Pat & Sharon O'Toole

Rain clouds over Battle Mountain and Sand Man Mountain
Cody and Cindy McKee's pasture with their cows and calves

Incredibly, it keeps raining and raining. We have flirted with, and sometimes downright embraced, drought conditions for eight years. In 2002, we had dry winter, dry spring, dry summer, dry fall, and fires. This year, in the Little Snake River drainage, we had a 120 per cent snowfall, and that was before the rain started. It seems we are living in the tropics, because every afternoon, a monsoon opens up. This means several things. In the big picture, it means healthy plants, an abundant grazing season, and habitat galore, for both livestock and wildlife. In our day to day lives, it meant that we could barely find dry days to brand the calves. Luckily, they were close to home, so we could set up in a high spot. So far, we have not been able to dock any lambs at all. We should have a couple of thousand done by now. We literally cannot get into the lambing grounds with equipment and a crew. Muddy Mountain earned its name, and the roads are impassable. The camp tenders have cell phones, so we can keep in contact. Tomorrow, Eamon will pack food and dog food into the herders by pack horse. We are hoping for dry weather next week, so that we can push hard to get the lambs docked before we start on the trail around June 20th. If we can't, we'll make another plan to dock the lambs along the way. As my Dad likes to say, they are getting "big enough to get ahold of!"

In the meantime, Pat was checking out the Lidstone pasture, and found these migrating elk.

Two cow elk with calf
Lidstone Ranch

Elk calf running
Lidstone Ranch

Approaching Savery from the West
photos by Pat O'Toole