My niece and I are having this argument.  Started over a piece I read in the paper about two families camping in the same campground.  For whatever reason (presumably the one man was a mean drunk) man “A” shot and killed the dog of family “B” then added insult to injury by taking the dog’s head off with a chainsaw and lopping it into the campsite of the owner’s parents. 

Definitely the man’s actions were reprehensible on so many levels but where my niece and I get into an argument is if what man “A” did was “cruel”. 

My position is that it was reprehensible, but not cruel if the dog was killed quickly without it suffering.  They can charge the man with criminal theft, recklessly discharging a firearm, criminal endangerment whatever but NOT cruelty IF the animal was killed without it suffering.

Now being mindful that even breathing can be regulated by governmental laws I decided to look up the statute on what constitutes cruelty in the Montana Codes Annotated and low and behold our government in their infinite wisdom has made the act of killing an animal an act of cruelty toward that animal unless it is covered by what they call “exceptions”.  I don’t agree.  Killing, exceptions or not, is the taking of life.  Now you can do that act cruelly by making the animal suffer before it dies (which I whole heartedly agree is cruel and wrong) or you can kill it quickly where it doesn’t suffer – it is just there one minute and not the next.  Someone killing your dog is wrong but it is NOT cruel if it is done quickly without suffering to the animal.  The act of killing your dog may inflict grievous suffering to YOU but your suffering is not the dog’s. 

The long and short was that the niece didn’t agree with me and so a heated debate ensued with inappropriately raised decibels, much throwing up of hands and shaking of heads while you exit the room only to return two seconds later to make another emphatic point complete with the appropriate hand gestures (none of this family could talk if you tied our arms to our sides).  So I’m curious … what do you all think?  Cruel? Or not and if so defend it – hell defend it even if you agree with me I like listening to the choir sing ;)

I sucks to get old.  I've not been feeling all that well for the last couple of weeks which is apparent from the time lapse in my blogging.

Amazing how you seem to appreciate something so much more when you have a chance of losing it.  I went into the emergency room a couple of weeks ago because I was short of breath, seems i was having congestive heart failure.  Scared the bejesus out of me.  I mean, yea, ok, i'm an old fart but you don't want to push the inevitible.  Now however I have the distinct feeling i'm living under the sword of damacles.  I have this amazing sword hanging over my head by a thread which could break at any time so I feel this frantic need to see, do, experience all that i can.  But life is hilariously ironic.  Here I am with the overpowering need to experience and I am not equipped to do so.  The body's wore out, the knees are gone, the lungs are shot and the ticker's not keeping up with any of it.  It's frustrating as all hell.  I feel like hitting someone.  If you wonder why old people are crabby that's why, we have this overpowering need and no way to fullfill it.  Think of chickenpox and needing to scratch but not being able to - it drives you crazy with frustration and irritation.

But life goes on till it doesn't any more I guess - as a friend of Bill I have learned - the answer lies in acceptance

The residents of N.O. are being relocated what happens to them in a few months time?

Sad to say the people that once opened their arms won't leave them open for long...

Sure towns and people open their arms now, but what happens when the horror of the situation calms down and the devastation isn't in the spot light?  People's memorys are short when not touch directly by a disaster.  When the problems of overcrowding become apparent those native sons and daughters of the town that welcomed the needy in the first place will begin to have second thoughts when they see the crime that over crowding brings, the strain on community services and finally the blow it will give to their pocket books - not just one time but for years to come. Then the natives will get restless and you'll see a social schizm with cries, by those same people who had opened their arms in the beginning, of how all the ills of their community are to be laid at the feet of the newcomer. 
What you are witnessing is change - it's never easy in any form. Some want to resist it and rebuild the past, others want to sweep away the debris of the past and build anew and others want to abandon it all and move on. 

Then there are the rest of us who watch and arm chair quarter back how they should do it and why or critisizing why they are whinning as we assage the guilt we feel about not having had such a calamity happen to us by throwing dollars at it.

Don't feel sorry for them, empathize with them. Do what you have to do but do it for the right reason and in the right way. Do not critisize unless your willing to offer a better solution. 

My solution? - to old to offer my back so i'll throw the money for immediate needs of the people - food, water, sanitary facilities.  NOT to rebuild their homes - if you had a home and it was not insured for flooding when you KNOW that you live below sealevel - nope I don't fund stupidity.  I will NOT pay to rebuild their city.  The city belongs to history and pictures of the past. If you rebuild you do so without my federal dollars - grieve over the loss of what was and then move on.  When you try to resurrect the past you get a poor knock off of the original that no ones every happy with.  Offer reduced rate loans or no interest if going to rebuild low income housing.  That is my solution and where I want my money to go.

There's a piece in this mornings paper concerning a judgement in Texas that allows for the slaughter of horses for human consumption.  [link]

I don't think I would ever eat a horse.  I have trouble consuming something that I've forged a deep kinship with. However, there are millions of people that find the critter mighty tasty.  I suppose its the equivelent of eating beef in India where the cows are sacred.  50 gazillion people 3/4's of whom are starving and they won't eat the cows that wander their streets in profusion.  Makes no sense to me but then I suppose my not eating horse meat is a puzzling to a frenchman.  But I digress as i'm wont to do...

Now where was I? 

Oh yea, slaughtering horses for human consumption .... Logically and, if you want your ethics to have some cohesiveness, I can't see what their 'beef' is (pun intended sorry folks had to do it).  The only people I see as having an arguement worth stating would be the veggans and we all know how way out in left field they are - hell they're not even in the same solar system; they're out of the galaxy.  How can you eat meat and be ethically selective about what is considered "food" and what isn't?  What is your criteria?  Is it the huggable factor? Hell's Bells man someone is going to find something huggable in ANY critter.  Are we going to exempt them all from being considered a food source? 

It wasn't specifically stated in the piece but the puppy huggers were looking for backing from the American Veterinary Association and were politely told to take a hike with this ... "The American Veterinary Medical Association opposes any ban that does not address the welfare of horses spared slaughter."  Not as strong as I'd have like to have seen it but it is a voice of reason in this emotionally charged mess. 

Now if these puppy huggers want to take every unwanted equine and find it a happy home where it can live the rest of its life then more power to them.  (but they haven't even succeeded in that with cats and dogs) I suppose that would make as much sense as cattle wandering the streets of Calcutta while people are laying in that cities gutters dying of starvation. 

I'm all for preventing cruelty.  Give the puppy huggers their due... they've gone a long way toward improving conditions and awareness as far as cruelty goes.  But just like unions and any other well intentioned enterprises - you can take it to far and then you begin to lose legitimacy under the weight of your own zeal.

It's no secret that this old cowboy isn't getting around like he used to.  The legs just don't work like they used to and since my pride refuses to use a walker and most times a cane isn't enough to keep my balance, so I don't get away from the homestead much.  I really don't mind being old I just hate the aging process.  As much as I don't mind the idea of death I just don't like the dying process. 

As a consequence I'm not able to do many of the things I used to be able to do.  Things that I found joy in and pretty much took for granted are now beyond me.  However today I took back part of my life with a little help of course. 

My neice and her husband bought me a 4 wheeler.  Mobility is mine again.  Not for me one of those sissy damn motorized wheel chairs -- I may be unsteady on my feet but I can still walk dammit.  What I couldn't do is jump on the back of my pony and take off for a brisk ride, taking joy in the sparkle of the sun on the dew in the grass and breath in heavily the crisp in the morning air.  But this morning I hobbled the old carcass to the 4 wheeler, straddled the seat, reved the motor and I was off.  I took off down the back roads looking for the middle of nowhere and came close to it.  I even took of across an 80 to the edge of a a small wooded break and watched a small creek snake through it.

A soul needs solitude, a time to leave all behind, get rid of what poison's fill it and fill the void with what's important - a guide can point the way but unless you can walk it yourself the vessel remains only half full.  

You don't realize how much you miss something until it's taken from you and then you don't  realize how much joy you can find in regaining what has been lost.  I regained solitude.  Today I threw a leg over my pony again, took joy in the sparkle of the sun on the dew in the grass and breathed in heavily the crisp of the morning air ... and smiled.

While I was writing the previous blog it reminded me of some of the stories I remember from my days as a wrangler for BLM.

I was with BLM in one form or another for about 5 years off and on.  I saw a lot of ponies in that time but one stands out for me.  It was in Utah and we had rounded up a herd of about 150.  It was practice then (and may still be now I don’t know) to get the whole herd – check them for any obvious diseases etc.  We’d cull the horses then, keep those that weren’t as well conformed or as thrifty and kick those that were exceptional out.  One of the first to go was the stallion.  He was a beauty, deep dark chestnut with flaxen mane and tail.  He was set in the shoulder and deep across the chest – he’d make a good sire for future generations of the herd so out he went back into the hills he came from.  At least that was the way it was suppose to go.  We’d kick him out sure enough but the next day we’d find him back in the big corral with the mares.  Seems he’d wait until night and then jump the corral fence to try and get the rest of his mares out too.  I had to give it to the ole boy, he knew his job and he wasn’t about to shirk it.  So out he went again but damn if the next morning there he was AGAIN.  This happened a couple more times before we finally got through with the culling and were shipping the culled mares out of there.  Even then you could see the stallion standing on a ridge, watching the trucks disappear down the road.  We don’t usually name the horses unless its “that torn ear mare” or “that colt with the bald face” but one cowboy named this horse and as long as I was with BLM the name stuck – for the tenaciousness of that stallion had become legendary by now – he named him VD.  Short for venereal disease of course – because he was easy to catch but hard to get rid of. 

Somehow I like the idea of there being "Son's of VD" still running wild.    

Several days ago I read in the paper where wild horse advocacy groups are concerned over the proposed roundup of a few thousand wild horses from across the west.  They are afraid that this culling will weaken the genetic diversity and strength of the herds.  I wonder how many of these horse lovers have ever actually observed a wild horse herd. 

I’ve been around horses all my life.  I used to breed and train working cowhorses and for about a 5 year space in the 70’s I rode for BLM and helped with some of the roundup’s in Utah, Montana and even a couple times down Nevada way.  I was raised at the foot of the Pryor Mountains and grew up watching the wild herds that call them home. They are part of our heritage and nothing can bring a lump to this ole cowpolk’s throat faster than the beauty of watching a stallion keep watch over his herd against the back drop of the steel grey of an approaching storm.  But that doesn’t mean I am blind to the problems that are caused by  a herd that’s grown to large for its grazing land can do.  Which is why I support Burn’s proposal to allow the sale of horses those horses to old or unwanted to slaughter.  I know this isn’t going to make me popular but if you can’t find a place for these animals then how long are the taxpayers going to put up with paying for them.  If they are allowed to breed unchecked then the problem and expense is only going to keep growing as well. 

I like what they are doing with the Pryor Mtn. herd.  They have vaccinated them with a sterilizer – a equine birth control injection if you will.   I like this pro-active approach but even this has the equine branch of puppy huggers-r-us up in arms.  I’d like to know how they’d solve the shrinking rangeland problem.  Do away with people?  Yea, that’s really practical.  But really if anyone knows I’d like to hear from them – maybe I’m missing something.

I don't get around to well anymore but today I had to haul the ol' carcass down the road a bit to the Huntley Project Threshing Bee.  This is about as down home country as your going to get.  Restored farm machinery working about an 80 acre of wheat, threashing with the old steam and deisel machines.  I was tranported back to my childhood and let me tell you it's a long trip.  It's not about the machinery though.  Yes, the machinery is the reason for the get togeather but its more about community.  People with maybe one thing in common, the same geographic location, getting togeather to share, trade and communicate with one another and have one helluva pleasant time doing it.  Like what the state fairs used to be before it was taken up with outside carnival rides and performers. 

There were vendors hawking wares - all local home made treasures and some special "store bought" trinkets and gizmos that are more curiosity than practical. There were musicians, Old time fiddlers and blue grass. Children and adults alike were treated to fresh picked and cooked in front of you corn on the cob dripping with fresh butter, while a few yards from them the old saw and shingle mill was working away, powered by some of the old work horse tractors of course.  None of this fancy air conditioned cabs.  The temperatures were in the 90's, sweat was running as freely as were the smiles on the onlookers faces.  Old men grinning as they remembered times long gone and young men wondering "how it must have been".  One of the more popular exhibits was the old time ice cream maker - and no i'm not talking about the hand cranked ones - this one of course was powered by steam and pulley.

Maybe it was the blinders of old age recalling those days with such fondness.  I know most of them were tough.  Scratching out a living from this hard-pan clay has never been easy but maybe the smile on my face and the lightness of my heart was because I remembered the hardship but also knew I'd come through it and am thankful for the man it helped me become.

I invite all of you - anyone that reads this - to come to Huntley Mt. to the old Osborn Park and Southern Ag Experiment Station and be part of the festivities - they continue on until late Sunday afternoon.  Can't make it? Well think about coming next year - the Threshing Bee is held every August the 3rd weekend of the month.  In the mean time here's a few pictures I took of the festivities today.

[link]/

Enjoy

Well it seems you can teach this old dog new tricks but not many and i don't seem to be performing them well.  If anyone can tell me how to add a pic to this site without it taking up so much space that you have to scroll to see it all i'd be most appreciative ;)

There's not much you need in life but a good dog is a necessity.  If I could have found a woman with the qualities of my dog I figure I'd still be married.   My neice bought me a digital camera for my birthday.  I think she's tired of me being under foot all day so we'll find out if you can teach this dog a new trick.