Monthly Archives: March 2020

Jefe

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Those of you who have spent any time drifting along the dusty, hot trail that winds along the border between Texas and Mexico know the occasional small towns, actually villages, that you come across here and there. The ones so small they don’t even appear on local maps let alone your GPS.

Lost in time, little has changed since the time of the border incident, the one where Texas took the top half of Mexico and just kept it. Since there wasn’t much to do with that land after they took it has remained just like it has always been, a place unto itself, with its own rules, laws and customs. Some of these small villages are so remote and difficult to get to that even the residents don’t know how to get there.

To say it is difficult to make a living here is such an understatement it is easier to believe what is being said out of Washington no matter how outrageous or preposterous than to think a living can be made here. There’s no fake news here as there’s no news, period, none, not any. Well somebody might put up a sign about a lost goat, or a missing 57 Chevy, but that’s the extent of it. That’s what passes for news down here. They have to go fifty miles or more in any direction just to see a DIRECTV dish let alone be able to watch it..

Their village may be small and inconsequential to us but it’s their life and what goes on there is as important to them as our rules and regulations are to us. They need the structure and comfort of having someone tell them what’s acceptable and what’s not in their world, to keep them safe, give them guidance, and take the worry out of day to day living.

In one of the smallest of the small villages tucked away in the high chaparral and cactus laden cliffs that line a small spring that occasionally trickles into the Rio Grande, is the village named c To say it is unimpressive is to give it credit for having anything of interest or value to recommend it. Which it doesn’t. Its main claim to fame being that not many donkeys have fallen off the razor thin trail that leads up along the cliff to the village. Yet people live there, simply by our standards perhaps but meaningful to them. And they like all of us feel the need for some type of leadership.

In this case it is a man of some respect in the village. His father, and his before him, and his father before him stretching back way past the memory of any living resident, and simply called Jefe by the others, is the one making important decisions for the village. He decides who’s at fault in the latest knife fight, and who shall be chosen to make the irregular trek into civilization to bring back whatever is needed, and to preside over the unexpected but mandatory wedding when the priest can’t make it there in time and countless other small but significant decisions that arise. The other villagers don’t even call him leader, or boss, or mayor, he is simply Jefe. His responsibility is to the village and he takes it very seriously.

This Yer Dog …?

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Jessie, Hoosker and Bill

Conversations overheard at the rendezvous.

This yer dog.

Never saw him before. He yorn?

Nope but he sure as hell is yourn. I knows that fer a fact.

If’fen he’s mine why’d you ask me then.

I ask’d you cuz you been tryin to pawn him off on me specially at suppertime.

Never did. You can go to hell for lyin as well as stealin.

I knows he yorn, you even named him. Everybody knows he’s yorn.

Iffen you knows so much whut’d I name him.

Hoosker. You named him Hoosker.

Listen to your ownself. You’d lie if the truth would set you free. Hoosker, who’d name a dog Hoosker.

You did. You named him after your Sister-in-law’s Mother-in-law. Said he resembled her some.

Hah! Now I got your sorry ass. I don’t even got a Sister-in-law let alone her mother-in-law.

Do too, you old fool. Remember when we was back in St Louie a year or so ago and you got to minglin with that little gal down in Polishtown. She fed you all that keilbasa and sauerkraut and Vodka. Remember the vodka? You drank so much vodka you didn’t know iffen you’d walked to work or wound yer watch. You said it looked like water, who could get drunk on water. You got a sister-in-law, and her mother-in-law too.

I seem to remember a little somethin about St Louie. Hey ain’t this your dog? You better go an get him fed he looks a little scrawny.

Mules and the Art of Pipe Lighting

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It may be hard for us to fathom now days but back in the 1830’s people smoked. They smoked cigarettes, cigars, pipes, sometimes bark, Indians smoked kinnikinic and they smoked it in anything that could hold tobacco. It wasn’t frowned upon or looked down on, people didn’t come up to a smoker and say “Hey! Put that out don’t you know second hand smoke is a major cause of cancer !?!” The ‘you imbecile’ being understood. In fact doing something that rash just might get you a lit cigar in the eyeball.

With all that smoking going on there were numerous ways to light your tobacco in whatever smoking device you employed. Back East and in certain bawdy houses you had matches made with sulphurous coated heads you struck on your enemies unshaven whiskery face to get them to burst into flame, the match not the enemy, right before the fight started. (See early spaghetti westerns for reference)

As you moved further West you didn’t have matches as they were hard to keep dry, they ran out and they made you look like a sissy if you used them. You could pull a burning twig out of the fire to light up and that worked great. It wasn’t much good when you were on the move however. One of the best uses of technology of the day and the most efficient form of tobacco ignition was the use of a magnifying glass. You just held it up for the sun to shine through it then pointed it at the tobacco and before you could say “Hey! Is that an Indian?” you were smoking. Usually about 2-3″ in diameter the magnifying glass hung in a custom made pouch around the smokers neck for easy use. It wasn’t just for burning ants anymore.

However since this was a form of technology there was a certain amount of science involved in its use. You needed a steady hand to use it. If you were standing on the ground you could lean up against something solid, a building, a rock, a tree, maybe someone steadier than you and aim the glass at your pipe. You could do it freestyle, and some did, but you needed to be sober to do it. Otherwise improper alignment could burn a hole in your fore finger before someone mentioned that you were on fire. Also as you had to carefully look at the point of ignition at the top of your pipe this could make you cross-eyed and dizzy and go all over wonky of a sudden. The results of that happening are too numerous to mention here.

The real trick however was to light your pipe while atop your mule. This is where a well trained mule was not only essential but mandatory if you wanted to light your pipe without dismounting. The mule had to be of a scientific nature to begin with, just any old mule out of the barn wouldn’t do. Many were bred just for their ability to recognize a scientific act in the raw and figure out how it could assist its rider in a way that would be the most beneficial to them both. This was done by the mule for a couple of reasons, one, to learn science and technology to enhance its life and two, to get extra oats as a reward. Mules being quick to learn soon saw the benefit of being the most help it could be. They found the extra oats to be a welcome stimulation to their mind and digestive track. There were some mules that were so smart and got so many rewards in the form of oats and other high calorie grains and legumes that you were seeing mules weighing 31 to 3200 lbs. standing in the corrals. Obviously these mules were then used for breeding purposes and not for normal drayage anymore.

In the image above you see how this system worked. You have a vaquero in desperate need of a smoke, his pipe in his mouth and his hand holding the magnifying glass up and pointed at the exact angle needed at sun, ready to suck in a big lungful of smoke as soon as it ignites. What you may not have taken in however is the work that the mule is doing to facilitate this procedure. Look at the way it has positioned the rider so he is at the correct angle needed for full ignition of the tobacco. See him studying the sun shining on the bright green grass watching for any change in its movement. Should a cloud come up casting a shadow over the rider the mule can move forward keeping the maximum amount of concentrated sun power passing through the magnifying glass. This is a well trained mule. It is also a valuable one as its worth to the smoking vaquero can barely be measured in money. Life was tough for those living during those times but as always is the case there were those that made it easier. Having a well trained mule that was adept at the art of pipe lighting made life better.

Approaching The Kill

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Yellowstone National Park

Down in the valley where you can’t quite see it is the remains of a cow elk the Cascade pack brought down two days ago. This meadow is a prime crossing point for the herds to use to get down to the little creeks that feed into the Yellowstone river. The thirstier they get the better the pickings for the Cascade wolf pack.

Success doesn’t go unnoticed however as the scent of a fresh kill or even one several days old travels for miles. Grizzly’s have as keen a nose as the wolves and will quickly track down the spot where food is at. They’ve been known to run off a whole wolf pack to get at the carcass. Even the Cascade wolves old nemesis, the Norris pack, aren’t that far away and will occasionally come over to raid in their territory.

With that in mind each of the wolves of the Cascade pack will cautiously approach the kill site, especially if they’re alone, to make sure they don’t get caught by another predator by surprise. It’s best to use all of their senses when approaching the kill.

Riding Fence

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Cowboys Pinedale Wyoming

If you want to see fence go to Wyoming. They have some. Miles of it in fact, miles and miles and miles of it. It stretches from here, where you happen to be at the moment, to way the heck out there. Beyond however far you can see. If you have new glasses, or have just got your eyes done and think you have the eyesight of a young eagle, you still can’t see the end of it. Stand on top of your car, jump up real high, squint and still the fence goes on. Too put it simply there is a lot of fence in Wyoming.

Ok if you’re one to ask questions about fence and fencing in general, and I suspect you are, here are some answers.

Is fencing dangerous? Fencing in and of itself is not inherently dangerous, although it is terribly unforgiving of your desire to just turn left and drive off into the pasture land, willy nilly, as it were. One exception, most fencing is wire and it’s got pickily, stickery pieces with sharp pointy edges every 8″ along the entire length of it. This is known in the trade as Barb wire (Easterners say Barbed wire which clearly identifies them as tourists, dudes and tenderfeet) and is the primary fencing material used in the west and Wyoming. These are designed to tear your brand new $120.00 jeans if you try to sneak thru it by crawling over or under or trying to jump it and missing. So be warned of that.

Does fencing block off access? Fencing does block off access. This is both good and bad. Bad if you’re one to go out onto someone’s land and squat there. Build a house maybe, scatter old wrecked windshield-less cars from the 40’s around. Put up signs saying things like “The Jones Live here. No Trespassing.” Or “Beauty Acres, We Don’t rent Chickens.” The people who really own that land don’t like that. They don’t want you to do that, Hence the Fence. The good, because it keeps things like the above from happening.

Why do they have so much fence you might ask and can I go and see it? Yes you can go and see it. Just behave yourself. There is a lot of space in Wyoming. You can drive for what seems like days and not meet an oncoming vehicle. And people somewhat like you and I (but not us) own it, all of it. Even parts that don’t look like they’d be worth owning, someone does, and it isn’t you and me. This is neither good or bad it just is, deal with it. I don’t know about you but I don’t own one square inch of any fencible land in Wyoming. I’m betting you don’t either, unless of course you’re a bonafide Wyoming landowner, and if you are you already know all this stuff.

What’s the real reason they have fencing, not the bull you’ve been handing out so far? Ok, the real skinny on fencing and why it’s done can be answered in one word, Cows. Cows is the reason we have McDonalds. There are other restaurants too that are in the cow meat business because of cows and lets face it if you want to eat cow meat while you’re out driving around looking at fences, you have to go to McDonalds. Wyoming landowners have figured this out some time ago and taken advantage of this knowledge by buying up and owning the entire state of Wyoming and then fencing it.

Why do Wyoming landowners like fencing so much? Because. That’s it in a nutshell, because they want to and can.The fences keep one guys cows on his own place and doesn’t allow those cows to mingle or fraternize with the guy’s cows next to him. Each guy and/or girl feels very strongly about this. There’s been trouble about it, so like they say “good fences make good neighbors”. Because of this it is imperative that one’s fences are in good repair, not busted and laying on the ground so cows can leave and get all mixed up with someone else’s. To make certain of this the landowner employs cowboy type guys to inspect the fence regularly for damage. This is known as Riding Fence in western or Wyoming talk. The image above shows two young cowboy trainees riding along a fence to check its integrity and continuity. This is an important job and taken very seriously by all involved. If they find any discrepancies they will immediately race home and tell the landowner so it can be fixed. Good job boys. Thanks for helping all of us better understand fence and fencing.