Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Back in the Saddle

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Back in the Saddle: The day finally came for me to get literally back in the saddle.  I have hardly ridden a horse this summer. New responsibilities have played...

Sometimes the old ways work best. . .

Mountain Mule Packer Ranch is packing supplies into Weaverville tomorrow. Reach out to 910-885-1402 if you know of specific needs and areas where they can get their mule strings in to help.

Sunday, September 11, 1774. Delivering the Suffolk Resolves.

Paul Revere rode to Milton, Massachusetts, to pick up the Suffolk Resolves.  He took them to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 10, 1774. Edenton Tea Party.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, Colonial North America, North Carolina, Taxes, Women

Friday Farming: At 84, Lander horseman still makes hay the old-fashioned way

 

At 84, Lander horseman still makes hay the old-fashioned way

Blog Mirror: Historical Photo: Horses

 

Historical Photo: Horses

I would not have guessed that being a Federal mule packer requires a person to have a Commercial Drivers License.

But it does.

I guess that makes sense, maybe

Or not.

At least at one time, to drive a commercial sized truck for the Federal Government you didn't need a CDL, as the Federal Government issued its own drivers licenses.

Saturday, July 26, 1924. Other around the world flights.

Argentinian pilot Pedro Zanni and mechanic Felipe Beltrame began their rather belated attempt to fly around the world.

Larry Estridge became the last person to win the World Colored Middleweight Championship, defeating title holder Panama Joe Gans in a 10-round bout at Yankee Stadium.  Segregation of titles by race would thereafter rightfully be abandoned.

The KKK held a rally in Issaquah, Washington that drew at least 13,000 people.

The weekly magazines were out.

The Saturday Evening Post with a girl who had a scouting uniform of some type, or perhaps was wearing an oddly colored representation of  Navy white shirt, with red instead of blue.

Country Gentleman had a classic of a draft team.

Last edition:

Friday, July 25, 1924. Speeding the game up.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Albania, Armenia, baseball, Cheyenne, Ethnicities, Greece, Kosovo, Rodeo

Wednesday, July 12, 1944. The death of Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., age 56, veteran of World War One and Two, politician, notable businessman, and son of the President by the same name, the only U.S. general to land with the first wave of U.S. troops during Operation Overlord, died of a heart attack.

Roosevelt in Normandy.  He was severely arthritic by this point in the war.

His actions  on D-Day were critical, for which he would win a Congressional Medal of Honor.

For gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty on 6 June 1944, in France. After two verbal requests to accompany the leading assault elements in the Normandy invasion had been denied, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt's written request for this mission was approved and he landed with the first wave of the forces assaulting the enemy-held beaches. He repeatedly led groups from the beach, over the seawall and established them inland. His valor, courage, and presence in the very front of the attack and his complete unconcern at being under heavy fire inspired the troops to heights of enthusiasm and self-sacrifice. Although the enemy had the beach under constant direct fire, Brig. Gen. Roosevelt moved from one locality to another, rallying men around him, directed and personally led them against the enemy. Under his seasoned, precise, calm, and unfaltering leadership, assault troops reduced beach strong points and rapidly moved inland with minimum casualties. He thus contributed substantially to the successful establishment of the beachhead in France.

The U.S. 88th Division took Lajatico, Italy

Japanese-American soldier of 522nd Field Artillery, US 442nd Regimental Combat Team with a soldier of the Italian 11th Pack Mule Company, Castellina Sector, 12 July 1944.

The Red Army took Idritsa.

Japanese POW broadcasting in an effort to bring Japanese troops in caves out to surrender, July 12, 1944.

Rosie, captured Japanese army dog, Saipan.  July 12, 1944.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 11, 1944. Von Stauffenberg's first attempt, Tiger II's first use.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Adolf Hitler, Caen France, Charles de Gaulle, Claus von Stauffenberg, Franklin Roosevelt, German Resistance Movements, Heroes, July 20 Plot, New Guinea, Operation Overlord, World War Two

Wednesday, April 23, 1924. Debutants drill team

Debutants drill team, April 23, 1914.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, April 22, 1924. Silent Cal.

1940s, 1944, Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947, Afghanistan, Battle of Hollandia, China, Hollandia, New Guinea, Operation Ichi-Go, Operation Persecution, Operation Reckless, World War Two

Tuesday, April 15, 1924. Opening day.

Baseball didn't make the front page on this day in 1924.  The House passing the Japanese Exclusion Act did.

But it was opening day.

The silent one shook the hand of Bucky Harris.

Other athletic endeavors were going on as well.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, April 13, 1924. Greeks decline a king.

1920s, 1924, Aircraft, Alaska, First Around The World Flight, Greece, Monarchy, United States Air Force

Tuesday, April 11, 1944. Plowing.

An RAF Mosquito raid destroys the Central Population Registry building in The Hague, destroying the records of the Gestapo.

The Red Army captures Dzhankoy and Kerch, Crimea.

The USS Redfin sank the Akigumo.

The U-108 was destroyed in its pen at Stettin in a U.S. Army Air Force air raid.

 USS Altamaha (CVE-18). Crash of TBM April 11, 1944.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 10, 1944. Odessa taken by the Red Army.

Battle of Anzio, boats and ships, British Army, Burma, China Burma India Theater, India, Indian Army, Odessa Ukraine, Operation U-Go, Royal Air Force, The Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive, World War Two

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Horsing Around

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Horsing Around: With the warm weather not going to last forever, Fr. Brian Hess and I decided to go for a little late winter ride. Figured it'd be good ...

Spurs

This is one of those posts that have been lingering for a long time. . . a very long time in this case.  The draft of this dates back to 2015.

I was looking back on my lists of drafts, I have a bunch, and realized I never finished this.  I'm not sure why, even though this relates to the underlying theme of the blog pretty well and I really should have.  As the blog slows down from daily entries, as we run up on the signing of the Versailles Treaty, I ought to post some of these older drafts that have something to do with the theme, more generally, of the blog, and which assist in what I hope will be a fairly historically accurate novel (which I need to get to work on more as well).

These are all spurs, and all spurs I own.  I have a reason for owning spurs, so these are all tools of the trade in a way. But how long have these individual types been around?

"Gumball Spurs"

The spurs above are a type worn by Western riders called "gumball spurs". They lack a rowell, and just have a blunt ball on the end.  Lots of non Western spurs are like this, but its fairly rare to see very many working riders wear this type.



The spur strap here is a classic Western style that you can find examples of going way back.

Here's another set.  These are a more typical Western set of spurs with a couple of small chimes that ring.  Everyone has probably heard the song "I've got spurs that jingle jangle jingle". Well, these do.

I bought the Colorado Saddlery spurs as I wanted to replace the gumball spurs for regular use, but I wasn't very happy with them.  So I went to these:

These spurs below are U.S. Army Model 1911 Spurs, the last model used by the Army.  These spurs are quite plain as a rule.

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Snow Balls

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Snow Balls: I know winter does funny things, but this one always surprises me. In the right contentions, snow will build up under horses hooves, making ...

Sigh . . .

And depicted with a horse too. . . 

Kroger retires after 35 years of service  CODY - Worland Wildlife Biologist Bart Kroger retired last month, bringing his 35-year career with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to a close.  “Bart has been referred to as the ‘core of the agency’, meaning through his dedication and continuous hard work, he has significantly and meaningfully impacted wildlife management within his district and throughout the state,” said Corey Class, Cody region wildlife management coordinator. “Throughout his career, he has been a solid, steady and dependable wildlife biologist, providing a foundation for wildlife conservation and management in the Bighorn Basin.” Through his quiet and thoughtful approach, Bart has gained the respect of both his peers and the public. Bart is best known for his commitment to spending time in the field gaining first-hand knowledge of the wildlife and the habitat that supports them, as well as the people he serves in his district.

Messed Up Animal Ecology. Why you can't separate out your favorite animal, and demonize your least favorite, and make a lick of sense.

The other night on the local news, some guy from some environmental outfit was yapping about "wild horses", equating them "with other wild animals like deer and elk", and suggesting that cattle need to be removed from the range.

One of the things he brought up about cattle were their numbers, in comparison to "wild" horses.

His argument was intellectually bereft, but then arguments in this area often are.

Winslow Homer painting of a (fairly thin looking) plow horse.  Lots of "chunks" were let go in the 30s when their owners droughted out, their descendants still roaming the range today.

There are no wild horses in North America at all.

None, nada, zippo, "0".

There are a little over 64,000 feral horses, all in the West, in the Western United States.  If we include burros, which at least nobody pretends are a wild animal, there are 82,000 feral equines.  

All wild equines stem, at the very oldest, from animals that were brought on to the continent in 1519.  Quite a few probably don't really have any Spanish blood in their veins at all, and hail from horses much more recently brought in. There's fairly good evidence that in the upper West horses came down out of Canada, not up from Mexico.  

Some poor coureur des bois awakened one morning, in other words, and thought "Chu dans marde! Mon cheval est parti!"

"Bourgeois" W---r, and His Squaw" by Alfred Jacob Miller, depicting a coureur des bois and his Native American spouse.  This is a famous painting, but we're not supposed to like it now.  One art museum notes about it:  "These words, which shaped how Miller's contemporaries viewed the watercolors, reveal the racism and sexism embedded in 19th-century exploration and colonization of the western part of what is today the United States."  Oh, horse crap.  Most trappers were culturally French, and the French had intermixed with the native population from day one.  This could just as easily be "guy and his wife."  The comment itself imposed an Anglo-American view on a Franco-American and Native American landscape.

Moreover, the introduction date to the Native Americans, at least on the Northern Plains, is much more recent than supposed, and even then, they didn't take them right up.  Indeed, among the Shoshone it produced a big argument, with the arguers, mostly young men, taking off and acquiring the name "The Arguers", i.e., Comanche.

In the 1930s, a lot of farmers in the West droughted out and simply let their horses go, including stocky draft horses, i.e., "chunks". Then again, in the 1970s the numbers of wild horses expanded as recent imports abandoned pasture pets out on the range and went back to their homes in Port Arthur, or wherever, and even now some of that happens.  The majestic broom tail of the range today may have been Little Becky's 4H project before she left for UW, died her hair purple, and started protesting for Hamas.

Okay, so what about cows?

Long horn in a herd of Angus or Black Baldies.  I'm not really sure how this bovine ended up in this herd.

They came in at just about the same time, or earlier.  Cattle were brought to the Caribbean as early as 1493 by Columbus, which is really early.  "In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue", but in 1493 the livestock truck, basically, pulled up to the dock.  Cows can and do go wild, but nobody gets very romantic about it, and there isn't a Wild and Free Ranging Cow Act.  Nobody goes by the moniker "Wild Cow Annie".  A wild cow we had went rogue and recruited other cows to her rogue wild cow band, which shows how wild they can get.  A neighboring rancher, caught her and shipped her as a menace. We got the check, and were happy for that end.

There are about 90,000,000 head of cattle in the United States as of this past summer, down from 100,000,000 in 1998.  

Okay, that's a lot of cows.

Which bring back our ignorant protagonist's point.  Before Columbus came and said "let's stock this range and lose some horses doing it", he seems to argue, the rangeland was empty of large ungulates.

Um, nope.

There were something like 50,000,0000 to 75,000,000 buffalo.

But, gee, Yeoman, that would mean that the entire ungulate supporting range of North America has always had a lot of large ungulates on it. . . 

Yep, that's what it means.

Currently, there are about 20,500 Plains bison in wild herds and an additional 420,000 in commercial herds, which we are supposed to pretend are wild herds.

Given our inability to accurately state how many head of anything were on the Pre Columbian landmass, what this basically tells you is the ungulate population hasn't changed very much.  Overall populations of large wild animals, i.e., "big game" are way up, however, due to water projects and farmed fields.

So the entire Cow Bad/Horse Good argument is pretty flawed.

Now, the line of last defense on this is that cows cause global warming. That's because cows fart.

Buffalo don't.

Umm. . . 

Well, buffalo do, but only Febreeze.

Well, no, they fart methane too.

In reality, all mammals fart, but some fart more than they otherwise would due to diet.  You already know this due to your coworker who has, every day, the Lumberjack Special at Hefty Portions for breakfast, followed by the Ejército del Norte special at El Grande Conquistador for lunch, a quart of scotch around 2:00 p.m., and goes home and has his spouse's Roast Wildebeest Surprise for dinner (all Keto approved, of course).  The only real argument here, therefore, is that maybe cattle ought not to be finished off on corn, which they probably wouldn't normally do unless somebody left a gate down. That likely makes them gassy.

Lascaux painting of aurochs, approximately 36,000 years ago.  Note also the deer/roebucks and horse depicted.

Taking this out worldwide, I'd note, cattle are native to the entire rest of the planet in some form, save for Australia.  Wild cattle ranged Europe, Asia and Africa.  They aren't new here, and they've been wondering around chewing their cuts and farting for longer than we've been a species.

So back to environmental destruction.

The first real notable example of it was Cottonwood bottoms in the American West.  During the winter, buffalo hang out in them.  Feral horses took it up.  And mounted Native Americans, who previously had a pretty limited impact on the environment, did too.

But you can't really say anything about that.

Friday, August 24, 1923. "Cross Country Flight Record Is Shattered"

A photographer caught some Maine Corps scenes.

 

The United States Coal Commission met.

Saturday, August 18, 1923. Silent Cal goes riding. Hoff family goes walking.

Calvin Coolidge went for a ride on this Saturday on 1923.  He was equipped, we might note, with a nearly new looking Army McClellan saddle.

Frank Hoff and his family were apparently on a long walkabout.

Blog Mirror: Pack mules do the heavy lifting while offering their brand of education

 

Pack mules do the heavy lifting while offering their brand of education

Blog Mirror: Pack Mules Help SCE Get the Job Done

 

Pack Mules Help SCE Get the Job Done