Smoke
The smoke from burning ditch banks enshrouded our dwindling hay pile.
Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole
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The smoke from burning ditch banks enshrouded our dwindling hay pile.
Home Ranch
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Ever wonder why rural schools always have dynamite basketball teams? They start 'em young!
Siobhan, ready for play in regulation footwear
Hanna, Wyoming
photo by Brian Lally
The budding Little Snake River Rattlers
sponsored by the Utah Jazz
photo by Leigh Ann Adams
Sheep Mountain
April Fool's Day
Pat, deep in discussion with Mike Connor, Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
Washington D.C.
March lobbying trip for the Family Farm Alliance
Siobhan's 6th birthday
She decorated the cake herself AND helped make it!
April 6, 2010
Calves and cows
Lemmons Place
Spotted calf
Home Ranch
photo by Meghan Lally
Vulture above calving pasture
Home Ranch
photo by Meghan Lally
Hampshire ewes and lambs
Powder Flat
Moffat County, Colorado
Unloading woolie sheep
Waiting for the shearers
Badwater Pasture
Carbon County, Wyoming
Spring pasture at Badwater
Pat and his new pup, Sadie
Border collies at play
photos by Sharon O'Toole
Faithful readers may have notice a dearth of entries lately. Alas, my camera was missing in action. I took it in to be repaired, and it disappeared. The camera folks searched high and low and finally gave me a good deal on a new one. I did borrow Pat's cameras, and he and Meghan took some photos, but it wasn't the same. Now I am back in business and have some photo offerings.
Seamus, Meghan, Maeve, Sharon, Megan and Eamon
Vermillion Falls (left of Megan's leg)
Brown's Park
A few days ago, we decided to take a "road trip" to Brown's Park, a wonderful landscape to the west of us. It lies on the Wyoming/Colorado/Utah border, which made it the perfect hideout for outlaws like Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch. To learn more about Brown's Park's' fascinating history, read Diana Allen Kouris's books, "The Romantic and Notorious History of Brown's Park" and "Riding the Edge of an Era: Growing Up Cowboy on the Outlaw Trail". "Where the Old West Stayed Young" by John Rolfe Burroughs also recounts a lot of Brown's Park history (along with that of our own valley, the Little Snake).
Vermillion Falls
Raftopoulis Headquarters
the historic Two Bar
Brown's Park Deer
Gates of Lodore
photos by Pat O'Toole
The Gates of Lodore were named by Andrew Hall, a member of John Wesley Powell's expedition, in 1869. He named The Gates of Lodore after a poem called, "The Cataract of Lodore," by Robert Southey. The Canyon of Lodore lies in the upper end of the Dinosaur National Monument, which was created in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson. In 1938 the park was enlarged to include this incredible canyon and the Yampa River. (from "Gates of Lodore Canyon History").
To read the full text of this wonderful poem, read "Extended Entry".
"The Cataract of Lodore''
by Robert Southey
" How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy ask'd me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he task'd me
To tell him in rhyme.
Anon at the word
There came first one daughter
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store:
And 'twas in my vocation
For their recreation
That so should I sing
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
From its sources which well
In the Tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For awhile till it sleeps
In its own little Lake.
And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood-shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-scurry.
Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.
The Cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among:
Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound!
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound.
Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And flowing and going,
And running and stunning,
And foaming and roaming,
And dinning and spinning,
And dropping and hopping,
And working and jerking,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning;
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and scurrying,
And thundering and floundering,
Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And diving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling,
And sounding and bounding and rounding,
And bubbling and troubling and doubling,
And grumbling and rumbling and tumbling,
And clattering and battering and shattering;
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
April 6, 2010
my deck
photo by Sharon O'Toole
ApriI
I am ever your Fool.
Thinking green thoughts
As you whirl
With your blizzardly tricks
Swirling white showers,
Throwing gales
and tales
Of warmth, of grass.
Your laughter haunting
like a coyote's howl.
I believe.
I found the following wonderful poem on the online news service, NewWest.com. Cheers to Jenny Shank!
RED, DEAD
red trees are dead
Medicine Bow National Forest
Carbon County, Wyoming
photo by Sharon O'Toole
Dr. Seuss Explains the Rocky Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemic
By Jenny Shank, 4-01-10
I will not eat green pine, says Flea.
Trees do not taste so good to me.
I will, I will, says the beetle.
I will eat them down to needles.
The beetles bite, they bore through bark.
They bore all day, they bite in dark.
They lay their eggs inside the tree.
And that makes more of them, you see.
The beetles eat all types of pine.
The mountain air suits them just fine.
Lodgepole, Whitebark, Scots and Limber
They will eat all sorts of timber.
RED RED
the needles turn red.
RED DEAD
red trees are dead.
BROWN DOWN
Brown trees fall down.
BURN TURN
In turn, they’ll burn.
To read the entire poem, go to the following link
The opinions expressed in the Western Folklife Center's Deep West online journals are those of the online journal participants and not the Western Folklife Center. The Western Folklife Center does not moderate these journals and as such does not guarantee the veracity, reliability or completeness of any information provided in the journals or in any hyperlink appearing within them.
