Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: The Irish in Wyoming

Today In Wyoming's History: Sidebar: The Irish in Wyoming: Just recently we posted our "green" edition of this blog with our St. Patrick's Day entry .  Given that, this is a good time ...

The Post World War One Homesteads

Recently, on our companion site Holscher's Hub, I posted two photo threads about Post World War One homesteads.  Those posts are here and here.

 

People commonly think of homesteading in the 19th Century context, often having a really romantic concept of it.  What few realize is that the peak year for homesteading in the United States was 1919.

That's right, 1919.

Homesteading itself carried on until the Taylor Grazing Act ended it in 1934 in the lower 48 states.  It carried on in Alaska for longer than that, under the Federal law, and still exists under Alaska's state law, although its really a different type of homesteading than existed in the lower 48.  There were some exceptions, which I'm unclear on, that opened lands back up after World War Two, on sort of a GI Bill for the agriculturally minded type of concept, but the enthusiasm for it was apparently limited.  In Canada I think that homesteading may have continued on into the 1950s.

But it was World War One that caused the last big boom in U.S. homesteading, and it was they year immediately following the war, which was also the last year that farmers had economic parity with urban U.S. populations, that saw the greatest amount of homesteading.  And it was a homesteading boom, in some ways, that was uniquely 20th Century in character.

Truth be known, homesteading was never really viewed the way that we have viewed it in the post homesteading era.  Our modern romantic view of it is unique to the post World War Two industrial era in some ways. There's always been a strain of romanticism attached to it, to be sure, because it fit in with the Frontier character of the country that existed in the 18th and 19th Centuries. And it also tended to define, as we've forgotten in modern times, a real difference between Americans and Europeans.  American farmers, which meant most of the population, could own land and do well by it.  European farmers, which meant most of the population, often did not.  Europe became an urban center earlier than the US in part for that reason, as the landless could have a better chance of owning something of their own off the farms, and getting  a farm of your own was extremely difficult, if not impossible, in most European nations if you were not born with ownership of one.  Indeed, the desire for land fueled immigration to the United States, Canada, Mexico, and various other areas that Europeans colonized, far more than any other source.  We may imagine that immigration was mostly the tired, hungry, and downtrodden, and of course it was. But land hungry made up a big percentage of immigrants as well.

19th Century homesteading, even at the time, was seen as sort of a transitory affair, and you can find a lot of contemporary articles about farmers being the vanguards of civilization. This is particularly true of stock raising homesteaders, i.e., ranchers, who were seen as a pioneering, but temporary, force, except by themselves.  Theodore Roosevelt, himself a rancher, commented in one of his late 19th Century articles about how herds of stock inevitably gave way to the plow, comparing ranchers to Indians, which meant that even he saw his ranching activities as doomed by history.  If so, he misjudged the progress of the plow.  Even as late as the early 20th Century, however, people seriously believed that "rain follows the plow."  It doesn't.

20th Century homesteading was something else, however.  The homesteading boom  of the teens was fueled by the globalization of the grain market, and a unique but temporary boost in the market and a unique, but temporary, increase in the amount of annual rainfall.   All of these combined created the conditions which allowed for a spike in homesteading, followed by an inevitable collapse in the agricultural sector.

The unique and temporary boost in the market was caused by warfare.  The second decade of the 20th Century was one of the most violent of the 20th or the 19th Centuries, and even the horror of World War One did not occur in a vacuum.  European wars started in the teens with a series of Balkan Wars; wars limited to the Balkans and Turkey, but which presaged the international conditions which would expand past that region and into Europe in general. The Mexican Revolution broke out south of the border in 1910, and was really rolling by 1911.  But it was World War One that really strained the global agricultural system to the limit.

In the abstract, how a war could do that is sometimes difficult to understand, in our modern, overabundant, era.  But the reasons are fairly plain.  The war put millions of men into the field, in harsh conditions (the war was accompanied by unusually harsh weather in Europe) where their caloric requirements were high.  Additionally, and now much more difficult to appreciate, the war also put millions of horses into the military service with a high caloric requirement as well.  For the men, their needs were met with meat and grains, and for the horses, grains and fodder.  The requirements were vast.  And this was compounded by the fact that animal production also provided the leather and wool upon which the armies also depended.

Not only, however, were the requirements vast, but the labor to do the work was now serving in various armies. Not only did the war require a lot of agricultural production, but it required the men who were doing it, in large part, to serve in the armies.  This caused a shortage of farmers, just as there was a great need for them. And not only was there a shortage of farmers, but of farm animals as well, as agriculture remained mostly horse driven.

 War time poster encouraging the saving of wheat, based on a famous contemporary photograph of women serving as the power for an implement, in the absence of draft animals, in France.

Farm labor shortages were partially made up by pressing women into service as farmers, everywhere.  There's a very common myth that women entered the workplace during World War Two, but it simply isn't true, or even close to true (we'll address this in an upcoming post).  Women entered the factory and fields in massive numbers during World War One.  Their role in food production became a national campaign in most Allied nations, where there were official efforts to put them into the field.

American Women's Land Army poster.

U.S. poster encouraging men below the age the Army was then seeking to serve on farms.  In short order, the Army would be taking me down to 18 years of age.

The American appeal was more rustic than the Canadian one, which made a martial appeal to young men to serve on the farms, relating that service to military service.

Resources became so tight that, even though rationing was never required on a national level in the United States (at least one state rationed, however) there was also an official campaign to encourage food conservation, and even conservation of some particular foods, so that more was available to feed the troops.

Canadian wartime poster encouraging consumers to switch to other foods to save food for the armies.

The war also had the impact of physically taking millions of acres of land directly out of production.  Not everything can be produced everywhere, which is fairly obvious.  Grains remain the staple of life in modern times just as much as they did in ancient, and this is particularly true in the case of grains. Grain can be grown, and is grown, in many regions, but large scale export grain crops are not. Grain production has greatly increased since World War One, but something that may not be readily apparent is that grain growing regions have expanded as well.

During the First World War era, grains were widely grown in Europe, North America, Argentina and Russia.  Much of the European production, however, was part of a regional market.  Italy, for example, has always been a grain growing region, but we tend not to think of it as a grain exporting region (although it actually is to some extent).  Of these regions, only two remained unspoiled by the war that being Argentina and North America.  Russia, one of the worlds most significant grain producing regions (well, the Ukraine actually) was taken completely out of the picture by the disaster of the war, which was followed immediately by the Russian Civil War.

This is also true of livestock production.  Horses, a critical item for every army, were so much in demand that Europe was basically stripped of them, nearly causing the extinction of one breed, the Irish Draught.  The United Kingdom, a major horse user, had always replied on imports for military horses and had worried about the supply pre-war, and now found itself fighting with an ally that had the same concern.  The large horse producing regions of the planet, North America, Australia and, at that time, Argentina remained relatively unscathed.  This was true for beef cattle production as well.  It was less true of wool production, which was a critical fiber in the war, and the United Kingdom itself was a significant producer.

 Wartime Canadian poster appealing to economic opportunism and patriotism.

While all of this was a human disaster, it was an agricultural opportunity of unprecedented scale.  A vast demand for agricultural products was created, and in certain regions, the means to exploit it existed.  And not only did the means exist, in the United States the government was encouraging it.  The US government encouraged homesteading, particularly for grain production, as if the boom would never end. And, as the Homestead Act remained in effect, and as the weather was unusually wet and therefore farming easier than usual, a land rush was soon on.

And the boom was experienced in other areas of the agricultural sector as well.  Horse ranching went into a massive boom in the West, starting just as soon as British and French remount agents started scouring the US and Canada for horses; a need which could never be fully met, in spite of a global effort.  Soon, with the Columbus, New Mexico, raid of Pancho Villa, the U.S. Army was in that market as well, pushing off French and British agents in the US so that it could acquire the horses and mules it required for a much larger Army that was nearly completely horse powered.

 

Remount shipping point.

Thousands of Americans who had previously had no direct connection with agriculture entered the rush, so lucrative was the grain trade at first, and so little, it seemed, had to actually be done in it.  In Kansas new towns sprung up full of such entry level farmers, many of whom didn't actually live on their farms, but in the towns, a practice that is common in some regions, but in this instance reflected an urban centric way of thinking.  Soon, these thousands were joined by discharged or soon to be discharged servicemen, many thousands of whom did have practical farming experience and agricultural roots, but who had the surplus cash to start up a farm, or small ranch, for the first time.  In Wyoming, hundreds of tiny homesteads, at most 640 acres in size, were filed, which with the favorable weather and market conditions, were actually viable in spite of their tiny size.

The boom couldn't last.  It trailed into the 1920s, but by then the prices began to fall. Soon after, the rain began to stop falling. An agricultural depression hit the US far earlier than the general Great Depression did.  By the 1930s the situation was desperate, and not only had the economy turned against farmers, but the weather had as well. Finally, in the early 1930s, the government repealed the Homestead acts, and new entries stopped.  Many of the teens homestead had already been abandoned by that time, once prosperous hopeful small units, but out place both economically and, as it turned out, climatically.

 Related Posts:

When Resources were Tight.

Disappearing Homesteads.

Dugout.

The Old Homesteads.

Oops! Errata

That post that I put up earlier on "Post World War One" homesteads wasn't complete.

That's the second time I've done that, as I started it about a week ago and just haven't gotten around to publishing it yet. But I've accidentally hit "Publish" twice. 

Sorry!

Wyoming National Guard during World War One

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Note the bucking horse logo.

Contrary to what people commonly believe (and indeed, contrary to the incorrect caption on this photo) the Wyoming National Guard was artillery prior to World War One and only became cavalry after the war.

Painted Bricks: Sidewalk Clock, Casper Wyoming

A landscape feature of days gone by, a sidewalk clock on our of our companion sites.

Painted Bricks: Sidewalk Clock, Casper Wyoming: The March 10 entry on Today In Wyoming's History , which featured a sidewalk clock from outside of Wyoming, reminded me of this o...

Cheyenne Motorcycle club, 1910

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A much earlier example of a motorcycle club, let alone in Wyoming, than I would have guessed.

Motorcycles show up in some fin de cycle movies about the 1890s to the 1910s, but I've always thought that was an exaggeration. Perhaps not.

Learning criminal law the cartoon way. . . .

Hmmmmm. . . . 

Sample_Chapter_15.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Who Grew Your Pint? How Craft Brews Boost Local Farmers : The Salt : NPR

Who Grew Your Pint? How Craft Brews Boost Local Farmers : The Salt : NPR

Branding Sheep

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Not sure of the vintage of this one, but for those who might not know, sheep are branded with paint.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 5

Today In Wyoming's History: March 5:

All the March 5 Presidential Inauguration speeches, from when the Inauguration was in March.  

Today In Wyoming's History: March 4

Today In Wyoming's History: March 4:

Lots of Presidential Inauguration speeches from the past, for those who might be interested.

Brunton Compass

Brunton Pocket Transit, folded for carrying.

This is a Brunton Pocket Transit.  Probably most people who know of them just think of them as the Brunton Compass.  It's an old, old design, having been first made in 1894, although the patent date on the compass references 1896.  I'd be curious to know when  they really started to be common, if we can consider a specialized instrument like this as ever having been common.

I ran across my Brunton compass recently as, for some reason, I'd taken it out of the carrier this fall in order to use it for something.  At this point, I frankly don't know what that something was, as I very rarely use it anymore.  I have a nice Garmin GPS with the topographic map software loaded into it, and I use that now, even though its a model that's now discontinued, and the last software up data makes it a little slow

Brunton Pocket Transit, opened for use in the geologists fashion.

I sure remember getting the compass, however.  It was in 1986, during my last year at the University of Wyoming, when I was a geology student. We had to buy them for our summer field course, which took us all over Albany and Carbon counties, mapping, and all the way down to New Mexico, where we did field work, as well.  At that time, having a compass of this type was an absolute necessity, and they saw 100% employment by geologists who did field work.  I'm told that at one time, graduates of the mining engineering school at the Colorado School of Mines could be identified by the short brim Stetsons they all acquired upon doing their field work (back in the sensible headgear days).  If so, graduates of any geology program anywhere could be identified by the fact that they all owned Brunton compasses.

Brunton compass opened up with mirror facing to catch the sight, in the fashion used by geologists in the field.

The reason for this wasn't fashion, it was necessity.  The compass is a precision instrument, and the official name of "transit" is accurate.  A transit is a surveying instrument, and so is a Brunton compass.  Extremely precise, the location of about anything can be accurately determined by triangulation or even just flat out using it in concert with a drawing compass (the plastic device) and a topographic map.  But we made topographic and geologic maps with them, which requires not only the compass, but more work.

Compass opened, showing the interior device for measuring angles, for determining elevation.  This one is not set, as the level clearly shows.

The reason that the compass can do this is that it not only features the typical magnetic compass feature, but it also has the ability to sight elevations with the use of an internal scale.  And when set on a Jacob's staff, a pole of a known size, distance on the ground may be measured over any sort of terrain while using that feature, with the compass attached to it, while the mapper walks over the ground.  A marvelous instrument.

My first exposure to this instrument didn't come in a geology class, however.  It came at Ft. Sill Oklahoma.  The Brunton Pocket Transit, to soldiers, is known as the artillery compass, and that's where I first learned how to use it, in basic training.

Compass set to site in the Army fashion.

I was actually surprised to learn, while a geology student, that my old friend the Brunton Compass, was used as a geologist's tool.  I just thought it was a marvelously precise Army compass.  Adapting to geology use was, therefore, very easy, even though the Army uses the sights differently.

Compass set to sight in the Army fashion.

Artillerymen used the compass as it is so much more precise than the conventional infantry compass, and artillery needs to be spotted accurately.  Even so, we never used it to the same degree of precision that geologists did.

Combined geology use and artillery use made me glad to have one, even when it turned out that I was never going to be a field geologist, that occupation having entered one of its cyclical slumps at that point in time at which I graduated from the University of Wyoming.  It's just been a field companion since then, which I used for many years when out in the sticks.

But not so much lately. As noted, I've gone to the GPS, although I was a late adapter of that technology.  Indeed, I hadn't looked at the compass for quite some time.

In looking at it, and then determining to post, I thought that it was probably a thing of the past now, but I see that this is one of those many things to which Yeoman's Second Law of History apply, they're still being made today. And they're still pretty pricey, although all in all I actually think they aren't as expensive in real terms now as they used to be.  Indeed, my recollection on this may be inaccurate, but I think the Classic model with the Aluminum body is now cheaper than the plastic cased variant shown in these photos.  It pleases me, frankly, so see that such a useful item is still in use.

I don't know if they're still in Army use or not, but I did learn the following, thanks to Gordon Rottman who sent me the text from his book on World War Two equipment:

M1 and M2 compasses with M19 carrying case This sophisticated compass was based on the William Ainsworth & Sons-made D. W. Brunton’s Pocket Transit dating back to 1894, but adopted by the Army in 1918. The M1 designation was assigned in the 1930s. The “artillery compass” combined a highly accurate surveyor’s compass with a clinometer (for measuring vertical angles and slopes), tubular horizontal level, and circular bubble plumb (vertical level). The circular level was for leveling the instrument before the azimuth values were read and the tubular level for measuring horizontal angles. There was an angle-of-site mechanism and an azimuth scale adjuster assembly making this a complex instrument requiring specialized training. It was used by artillery forward observers. It had a dustproof and moisture proof, dark OD-painted brass case (smooth or crinkled finish), squarish in shape with rounded corners, 2-3/4 x 3in and 1-1/8in thick; 5-7/8in long when  opened exclusive of the sights. A mirror was fitted inside the lid with a black sighting wire. The mirror also proved useful for shaving. There was a black folding front sight on the lid’s top edge. On the rear was a black hinged rear sight holder with a folding sight on top. The compass card was black with white markings. The M1 compass was graduated in degrees only and was phased out before the war by the M2 graduated in mils. M1s may have seen limited use. The mil scales was graduated at 20-mil intervals with 10-mil intermediate tick marks divided into 1-mil ticks. The angle of sight scale was graduated in mils in the same manner, 1200-0-1200 mils. On the compass card, north was indicated by a star and the other cardinal directions by W, S, and E. The radium-painted white end of the needle indicated north. The light brown leather M19 case had a rigid rounded pocket with a snap-secured lid and a trousers belt loop on the back. The rigid dark OD  plastic case (10543560) is post-WWII. Today it is known as the “M2 unmounted magnetic compass.” 0.5-b.

Pretty impressive.  Showing that the test of a tool is its usefulness, not its age.

Op-Ed: It's Time To Recognize The Valor Of Cyber Warriors : NPR

Op-Ed: It's Time To Recognize The Valor Of Cyber Warriors : NPR

Hmmmm. . . I"m not convinced.  Seems like the existing awards had it covered to me.

It's amazing to think that, up until World War One, the award that a U.S. serviceman could get was the Congressional Medal of Honor. That was it.  Just that.  They started awarding that during the Civil War, and that was the only award. Even the Purple Heart didn't exist until after World War One.  WWI US troops received wound stripes.

By World War Two awards had expanded, but to a reasonable level basically.  Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, etc., and the Combat Infantry  Badge. The first two awards came in around World War One, and were regarded as such significant awards that the Army went back and took quite a few Congressional Medals of Honor away from soldiers who had received them during the Indian Wars, much to their horror.  The Combat Infantryman's Badge was so restrictive that at first even medics who served with them couldn't receive it.  Cavalrymen, who were mostly deployed as infantrymen during World War Two, couldn't even get it.  All were pretty well thought out awards.  Those basically carried us through Vietnam. But, for some reason, awards have really expanded since then.

 Audie Murphy, who was for many years the highest decorated member of the U.S. Army from World War Two, although at some point in the 70s or 80s, another individual received a late award and surpassed his total.  Murphy went from being a private to a captain during the war, and is pictured here wearing his Congressional Medal of Honor and other medals. Think this is a lot of awards? Take a look below.

Even I have a medal, awarded to me for my six years of service in the Army National Guard.  It's a Reserve Achievement medal of some type (I'm forgetting the correct name), but basically you get that just for having five or six years of service.  It's sort of the Reserve equivalent of the Good Conduct Medal, which in my view is obsolete.  That medal came about in an era when quite a few troops could get through a career as a private without particularly good conduct.  No more.  Now we have an up or out system, and good conduct is part of just staying in. There's really no reason to even have those medals anymore.  Your good conduct is implied by your remaining in the service, or your Honorable Discharge is proof of it when you get out.

My view of this topic includes ribbons as well.  I have an Army Service Ribbon, which is awarded to you simply for getting through basic training.  Does that make sense?  Seems to me getting to wear the uniform implies that you got through basic training.  And I qualify for an Army Reserve Overseas Service Ribbon.  That one is just for serving in an overseas training mission.  I went to South Korea. But, once again, I was ordered to do that. That wouldn't seem to qualify me for a ribbon.  And should I get to wear a ribbon for going to South Korea when Regular Army troops just were allowed to wear overseas service stripes?  That doesn't make very much sense to me.

All this may not mean much to average people, but in my view the endless creation of ribbons and awards cheapens them all.  All the way up through at least the Vietnam War, ribbons and rewards really meant something.  Now, when a medal is created especially for a class of soldier who isn't really in harm's way, that's much less the case, particularly when that new award takes priority over some of the older, combat awards.

General of the Armies John J. Pershing.  Pershing is the second highest ranking U.S. officer of all time, ranking just below, in a technical sense, George Washington but above the various Generals of the Army of World War Two, such as Eisenhower.  Note how he only has a few ribbons even though he was in the Army from 1886 until 1924.  He saw service during the Indian Wars, the Spanish American War, and World War One.

General David Petreaus.  Petreaus retired as a General (the rank, ie., just above Lieutenant General and just below General of the Army, a rank that nobody has been promoted to since the 1950s).  He entered active service in the Army in 1974, and therefore was in during both wars with Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.  Granted, that's real service. . . but doesn't the ribbon volume seem a bit excessive in comparison to Pershing?

NPR.org » After Horse Meat Scandal, Why Is Some Food Taboo?

NPR.org » After Horse Meat Scandal, Why Is Some Food Taboo?

I have to admit that, other than the Vietnamese dish with "eyeballs" mentioned by "Frank" in the broadcast, almost nothing mentioned here as a food bothers me for some reason.

Help Wanted and Yeoman's Second Law of History

From this past Sunday's Casper Star Tribune.  A couple of great, descriptive advertisments of some iconic Western jobs, which people like to imagine are a thing of the past, but which actually are not.

FARM & RANCH Livestock Worker (Open Range) , Wyoming 3 Livestock Workers (Open Range) wanted. Performs any combination of the following seasonal duties involved in the open range tending of commercial livestock to assist ranch owners. Primary responsibilities are: Attend to livestock on the open range: harness, drive and feed cattle with teams of horses; feeds and waters livestock; herds livestock to pasture for grazing; examines animals to detect diseases and injuries; assists with the vaccination of livestock by herding into corral and/or stall or manually restraining animal on the range; applies medications to cuts and bruises; sprays livestock with insecticide; assists with castration of livestock; clips identifying notches on or brands animals; may assist with irrigating, planting, cultivating, and harvesting hay. Workers must be able to ride and handle horses in a manner to assure the safety of the worker, co-workers, and livestock. Must be able to find and maintain bearings to grazing areas. Must be willing and able to occasionally live and work independently or in small groups of workers in isolated areas for extended periods of time. Attend to cow-calf pairs principally on vast rugged fall, winter, and spring ranges using horses and trained dogs to keep range cattle in designated grazing areas in accordance with federal grazing permits; assist with monitoring/maintenance of water sources, water tanks, pipelines and reservoirs to ensure movement of range cattle to adhere to grazing plans; assist with calving; may help with supplemental feeding of range livestock using trucks, tractors and related trailers; protect and care for cow-calf pairs; may assist with branding, ear notching, dehorning, castrating, vaccinating livestock; report observations of livestock to rancher concerning health and injuries and help with administration of medications; assist with gathering, sorting, weaning and shipment of range livestock; assist with movement of cow-calf pairs through chutes/corrals & onto scales during sorting & shipping process; care for horses including shoeing horses; may assist with care of small herds of sheep/goats; maintain/construct fences/corrals (metal & wood) using related equipment. May assist with irrigation of hay meadows using gravity flow, wheel and pivot; may assist with planting, maintenance and harvest of hay meadows which provide supplemental feed or forage for range livestock; may use tractors, trucks, trailers, other supplemental feeding and hay harvesting equipment, other equipment, etc. necessary for performance of above duties; may assist with maintenance of machinery and equipment; may assist with maintenance of ranch buildings. Lives in mobile camps or other housing principally on the range. On call 24 hrs./day, 7 days/week. Work tools, supplies, equipment provided w/out cost to worker. Employment for of work contract guaranteed. Transportation & subsistence expenses to worksite provided by employer, 6 months experience (exp.) in above duties req'd. & references req'd. to verify exp. ( if exp. has not been in immediate preceding 12 months, up to 2 references req'd.). Must be physically able to perform above job duties. 3 job openings; positions are temporary from 3/01/2013 12/31/2013. Wages: $1500/month plus housing provided at no cost to workers who cannot reasonably return to their permanent residence at the end of the work day. Employer: Pretty Water LLC. Location: primarily on range land south of Rock Springs, Wyoming (Sweetwater County) (Southwest Wyoming). Report or send resume to nearest Wyoming Dept. of Workforce Services office. Main office: 100 W. Midwest Ave., Casper, WY 82601 Ph: 307-233-4657. Job Order #2518282

LIVESTOCK WORKER 5 Livestock Workers wanted. Performs any combination of following seasonal duties for range production of livestock: attend to cow-calf pairs on vast ranges using horses & trained dogs to keep in designated areas; assist w/monitoring/maintenance of water sources, water tanks, pipelines & reservoirs; assist w/ calving, supplemental feeding of range livestock; protect/care for cow-calf pairs; may help w/ branding, ear notching, dehorning, castrating, vaccinating livestock; report observations of livestock concerning health/injuries & help w/ administration of medications; assist w/ gathering, sorting, weaning & shipment of range livestock; may assist w/ care of small herds of sheep/goats; maintain/construct fences/ corrals (metal/wood) using related tools; may assist w/irrigation of hay meadows using gravity flow, wheel & pivot; may assist with planting, maintenance & harvest of hay meadows; may use tractors, trucks, trailers, other supplemental feeding & hay harvesting equipment, etc. necessary to perform above duties; may assist w/ maintenance of machinery & equipment. Live in mobile camps/ housing principally on range. On call 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week. Work tools, supplies, equipment provided w/out cost to worker. Employment for of work contract guaranteed. Transportation & subsistence expenses to worksite provided by employer, 6 months experience (exp.) in above duties req'd. & references req'd. to verify exp. ( if exp. has not been in immediate preceding 12 months, up to 2 references req'd.). Must be physically able to perform above job duties, Employer: Vermillion Ranch Limited Partnership. Location: principally on range land south of Rock Springs, WY, extreme NW CO & NE corner of UT. 5 job openings; positions are temporary from 3/01/2013 11/30/2013. Wages: $1,200/month plus housing and board. Report or send resume to nearest Wyoming Dept. of Workforce Services office. Main Office: 100 W. Midwest Ave., Casper, WY 82601 Ph. 307-233-4657. Job Order # 2518574.

FARM & RANCH Sheepherders 10 Sheepherders wanted: Using horses & trained dogs, care for & herd large flock of sheep on open range; guard flocks from predators & from eating poisonous plants; round up strays; may assist in lambing, docking, branding, drenching, medicating, vaccinating, shearing; tag, clip, & sort/cut culls; check animals for illness/injury; assist w/ supplemental feeding using wagon pulled by draft horses; care for & shoe horse(s), work w/ horses to train to direct ewes back to lambs; repair/construct fences; may assist w/ water pipeline delivery system for sheep. On call 24 hrs/day, 7 days/week. Work tools, supplies, & equipment provided at no cost to workers. Employment for three-forths of work contract guaranteed. Transportation & subsistence expenses to worksite provided by employer. Wages: $750/month + free housing & board to all workers. 3 months experience req'd. & reference req'd. to verify experience. Must be physically able to perform above job duties. 10 job openings; positions are Temporary from 3/5/2013-3/4/2014. Employer: Midland Livestock Company. Location: primarily on range land near Farson & Rock Springs, Wyoming. Report or send resume to nearest Wyoming Dept. of Workforce Services office. Main office: 100 W. Midwest Ave., Casper, WY 82601 Ph: 307-233-4657. Job Order #2518400

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health

Hooray, now I can base my morning coffee addiction on science!

The Science Behind Coffee and Why it's Actually Good for Your Health

Coffee Can Make You Smarter

Coffee doesn't just keep you awake, it may literally make you smarter as well. The active ingredient in coffee is caffeine, which is a stimulant and the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance in the world. Caffeine's primary mechanism in the brain is blocking the effects of an inhibitory neurotransmitter called Adenosine. By blocking the inhibitory effects of Adenosine, caffeine actually increases neuronal firing in the brain and the release of other neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine (1, 2). Many controlled trials have examined the effects of caffeine on the brain, demonstrating that caffeine can improve mood, reaction time, memory, vigilance and general cognitive function (3).
Bottom Line: Caffeine potently blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, leading to a net stimulant effect. Controlled trials show that caffeine improves both mood and brain function.

 I'd hate to think of how dumb I'd be without it.  Ouch.

Epilogue:

Since I first posted this, there's been a couple of additional items of this type. And here's yet another oddball one, including dual theoretical vices, coffee and beer:

A new study suggests that sugary drinks may slightly raise ones risk of kidney stones while caffeinated and alcoholic drinks may help reduce the risk, CBS News reported.
"Our prospective study confirms that some beverages are associated with a lower risk of kidney stone formation, whereas others are associated with a higher risk," study co-author Dr. Pietro Manual Ferraro, a kidney specialist at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Rome, said in a statement.

 Of course, it isn't really saying drink beer all day long.

It is interesting to note, however, in this context that John "Pandoro" Taylor once credited the saving of the life of a friend of his to "kraal", some sort of weak African beer.  Having said that, it isn't as if alcohol doesn't have its own risks.