I'm Baaaaaaaaaaaack

Sorry to disappoint those who hoped I had gone to that big briar patch in the sky with a dull butter knife.

Mrs. Cow kidnapped me for four days. No surveying, no phone calls, no e-mail. Going to have to get serious here in a bit and start making up for all that luxury.

Could have made it home sooner but we had to get the cattle out of the way first. Decided to cross the massive area known as the Flint Hills via county road instead of highway. One stretch that is 23 miles as the crow flies was over 40 miles and took more than an hour and a half to cross. Drove through water quite a few times at creek crossings that have no culvert, just solid limestone. Crossed a bunch of cattle guards that keep livestock on the appropriate sides of the various pasture fences owned by different people. We saw a total of two other vehicles and those were both pickups with attached stock trailers. In both cases they were at the side of the road waiting for the cowboy(s) to return with their horses that they were on SOMEWHERE over the hills out of our sight. On numerous occasions we found cattle lounging on the road bed and had to give them some encouragement to let us go by. On Saturday that region had flash floods but it was no problem by the time we got to the numerous creek crossings on Tuesday. Water moves quickly when it has little but solid rock to run off of and at steep slopes at times. The soils in the tall grass region are notoriously shallow so it is essential to keep the grass healthy. The ranchers understood this type of thing long before the eco-nuts came along. They are excellent stewards of the natural resources.

Our journey took us near where my mother's father had worked as a young man about 110 years ago as a ranch hand on the Diamond Ranch owned by the 101 Cattle Company. At one time that particular ranch consisted of about 50 sections in one nearly rectangular block roughly 9 miles east to west by 6 miles north to south. The big money people behind the ranch were mainly residing in Massachusetts. They would purchase half-grown calves in Texas then ship them via rail cars to the siding near the middle of the ranch in Kansas for fattening on big and little bluestem grasses in a region ideally suited for cattle production. Today there is an area not too far from there that is operated as a National Park to educate non-ranchers on the value of what they refer to as the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve. Google it if you like.