Hot Weather - The Rendezvous & Sitting in the Shade

What About this Heat?

It has ben hot the last couple of weeks. So hot that grass is turning brown fast, tough for ranchers and for city people who like a beautiful green lawn. Wyoming’s all-time record high was 115 degrees set in Basin in August of 1983. We have been over 100 but thankfully quite a few degrees from 115. Reminds me of the old Wyoming joke about the heat – “I watched a Coyote chasing a Jack Rabbit and it was so hot they were both walking.”

Rendezvous

During these hot days of July, nothing beat sitting around in the shade, swapping stories, and in the case of many trappers, drinking, and overeating. Rendezvous took place this time of the year, July, a time when trappers really had nothing to do. Must have been quite a site, these Rendezvous, with boisterous talking, games, races, music, and dancing.  Trappers from big companies were joined by free trappers and Native Indians and salesmen with trade goods. The trade goods often include not only trapping supplies, but women for hire, and large quantities of bad whiskey. A few trappers brought in their wives and sometimes children. Some of the later rendezvous included tourists, newsmen, and artists, leaving behind a rich history. A history that is often fiction, as much as fact, interesting and colorful times they were indeed.

Meanwhile

Enjoy the heat and remember it brings on, great gardens, baseball, barbecues and many other great summer activities.

Now I think I will go outside sit in the shade and read a good book.

Speaking of good books if you would like a bit of Wyoming fiction, you can see all my books here. Thanks for looking, all available in softcover or eBook.

Thoughts on the Impending Spring Blizzard

If the weather man is correct, it looks like we are in for another spring storm starting this evening. Prediction for 8-14 inches of heavy wet snow for this area. Wyoming weather is not the most predictable so, who knows? As I have mentioned before, we need the moisture. I did get the fertilizer on the lawn yesterday which means if the snow comes, my timing was impeccable.

Coming Soon - Right Here

Back in the Old Days

When Wyoming first established itself as cattle country, ranchers, some good and some not so good brought in cattle by the thousand. Texas Longhorns were cheap and once they were here much of the range was open and free to run cattle. In 1874, Wyoming had less than 100,000 head of cattle, five years later more than half a million grazed the state.

This Old Boy Doesn't Look Too Concerned  About Bad Weather Coming

At that time, ranchers believed the weather was predictable and that the winter winds would keep much of the range open during the cold months, but they were wrong. Today we have many types of sophisticated weather equipment to predict storms like the one coming in a few hours. In the 1870s and 80s, it was weather guessed by the seat of their pants. Most new cattlemen either hoped for no bad weather or simply supposed it would not come. Nice try but it did not work.

The Great Blizzard of 1887

In November of 1886 heavy snow started to fall, so much of it in fact,  that the range was covered for two months. Warm windy days in January of 1887 staved off a complete disaster, but then the blizzard came. One of the states worst hit on January, 28 dumping massive amounts of snow for four days. The results were a disaster, tens of thousands of cattle were dead and stockmen would never treat winter the same again.

Bison, Unlike Cattle, Seem to Have No Problem with Snow Cover

Cattle herds were rebuilt more slowly and much more carefully after that eventful blizzard and ranching in the Cowboy State would never be the same. Cattle would no longer be left, far out on the range to fend for themselves all winter long. Ranchers would move cattle from the high country in the early fall, and many started to put up hay to ensure feed if snows became too much.

So Here We Go again

 Getting ready for our third spring snowstorm of the season. I planted some potatoes and peas in my garden but don’t suppose they will mind some cold and snow. Our trees are starting to leaf out and our early flowers look terrific, maybe not so much on Sunday.

Looks Like it Might Be a Few More Weeks for this

Predicting Weather Today

Might be a Weekend to Sit by the Fire
This one is at the North Bluff Castle in Guernsey State Park

Predicting weather is a tough job. It is also one of those jobs that seemingly everyone thinks they can do better than the pros. If they are correct we may be seeing closed roads in the area, just hope we do not get another day long power outage like we did two weeks ago. 

If We Get Only a Few Inches of Snow it will still be Great Hiking Weather

Trivia for a Snowy Day

We had a pretty nice little snowstorm last night and this morning, our deck and back yard have about four or five inches of the heavy wet white stuff.  

It was still snowing here, about nine this morning

Don’t Complain About the Weather

When I was a kid and complained about rain or snow, my dad would often say, “Farmers need the moisture.” He was right, any moisture this time of year is good and we were getting dry, even for a dry area like eastern Wyoming. He also reminded me that there was not much we could do about the weather even if we didn’t like it. Wet days like this help pastures, lawns and wildflowers.

North Platte River this morning - less than 1/4 mile from the Oregon Trail

Wyoming Weather

Wyoming, depending on location gets 9-16 inches of measurable precipitation each year, so every little bit helps.

Rushes in the snow

Trivia from Wyoming

It has been a few weeks since I posted any Wyoming trivia, and a cold, wet, windy March day like today is a perfect trivia day. Here goes five questions to mystify, baffle, surprise, and humor you.  

Bonus Question
Who was President of the United States when this building was constructed?
We are standing at the front door
 

-Good Luck, answers below next photo-

1. Why was the Organic Act (passed by Congress, July 25, 1868) important to Wyoming?

2. What Wyoming ranching custom is portrayed on the Buffalo in the center of the Wyoming state flag?

3. What is the Crow Indian word meaning, “tattooed?

4. What was the name of the trail that left the Oregon Trail for the Gold Fields of Montana?

5. Reverend William Vaux was the first of these in Wyoming? Hint not a preacher.

-Answers-

Bonus answer - F.D.R. (Museum built by the CCC at Guernsey State Park)

1. Created Wyoming Territory

2. Branding

3. Arapahoe

4. Bozeman Trail

5. First Wyoming teacher at first Wyoming school – 1852, Fort Laramie. -- I should note here that for most of the years of its existence, the school at the fort was taught by soldiers given that duty, or forced into that duty, most, if not all, hated it. In at least one case, a soldier was relieved of his teaching duties and put in the brig, for being drunk on the job.

4 Season Wyoming

It happens every year. August rolls around and it is too hot. Not for me, but people all around are complaining. “I’m ready for fall,” is one of the most heard comments this time of year.

The problem is that we live in a true four season area - if fall comes early, winter cannot be far behind. A few skiers might be anxious for winter and snow, but most of us can wait. I like the heat, enjoy sipping Ice Tea on the deck in the shade, now that’s livin’.

The all-time record high for Wyoming I the summer is 116 degrees, now that’s hot. Much cooler here our all-time high is a mere 115. And about cold, Wyoming’s all-time low is -66 degrees. Here, where I live, the low is a banana beltish, -46 degrees.

A touch of snow last winter

We live in a high plains desert climate here with not much rain (a bit over13 inches a year), but not much snow either, (only 16 inches a year). Together that only adds up to about 15 total inches of moisture a year. Dry but low humidity and not much wind makes for comfortable living most of the year.

Grandkids walking in the summer sunshine

I enjoy the four seasons we have here. In winter, we have mild spells when it is quite nice outside. I have managed to play golf in 35 of the last 36 months and the month I skipped others did get out.

When it’s summer, I love it, when it is fall, I love it, when it is spring, I love it and when it is winter – well it’s cold outside.

Spring wind on the water at Guernsey State Park

4 seasons – couldn’t live without them!

Wyoming Wind and a Plug Hat

Wyoming Wind and a Plug Hat

Bill Nye, my all-time favorite western humorist, like the rest of us who live in Wyoming often made a few unpleasant comments about the Wyoming wind. February seems to always be the bleak month in the Cowboy state. Cold and wind dominate.

 Nye entitled one of the short stories in his book, Forty Liars and Other Lies, “The Plug Hat in Wyoming,” and you guessed it, the wind is the antagonist.

Here is what he had to say –

“In the first place, the climate of Wyoming is not congenial to the plug hat. You may wear one at 1 o’clock with impunity, if you can dodge the vigilance committee, and at three minutes past1 a little cat’s paw of wind will come sighing down from the Snowy Range, that make the cellars and drive-wells tremble, and the hat looks like a frightened picket fence.”

He also plays with the idea of the hat maybe being too much of a dudes head topper to be worn in the rough and tumble 1870s – 80s Wyoming. “In former years they used to hang a man who wore a plug hat west of the Missouri but after a while they found that it was a more cruel and horrible punishment to let him wear it and chase it over the foothills when the frolicsome breeze caught it up and toyed with it, and landed it against the broad brow of Laramie Peak.

He does mention that the hats can be found as long as you are willing to travel fifteen or twenty miles, “as the crow flies,” to find it.

In the end he explains the hat of the day, the western style of hat. “Time may overcome at last the public disfavor, but until the Rocky Mountain wind is lulled to repose, so that a plug hat will not have to be tied on with a wrought iron stair-rod, the soft hat will be the prevailing style of roof.”

Bill Nye lived all too short a life (1850-1896) and unfortunately his very popular newspaper column was only partially saved over the years. Reading him today, more than a hundred years later he is still funny, no wonder he traveled the lecture circuit with Mark Twain.