Dave
Well-known member
Took a little road trip this last week down to Winnemucca Nevada and back. Took the daughter in law a trailer load of firewood. Went to the Superior sale. Watched feeder calves sell decent (some calves selling for over $2.00) and then pretty much everyone PO the bred heifers. On the way home the wife wanted to take the scenic route past the area where she owned her ranch. In the three hours from the DIL's house to French Glen we past 6 cars, 3 deer, 1 antelope, and more jackrabbits than I care to count. Also a fair number of cows standing on the shoulder of the road but thankfully none on the road. This is range area so a lot of it has no fences. Getting the guided tour from the wife as we drove through she would point out every ranch and the first and last name of the owners and most of their children at every ranch for close to 100 miles from her old place. We drove past Roaring Springs ranch which is just flipping huge. The range land involved with this ranch is over a million acres. The Catlow Valley is pretty impressive.
And then we dropped down in to French Glen. There was a steady stream of cars coming from the north headed out toward the lower end of the Malheur wildlife refuge and the Steens Mountains. The wife said that in all the years she lived there she had never seen traffic like this. Her next comment was if it is tourist season why can't you shoot them? This is ranch country where it is 10 -15 miles between ranches and if you only run cows on 20,000 acres you are small potatoes. Everyone knows everyone else. But all these tourist out of Portland and other urban areas have got the cattle run out of the Steens and trying to expand the refuge to take over ranches. I hadn't been down there in a lot of years. Parts of the country is the same as it was a long time ago. The roads are better and of course vehicles are better but other than that things are the same as they were 100 years ago. Cattle are still gathered horseback and herded right down the highway. Kids attend one room schools for the first 8 grades and have to board out in town through high school. The entire economy of the area is based on the price of calves. It was pretty sad to see all those tourist
And then we dropped down in to French Glen. There was a steady stream of cars coming from the north headed out toward the lower end of the Malheur wildlife refuge and the Steens Mountains. The wife said that in all the years she lived there she had never seen traffic like this. Her next comment was if it is tourist season why can't you shoot them? This is ranch country where it is 10 -15 miles between ranches and if you only run cows on 20,000 acres you are small potatoes. Everyone knows everyone else. But all these tourist out of Portland and other urban areas have got the cattle run out of the Steens and trying to expand the refuge to take over ranches. I hadn't been down there in a lot of years. Parts of the country is the same as it was a long time ago. The roads are better and of course vehicles are better but other than that things are the same as they were 100 years ago. Cattle are still gathered horseback and herded right down the highway. Kids attend one room schools for the first 8 grades and have to board out in town through high school. The entire economy of the area is based on the price of calves. It was pretty sad to see all those tourist
