hope everyone else is having a nice, wet summer : )

Fire in the West

Please keep the west in your prayers as we deal with numerous fires that are causing loss of land, homes and lives. These photos were taken today in Weston County, Wyoming, and is burning the land of people I know personally. It is also headed in the general direction of my uncle's ranch. Countless people are in this same situation, and the weather isn't looking to give us any favors in the near future.

One Hot Situation

We have experienced an onslaught of range fires in my part of Wyoming over the last week. So many fires were blazing at once that our county's resources couldn't keep up with them. So, the fire district made the decision to call in paid resources (not our local paid people that were helping all they could), and relinquish control of the fires to the state of Wyoming.

The result was a disastrous loss of grass, endangerment of people, and frustration to local landowners.

See that guy in the picture? See him watching the Niobrara County guys and local ranchers do all the cleanup work? He was parked in that very spot when the fire was being put out also. His pickup had a sticker on the door that said, "Wyoming Forestry," and he was getting paid to stand there, watching a rancher's land burn up before him, offering no assistance when his very job was to help extinguish the flames.

That was a much too common sight over the last week. We learned today that these paid resources make at or above $28/hour, and their pickups are paid between $60 and $170 an hour. Why would they want the fire to go out?

We heard there were over 200 of them swarming around our county. How much money is that over a three-day period?!!?

It became apparent early on in when they entered our county that they had no intention of extinguishing any flames very fast. No, that burning grass was making them a nice, fat paycheck. They would park in the black and sleep and drive along fire-lines and watch the fire creep over it without even stopping. They would watch local ranchers and fire fighters almost burn up and not even bat an eye, let alone help. They would refuse to share water, and ask everyone to give theirs up to them.

Then they get to leave, collect that nice, fat paycheck, and move on to encourage the destruction of someone else livelihood. Meanwhile, the people left in their wake are faced with a financial crisis. Their grass is gone, fences gone, and they aren't getting a paycheck to fix it. They have to live with, and correct, this disaster brought on by human mismanagement.

This is wrong, and infuriating. Getting rich off the destruction of someone else's livelihood, when you were specifically hired to stop the destruction, is sick and wrong.

I personally witnessed numerous incidents that left me speechless over the last few days in regard to these paid resources. Their absolute negligence in doing their job was astounding, and resulted in losses that might even outweigh their paychecks.

When you're sitting in the dark, watching your next door neighbor's land burn up in flames that are 6-8 feet tall, and you see headlights on the next ridge, you assume that person will be there to stop the fire in that direction. What we've all learned in Niobrara County this week is you better radio and see if it's someone you know, and if it's not, you better assume he's going to do everything he can to fan the flames instead of extinguish them, regardless of the resulting loss in grass, homes, life or anything else.

When you call in additional resources, it's because you truly need them, not because you want to make the situation worse. Those that did aid in the efforts were truly appreciated, but they were far and few between.
What is our country coming to?

My Week

This is what I look like right now, and this picture was taken just a couple hours ago. I am only on my computer because I am thawing out hamburger, so I can take hamburgers back to the fire when I go (people fight fire round the clock, and get hungry. Local ranch wives do the majority of the feeding.)
Multiple fires have kept everyone where I'm from extremely busy and tired this week. The one in the above photo has burned on at least four rancher's land that I'm aware of. Thursday night my brother and I left at 9:00 p.m., and got home at 6:00 a.m. from fighting fire. This morning we put one out before eating breakfast. Prayers for everyone's safety would be greatly appreciated!

To make things even more exciting/nerve wracking, several funnels came across one of the larger blazes this afternoon, sucking the flames up into it. Made for an interesting photo if nothing else.

I will be back with regular posts when life returns to a normal, smoke and fire free status around here.

Fighting Fire

We fought fire for the first time last week, which is amazingly late for our area. There have been other fires, but none were within the vicinity that warrants us helping.
The first thing I think of when I think of fighting fire is community. When there's a grass fire in our area, everyone combines their efforts, and works tirelessly until it's done in an effort to minimize losses. One of my huge pet peeves is to see the government fire fighters only fight fire from 9-5, or 8-5 (soap box moment).

This fire was during the day, which is less common than fires occurring at night. The vast majority of grass fires are started by lightning. So, whenever you see a summer storm moving over Eastern Wyoming, you can guess we're sitting on the tallest hill, watching for smoke during the day or an eerie glow at night.

That is how we spotted this fire. Almost every rancher has a homemade fire fighting rig they've put on a ranch pickup, and are ready 24-7 to help their friends and neighbors in the event of a fire. Everyone also has CB radios, which are used to relay information on lightning strikes, fires that have been spotted, how to get to a fire (you can't drive a pickup across much of this area, and it gets really hard at night), if the county fire fighting trucks are on the way, etc...

We gathered enough information, and deemed it safe to leave our area (you don't want to drive 20-40 miles to a fire, then have one start on your place behind you), and raced to help our neighbors.

We cruised down a county road, turned onto a two-track trail, crossed a creek, and jostled across a pasture and over a hill to be greeted by this sight. The great grass year we're having in Wyoming means there's a lot more fuel for a fire, and a greater potential for large fires that will devastate range lands.

The first thing we always do is get on the black. You can't get burned up where the fire's already consumed all the grass. The above picture shows a county fire fighting pickup. The county has various fire fighting pickups, trucks and tankers scattered across the county with various ranchers. This is because the nearest town is 56 miles away, so the rancher's are always who spot the fires and are the first ones on them. The county maximizes its resources through keeping some of their fire fighting units in areas of high concern, with persons who will most likely be at a fire in the most time efficient manner.

The other half of the equation are the ranchers. This is our fire fighting rig, housed on our winter feed pickup. My mom was the driver on this particular day. You will see all sorts of pickups/water tanks/pumps/motors/hose combinations on these homemade, rancher rigs. The important thing is they all spray water, and they're all ready to go the moment a fire needs fought.

Here I am "cleaning up" behind a country truck that can spray more water than I can. He is moving quickly, knocking down the flames before they can consume any more grass. My job in this instance is to follow behind and put out any areas that flare back up behind him, and to spray more water on things like smoldering sagebrush that are near the fire line.
You also never know what may go wrong. On this particular day the reason I'm not spraying much water is because the filter on our rig plugged with an algea type plant that sometimes grows in our tank. It will make you very excited if your fire fighting rig stops spraying water at a critical moment!

This was the view from the pickup, where my mom was. The driver has to pay attention to where they drive, and make sure they don't stop on top of a burning sagebrush, drive into a hole or draw they can't get out of, and work with the person spraying to ensure they're reaching the flames.

Here I am again. You also want to work forward, ensuring there is no fire left behind you. I was practicing this, despite what the photo looks like. Here I skipped over a couple inches of flames to douse a sagebrush. The fire can smolder in a sagebrush, and they are a real concern on the fire line, so I made sure to stop the fire before it reached a sagebrush in this instance.

It may be hard to tell in this smoky picture, but that is a draw you can't drive across with a pickup. We have to navigate around these natural obstacles when fighting fire, and they add an even more exciting/scary aspect in the dark. I have seen a six-by-six tanker (very big) fall into a sink-hole before, and all you could see was the blinking light on top of the truck.

When the fireline has been secured, and no more flames are visible, people congregate to visit and wait to make sure the fire really is out. A change in wind, stray spark, grasshopper that caught on fire, and any number of other things can result in the flames reappearing and blazing forward.

The county tankers may join the group, or refill at the nearest well so they're prepared more action. This is a good time for everyone to make sure they have water. If they're out, additional six-by-six tankers will be available on larger fires to re-fill everyone. Everything gets checked, repaired if necessary and possibler, refilled, etc.. during this down-time.

A few ranchers have air planes around here, and on big fires they may fly, and communicate to fire fighters below if there are any additional flames, areas of concern, etc... This guy circled the fire several times, only a few feet off the ground at times. He would dive his plane in any areas there were flames to alert those of us on the ground where they were. He too had a CB radio, and would also talk to us.

There was also a road grader at this fire, who put in a fireline to stop the flames. This is when he peels a thin layer of dirt, that includes the grass over, creating dirt path several feet wide. The idea is it creates a line with no fuel for the fire to feed itself with. They work well, but aren't a guaranteed method of stopping flames, as a fire will jump the line in some instances.

After a few hours of exhausting, smoke filled work, the fire was out. The smoke you see above are smoldering cow pies (they can smolder for days too) and sagebrush. You may also have noticed the cut fence, which is sometimes a necessity on range fires. Most people make every effort to cut fences as infrequently as possible, because the more you cut them, the more work the owner has to repair his place (he will already have to replace all the burnt wood posts).

After everything has cooled off, most people leave. The owner, and a few other rigs will stay and "babysit" the fire for anywhere from a few more hours to days, depending on the location, how it acts, and several other determining factors. This county tanker is spraying back along the fire line in an effort to prevent any additional flames from flaring up.

To give you an idea of how fast it was burning, that green tub is a thin plastic. These fires can consume prairie at up to over 100 mph. This one wasn't moving nearly that fast, but it's only because of a change in the wind that we got it out when we did.

A smoke filled sky always makes for a beautiful sunset, made even prettier by the fact that we had contained, and put out, the entire fire before dark in this instance!