Thursday, September 2, 2004

Yesterday I was on the high bluff overlooking the Cheyenne River where it transects this ranch. The valley winds down toward the little town of Wasta –twenty miles away. The river meanders and flows over rocks and sand, carrying fine clay silt, depositing it in the broader, flatter bends and curves of its water course. All in all, the entire river is a beautiful sight. From where I was I could see the water coming out of Big Corral Draw Creek at its confluence with the river. There is green grass along the riverbanks: so the cattle that are presently on the U.S. Forest Service grasslands frequently hang out along and on the riparian vegetation beside the riverbanks and the contiguous floodplain. There are cottonwood trees in a broad expanse of the river bottom. That area provides habitat for antelope, deer, coyotes, skunks, porcupines, and raccoons, several kinds of birds of prey including kestrels, red - tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, and golden eagles. There are also crows, meadowlarks, three kinds of woodpeckers, several varieties of snake: including garter, green racer, bull, and prairie rattler, not to mention prairie dogs and burrowing owl as well as a few kinds of mice, more than a few species of insect, lots of grasses, forbs, and sedges. Well, you get the picture. It’s almost idyllic – except for the drought.

The Cheyenne River is the carotid artery or the jugular vein of life in this area. Often taken for granted, like the picture on the postcard; often perceived as an obstacle to be dealt with, a barrier, an inconvenience; sometimes understood as a threat, that old irresistible force that overwhelms even the immovable object. But the river is just water, doing what water does, seeking its own level first, and everything else be damned. It is water, sustenance, life. Even in this drought the river flows. It slips around corners and slides downstream sometimes at its leisure, sometimes in its haste. Rain from upstream and in the Black Hills sends water down, raises and broadens the river temporarily. It’s truly a wonderful phenomenon, a spectacle even in its placid times.

The Cheyenne River and this ranch share about three miles of riverbank. We enjoy easy and immediate access to the river, which is fenced into the holdings of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands.

It is the river and its watershed that provides the majority of the drinking water for the cattle herds that are permitted into the grasslands that the Forest Service’s National Grasslands provide. During the summer we do not have use of that water but over the winter we will, as that is the area we have been fencing for almost a year. The problem we faced this summer was to make the best use possible of the grass and water within the deeded portions of the ranch until such time as we are permitted to put a substantial part of our herds into the leased, U.S. Forest Service managed, grasslands.

In order to alleviate the problem of drinking water for the herds, we have installed some pipelines from a couple of wells and some water tanks in several of the pastures – as the stock dams all are dry.

One particularly hot day I happened to be near one of these round, galvanized tanks filled with cold, clear water. The buffalo were perhaps a couple hundred yards away, lying quietly, chewing their cuds and particularly uninterested in this farmer-tanned, stripped-down, two-legged who (bare parts shinning in the sun) rolled over the edge or the tank and into that chill, refreshing water.