Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
All day long we’ve been driving in Montana, which is cowboy country and mining country. To assist folks in distinguishing these from say the Midwest kind of country which also may have horses and cows, here are some distinguishing marks and features of cowboy country. You know you’re in cowboy country when you see:
• Cattleguards at the freeway entrances. Now, I grew up on a cattle ranch, and just about every rancher had a cattleguard at the main ranch entrance. It’s made of steel or wood beams with gaps in between them so that people or cars can pass over, but cattle can’t.
However, until today I’ve never in my life seen a cattleguard at a freeway entrance … must be cowboy country. However, the best guide to whether it’s cowboy country or not are the want ads … here were some clues from today’s local newspaper:
• The first three sections in the want ad of the local paper are “Horses”, “Livestock”, and “Pets”. Don’t want to waste time going through ads for furniture to get to the good stuff, I guess.
• The largest section in the want ads is “Farm and Ranch Equipment” … followed closely by “Guns”.
• The first two ads in the “Miscellaneous For Sale” section of the local paper are for sausage stuffing machines … definitely cowboy country.
• There are advertisements like “LIFE SIZE Tom Mountain Lion Mounted on a Rock $550”.
• The “Homes For Sale” section of the want ads includes trailers.
• You can be sure that you’re in cowboy country when the “Antiques” section of your newspaper offers you the unparalleled opportunity to buy an “Antique Manure Spreader, Built Early 1900”, for only $800 …
• And the final clue that we’re in cowboy country? The fact that the day after the finals of the FIFA World Soccer Cup, there was no mention of soccer in the paper anywhere … quite refreshing, actually.
How about signs that it’s mining country? Well, big holes in the ground in the middle of cities are kind of a clue … here’s a giant open-pit mine in the city of Butte, Montana, which sprung up on the place called the “Richest Hill In The World” because of the precious metals taken out of it …
The next clue was the name of the biggest bank building in town …
Yeah, that’s mining country.
Then you have the fact that about one bar in three in Butte is an Irish pub … given the number of early miners who were from Ireland, I suppose that’s no surprise.
Finally, I learned that you can tell a mining town from other towns by their preferred choice of anaesthetics …
Today was another day when the emergent phenomena controlled the temperature. It was clear in the morning. Then when it got hot, we got cumulus clouds to reflect much of the solar energy back to outer space. And finally, as the earth heated even more, we got a whole complex of thunderstorms, with cold rain and winds that knocked the temperature right back down again.
We’re in Missoula, Montana tonight. Tomorrow, we roll north to Flathead Lake, and the next day to Whitefish to see David Raitt and the Baja Boogie Band …
My best to all of you, dear friends, and my sincere hope that your lives are as full of antique manure spreaders and Overland Rye Whiskey as is mine,
w.
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We wouldn’t want Al Gore to sit on that antique manure spreader, now would we? 😉
Love your account Willis. I spent the first 19 summers of my life on the West Shore of Flathead Lake. (largest body of fresh water West of the Missippi) ….oh to be 19 again, on a warm summer evening on the lake.
“LIFE SIZE Tom Mountain Lion Mounted on a Rock…”
Doesn’t it make you wonder the cowboy who did this without being torn up?
Why have a cattle guard at a freeway entrance when there is no fencing to stop the cattle from walking on the road anyway? Cattle guards are kind of pointless if they are not part of a fence.
Well, despite Joel Shore’s “overwhelming evidence” protestations on another recent thread, I think we can safely say that the cAGW “conjecture without any evidence” is going to be laid to rest in the same place, metaphorically speaking, as the antique manure spreader.
If you ever get a chance to see the Berkeley Pit in Butte, it’s impressive. It looks like a huge lake of rootbeer.
It’s an EPA superfund site, and I got to see it up close and personal while working on an adjunct project with my university. One novel approach to clean it up was to “mine” the water for metals using acid-loving metal-munchin’ bugs, some species of which we were working with.
ahh keep up the daily dose Willis most enjoyable.
Love that fading ad for rye – i assume they mean the liquid, not the grain…
And, as for the “richest hill in the world title” ? might be a few contenders there, I would say South Africa, South America parts of Asia and my own homeland of Oz might be in the running…..
You’re in David Thompson country—I did two books on the man. You should see his name everywhere
“Antique Manure Spreader, for only $800 …”
___________________
Don’t sell yerself short, gotta be worth more than that.
jajaja
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
Definitely cowboy country!
If you get a chance drive up the east shore of flathead lake. The cherry orchards should be just ripening now near Big Fork. Yumm!
Truthseeker says:July 15, 2014 at 6:21 pm: Why have a cattle guard at a freeway entrance when there is no fencing to stop the cattle from walking on the road anyway?
There usually is. A couple strands of barb wire. If you aren’t used to seeing it, you might’ve overlooked it.
Cattle stops, or cattle grids (also found in sheep country) are found all over Australia on main roads, including on National Route 1 which circles the country, more or less. While the cattle stations may be fenced at the roadside, in many parts of the country they are not, and the grids are there at the boundaries of stations to stop stock escaping to the neighbours’ properties. Where I live at the moment, stock wander on the highway all the time, which can be quite scary, especially at night. The speed limit is 110km/hr but many drivers go faster. Aside from goats (feral) there are sheep and cattle, plus the scariest of all, because they are so unpredictable and come in multiples, kangaroos. Then there is the occasional emu or camel….
You were in Anaconda country Willis. Anaconda was the name of the company that developed and owned the mine. And the main product was copper. In later years, Anaconda deveoped a mine in Chile even bigger than the Butte operation. However Chile nationalized this mine in about 1970. This really was the beginning of the end for Anaconda which no longer exists.
PaulH says:
July 15, 2014 at 6:10 pm
We wouldn’t want Al Gore to sit on that antique manure spreader, now would we? 😉
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Al Gore IS an antique manure spreader :))))
“Richest Hill In The World”. A miner’s form of hockeystick.
Might be true except that about 10,000 others claim the same thing. Kalgoorlie claimed to be the richest mile in the world, Hill End the richest quarter mile in the world, and Mount Morgan the richest mine in the world, all of these in Australia. I suppose the ‘richest’ is like ‘unprecedented’, is really depends on how much you exaggerate. I prefer Ecclestiastes, ‘There is nothing new under the sun’.
What did Mark Twain say ‘A mine is a hole in the ground with a liar on top’.
I remember reading a 70’s edition of the Wallowa County Chieftain obituary column. It started off solemn enough but then went on to describe the family reunion that happened after the funeral and that a “good time was had by all”. Priceless.
I hiked up the hillside to the big M behind the Univ. of Montana when I was in Missoula in 1974. The hill was a bit odd, the face I was climbing was all grassland, another face was forested. Soon after I got home, an issue of Science News arrived with an aerial photograph of that hill. The article associated with it talked about glacial Lake Missoula and the huge floods that were released when the glacial dam failed. It turns out the grassy side of the hill had lost its topsoil in the floods. The water drained to the west, creating the scablands of eastern Washington and scouring out the Columbia River Valley.
The SN article was about the similarity of that terrain and some on Mars, the implication being that Mars had floods too, a very long time ago.
http://hugefloods.com/LakeMissoula.html
http://hugefloods.com/Scablands.html
I vote for “Rum Jungle ” uranium mine in OZ. I have a friend who chased the uranium there,wrote a book “The Uranium Hunters” years ago,and has great stories to tell. I have uranium ore samples he brought back to NZ around 1952.
Hello from Missoula Willis. I hope you enjoy your stay. Thanks for the post!
Carl “Bear” Bussjaeger says:
July 15, 2014 at 7:05 pm
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I am just looking at the picture. I am not seeing any fence attached to the cattle guard shown.
@enxtim: That approbation was given to Butte in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s when Butte, MT was the largest producer of Copper ore in the world. In 1902 nearly 20% of the copper produced in the US came from Butte. Over 21 Billion pounds of Copper (as well as significant amounts of silver, gold, manganese, zinc, lead and molybdenum) came out of the Butte Mining District during the period 1880-2004. Truly an astounding amount of metal. I think think the case can be made that it was “The Richest Hill on Earth”.
I thank the cowboys for the meat they put on my plate! They are the real environmentalists. Beautiful country up there.
Overland Rye; sounds downright tasty. Unfortunately, I’ve never heard of it before; I wonder if it is strictly local?
Of course when the next ice age starts rolling in and wheat doesn’t cooperate, growing rye will be a fair substitute; with some side benefits. I hope that it doesn’t affect corn too much, sure hate to give up bourbon.
I always thought that one of the best ways to locate people out West was to look for trees. Some planted for shade and others planted in a row to break up the wind and snows.
Happy trails, Willis!
I always enjoy your unique perceptions of the world around you in whatever part of the world you’re in at the moment.