Left Messy for Wintering Wildlife

Originally published as Commentary in the Post Register on October 18, 2017

I saw three wooly caterpillars on my walk today. They were rushing across the paved road, determined to find the perfect overwintering spot, a pile of leaves or a bit of dried grass to hide under. In the spring they’ll turn into tiger moths and be part of the web of life we enjoy during the summer months.

I’m cheering for them because in our world it’s fall clean-up time. For farmers tidying post-harvest and homeowners hoping to improve the look of frost beleaguered floral beds, we rush to rake, pile, till and otherwise rid the landscape of organic refuse. Or is it refuse after all?

Not if you’re a worm, a goldfinch, a partridge or a ladybug. That goldfinch will thank you for leaving seedheads standing on your long-past brilliant patches of black-eyed susans. Partridges will make use of any standing brush, weeds and grasses as food and shelter, not only from winter winds, but from the jaws of a coyote. Ladybugs and other beneficial insects need rough organic material to overwinter. A few limbs left in the corner of your yard or a pile of leaves at the base of a tree might be home to adults or eggs that will hatch in the spring.

Driving the roads this fall, look for signs of fellow citizens making a difference for living organisms that can’t come indoors for the winter. Thank a farmer for standing crops, the pivot corner planted to perennials, or a windbreak at the edge of his field. Thank a rancher for deep pastures and for keeping open spaces, “open.”  Thank the irrigation company for trees, grasses and weeds that line the canals in our community.  

And it’s not just for wildlife in the traditional sense. I mean “wild” life, including organisms that live in the soil. Some above ground protection and roots left intact below ground mean homes for the millions of microorganisms so vital to healthy soils. Don’t till the garden and kick them out just when the weather gets nasty.  

If that isn’t reason enough, consider that standing perennials catch snow, adding beauty and definition to the winter landscape. And who doesn’t love bird watching in the winter?      

But I have it easy you say. I live in the country and no one cares if I leave my flowerbeds and garden in disarray. What if you live in the city? What will the neighbors think? How about we all get lazy and stick a yard sign out front, “Left messy for wintering wildlife.”

But if you insist, we always welcome lawn clippings and bagged leaves to our ranch in the sandhills. It’s much better than the landfill. Contact me at prattcattle@gmail.com. I”ll meet you at the gate. 

still beautiful

Alone

We spent four days at the mountain ranch weaning calves. Everybody but Mark and I went home after we separated the herd. Early the next morning and every day thereafter, we rode the 4-wheeler out to a fence to make sure the wire was energized between the two groups of cattle. Then we walked a fair distance, crossing the creek at a path of rocks, then climbing towards the ridge line, winding our way through brush and lichen covered rocks and dormant bunch grasses. As we neared the ridge, the bawling of the cows and calves grew louder. From the top we could see the herd stretching out along the fence line and Mark could check the whole expanse through binoculars.

It was an impressive sight, but no rancher likes weaning and seeing his cattle in distress, even if only for the 3-4 day weaning process. Yes, they were walking the fence, but the calves looked healthy and full. Fresh grass and clean, plentiful water are paramount in keeping the calves from getting sick.  

There’s a tiny cabin at the ranch with a front porch and a swinging bench, but we never have time to stop and take in our surroundings. Imagine my surprise when Mark agreed to sit with me wrapped in a sleeping bag as the sun set, watching the horses graze out to the east, the view reaching clear to Wyoming. We hardly talked, just sat.

The nights were long. We had a propane lantern, and standing under it, I read aloud to Mark a book by Teresa Jordan, Riding the White Horse Home. A ranch girl, Jordan made her way from Cheyenne to Colorado State to Yale, and never returned to the ranch, but she loved it always. Her words hit home with us. Words about loss . . . of ranches, of rural communities, of people we love.

I took an empty journal to keep at the cabin. Well, almost empty. It had one entry written by Mark in November of 1997, 20 years ago. I see the book as part guestbook, part a record of happenings at the ranch, part Wendy’s musings (imagine that). I wrote the second entry about the previous owner and how we came to purchase the property after 30+ years of renting. The owner was a gentle soul who didn't fit the image of a traditional cowboy. We never saw him in a Stetson hat or cowboy boots. He wore lace up shoes and rode a horse like a farmer, but he could get more done with cattle on a horse than many men who looked the part.

I’m trying to figure out why the march of time comes to mind so often when we’re up at the cabin. Maybe it’s thinking about the generations of stockmen who have ridden, wrangled, and hunkered out a living on these windy vistas. Maybe it’s because I keep imagining a future when our grandchildren will occupy the now empty top-bunk in the rafters of the cabin. Maybe it's the quiet. 

On our last night I had a dream that Callie was a baby again and I had the chance for a “do-over” raising her. I wanted to, but knew that I was too old and I never saw anyone else getting a “do-over” so doubted that I could pull it off. I told Mark about the dream in the dark of the morning as we put off getting out of the covers.

I said, “I don’t think the passage of time weighs on you as heavily as it does on me.”

His reply was somehow comforting. “It does, but there’s nothing you can do about it. The darn thing just keeps on moving. All you can do is change the way you do it while you’re living it.” 

early morning catch

A good roll follows a day under saddle

day four, spectacular skies 

Cowboy Science

We’ve spent the last week getting the herd settled in our highest elevation pasture. Snow, please hold off. I say this as blizzards break records across the Rockies.

There’s something about fall cattle feed. The grasses are tall, straw colored and seeded out, except for the green leaves at the base of the plants, especially in a wet fall like we’re having. Looks good enough to eat.

There’s an ethereal element to time spent in the fall field. The days are alternately warm and cold, windy and quietly still, crystal clear then cloud covered as the cattle come in and out of view perusing the perimeter of a pasture saved for them during the heat of summer. The calves have a special bloom to their coat – beef in the making.

I’ve been immersed in “range” in more ways than one. I’m reading a history of range science, The Politics of Scale, by Nathan Sayre. It’s too academic for me, but if I go slow enough, underline enough, and read and re-read, I’m good. I always grin at academics who insist on using “temporal and spatial” instead of “time and space.” I know it’s a different application, but every time I come across either word I have to remind myself what it means.

“Scale,” is another word that has broad implications to science as it relates to time and space in a range landscape. In simple terms, it means that research conducted on one landscape cannot readily be applied to other areas of different sizes, different locations, and with different variable factors over time such as weather and grazing. Every region, every watershed, every ranch is different. As is every growing season. Idaho is diverse enough to prove that.

Even in the same pasture, plants can be over-grazed and over-rested. The merging of cow and grass is confounding in its complexity.

Mark and I started work on taking down an old fence, removing staples that held the wire to the posts and then rolling up the old wire in large circles. A few cows came over to see what we were doing. We wondered about the men who built the fence and how many had visited it year after year, repairing the damage caused by snow so they could put the cows in. It’s cowboy work, fencing and tending cows. And looking at grass.

We cowboys (and girls) and range scientists have a lot in common and much to divide us. We use different terms, but in the end, we love the same rolling vistas of robust bunchgrasses, the heavy lift of a sage grouse, the brilliance of quakies in autumn.