Thoughts on a Warm March Day

Interesting to see the big storm in the east when here in Wyoming I spent three hours sitting on the deck in a short sleeve shirt drinking iced tea. Hope all is well on the coast, and no one is injured by the storm, looks like a bad one.

We often get a bad rap for our terrible Wyoming weather, but not so bad today. In my little part of the state, the weather is our well-kept secret. With mountains a few miles to the west, we seem to live in a moderate climate, not much wind and much warmer than most non-Wyomingites would guess. I have played golf at least twice in 34 of the past 36 months. Today my tomato plants are eight days old and sitting in the sun on the deck. Enough bragging about the weather.

When I was researching my newest novel, I am waiting for the proof now.  I read through many pages of material about the closing of Fort Laramie, The Wounded Knee massacre and Wyoming statehood, all which took place in 1890.

Oddly of all the forts in Wyoming, the 41 years, that Fort Laramie existed was the longest of any fort in the state. It shows the short amount of years that passed with westward expansion, the 49ers, the Indian wars, the transcontinental railroad, the telegraph and the pony express. What a time in Wyoming and what a time in the west.

Cover of my new book - Photo from Fort Laramie
If the proof is good the book will  be available in a few days

  

For many years I had my students do a paper on, What time in history would you go back to, if time travel were possible? They could pick any time period in American history and surprisingly quite a few picked the 1950s and 1960s, my time – maybe I talked too much about my growing up years. Of course, many picked the Oregon Trail or 49ers time. A few always wanted early America and the founding fathers. I told them I wanted the 1820-1840 mountain man time, I always wanted to be a mountain man, but now looking at the time, 1849-1890 of Fort Laramie, that would have been historically fascinating.

Photo from last year at Fort Laramie - Fur Trade Days

Speaking of interesting times in history, in the photo below I am standing by, what I believe, is the only remaining cap house, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, in America. This one is in great shape in Guernsey State Park. Oh, by the way, a cap house stored dynamite caps, far away from the dynamite.

This photo was taken early this week on a terrific day to be in the park.

So ends my thoughts on a beautiful Wyoming day. 

Wyoming Mule Deer

We Need Snow Like it's 1886 Again

This winter has been so open in our part of Wyoming that it reminded me we are still in drought. We need snow, we’ll take rain, but we need snow. Hope the weather is not setting up for another disaster like the one in 1886. Won’t happen because we are better prepared today than the ranchers of more than a century ago, we hope.

The Wyoming summer of 1886 was hot and dry; cattle went into winter in less than perfect condition. In November heavy snow came and it stayed for two months. In late January the snows came again, snowing for four days and three nights before letting up. By spring the bad news was apparent, piles of dead cattle, many others were wobbling from starvation. Wyoming in 1886 proudly boasted of it being the greatest place on earth to raise livestock with over nine million cattle on the range. By 1895 only three million were left.

The main lessons learned from drought and blizzards were simple. Put up hay for winter feed and sell down when the grass is bad in the summer. Cattle once again cover the pasture lands of Wyoming, but never again will ranchers overdo like days past. We are getting better and proud of it. But we still need snow or rain.

How dry and warm has it been this winter? I have played 18 rounds of golf since the first of December, shouldn’t happen in Wyoming. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the golf, but right now I would rather go sledding, sit by the fire and sip hot chocolate.