Restoring the Great Plains by bringing back the buffalo.
May, 2008 - Issue #47 Be sure to recommend WildIdeaBuffalo.com to all of your friends.
Jill's Online-Only Special
Wild Idea Online Store
April Showers bring May flowers and sometimes they bring blizzards. We have been lucky to catch some spring rain & snow showers, so we are sharing in the green by passing a shower of savings on to you. Celebrate spring and our spring harvesting with us by taking advantage of this great May special.Your May Special
With the purchase of the Butcher's Choice package, you will receive an extra $10.00 savings* in addition to the 39.00 savings listed. Plus, you will receive one of our all new "ready to eat" products - free**. Choose from;-
Hot Dogs $12.00
Salami $13.00
or Pastrami $16.00, FREE!
*Your extra $10.00 savings on your Butcher's Choice won't appear in your cart but rest assured, we will apply it before we charge your card.
**Please specify which free product (Hot Dogs $12.00, Salami $13.00 or Pastrami $16.00) you would like us to add in the 'Comment Box' located between the two thick brown lines toward the bottom of the first page of the shopping cart.
As always we thank you for your continued support and good taste.
Cheers-
~Jill
Where are Jill & Dan now?
Jill and Dan leave for Monterey, California on May 14th. They have been invited to be presenters at COOKING FOR SOLUTIONS, sponsored by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Wild Idea will be something of a terrestrial component of this event which advances the SEAFOOD WATCH program – dedicated to transforming markets in ways that support sustainable seafood, healthy soils, and healthy oceans. COOKING FOR SOLUTIONS is a three day event, much of which is open to the public. Jill and Dan would love to see some Wild Idea customers. Check out their website: www.CookingforSoutions.org.Monthy Musing
by Dan O'Brien
It finally rained.For the past few years the wind would freshen in that magic way and our spirits would boil and swell like the thunderheads over the Black Hills. But time and again what had promised to be a reprieve from the oppressive, stomach-churning drought would evaporate into the heavens and leave nothing but clear sky and hot dry wind.
When you build a fence around buffalo, no matter how big the pasture, there is something human in most of us that takes on the responsibility for all that resides within. A case of over-developed, Midwestern, Middle American, white, paternalism? Perhaps. But the heavy beast that lies on your chest at night and chews on your heart as sizzling heat waves distort the grassland that bears your name at the county courthouse is as real as the grass's need for rain. And it is not just the grass. It is everything from the birds and antelope and deer and buffalo to the insects and rodents and microbes. It is everything that means anything to you that needs the rain.
Some would say that there is nothing a rancher can do to make it rain, that it's best to forget it, leave it to providence. But I know that it is an equation: too little rain or too many buffalo. It amounts to nearly the same thing and, while rain is not within the rancher's power, buffalo can be sold or slaughtered. It only takes a willingness to kill your plans and dreams. It only takes the guts to take a financial beating, the guts to jeopardize your future. And so every night for as many days, or months, or years that the drought coils on the land, you wish, perhaps even pray, for rain. You tell yourself that it's all subject to the cycles of the land. You try not to let the specter of climate change into your head. You tell yourself that there is a balance. Ying and yang. Famine and plenty. You are just too close. Life and death are the two sides of the same coin. Then your middle-classness wags it's judgmental finger and you feel bad for wishing that the coin would fall your way.
Well, a month ago the pattern of drought seemed to shift. We have not yet been saved but over the past three weeks we've received over three inches and that is a respectable amount of spring moisture for this dry country. It is enough to make us all think that there may be more to come. It makes us spring out of bed in the morning. Ever the optimists, a paltry three inches of rain is enough to make us shake our heads and laugh at ourselves for loosing sleep. What was all that worrying about, anyway?
Of that three inches of moisture, maybe half came in the form of a very late spring blizzard. For years Jill and I have been talking about how nice it would be to get snowed in. During the last five cold, dry winters we dreamed of the old days when a foot of snow and a driving wind would seal up the driveway and force us to forsake our modern American, frenetic motion and simple hunker down like everything else. We longed to be driven inside, in front of a fireplace, and have a couple days when all there was to do was to read, and snuggle, and watch the snow shoot past the windows. But, of course, we do not live in Robert Frost's New England. We live on the Great Plains where blizzards are often accompanied by surprises, cruelties, and inevitable dualities.
... More of Dan's Monthly Musing
River Ranch Diary
May, 2008.It may be a little late in the season to write about the signs of Spring, as we see them out here on the Cheyenne River Ranch. There are a few things here on the prairie that many people seldom, if ever, have the opportunity to witness. That does not mean to suggest that we have something particularly unique--quite the opposite, but the prairie offers an abundance of interesting, even fascinating signs of spring.
All of the usual things happen: snow and ice melt; wind continues its rampage; trees, shrubs, and flowers bud and flourish; robins and doves reappear; everything begins to turn green; Sandhill Cranes, geese and ducks move across the skies and use their traditional resting places; deer begin to grow their antlers.
And one day in March or April, perhaps while on horseback riding on a gathering of cow/calf pairs for a branding at one of the neighbors, a startled Burrowing Owl flies from one Prairie Dog burrow to another. Its flight startles you, too, because you thought it was yet too early for them to be back on their breeding territories. This small observation can serve to alert the observer, who to this point, has been casual, or locked into winter mode, or intensely focused on the job at hand.
Now there stands a buck antelope off to one side on the slope of a hill, staunchly defiant on a territory he has established in his quest to gather a band of does. He stands and watches you pass and may even take a step or two toward you, as if to say: "Move on by, stranger, I have staked this claim."
On another day, perhaps a little later, there appears a pair of Long-billed Curlews. They fly at an altitude of about fifty feet and stay one hundred yards away, their down-curved wings and the long, down-curved bills unmistakable. They glide to a running landing in a greening pasture. They will reside there until late summer.
Then you might see a Turkey Vulture, or a Cooper's Hawk. The male Kestrel has already been here for a month waiting to attract a mate when the females return. And high in the sky, a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks performs their intricate aerial, courtship display flight, circling up almost out of sight and diving in a long, fast angle toward the nest tree. They land lightly, delicately even, with outspread wings breaking their descent, with unbelievable efficiency. They perch elegantly as if nothing extraordinary had just happened.
And later, or sooner, as it sometimes happens, usually between the end of March and the middle of April, a little, wobbly, golden furred and fluffy little critter nuzzles its mother, perhaps at some distance from the main herd; usually with its yearling and two year old siblings in attendance. Shortly thereafter the buffalo cow will bring her newborn to meet the rest of the herd.
These signs of Spring appear without fanfare, but always to surprise the complacent observer out of his or her casual, or tired Winter mode.
Spring has arrived; the madness of March, the cruelty of April not withstanding.
More River Ranch Diaries.
Final Comments
As always, thank you for your tremendous encouragement and support.Please feel free to contact us at 866-658-6137 or email us at .
Hope you've enjoyed catching up with us at Wild Idea and the Cheyenne River Ranch. Visit the website and visit the ranch. Savor Wild Idea buffalo meat with a glass of wine. Watch the sky and think about the Great Plains.
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Wild Idea Buffalo Company
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Toll free (866) 658-6137 - Local 605-716-0572
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