The town I grew up in, Columbus Montana in it's earlier days (late 1800's) was known as Sheep Dip. They grew a lot of sheep in that area and shipped a lot of wool out on the railroad.
I probably owe my existance to sheep in a way.
My paternal grandfather immigrated from Norway when he was a teenager in the early 1900's. He worked as a sheepherder and eventually bought his own ranch in the Ingomar, Montana area. They grew a lot of sheep in that area at one time. He moved from that dryland farm to a smaller irrigated place in Huntley Project in the 1950's. Later he moved out to Kirkland Washington, when he retired. He liked the water out here in Seattle, reminded him of Norway.
A few odds and ends about sheep -
The people I know who have raised sheep never seemed to think of them as good for eating. Not sure why that is; if they look at them as woolgrowers or maybe had a bad piece of old mutton at one time. Jack tells me that when you butcher a sheep any part of the meat that is touched by the wool will taste bad.
Sheepherders monuments used to be a fairly common sight in Montana. There's a nice description of sheepherders monuments at The Fence Post.
There are (or were) people who castrate a sheep with their teeth. And you thought you had a tough job?
Reedpoint Montana has the annual 'Running of the Sheep' Sheep Drive on Labor Day. Reedpoint is also the home of the Watering Hole Saloon. I knew the guy that used to own that place. It was a good bar, nice friendly people. A little wild maybe at times. My old boss T.P. told me when they built that place they deliberately made the chairs our of heavy logs so people couldn't pick them up and hit each other. Ahhhhh the good old days.
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I guess the thing that I appreciate the most is having the opportunity to be around, listen and see some of the rural and agricultural parts of life. I feel sorry for people who have never gotten out of an urban area. They probably feel sorry for an old hick like me...so there you go.
Wendell Berry has some interesting points on that topic -
"I AM NOT SUGGESTING, of course, that everybody ought to be a farmer or a forester. Heaven forbid! I am suggesting that most people now are living on the far side of a broken connection, and that this is potentially catastrophic. Most people are now fed, clothed and sheltered from sources toward which they feel no gratitude and exercise no responsibility. There is no significant urban constituency, no formidable consumer lobby, no noticeable political leadership, for good land-use practices, for good farming and good forestry, for restoration of abused land, or for halting the destruction of land by so-called “development”.
We are involved now in a profound failure of imagination. Most of us cannot imagine the wheat beyond the bread, or the farmer beyond the wheat, or the farm beyond the farmer, or the history beyond the farm. Most people cannot imagine the forest and the forest economy that produced their houses and furniture and paper; or the landscapes, the streams and the weather that fill their pitchers and bathtubs and swimming pools with water."
Source: http://resurgence.gn.apc.org/issues/berry198.htm
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Since I'm rambling about animals in Montana. I guess I will touch on another critter that I used to see when I was a pre-schooler. Most people have never seen a wild hippopotmus in Montana.
The old road to Billings went alongside the Yellowstone River. There was a point in the river with some large smooth rocks that were brown and shiny from the water passing over them. In my minds eye those rocks looked just like some hippos. The first time I noticed them I was excited - "Hey look everybody there's some hippos in the river!"
After that initial sighting my Gram and other family members used to like to ask me if I saw the hippos when we passed that spot. I'd look really hard and most every time I'd see them down there in the river. Unless the river was frozen over of course.
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I have to wrap this up, but something that sounded pretty darn appealing to me again as I thought about on my way to work yesterday was the thought of a solo trip around the USA. A Travels With Charlie kind of trip with a dog and a nice motorized vehicle. Lots of time to stop and poke around.
At this stage of my life I'd like to make it a comfortable trip. Maybe in a nice car and decent places to sleep. That might run into a fair chunk of change if you did it for a few months. Maybe a small pickup, that got good mileage, and a comfortable small camper you could crawl into when you got tired. Something you could easily drive in urban/crowded cities as well as get out on the open road in and camp beside a good fishing spot and sit out beside a campfire.
Maybe I could spot some hippos.
