Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West
Author:
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Paperback
Author:
Genre: Biographies & Memoirs
Book Type: Paperback
Leo T. reviewed on + 1775 more book reviews
I have an ARC, which appears complete, but that I would not dare to offer to comrades waiting and waiting for this title which comes up about once a year....
The interested reader is offered insight into ranching today.
An introspective guy who has kicked around in several jobs, the author takes a summer job cowboying at a ranch that is managed with conservation of the land coming first. He had some previous experience as a kid, but admires his more experienced comrades and learns a lot. The work is often very hard (there are only two hands and the foreman) but he finds it rewarding when he can do it well and has time to enjoy this corner of Montana. The work is well described as they walk, ride one of the two horses they each have, use a truck or an ATV.
They are well-supplied with tools, the ranch being owned by a fellow who made his pile in the Silicon Valley and sold out during the Clinton Administration. Roger explains that the summer grazing earnings barely pay for wages and upkeep.
He is an approachable guy, but seldom present as he travels to care for his other interests, including a high end dude ranch adjacent to Sun Ranch. "The lodge staff earned their wages by making life easy for wealthy dudes, and I had a hard time forgiving them for it. They worked a good deal less than the ranch crew, and probably made more money when you counted all the tips. I seldom visited Papoose Creek, and the lodge staff rarely made it up onto the high, sere benches of the ranch. We lived apart with one major exception: each Wednesday, the lodge held a barbecue on the bank of lower Squaw Creek. All the guests piled onto a wagon drawn by two matched Percherons, and the whole ensemble made the arduous journey of a half mile across a lush pasture where the lodge grazed their horses. Arriving at their destination, the guests were treated to a dinner of mammoth proportions. Every week, work permitting, one or two members of the ranch crew were allowed to join the festivities. The idea, as I understood it, was to lend a bit of authenticity to the proceedings, mingle with the guests and answer any questions about the ranch that might arise. In other words, show up covered in dirt, with blistered hands and worn-out jeans, and act like a cowboy. In exchange for this, we got to eat slow-cooked ribs; barbecued chicken; roasted vegetables; multiple pasta, potato, and green salads; fresh bread; and the finest baked beans I've had before or since." He admits he spent his time stuffing his face and visiting with girls who worked at the lodge, but he did hide his truck and wait until the guests had left before driving home. There were several cabins available to live in but the hands had to provide their own chow.
The ranch is made up of many old homesteads and utilizes the grazing rights on some public land. The cattle mostly belong to a stockman with some being the property of a nearby rancher and none winter there. Orville Skogen, the stockman, bought calves at auction in the fall, wintered them, and then had them on good grass at various places where they might gain two or three pounds a day. Given one hundred days on the summer grass, cattle selling for about a dollar a pound on the hoof, and the ranch charging him half a dollar a day for each critter, it could be profitable. "Every loss [of cattle] had to be reported over the phone and...I doubted that the conversion of a cool thousand dollars into wolf shit did much to improve Orville's thorny disposition."
Large numbers of elk winter there, coming down from their summer of foraging in high meadows. There are many other animals present, bears being the biggest, and wolves the most potentially troublesome. Ranchers have reason to be unhappy about bringing trouble to the range.
Mr. Andrews includes several fictional interludes told from the point of view of the wolf pack. He faces the dilemma of not wanting to kill a wolf ranging on a conservation-oriented ranch but having to protect the cattle they have charge of. The current pack has moved into available territory after the reintroduction of the creature into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, the first wolf pack having been eliminated for killing sheep and cattle. Wolves tend to have large litters and elk are hard to catch in the high pastures, leading to easier prey (cattle) being taken when the pack has many mouths to feed. They first try to scare wolves away, but they become bolder. They get a permit and shoot two, causing the pack to relocate to the high country.
There are a few photos and a fairly good map, although it could better identify locations described in the text.
The interested reader is offered insight into ranching today.
An introspective guy who has kicked around in several jobs, the author takes a summer job cowboying at a ranch that is managed with conservation of the land coming first. He had some previous experience as a kid, but admires his more experienced comrades and learns a lot. The work is often very hard (there are only two hands and the foreman) but he finds it rewarding when he can do it well and has time to enjoy this corner of Montana. The work is well described as they walk, ride one of the two horses they each have, use a truck or an ATV.
They are well-supplied with tools, the ranch being owned by a fellow who made his pile in the Silicon Valley and sold out during the Clinton Administration. Roger explains that the summer grazing earnings barely pay for wages and upkeep.
He is an approachable guy, but seldom present as he travels to care for his other interests, including a high end dude ranch adjacent to Sun Ranch. "The lodge staff earned their wages by making life easy for wealthy dudes, and I had a hard time forgiving them for it. They worked a good deal less than the ranch crew, and probably made more money when you counted all the tips. I seldom visited Papoose Creek, and the lodge staff rarely made it up onto the high, sere benches of the ranch. We lived apart with one major exception: each Wednesday, the lodge held a barbecue on the bank of lower Squaw Creek. All the guests piled onto a wagon drawn by two matched Percherons, and the whole ensemble made the arduous journey of a half mile across a lush pasture where the lodge grazed their horses. Arriving at their destination, the guests were treated to a dinner of mammoth proportions. Every week, work permitting, one or two members of the ranch crew were allowed to join the festivities. The idea, as I understood it, was to lend a bit of authenticity to the proceedings, mingle with the guests and answer any questions about the ranch that might arise. In other words, show up covered in dirt, with blistered hands and worn-out jeans, and act like a cowboy. In exchange for this, we got to eat slow-cooked ribs; barbecued chicken; roasted vegetables; multiple pasta, potato, and green salads; fresh bread; and the finest baked beans I've had before or since." He admits he spent his time stuffing his face and visiting with girls who worked at the lodge, but he did hide his truck and wait until the guests had left before driving home. There were several cabins available to live in but the hands had to provide their own chow.
The ranch is made up of many old homesteads and utilizes the grazing rights on some public land. The cattle mostly belong to a stockman with some being the property of a nearby rancher and none winter there. Orville Skogen, the stockman, bought calves at auction in the fall, wintered them, and then had them on good grass at various places where they might gain two or three pounds a day. Given one hundred days on the summer grass, cattle selling for about a dollar a pound on the hoof, and the ranch charging him half a dollar a day for each critter, it could be profitable. "Every loss [of cattle] had to be reported over the phone and...I doubted that the conversion of a cool thousand dollars into wolf shit did much to improve Orville's thorny disposition."
Large numbers of elk winter there, coming down from their summer of foraging in high meadows. There are many other animals present, bears being the biggest, and wolves the most potentially troublesome. Ranchers have reason to be unhappy about bringing trouble to the range.
Mr. Andrews includes several fictional interludes told from the point of view of the wolf pack. He faces the dilemma of not wanting to kill a wolf ranging on a conservation-oriented ranch but having to protect the cattle they have charge of. The current pack has moved into available territory after the reintroduction of the creature into Yellowstone National Park in 1995, the first wolf pack having been eliminated for killing sheep and cattle. Wolves tend to have large litters and elk are hard to catch in the high pastures, leading to easier prey (cattle) being taken when the pack has many mouths to feed. They first try to scare wolves away, but they become bolder. They get a permit and shoot two, causing the pack to relocate to the high country.
There are a few photos and a fairly good map, although it could better identify locations described in the text.
