Summer Begins at Cow Camp

Tuesday. We packed up to leave for cow camp at Mosquito Lake. Cliff stopped by and offered to do anything. He’s a nice guy. We headed out at 10:19 a.m. We drove to the lake, and unhooked the trailer. We loaded a pallet of salt in the truck and drove over to the lake to have our lunch. It is so green and pretty up here. It seemed like we didn’t have spring on the Mesa it was so dry and brown. There were almost no flowers this year. Already we’ve seen hords of flowers up here. Let’s see...carpets of dandelions, alpine forgetmenots, wild geraniums, lupin, pussytoes, buttercups, penstemon, larkspur, phlox, monkey faces, Indian paint brush, cinquefoil, shooting stars, wild buckwheat, pond lilys, wild strawberries, purple gentian, green gentian, scarlet gilia, and some little pink things that I know not what they are. The forgetmentnots are such a deep blue, and are just gorgeous. We saw deer, elk, antelope and a moose. There is an antelope at the cabin that must have some young, although we haven’t seen them yet. She sure won’t leave however. Anyhow, after lunch we scattered salt. Bob did hide some to scatter tomorrow with the four wheeler. Then we came to camp. All looks good. We unpacked the truck, and put stuff away in the cabin. For as full as the truck was, there isn’t much in the cabin. Bob found out that someone stole three boxes of plastic posts for the electric fence. The fish that Charles reported to be in the spring is not there. The spring is awfully low. There are swallows and blackbirds vying for space around the cabin. The mosquitoes are out but not all that bad. The snow is leaving the peaks fast. We have a few snow banks around on the north slopes of some of the ridges. The Indian head still has his head dress, but it’s sparse.

June 14th. Wednesday. We put up the horsepasture fence between storms. It blew, rained, snowed, hailed, and the sun shown. There is some fresh snow in the peaks, but it didn’t stay here. Bob pounded a bunch of posts, and we put in the plastic ones, and strung the tape. I photographed flowers for a project I hope to do for Artist Guild. Dell was dumpie today, but sparked up toward evening. About supper time we watched our antelope get her baby up for it’s dinner. It tried to buck, and was so awkward he was a hoot. Saw two swans fly over. It reminded me Bill Long from Jackson wants us to keep track of them for him. I’ll start a list.


June 15th. Thursday. We took the four wheeler up and did the west fence. The flowers were phenomenal. Bob got the electric fence, at least on this end working. We set up the water gap. He split kindling. I put up the little bit of the horse pasture fence that Charles didn’t. Dell seems to be doing pretty well.

June 16th. Friday. We took the four wheeler and the truck over to the horsetrailer. We saw a cow elk on the way over. She must have a baby out in the sage brush, as she didn’t want to leave. We loaded 28 blocks of salt to be unloaded at camp, and Bob scattered the 16 that was left plus the stashes we’d put out the other day. I went back to camp and unloaded that salt. I dinked around not doing much until he got back. I didn’t have anything to really clean the cabin with..and it does need it. Watched the antelope with her two babies. They’re a hoot. She made them cross the creek. One fell in and got all wet. Bob got the electric fences running, and then we loaded the truck with some trash and headed to town. We took the salt pallets to Rich at the feed store. Dino called to say he and Lori had come to camp to see us. Darn. We went up to the pasture. We called the phone number on the locked gate. It turned out to be Paul Davidson. He had a key there to let us up there. Bob did a little irrigating with a dinky shovel someone had left. We visited with Davidsons a while.

The spring went well with no dead calves until just a couple of days ago. We found one that died in a pond. Then yesterday we found a yearling that someone hit on the road. After calling the sheriff, we found out the person who did that, reported it. We were able to tell them who the yearling belonged to, so the process can begin to compensate the rancher.

Yesterday and today we hauled horses home. We finished our riding on the Mesa today. Albert Sommers, the pres. of the Upper Green River Cattle Association had us ride one day longer than planned. Garlie Swain is putting out one day early, so we are already two days behind up country. Somehow, things like that often happen. Today we brought stuff home, and back to Sommers'.

Tomorrow it'll be a mad day of banking, bill paying, shopping, packing etc. I got a notice yesterday that I'm on call for jury..so I have to go see about that. If they are happy to notify me by the radio, it'll work. They mailed the letter on the eighth, requesting my paperwork in to them by the first. Hummmm.

Michael was here for the evening yesterday...good visiting there. I spent some time in the silver shop, and caught up on some small projects.

We'll be heading up country Tuesday or Wednesday. We'll take the horse trailer loaded with necessaries for the cabin, two pallets of salt and the four wheeler. We'll be fencing and salting, and later come down after a load of horses. We understand the grass is good up country, but the water in the ponds is way short.

With the price of diesel we may not be down too often.

That's about it for now. We'll keep you posted when I'm around the internet.