Speaking of "Black Aircraft"........

[TimH]

Once in a while a fairly big dark colored airplane can be seen flying over my area. There are no prominent markings on it which tells me it is not a civilian plane. Its military or at least govt. 4 turbo-prop engines and a T-tail. Not sure what it is!!
Anyway, it flies a grid pattern for a few hours at a time at about 3000 ft. I think it is doing search and rescue training or some type of navigation exercise. One of my neighbors(a conspiracy theorist) is convinced the "they" are counting cattle and told me so one day. I laughed at first,until I realized he was serious.
I explained to him that if "they" wanted to count cattle there are cheaper ways than using a big expensive plane like this. He said "they" don't care what it costs!!! I told him "they" could count cattle using sattelite photos for about 1million'th of the cost of that plane,if they wanted to count cattle.
After an hour or so of explaining the more real possibilities to him I felt that I had him convinced that "they" were not counting cattle.
I bumped in to him in town a couple weeks later and among the first words he said was "They were out here flying around counting cattle again day before yesterday". :shock:
So I said "Ya, I know. As soon as I heard that plane coming I went out and chased all my cattle into the bush. Fixed them @#$%$#'s".
He seemed happy with that and bought me a few beers. :lol: :lol: :wink:

 

[rancher]

TimH, I think that plane was suppose to be that Helicopter I was telling you about. The one someone up there ordered from e-bay and the instructions were in Japenese. Maybe the are doing sage grouse counting. They flew grids down here counting them, all they had to do was ask the land owners how many they had. Want to list them as endangered.

 

[Mike]

Tim, your story reminds me of when they came out with the new twenty dollar bills a few years ago, it had a "strip" inside it.
One old boy held one up to the light and showed it to me and said" they can track these damn things by satellite now". He actually pulled that "strip" out of all the $20's he got so the guvment couldn't track him. :lol2:

 

[rancher]

I tell you what Tim and Mike, with all the satelite photo's they can take now it gives a new meaning to taking a leak in the middle of the pasture. I always look up and wave.

 

[TimH]

Rancher-"....it gives a new meaning to taking a leak in the middle of the pasture. I always look up and wave."

That reminds me of another story........ When I lived in Alberta I had a neighbor(Don) that had an airspray business. He had an old Stearman bi-plane that he used. To mark his spray passes he had some kind of a dispenser on the plane that kicked out a short length of white tissue paper with a little chunk of wood(for weight) stapled to it.Same idea as a foam spray marker.
Another neighbor(Bill) was working in his field one day and had to take a dump.He stopped the tractor down between two hills, picked a nice spot and dropped his pants.
About that time,along came Don,(the cropduster) flying low and slow in his Stearman. He looked down and spotted Bill squatted down with his pants around his ankles.
Being the good neighbor type,Don commenced to buzzing Bill with his plane and kicking out several of those strips of tissue paper with each pass!!! :lol: :lol:
I saw the plane from about a mile away,diving at something, but I didn't know the whole story until Bill told me a day or two later. :wink:

 

[rancher]

That was nice of him, sure beats using sagebrush. LOL.

 

[Soapweed]

When I was a kid in about the second grade, the school picnic was down along the river. Out of desperation, I used nettles (didn't have any sagebrush). That was a bad decision.

One time nearly 25 years ago, my wife and I were ranching south of town. We arrived home from church about 1 p.m. one Sunday, and were driving through our heavy cows before we had dinner. An airplane circled overhead, and then landed out on a small meadow east of our house. We drove over to see why the plane landed, and it was a neighbor and his wife. We made small talk very briefly, and the neighbor asked me, "Could you drive me over to that stackyard? I've got to go real bad." Of course, I did, and our wives stayed at the plane and visited. I felt bad later for even arriving at the scene. The last thing in the world my friend wanted, was "company" showing up when he landed. If we had not come along, he could have just stepped in behind the plane, performed his deed, and he and his wife could have been on their way.

Close to fifty years ago, an old neighbor was mowing hay one day with an IHC H tractor and single bar mower. He felt Nature's call, and as his tractor was not in the habit of starting real well, he left it running as he crouched alongside one of the tires. Unfortunately, he hadn't looked behind him, and he didn't hear a car drive up because of the noise of his tractor running. His visitors were a couple Iowa cattle buyers and their wives. There was nothing to do but say "howdy" and I'm not sure if they shook hands. He parked his tractor on a hill before shutting it off, so it could be rolled down later to start. He got in the car with the Iowans, and they proceeded to go look at the nice Hereford yearling steers that he had for sale.