Congratulations to all of you at Spearhead, and the other winners, too.
BTW, Soapweed, we drove through your area Monday returning from Cheyenne. It was beautiful and your pictures are a great reminder of what we saw. We drove east on hiway 20 and didn't notice the grasshoppers. Looks like you may have as many of them as we do. Are they damaging your trees? I think we better do something about them here, as our few nice trees, BH Spruce and Scottish Pine, are getting defoliated more than I realized till looking close this morning. Lilacs, Clematis, most anything I cherish has long ago been eaten. They apparently don't care much for tomatoes, so my deck buckets are still growing.
We noticed both your sign and your fathers. Nice. We appreciate ranches that have signs. Seems like few in SD do, and a few years ago, there was some gov't. 'edict' attempted saying they would have to go, but didn't go anywhere.
We were driving north after spending the night at Oglalla and it is intensely green south of you along most of the road north almost to Merriman, where it fades a bit. Such lush pastures for this time of year! We really enjoy that drive due to the fact there is so little grain farming...just beautiful grazing and hay land. Seeing lake Mc Connahey (I know I mutilated the spelling!) recovered so well from drought years is great, too.
When our son heard our route home, he asked us to pick up some of those hay hooks he saw you comment on. They were out at Merriman, so we went on to Cody to get them. And wonder of wonders, we also got some handy gate closers! I fuss a lot because we don't have enough of them and I have to nearly disable my shoulders getting some of them closed when taking meals out or other errands or fun across our place.
We also ate lunch at the local watering hole in Cody, finding it much like the one in Midland, with even bigger hamburgers at a slightly lower price of around $3.75 for a great 8 ounce burger on a giant bun. Fries and a soda were about $1.80 more, I think. At Midland, a 5 ounce burger and fries run about $6.50, soda is additional, if I recall correctly. Both places feature Indian Tacos', too. The half taco at Midland is a real bargain, at under $5.00, and must have close to 8 ounces of beef on it! It is more than one needs, so a whole one is a BIG meal!
We drove on east, then north into SD and went home via Rosebud, Parmelee, Norris, and Belevidere, all on hiway #63 which runs through part of our ranch north of I-90 and south of Midland. The scenery down on the Rosebud Res. is spectacular, with pines, oak and other decidous trees, the wonderful Little White River, and lots of other live water. Then, it rained a great rain, probably much needed after the wicked lightning storm to the north of us! We did smell some smoke south of the big White River, but never saw the fire, or even heard reports of it, so maybe the rain did take care of it.
The trip home was at least as much fun as the days at the rodeo and in Denver for NCBA Beef Safety committee meeting, and the stop at Brighton Feed and Saddlery on Satuday! Did find some great wedding gifts for our grandson and his bride to be, though! And...none of it was ranch tack! I also got a wonderful CD of Don Edwards and Waddie Mitchell with the Ft. Worth Symphony. It gets better each time we hear it! Spectacular rendition of HOme On the Range mostly by the symphony. You can practically see the horse trotting along hearing the instruments portraying it! If anyone is interested, I can look up and share the website. I believe you can hear samples of the music on it, if I'm not recalling a different tape also bought at Brighton.
mrj
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