Dear Wild Idea Buffalo Customers, About five years ago we received a call from Patagonia stating that they were interested in starting an environmentally sustainable food line for their future sister company, Patagonia Provisions. They were specifically interested in us making Buffalo Jerky for them. Because of our mutual, greater missions of sustainable foods and the environment as a whole, it looked like we might be a good fit. We were thrilled to gain their attention, but before we could get started there would be many visits from their team inspecting the way we treated the land, the animals, and our employee’s. We welcomed their visits, and gave tours of our ranching operations, explaining our grassland conservation efforts and prairie restoration practices. We discussed our goals of having an intact, healthy prairie eco-system that was rich in bio-diversity. We talked about how much carbon the grasses sequester and store safely in the ground. That grazing the grasslands regenerates the soil and produces healthy grassland pastures. Since we had a captive audience that was interested, we prattled on about species diversity, the microbes, the plants, and the variety of ground nesting birds that use the prairie to raise their young. They watched the buffalo roam and graze across the prairie, much like their ancestor’s did years ago. We explained our sourcing set up with other ranchers that raise their bison to our criteria, including neighboring Native American bison producers. They viewed our humane, stress free, field harvests, paying close attention to our care and respect for the animals. During other visits, they toured our processing plant and interviewed our employees. They reviewed our safety regulations and inspection documentation. And, they tasted our Wild Idea Buffalo products, raised on water, grass, and sunshine. We passed all of the requirements to move forward and started perfecting our Buffalo Jerky recipe. Patagonia Provisions provided scientific food experts, to consult with us along the way, insuring that the product would be as safe as it is healthy and delicious. The end result is a great tasting jerky! The sustainable food movement continues to grow because of people like you. People who care about the foods they eat, how it is raised, and the impact it has on our environment. But as the sustainable awareness grows, so will industrial agricultures powerful, hearty appetite. It will take all of us to keep them at bay and it will take all of us to introduce people to a new (old) way of thinking about food, and one that doesn’t come with an IOU. That’s why we are exhilarated and inspired to be associated with the good folks at Patagonia Provisions. If you get the chance, check out their site at patagoniaprovisions.com. Better yet, order some of their meaty, lightly seasoned, Buffalo Jerky! We want to thank you all for being grassland ambassadors, and for your past and continued support. Together, we can make a difference, one bite at a time. Very best from the prairie. Dan & Jill O’Brien
WATER AFFECTS
This years rainfall finally came in early May, alleviating our drought worries that had started to settle in. The rain continued to come and come. This is a good problem to have when you are a grass farmer/buffalo rancher, as the grasses will be in good supply for all the native species that rely on them for grazing for months to come. The abundant rainfall does not come without its effects; like flooded roads, washed-out dams, and fences blown out or covered in debris from the river swells. When the excess surface water dries up the repairs begin. For us, the main repair is fencing, a lot of fencing, which means extra, needed help. Our good friend Gervase Hittle came to the rescue. The guys work in the hot, humid days when time allows. A catered lunch is often required to keep up their strength, and they welcome recipe testing’s. The Beer Bottle Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Buffalo Burgers were a big hit! And, the cold beer at the days end was welcomed too. The thunderstorms continue to move in and out, creating beautiful skies and landscape. The wild flowers sprinkle the pastures with colorful dots of purple, yellow, and white, reflecting the colors of the sky. And, the prairie dogs stay busy mowing their green prairie lawn to keep a close eye out for predators, which the buffalo assist with as they pass through. A pretty glorious site!
It's a Baby Buffalo!
Finding the first baby buffalo of the year, in a thousand acre pasture with last years remaining four foot grasses, is a little like finding a needle in a haystack. The new baby was greeted by many of the other buffalo with licks and soft grunts. The mother tolerated a few at a time before pushing them off and welcoming the next bunch. This was a new experience for us and it was fantastic to witness. A close by, Short Eared Owl, kept a watchful eye over the exciting welcoming party. *Short Eared Owls nest in the Great Plains grasses. The mother kept nudging it along as she grazed, until it had to stop for a little nap. She allowed me close enough to get a photo, before she moved it along into the dusky night. Help us welcome Wild Idea’s first baby buffalo of 2015!
DREAMING LIKE A BUFFALO
I watched my paint horse, Camo, stretch his nose out and sniff the nose of a young bull buffalo. They sniffed deeply and then, in unison, turned to look across the Cheyenne River and into infinity. It was hard to tell what was in their minds but I want to think that their daydreams are like mine: an enormous blue sky and rolling grasslands to a distant horizon. There is a steady breeze bringing the scent of possibilities. There are no restraints, no boundaries, and no limits. History merges with the present and the past. I don’t think that my daydreams are unique. I think that, many Americans dream like horses and buffalo. It is as if we can stand in their skins, stare with their beguiling dark eyes, and let the rare prairie rains drip benignly from our sturdy coats. We imagine ourselves as country boys or strong, young women with long smooth muscles – solid bodies, and steady hands. We feel a kind of innocence, tempered with confidence and power. There is the thousand-yard stare of wisdom, patients, and endurance. When we dream like horses and buffalo we can imagine ourselves as the center of the world. Yet the horse stands a little taller than the buffalo and there is something sad about the buffalo. They have long been misunderstood, exploited, commoditized, mystified, and abused. Even their identity has been hijacked by a succession of cultures. They are the animal with two names, buffalo and bison. The first name stems from the confusion of the Europeans who landed their puny boats on the eastern shore of America. Those crude men thought they were on a different continent and that the large, shaggy animals they found were a variant of the water buffalo they knew from Asia or the Cape buffalo they had heard of in Africa. It was centuries later that stuffy European taxonomists decided that the American bovine was a unique specie and named it Bison bison. A better name might be Tatonka, the name given by the nomadic natives of the Great Plains that, at least for a time, knew the buffalo best. It is a word that embodies not only the animal but also the habitat and the spirit of the animal. There is nothing erroneous or taxonomical about the name Tatonka. The buffalo that we know have been the center of a huge, continent-wide drama for perhaps 5,000 years but, before them, there were several other varieties. The first buffalo were native to what is now Asia and Europe and crossed into North America on the famous Baring land bridge. It is hard for us to imagine how different the world was back then – the continents all ajar, molten rock surging up from below, and sea levels rising and falling as a result of ice caps varying in thickness from mere ice sheets to gigantic water repositories many miles thick. But there was a window of about 50,000 years that all sorts of creatures made the trek across the land bridge. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of species moved. They traveled both ways – the ancestors of animals like camels and cheetahs heading for Asia and mammoths, ground sloths, and like on their way to America. Later, a few wretched humans trailed along behind the mammoths. I like to think of the tiny, eight inch tall great-grandmother of the modern horse moving carefully beside the giant ancestor of our buffalo, Bison antiquus. Did they size each other up in a long grassy valley between two mountain ranges somewhere in what is now Alaska? The ancient …
One More Afternoon Of Love
There is a tiny adobe cabin nestled in the sand dunes of far eastern New Mexico. No real road leads to it, just two faint tracks among the mesquite, love grass, blue stem, and cholla cactus. The dimensions are 16 feet by 20 feet with a small courtyard on the south side. A faded blue doorway, three windows, and a small stove pile protruding through the roof. For water, we tapped into a buried stock-tank line that ran behind the dying elm trees of the original homestead. There is a simple shower in the northwestern corner of the cabin, but there is no indoor toilet. By any standard it is Spartan living, but that is the way we planned it. The plan was drawn up in 1987 on an old, oak, kitchen table that I still use as a writing table. Erney, my oldest friend, and I built the outhouse in portable sections in the workshop on the old Broken Heart Ranch, where we lived together for twenty-five years. The vegas, bond beams, and the fourteen inch square column that holds up the roof came from a little sawmill in the Black Hills. It all fit into a battered horse trailer that made it to New Mexico with only two flat tires. The building site was on Jim Weaver’s newly acquired ranch where I had been spending part of each winter since sometime in the late 1970’s. Jim’s New Mexico Ranch is not what most people picture when they think of New Mexico. There are no mountains in sight. No fancy Santa Fe architecture, arts colonies, ancient pueblos, or timeless Spanish culture. This is hardscrabble Roosevelt County, New Mexico, settled by Arkansas homesteaders in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, organized in 1903, and dried out before 1930. The population had risen to 12,000 by 1910 but was only 6,500 in 1920. When Jim found this place in the 1970’s the land had been long ruined by homesteaders, ignorant of the needs of the fragile landscape. They scratched out farm fields in the sandy soil and begun communities, but by mid-century those fields had blown into massive sand dunes that supported very little life. Most of the people had moved away. The few that remained on the land were practicing a brand of farming that depended on government subsidies and a personal austerity seasoned with skullduggery. There was very little to recommend Roosevelt County, New Mexico to entrepreneurs. But for a few people interested in birdlife it has always been a Mecca. I was in my early thirties, working seasonal jobs and toiling over my second book about bird migration and the Great Plains. The idea of the book was to travel south with the lark buntings, raptors, waterfowl and meadowlarks. I’d made the trip many times before and I knew that, when I got to Jim’s ranch most of the birds that had left South Dakota, would be there waiting for me. In addition to the migrants there would be the year-around residents: birds like bobwhite quail, road runners, thrashers, white necked ravens, and probably the world’s greatest concentration of lesser prairie chickens. In those days there were tens of thousands of prairie chickens on Jim’s ranch alone and, in my naiveté, I could not see that it would not always be that way. But, of course, environments are always in flux. The few circle irrigators that I passed on my early, eight hundred mile trip from South Dakota to New Mexico seemed like insignificant straws drilled down into the immense and inexhaustible reservoir known as the Ogallala …
The Third Plate
If you haven’t yet read Dan Barber’s new book The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food, you should. This is not a book review but it needs to be said that Barber is a wonderful writer who can tell an important and complicated story as easily as chatting over dinner with old friends. The setup of the book is that three different “plates” can symbolize the evolution of food in America. The first is what many of us were raised on: meat and potatoes. The second plate is where we are now: more progressive ideas such as grass-fed, heirloom, and farm to table. The third “plate” is about serving up a delicious meal that “begins to reflect what the landscape can provide”. That is where Barber captured my attention – the place where “The Third Plate” merged with the philosophy of Wild Idea Buffalo Company. Though Barber admits to knowing nothing about the Great Plains, he includes the deterioration of grasslands on a list of ills brought about by a sick agricultural system – along with eroding soil, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, and shrinking forests. He rightly connects the environmental crisis with the menus in white tablecloth restaurants and a food system that is more about the system than about the food it produces. The book is full of enlightening stories of the maiming effects to ecosystems from monocultures of corn and wheat and the assault on the ancient and sacred labyrinth of bio-diversity. Fighting these effects and the system that creates them are all imperatives that have shaped the evolution of Wild Idea Buffalo Company. Barber relates his efforts to fight these same effects at his Blue Hill Restaurant at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. At first glance Wild idea Buffalo Company – connected to many thousands of acres of remote buffalo country – has little in common with a supper-inventive, gourmet restaurant on an 80 acre farm dedicated to small scale, sustainable farming. But when you look closer, you find the missions of both to be very much the same. One of the memorable stories in the book is about the love and care taken by the livestock manager at Stone Barns farm when he moves the sheep from one pasture to the next. It mimicked the grazing pattern of our buffalo, except the buffalo make their own decisions about when to move. The fertility of New York sheep pastures must be thousands of times greater than our humble Great Plains, so it follows that instead of dealing with pastures of tens of thousands of acres the livestock manager at Stone Barns farm likely deals in football field sized pastures. The most notable similarity between Stone Barns farm’s moving of sheep and our moving of buffalo is the way the animals react to the fresh pasture – they love it, they need it, it is in their genes. The most notable dissimilarity is the fact that the fresh pasture at Stone Barn Farm is “managed by man”. The vegetative composition of the pastures at Stone Barns is likely a selection of annually planted tame grasses. Wild Idea pastures are mostly made up of the perennial, deep-rooted grasses evolved to thrive in drought conditions. In fact, what was left out of entire book, “The Third Plate”, was the realization that, in a few parts of the North American continent, there are places that remain, to a large extent, the way they were when Europeans first began to alter the environment. One of the stories in the book, that was news to me, was …
The Autumn Equinox
Returning from a family vacation today, I found that the prairie colors had changed to rich amber color that wasn’t there when I left. Needing to recenter myself and regain my balance, I grabbed my camera and headed out to the buffalo. They seemed quite content on this first day of autumn. Below are a few photos from my outing at the Cheyenne River, Wild Idea Buffalo Ranch. Happy Autumn Equinox!
Preparation For Winter Grazing
In preparation for the annual move of Wild Idea buffalo into their winter grazing area in the Indian Creek/Big Corral Draw area of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, the perimeter fence enclosing the 22,000 acres must be inspected and repaired. That job has often fallen to me. One person can handle some of the fence fairly easily, but most of the work requires two people. Some of the country to be traversed, however beautiful, is tough to get around in, and after the devastating snowstorm/blizzard that we just endured the familiar trails often change course and become impassable by the old routes. So getting to some of the isolated areas that contain a fence that stretches between natural barriers can be quite an adventure. A team of workers, therefore, is safer than for one person alone. I have worked this fence line with several different people. It usually takes about a week to complete the roughly twenty-six miles of fence. This year, like last year, Colton Jones (by now a familiar to Wild Idea Buffalo Company), and I started out on a Saturday morning toward one of these remote areas, Taylor Mountain and the East branch of Big Corral Draw. There is a narrow trail up the mountain that we hike. It is about 3/4 of a mile to the beginning of our inspection tour. The fence itself is maybe about 1/2 mile long, but it spans some deep, steep gullies where some of the posts had been knocked down by the weight of the snow and wind. We had carried our tools with us: fencing pliers, hammers, post pounder, wire stretcher, and wire splicer. We worked our way down the mountain and re-strung, the water crossings at the base of the mountain. Colton and I work easily together, and catch up on the details of each other’s lives in between pounding fence posts and stringing wire. It was late afternoon; so we headed for home. The next day was longer but without the adventure of blazing new trails. In between weekends Dan and I spend a couple of days pheasant hunting while Colton attends classes at BHSU in Spearfish. On these occasions I have the privilege of staying in my former apartment at the ranch, with my two dogs. I feel right at home and enjoy some of my old routines of; coffee with Erney, buttoning up the shop at night, and dinner with Dan and Jill. Back to work, Colton and I head out to the headwaters of Indian Creek. Indian Creek presents its own challenges. Mud and creek crossings, steep hills and deep gullies. We load a four-wheeler on a trailer pulled by a pickup truck and drive for about 1 1/2 hours to arrive at where we start. It’s more of the same but always with a new problem to solve. High water from snowmelt and runoff does amazing damage to fences that cross the waterways. It is a little less remote in this area, but nobody ever comes out to see what we are doing or to give us a hand. We just go along, do our job until it’s finished and go home.The following day we finish that section. There are only two more sections to go, which isn’t too bad for a crew with an average age of 50 years old. Note: I’m writing this piece on the birthday of the US Marine Corps. Happy Birthday to all Marines–past and present. Once a marine, always a marine. Semper Fi.
Real Food
Each day I awake to the sounds of the ranch; birds, dogs, an occasional horse whinny and the morning news. I drift in and out of consciousness between tweets, barks and the sound of David Greenes voice on NPR. My attention hones in to the radio voices, reporting on the horrific wars. I am relieved when the stories change to children heading back to school. Now fully alert, I’m shocked by the statistics coming from the small black box: “The average child spends 4 minutes a day outside and ten hours in front of a screen”. “This is creating disconnect with the natural world”, the voices say. They go on talking about the ramifications this will have. If intimate relationships are not cultivated with mother earth, who will we pass the baton to too care for her? Where will children think their food comes from? Water? And so on. Last Sunday we were featured on the Food Networks, “Great Food Truck Race,” a reality competitive food show. Although we were thrilled to be featured, we learned that there is not a lot of reality in reality TV. My favorite “stand out line” from one of the producers during the week that they spent on the ranch was, “This is a food show, it’s not that critical if we don’t get a good shot of the buffalo”. What’s that you say??????? I guess it’s not only our children that have a disconnect. The night of the airing of the “Great Food Truck Race”, a group of Wild Idea Buffalo employees and friends gathered to watch the show, including my friend Mason. Mason is 12 and has just started junior high. He is quiet, a bit shy and very thoughtful. Before we sat down to view the show, we went out to visit the buffalo and to offer them thanks for helping us get on national TV. We took a rawhide buffalo drum, as we have learned from our Native American friends, that if you beat the drum and have an open heart, the buffalo will come to you. I explained this to Mason as he started our heartfelt concert. Within minutes, we were circled by 300 buffalo. They stood around us as if they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, offering their soft grunts for applause. As we headed back for our buffalo feast before the show, we stopped along the way for grass tutorials from Jilian and Colton. We watched prairie dogs and burrowing owls. We rolled in the soft sand of a Buffalo wallow and talked about what happens when the wallows fill with rain. Tight on time and Mason now behind the wheel, we drove a little fast, back to the ranch. Smells of braising buffalo meat greeted us from the kitchen. We filled our plates with cucumber, melon salad, and buffalo stewed in garden tomatoes and green beans, from Jilian’s garden. We ate on the deck and watched the golden light fall on the hillside. At last it was show time. We headed inside and turned on the TV, putting our faces in front of a screen to watch an unreal, reality food show. This month’s recipe is Buffalo Chuck Roast Stewed in Tomatoes with Green Beans. Dan loves this cut and also this recipe, as when necessary he can get dinner on the table! A real treat in more ways then one! Enjoy! Jill Buffalo Chuck Roast Stewed with Garden Tomatoes and Green Beans (serves 6 to 8) A great family dinner that says goodbye to summer and hello to fall! Recipe by Jill, but prepared by Dan with …
Moving Buffalo
This past June we moved the Buffalo from one pasture to the next. Buffalo are roamers and have come to understand what an open gate means – new digs to roam and fresh grass. We believe in a gentle approach of simply opening a gate, offering a little incentive with cake (a small cube of pressed alfalfa with some minerals), and having a subtle presence on the back end. When babies are little we are very careful to guide in a very slow manner. The lead herd cow is usually the first to approach and once she has moved through the herd will start to follow. The babies stay close to their mothers and instinctively shoot to the outside. The wind was blowing on the day we moved them, which added extra excitement for the babies who frolicked, leaping through the air, bucking and kicking. A few stragglers held up the back end with the largest herd bull completing the move. They quickly joined up with the herd, and found their way to their new pasture. They other day we moved the buffalo again. What struck me, was not only their calmness with the babies now two months older, but the beautiful healthy pastures, still green and plentiful with grass, thanks to continued summer rains. The baby buffalo are now kids, in a varying stages of golden to black, with sprouting new horns. They are gaining independence, but will stay close to their mothers and remain in the family group until they are two years of age. They vocalized their happiness with their soft grunts and grazing noises. Listening to 300 buffalo eating grass is pretty amazing! We wrapped up our task under a pink sky of a setting South Dakota sun.
Waiting for Summer Rain
Last night the wind woke me about 12:30. It whipped the cottonwoods and I lay there hoping to hear it mix with the eerie, welcome lashing of rain against the roof. It has been a good summer but if we could just get another couple decent rains – just another inch or two while the days were still sweltering – there would be grass as the ranch moved into autumn, there would be excellent winter grazing for the buffalo, and enough old grass next spring for the grouse to find safe nesting cover. Jill and Henry, our English Setter, were in bed with me and they moved when I spoke. “Just a little rain,” I whispered to the dark bedroom ceiling. I wasn’t praying for rain, just asking the rowdy northwest wind to give us what she could. “Just an inch.” Enough to ease the threat of prairie fires and give the wild flowers another couple weeks to die a natural death. I’d spent most of the day talking to people all over the country on the telephone and in each conversation the topic of rain had come up: too much on the east coast, cold and gray; not enough in Texas, hot and dusty. Picnics had been spoiled and fans distributed to the guests at outdoor weddings. Everyone was concerned, but I wondered if anyone that I had talked to was laying in their bed talking to the ceiling and hoping that the wind was listening. At three o’clock there was still no rain but the wind continued to buffet the house and I thought I heard the rumble of thunder. But if it was thunder it was a very long way off. By three o’clock I was wide awake and straining to hear raindrops or, at least a clap of thunder. I turned on the BBC. But when I suspected that the sound of the broadcasters was covering the patter of rain drops, I turned it off to listen. Nothing. But through my closed eyelids, I felt a very distant flash of lightening. I counted to twenty-four and thought I heard a rumble. “Was that thunder?” Jill spoke from the darkness. “Or Henry’s stomach,” I said. “Is it raining?” “Not yet,” I said. We lay, breathless, in the dark. Between us, Henry rolled onto his back. The spring rains had come late but they had come. The grass had thrived and the land was mellow. But we were thinking of the year to come. Rain can be saved in the soil like money in a bank and the sounds that we strained to hear could not have been more important to us. It was three-thirty in the morning and all our senses were tuned to know if it would rain or not. We were not talking about a rained out picnic or an uncomfortable wedding. Last night nothing was more crucial than what the wind might whip up. Another flash of lightening and a definite crashing of thunder. “Closer,” Jill said. “Hush. Is that mist against the window?” Then there was lightening in all directions. We rose and went to the screen door to sniff at the thin smell of rain. We looked at our electronic weather station. “Four one-hundredths of an inch,” Jill said. “But it’s still coming,” I said as we went back to bed. The house filled with white light and the thunder roared. One, two, three lightening strikes in a row. Tree limbs broke and the electronic rain gauge …
Grilled Buffalo Meatball Salad with Mint Vinaigrette
June’s Recipe of the Month: Grilled Buffalo Meatball Salad with Mint Vinaigrette (Inspired by Food & Wine recipe). Serves 4 Grills across the country will be fired up for this Fathers Day, covered with burgers, steaks and Ribs (check out our Rib specials this month– recipes included). All delicious, but if you are in the mood for something on the lighter side, this recipe is for you. Enjoy. Meatball Ingredients: 1 – 1 lb. Ground Buffalo 2 – cloves garlic, minced 2 – green onions, minced 1 – tablespoon soy sauce 2 – tablespoons hoisin sauce 1 – teaspoon salt 2 – teaspoons black pepper 2 – tablespoons olive oil 24 -cherries, pitted 8 – mushrooms, halved 8 wooden skewers, soaked in water foil Vinaigrette Ingredients: ½ – cup rice vinegar ¼ – cup honey ¼ – cup sesame oil 1 – tablespoon pickled ginger ¼ cup fresh mint leaves ½ – teaspoon salt 1 – teaspoon black pepper Salad Ingredients: 4 – handfuls mixed greens 1 – cup prepared quinoa ½ – cucumber, diced *optional garnish: cherries, sesame seeds or Marcona Almond Instructions: 1.) In mixing bowl combine: ground buffalo, minced garlic, minced onion, soy, salt and pepper. Mix thoroughly with hands. 2.) Shape into 16 oval meatballs, and roll in olive oil. Refrigerate for ½ hour. 3.) Mix all Vinaigrette ingredients in blender a pulse until mixed. 4.) Thread skewer: cherry, mushroom, meatball, cherry, meatball, mushroom, cherry. Repeat with remaining skewers. 5.) Wrap exposed wooden tips with foil. 6.) Place skewers over medium high grill, about 400* and grill for 3 minutes each side. 7.) Remove skewers from grill and cover with foil, allowing to rest for 5 minutes. 8.) Toss salad greens with ¼ cup of the vinaigrette, arrange on 4 separate plates. 9.) Mix cucmber and jalapeno together in bowl and toss with ¼ cup viniagerette. 10.) Divide prepared quinoaand sprinkle on top of greens. Repeat with diced cucumbers. Top Salad with two skewers and drizzle with additional vinaigrette. Garnish as desired. Serve with grilled flat bread.
Frog Symphony
I have heard Chorus Frogs every spring for my entire life, but I never saw one until the May of 2008. I was following Mike Forsberg around southeastern Montana in search of stories and photographs for Mike’s book, GREAT PLAINS, America’s lingering wild. I can’t remember what our objective was but we were in the middle of an enormous pasture and we were walking. It takes a long time to walk anywhere with Forsberg because he stops and looks at everything. When you walk with any good photographer what you are really doing is wandering. So I was wandering around southeastern Montana with Mike Forsberg on a beautiful spring afternoon taking pictures of flowers, clouds, rusty barbed wire fences, and windmills when the faint sound of Chorus Frogs drifted over a hill. The vocalization of a Chorus Frog is a little like a variety of small frogs known collectively as “tree frogs and their allies.” The Chorus Frog must be an “ally” because they are often found where there are no trees for miles. That was the case that day in Montana – no trees, just grass and a little wind. The sound of the frogs blended in with the rustle of the wind and the songs of prairie, ground nesting birds that were newly back from their winter migration. Male Meadow Larks, Bobolinks, and Buntings were setting up territories and serenading the females with all their hearts. Probably the singing of the Chorus Frog had been blending with the ambient sounds for a while before we even noticed it, but as the afternoon wore on, the sound intensified until Mike couldn’t stand it. “Have you ever seen one of those little devils?” I shrugged. “No. I’ve never even looked for one.” In fact, Chorus Frogs are such a commonfeature of the Great Plains that I had never even thought much about them. Since I could remember, they were a constant in the soundtrack of my spring existence. When we walked over the hill and found a small stock-pond created by adikebuilt across a little draw. Spring runoff had filled the pond and the Chorus Frogs were doing the amphibious version of what the birds were doing. Their shrill voices seemed to rise from the water’s edge of the entire pond. My Peterson Field Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians describes the sound of the Chorus Frog as prreep, prreep, but that description does not do it justice. It is an insistent sound when you concentrate on it but has the ability to recede in your consciousness until it is barely noticeable. The pond was alive with singers and we crept, shoulder to shoulder, up to the water where one particularly boisterous frog was sounding off. We moved like a pair of blue herons, very slowly, raising high and planting gently one foot at a time. When we got to the edge of the pond the sound was gone and I looked carefully, expecting the frog to leap into the water and disappear. There was no leap and splash so we bent over and squinted along the grassy edge. Still nothing. He must have heard us and took off, so we split up and started off in search of the next frog. But we had only gone a few feet when the first frog started up again – exactly where we had been looking. We went back but still saw nothing. Other frogs were singing just a little way along the water’s edge so we moved off again in opposite directions. I was intent on sneaking up on one before …
Baby Buffalo & Blizzards
Last week we were lucky enough to get a blizzard. It’s very dry here and at this point we aren’t too particular in how moisture comes. We were also expecting to see our first calf at anytime and although we received 20″ of snow we weren’t too concerned. Bison evolved in this country and are well adapted to weather extremes. There is a theory that bison can hold off giving birth until after a storm has passed. We’re unsure if this is fact, but the morning after last week’s blizzard, we got our first glimpse of this year’s first baby. Mother and baby are doing well. Dan brings hay to supplement the lack of grass. I tag along to get photos of the herd and a glimpse of the new babies. The new mom’s remove themselves from the main herd and set up what we call “the maternity ward”, complete with new and expecting mothers. Within a few days we had 5 baby calves, and another blizzard on the way. The snow came heavy last night without wind, frosting the landscape all the way to the horizon. I grabbed my camera gear this morning and headed out with Dan for the morning hay feeding. The weight of the snow quiets the ranch to where all you can hear is your heart beat and the soft grunts of the buffalo. They seem undisturbed in their warm down, wooly coats. While Dan rolls out 2 tons of hay, I go off in search of the maternity ward to insure that all is ok. I find them content in a shallow wooded draw. Babies close to their mothers, until the little ones take off, leaping occasionally on their new wobbly legs! The mothers stay close behind, nudging them further into the draw and out of my view. A great morning!
Free Roaming Buffalo
Two weekends ago, I took these pictures while a group of us were guiding a respectably sized herd of buffalo back to pastures that lie between the Cheyenne River Ranch and the Cheyenne River itself. For the last five and a half months these animal’s temporary home has been an ever changing landscape, comprised of windy creeks, badland buttes and open prairies surround by walls of steep hills that are peppered with cedar trees. As we moved the herd, we watched them float across the landscape. They knew where every creek crossing and green patch of grass was. Although some of the older cows didn’t seem to be in a hurry to head back to the other side of the river, they still moved at a pace that showed purpose. These cows will soon begin to gather in maternity wards in preparation for spring calving. The new calves will spend the early months of their life in pastures that lack the buttes, creeks, and steep draw banks. Instead, they will take their first shaky steps on land that seems to extend to the horizon. As spring turns to summer, the new calves will venture around the wide open country as they follow the rest of the herd. Just as they start to become familiar with the terrain, the time will come for them to head out with the rest of the herd for life on the other side of the river.
April Showers to Earth Day
The last week was a whirlwind of celebration, business and entertaining. Our week started with a bridal shower for Jilian. The event was hosted by co-worker Cyd Evans (Not only is Cyd a wonderful WIB sales associate, she is also a gifted potter.) and Jilian’s future mother in-law, Kim. Jilian was showered with many lovely gifts and a lot of womanly advice. The work week began with a business meeting at the ranch. All day business meetings can be exhausting and usually need the infusion of copious amounts of coffee, and sweets. We were guilty of the coffee and pastries, but broke for a nice lunch of Grilled Buffalo Steak and Potato Salad, which carried us through the afternoon. Buffalo, Green Bean & Potato Salad Serves 4 to 6 Ingredients: 2 lbs. Wild Idea Buffalo Steak, marinated, grilled & sliced 2 small or fingerling potatoes per person, boiled until tender, halved or quartered 12oz. Green Beans, steamed till al dente ½ cup Cherry Tomatoes, halved Instructions: Arrange red potatoes, green beans & sliced buffalo steak on plates and drizzle with Rosemary Dijon Lemon Dressing. Serve with crusty Bread. *Optional, to serve warm, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to skillet over medium high heat. Add potatoes and pan fry until lightly browned. Lightly salt and pepper. *This salad is as pretty as it is delicious, can be served warm or cold and is perfect for anytime of year. Also, asparagus could be substituted for the green beans. Enjoy. Rosemary, Dijon, and Lemon Marinade A delicious marinade for Bison Steaks and Roasts Ingredients: 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 2 cloves garlic, chopped (1 Tb.) 1½ tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped fine ½ teaspoon sea salt 2 teaspoons black pepper 1 teaspoon sugar 1/3 cup lemon juice 1/3 cup olive oil Instructions: Mix ingredients in blender in order of list, adding olive oil in a slow steady stream while motor is running. *This can be used as a salad dressing too.The warm temperatures and the lack of precipitation have us all a bit worried. But Mother Nature provided a nice little shower, just in time for the arrival of our first baby buffalo! The warm temperatures and the lack of precipitation have us all a bit worried. But Mother Nature provided a nice little shower, just in time for the arrival of our first baby buffalo! Our week wrapped up with two sets of guests. First group for burgers on the deck with good friends Tom & Jess Whillock (Tom’s band Groove Daddy will be the Band for the Wedding Dance), and friend Wally Van Sickle, who is the director of “Idea Wild”, a non-profit that supports conservation efforts all over the world. The sky provided us with some great lighting for photography. Our second group of guests were friends Tom Lee and Cheryl Rudel, who brought along Cheryl’s father Rudy 90, and friend Polly Donaldson 91! They joined us for an Earth Day Brunch, which included many great stories! A tour through the buffalo wrapped up our day, and a baby buffalo put on a great show. A good time was had by all! Polly brought a jar of her homemade Peach Almond Conserve, vintage 2011. She hoped that it would still be good. Not only was it good, but decadent! I am hoping she will share the recipe, or better yet invite me to her kitchen to make along with her!
Malpia Borderlands
We recently returned from our trip to the Malpia Borderlands in southeastern AZ and southwestern NM. The Malpia Borderlands, was formed by a group of ranchers that did not want to see their collective properties of over 1,000,000 acres subdivided. We spent 3 days bouncing around in a van touring big, beautiful open country and talking to ranchers who call it home. All of who were wonderful characters. Below is a photo journal of our trip.
Buffalo are Back
Fifteen years ago I spent most of my time with rattling, smelly farm machinery, either being severely jarred as I drove up and down the fields or lying under it trying to fix something. Our South Dakota ranch supported a couple hundred beef cattle and all summer long we rolled hay into huge, round bales in the blistering heat, and all through the freezing winter we rolled the bales back out on the ground so the cows wouldn’t starve. The smell of diesel fuel permeated my clothes and the skin beneath my fingernails was tattooed with axle grease. One cold, snowy day, just after Christmas in 1996, as I lay under a tractor that wouldn’t start, it occurred to me that what this ranch really needed was an animal that could thrive without my help. I rolled out from under the tractor and rocked up onto my knees. Squinting against the brilliant snow, I tried to imagine our ranch before Europeans came to the Great Plains. I saw buffalo moving silently across the horizon, turning grass to healthy, red meat with no clattering of engines or fog of diesel fumes. The Great Plains is the heart of our country. But like a human heart that has been stressed by abuse, it has been weakened and is in need of restoration. When Europeans first arrived here they found lean and healthy native people. They found seemingly endless pastures of indigenous grasses, huge skies darkened by migrating birds and about 60 million buffalo. American buffalo, also known as bison, were slaughtered in massive numbers in the late 1800s. By 1900 they were near extinction with only about 400 animals remaining. With conservation, their population has slowly rebounded and now there are about 350,000 on public and private lands. Today the Plains are broken up by fences that hold cattle destined for feedlots. Most of the native prairie has been plowed under, leaving the land bare to the ravages of wind and water erosion. Native grasses have been replaced with government-subsidized commodity crops, such as corn, cotton and wheat. These crops grow with the aid of petroleum-based fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that run off into the water. With less available habitat, native animals and birds are being squeezed out. To complete the circle, most of the subsidized corn is fed to the cattle that replaced the buffalo.