The Legend of Justin and Jughead, the notorious Shetland pony

My Dad bought him from an old man when I was six or seven.  Jughead was his name before we bought him, but there was no denying it fit the stubborn Shetland pony that seemed to get joy out of resisting the will of his small riders. The trait that enabled him to do this was his lack of feeling in his mouth.  No matter how severe a bit my dad put in his mouth and no matter how I jerked on his head in the direction I wanted to go, he simply tucked his head and went wherever his incorrigible little pony heart desired. 

I remember vividly the first time Jughead really ran off with me.  Dad and I were riding into a lake to camp and fish with some friends.  It was dark for most of the ride, as we had gotten a late start.  We were within a couple miles of the camp when Jughead decided he’d had enough and started to run back down the trail.  It took Dad a couple minutes to catch up and stop him.  I was in tears and a little terrified because I had literally zero control as we ran down the mountain.  I think Dad led Jughead the rest of the way to the camp.  That night, Jughead and my Dad’s horse escaped from the rope corral and ran back to the trailer where we found them the next day, happily waiting for us. 

I think I had ridden him a year, or maybe two, when Justin started riding him instead.  Justin, my childhood best friend, whom I've known since I was two, had a will that seemed to match Jughead better.  And it was this duo that made Jughead a legend.  Justin was a risk taker and adventurous by nature and Jughead certainly supplied ample reckless adventure.

On rare occasions, if you spurred Jughead in an effort to get him to go in a specific direction, he would attempt to buck you off.  Our ranch was infested with cactus and it was in an area full of them that Jughead decided to act out one day.  Justin spurred Jughead to get him to change directions and Jughead took full advantage of Justin being off balance by bucking him off. Justin landed butt-first in a cactus patch.  My Dad, after helping Justin retrieve Jughead, teased him relentlessly, calling him Cactus Charlie for some time.

On another occasion, Justin and I decided to race to a gate that we had dubbed “Dead Coyote Gate”  (because a coyote had been shot and died near the gate….why else would you name it that?!).  I am not sure why we thought it was a fair race at all, since I had a full size horse (Jody) and Jughead was a foot and a half shorter but nevertheless we were off to the races.  The race was across an alfalfa field.  The field had a pivot (moving sprinkler system) and that pivot had created several narrow tracks with the wheels that moved it across the field.  The tracks were about a foot wide and four inches deep.  As we approached the pivot track both of our mounts saw it simultaneously, put it in park and launched Justin and I forward.  I landed on Jody's neck and Justin face-planted in the alfalfa on the other side of the track because Jughead's neck was so short.  Neither of us was hurt but it was a lesson we never forgot.

But the story that really solidified Jughead as the most notorious kids pony ever, was the time he went off a buffalo jump.  My Dad and one of the other ranch hands, Bart, were riding through the yearlings one day and Justin was along for the ride on Jughead.  They had all split up to look for sick yearlings and my Dad and Bart got back together first.  Suddenly Justin came charging up on Jughead.  Both of them were covered in dirt on the right side and Jughead looked somewhat subdued, only resisting a little as Justin reined him toward my Dad.  "What happened to you?" Bart asked, a little concerned but hoping for a good story.  

"Jughead and I went off the buffalo jump back there!"  Justin exclaimed as he pointed back toward a gravel pit half a mile away.  

Justin and I were constantly reenacting scenes from the old west so it seemed only natural that a cliff as large as the bank of a gravel pit had to have been created for killing buffalo 150 years ago.  My Dad and Bart started to chuckle, watching the scene go down in their minds.  Jughead: open mouth, tucked head, running off as fast as he could in the opposite direction of wherever Justin wanted to go.  Justin: yanking, pulling, spurring and holding on for dear life.  Each struggling for control as they neared the 20-foot gravel bank and then suddenly both horse and rider were airborne for a short second.  Then on the ground with the breath knocked out of them scrambling to get up.  Fortunately neither of them was hurt and in the constant struggle for control between the two, Justin marked that one as a draw.  Justin went on to become quite the horseman, but surviving the legendary Jughead is still his greatest horsemanship accomplishment in my book.

Buffalo Are Back in Montana to Stay Whether You Like It or Not

The tension in the air was palpable.  The biologist from the American Prairie Reserve, was getting death glares and no mercy from a frustrated group of ranchers, intent on knowing the truth about American Prairie Reserve's plan for free-roaming bison and land acquisition.  To his credit, he remained calm, even when the debate became more intense.  The ranchers asked the tough questions:

• What if the bison break through your fence onto my land?  
• What about cross breeding?  
• What is the potential danger of Brucellosis (a transferable bacteria that causes involuntary abortion in cows, elk and bison)? 
• How will your buying up all the land affect my land and lease rates?  

The biologist answered each question calmly and by the end of the seminar many ranchers seemed to have more respect for him, even if they didn't agree with him.  The irony of the situation was that the room was filled with Native American ranchers from Fort Belknap, whose ancestors depended on Buffalo for everything.  Now this outsider is trying to bring back their proverbial "general store" and it poses a threat to their current way of life as ranchers.  Ironic.....but not in a funny way.

The subject of buffalo has been an incredibly hot-button issue in Montana lately and for good reason.  Bison related headlines have been frequent: "Tourist Puts Bison Calf in Car to Keep Warm", "Outside Environmental Group Buys Land for Free Roaming Bison along the Missouri", "The Return of the Blackfeet Bison", "Protests against Yellowstone Bison Hunts", "Bison Named National Mammal" and the list goes on.  In all reality, when you consider the implications for tourism, sportsman, tribal members and ranchers, the return of bison to Montana effects all Montanans.  One thing is for sure, bison are back and they are here to stay, one way or another.  The forces behind bison ranching and bison as wildlife outside of Yellowstone are freight trains, already in motion and about all you can do is steer them.

The market for bison meat seems almost inexhaustible and the number of bison ranchers has been steadily increasing for the last several years.  Bison are a good ecological fit for much of Montana.  (Go figure! Ever wonder why God didn't put cows here first?!)  As mentioned in a previous blog, ranchers in the US are the most productive in the world, but most are not profitable.  One of the best ways to increase profitability is to match what you're raising with the free natural resources you already have.  Bison require less outside feed inputs than cows, even if they both calve in May (the calving time most synced with natural forage).  And most cattle ranchers calve February through April when labor and feed inputs required are much higher.  Granted, fencing for bison and moving them is more difficult but overall they require far less labor and far less outside inputs.  Raising bison is an excellent example of fitting your enterprise to your natural resources and many bison ranches are making a profit in situations where cattle ranches wouldn't. 


Make no mistake about it, there will be wild bison outside of Yellowstone.  The alliance of environmental groups, tribal governments and tourist related businesses that see profit potential will be impossible to stop completely. The issue of free-roaming bison will be hotly contested in ag communities throughout the state for years to come.  Federal and state agencies will have to make decisions on how wild bison are dealt with and Brucellosis will continue to be one of the main issues.  It won't look like it did before Montana had fences, but there will be areas where wild bison roam.  Sportsman (like myself) will moan as public access to land along the Missouri becomes strained.  Many bison will probably be shot on private land, illegally and legally.  Fences will be destroyed and a few more tourists will get launched into the air by an angry cow buffalo, but eventually people will adjust and life will go on.  It will look different, but the animal that was almost completely exterminated 150 years ago is back and here to stay.  That's True Montana!

Acting Out Charlie Russell

It's hard to say if Charlie Russell was there the first time it happened, if he witnessed someone else copy the act of bravery or if he just heard the story in some saloon and decided to paint the scene.  However he learned about it, his painting forever immortalized those crazy, brave, possibly drunk cowboys who roped a grizzly bear.  You can see the painting in bars and restaurants all around Montana.  Tourists are intrigued by it (or appalled if they're PETA members), locals embrace it as a symbol of the wild times that shaped Montana and cowboys.....some cowboys are inspired by it.

A few years ago some cowboy friends of mine acted out such a scene in Montana.  For the purposes of this story we'll call the Gus and Woodrow.  They roped a black bear on the prairie to impress some friends of theirs visiting from the east coast.  At first everything went just like the Charlie Russell painting: horses spooking sideways, the bear snarling and biting at the rope on its leg.  But then came the part where they had to get the rope off the bear.  Although it doesn't explicitly say it in the painting, I'm guessing the cowboys of the 1880s just shot the bear with their six shooters and pulled the ropes off after he was dead.  After all, bears have been known to eat livestock and their was no endangered species act in those days.

My friends didn't have guns with them and somehow shooting a bear seems like a much more punishable offense than roping one.  So Gus dismounted while the bear was down, being held by the rope dallied to Woodrow's saddle.  Gus had just fished the first rope off the hind leg of the bear, when suddenly the bear lunged at him and pulled Woodrow's horse a couple steps forward.  Gus fell back and tripped over some sagebrush.  In rapid succession a series of unfortunate events transpired:  the bear fell on Gus, bit his thigh and was then pulled back by Woodrow's horse.  The injured Gus scrambled back to his horse.  Woodrow eased toward the bear as close as he dared and cut his rope off.  The bear loped off dragging the rope that would soon fall off naturally.  

Forgoing medical attention seemed to be a greater risk than potentially being fined for harassing wildlife, so Woodrow drove Gus into the ER as soon as they got back to the barn.  The words "bear bite" seemed to summon every doctor and nurse in the hospital.  He had a continuous stream of medical personnel looking at the wound and then asking for the story.  Gus did his best not to lie, while still keeping the overall story blurry.  He learned to bow his head forward when he was having trouble keeping a straight face, a gesture his listeners assumed was bash-fullness.  Each time he told the story it became slightly smoother:

"How did it happen?" -Doctor

"Well, the bear was caught in some rope and I was trying to take it off of him.  Then he lunged at me and I tripped over a sagebrush." -Gus

"What a story!  You know, there aren't many ranchers who would do something like that to help a bear." -Doctor

"If you only knew the irony of what you are saying," thought Gus, though not out-loud.

As the real story spread (mostly among Woodrow's friends), a family friend living in a different part of the state heard the story and decided to exploit the situation.  He called the bear-bitten cowboy posing as a reporter for the Associated Press.  He asked a variety of questions that became increasingly difficult to answer without giving the real story away and not contradicting any previous statements.  The "reporter" called every night  for a week and even proposed the idea of doing an on-camera interview at the site of the incident.  Gus became increasingly uncomfortable and stressed and finally the "reporter" had mercy on him and stopped calling.  Gus was much relieved although he couldn't stop Woodrow and his friends from re-telling the story everywhere they went.  So while the wild tale never made it into the papers or onto the easel of a famous painter, it was retold at brandings and horse sales for years to come.

Charlie Russell's paintings capture a time when the west was wilder, much more dangerous and sometimes more entertaining.  Times have changed, but every once in a while you get the chance to rope a bear and go back into the days of Charlie Russell.  That's true Montana.

Things Montanans Do That Don't Make Sense Part II : The Most Expensive Montana Hobby

If you're looking to spend a lot of money on a Montana hobby, you might try skiing or hunting.....or ranching!!?!  Most Montana ag "businesses" are actually very expensive hobbies.  "What?!" You say,  "Farmers and ranchers are the hardest working people I know.  Surely so many hard working people wouldn't be dedicated to an industry that isn't profitable?"  US ag producers are among the most productive in the world and Montanans are no exception, but that doesn't mean they're profitable.

Agriculture has been a huge industry in Montana since before it became a state. The State Department of Ag,touts it as Montana’s largest industry.  It indirectly employs over a hundred thousand people on farms, ranches and in ag related businesses and government agencies.  

But the big question is: do ag producers in Montana actually make a profit?  Some are hobby farmers and that isn’t their goal.  Many other producers will freely admit they don’t some years.  But of those who assert they are profitable, are they really considering all the costs?  What if ag producers had to pay themselves and their family members the salary they would have to pay someone else to do their job?  How many would make a profit then?  Statistically very few ag producers would be making a profit, even on a good year.  And if we take out government subsidies, below market land leases and low interest loans, we’d have even fewer profitable operations.  Unfair stipulations you say?  Can you really call a business profitable if you are paying yourself $3 an hour?

I am not saying there aren’t profitable ag businesses in Montana, nor that there couldn’t be a few more, but why are we protecting this industry when the businesses at the core are mostly unprofitable?!  Why does the government subsidize ag producers and not subsidize doughnut shops?  Why do we find it understandable when someone takes a second job to support the ranch, but we would find it strange if someone takes a second job to support their construction business?  Simple, in Montana ag is sacred.  It’s more than a hobby, more than a job and more than a business.  It is a way of life.

I grew up on a ranch and currently work in the industry.  I enjoy going back to the ranch, but I'm often baffled by how people idolize it, both from outside of the industry and inside.  When I was in college, I often had people want me to take them branding in the spring.  If my grandparent's had owned a plumbing business instead of a ranch I doubt they would have come with me for "drain field day".  However, I am thankful to have grown up on a ranch and am grateful for the way it shaped me.


Unfortunately good memories and the romance doesn't take away the realities of the situation.  It's hard to make a profit in ag these days.  We as a state have to adapt.  Most Montana producers are getting older and their kids aren’t coming back to the ranch for a reason.  The subsidies, both from the government and the free labor, won’t keep the industry afloat forever.  The ag businesses that can be profitable will have to make changes to become so.  The producers who can’t be profitable will have to admit it and may have to down-scale to a hobby ranch in order to continue in their passion.  Some ranches can remain profitable by including tourism as well as ranching in their enterprise mix.  Others might make it by turning to specialty crops or specialty livestock and embracing the organic, all-natural trend.  One thing is for sure, ag in Montana will look very different in 20 years.

Things Montanans Do That Don't Make Sense Part I : HUNTING IS A RIDICULOUS HOBBY

Every culture has them, those values that just don’t make sense to outsiders.  If you go to Green Bay you will find that being a Packers fan is more of a way of life, than a decision on which team to root for.  In Hawaii and Southern California you’ll find people skipping work, school, church and family obligations to surf on the days when the waves are really big.  In Montana, one cultural value we hold high is hunting and in some cases it is culturally acceptable to skip all other obligations for this most sacred pursuit.  Two years ago, when I shot an elk with my bow, my boss willingly filled in for me so I could get the meat out of the mountains.  When I wounded an elk in college, I missed 4 classes and one test the next day to look for him.

We live in a world where the economic differences between work and hobbies are clearly lined out.  Hobbies are supposed to be fun and we don’t expect to receive economic benefits from them.  We don’t expect work to be fun but do expect economic benefits for our work.  Many Montanans hold hunting as a sacred way of life and at times our cultural value for hunting can clash with those who don’t have this value.  They are unable to categorize hunting as a hobby or an economically beneficial activity and this can cause serious tension in the work place, in families and with friends.

In an effort to appeal to the general public, many of us try to defend hunting from an economic perspective which is ridiculous.  Meat is a tangible benefit to hunting and some of us mistakenly think that the reason we hunt is for this economic side-benefit.  We say things like “I only shoot cows and does cause I’m only in it for the meat”.  Whether we say we hunt for the meat, the horns or the exercise, if we are really honest we hunt for the experience of doing the process ourselves.  It isn’t viable economically. 

Think about the costs involved in hunting: weapon (bow, gun, etc.), ammo (arrows or bullets), specialized clothing, knives and all kill related products, tags and gas to and from the hunting area.  Then there’s the cost of processing your meat, which you can do yourself, but that requires equipment, materials and time!  Hunting costs a lot of time.  If you got a job delivering pizzas and spent the same amount of time working at this new job as you normally do in all hunting related activities, you could probably buy organic bison meat for the year and still be ahead on money.

On the flip side it isn’t really a hobby either, at least for many Montanans.  How many people would call cutting up meat a hobby?  How many people would add “carrying out meat” as one of their interests on facebook?  These are both part of the experience.  If hunting were a hobby, we would be able to cut out the parts we don’t enjoy without shame.  If it were a hobby I wouldn’t feel obligated to process my own meat and I wouldn’t feel a slight sense of pride for carrying my meat out on my back rather than a horse or a 4-wheeler.  

  

For Montanans, the idea of hunting for meat is sacred.  We like the idea that we participated in every part of the process of getting that animal out of the mountains into an edible chunk of meat on our table.  The problem is that we sometimes forget that hunting is just a preference for a way of living and it is not morally superior to any other lifestyle choice.  We have to work out the consequences of that choice with other priorities and people in our lives.  We must keep their perspective in mind if we want to avoid serious problems.

Are fly fisherman really morally superior? The chain of sportsman snobbery

“And we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”

Norman McClain- A River Runs Through It

In his novel which was set in the 1920s, A River Runs through It, Norman McLain clearly demonstrates the feeling of moral superiority felt by fly fisherman over bait fisherman.  In the quote above and others, particularly the interaction between Norman and Paul with Norman’s brother-in-law (a bait fisherman), one can clearly see the sportsman snobbery that persists to this day.  In the last century, as hunting and fishing gradually shifted from an efficient way to provide food for your family, to more of a leisure lifestyle choice, outdoorsmen have become snobs.  Each outdoorsman finds some way to look down on other outdoorsmen who enjoy related outdoor pass times.  

Hunters and fishermen seem particularly prone to these types of comparisons.  You might insist that this is simply human nature and you might be right, but when it comes to outdoorsmen, it takes a strange twist.  For thousands of years, humans have been hunting and fishing as a means of survival but only recently have they intentionally limited themselves in how and when they can participate in these activities.  Hunting and fishing, in many ways, are trending back to the caveman.  Montana recently even passed a law that legalizes spear hunting!  It seems the more primitive and minimalistic your gear and techniques are, the more of a pure sportsman you are.  If you look back to the cave man days, it is hard to imagine “Grog” telling his brother “Gronk” that it is unsportsmanlike to hunt mammoths with iron spear tips…. “Idiot!  The way of the purist, the way of the sportsman, is most certainly the obsidian spear head, hand chipped from organic rock.”  This scene is laughable because “Grog” would most certainly have used a bazooka to kill mammoths if he could have, yet this is exactly the kind of conversation many sportsman are having today.  

If you don’t tie your own flies, reload your own shells and make your own arrows, you, my friend, aren’t a committed outdoorsman.  If your mode of transportation wasn’t your feet, once you arrived at the trail head, you’re not “hardcore” and you may be unsportsmanlike.  If you use a crossbow rather than a long bow, or a scoped rifle rather than a black powder rifle, well, you’re certainly not a purist and you probably won’t be invited over for Montana micro brews later.  The reality is that all of these judgements are subjective and relative.  People enjoy their chosen niche in the hunting and fishing world for different reasons.  Additionally, with the constant influx of new hunting related technologies it becomes difficult, even for the most principled outdoorsman, to determine which are sportsmanlike and which are not.   Who am I to assume that I am enjoying myself more because I am using a dry fly and the guy down river is using scented bait?  How did I decide that calling a bull elk in with a fake bugle is more fair to the elk than the guy who shoots that same elk from a hay field with a bi-pod at 500 yards?  And why should fish finders be legal but not drones (as a method of finding game)?

With that said, we cannot allow a free-for-all if we want sustainable wildlife populations for future generations of hunters and fishermen to come.  Limits and seasons must be set for different methods and technologies for hunting and fishing.  But they should be set for reasons of safety, population management and equal opportunity to different types of sportsman (notice I didn’t write equal access).  They should not be set against certain outdoorsmen because their means of hunting and fishing is deemed unethical or unfair by a certain sub-set of sportsman.  So take a step back from the chain of sportsman snobbery and get some real perspective before you badmouth the guy across the river.  That’s true Montana.

Montana Gridiron: Why I like football in Montana

The snap was good.  The thermometer read 10 degrees and they had already cleared snow from the field at halftime.  Armanti Edwards, rolled out to his left and threw a short pass to his best wide receiver, Brian Quick, just inside the end-zone.  The pass went beyond the outstretched arms of star cornerback Trumaine Johnson and touched off Quick's finger tips and onto the AstroTurf.  As the snow came down, reflecting off the huge ESPN stadium lights, there was a magical ambiance in the air as more than 26,000 Montana Grizzly fans went wild. We shouted, groaned with relief, high-fived and hugged other fans we had never met.  We were going to the national championship game! 




The game, start to finish, was the most amazing I have ever watched in person, but how it ended is a what I will always remember.  After going up by a touchdown, Montana fans experienced a terrifying last minute drive when Edwards led App State the length of the field in the final 1:31, converting on a fourth down and ultimately getting two shots at the end-zone from the 3 yard-line.  Edwards, who had led Appalachian State to two national championships with his duel threat quarterbacking would be drafted in the 3rd round of the NFL draft later that year.   In addition to the heart stopping goal-line stand, the game also featured the ESPN college hit of the year by a Montana's Keith Thompson on an App State receiver.  The drama of the ending along with the surreal ambiance made the game an instant classic.  It also capped off what had already been an incredible year in Montana football, including a 27 point comeback earlier in the playoffs against the SDSU Jack Rabbits, which was sparked by a 98-yard Marc Mariana kick-return.  The Griz ended the season 14-1 after being defeated in the national championship by Villanova. 










Football may not be religion in Montana like it can be in Texas or the South but that doesn't mean our state lacks football excitement or success.  Carroll College is still the only team in any division to have won 4 national championships in a row and almost every year MSU and/or U of M make it to the FCS playoffs as contenders.  Additionally, it is often players who grew up playing football in Montana that are the stars of these teams and many get drafted or signed into the NFL.











I think being a football fan in Montana is more fun than in places where football is everything.  Maybe its the fact that we have nothing to prove or that football isn't everything for Montanans.  Montana isn't known for football nationally and even though we love it, football still has to compete with hunting for people's attention in the fall.  Maybe its the personal touch and actually knowing and wanting to root for the players on the field.  We don't have a pro team and by its nature, college football is more personal.  When you cheer on your Montana college football team(whichever team it is), its not just your team you're cheering for, you're rooting for the kid you went to high school with, or played against.  That same kid will probably come home this summer and work the harvest just like everyone else....and then he might get drafted next year.  But he'll still be a Montanan, a real person you can talk to, who succeeded just as much because of his Montana work ethic as his athletic ability.  That's True Montana.