A Taste of New Grass

From the open skies of Wyoming, here’s this month’s short story about ranch life, an insight I learned from my family, and a piece of trivia.

Story 

The last time I drove Dad from his apartment in Cheyenne to the ranch was in the late 1990s, about a year before he passed away. For several years before that trip, prolonged drought had plagued the country of my youth. Pastures that were once green stretched brown to the horizon, resembling a moonscape devoid of life, and relentless winds swept across the dry land.

But by that fortunate spring, things had begun to change. Rain had returned. You could smell the dew-moistened leaves of threadleaf sedge and almost hear the blades of grass reaching for the sun after such a long dry spell. Dad and I knew things in the country were improving well before we drove out to the ranch. Every morning in his kitchen, we listened to the weather reports on the radio, eager for news of another storm moving across Wyoming.

“I bet the bull pasture is blanketed with new grass,” Dad said over a cup of black coffee and a Safeway tamale.

He took a sip and stared out the window at the traffic on Western Hills Boulevard. He smiled. His words brought back memories of watching him ride Moody River through a milling herd of brood cows and their young calves.

When the grass was full and nutritious, spring was a wonderous time of year.

“You want to check it out?” I asked him.

“Yeah. Let’s take a drive out to the foot of the Seminoes.”

I packed a lunch and we climbed into my pickup for the 170-mile trip west to the I Lazy D. As we entered Carbon County, the grass seemed greener and the musky scent of mint drifted from the lush sagebrush communities we passed. North of Sinclair, the landscape became so familiar—each brushy canyon, the winding course of the North Platte River, and the Lone Haystack Mountain standing sentinel over our old winter pasture.

Home again, I thought, nearly fifteen years after we left the place.

We drove through our pastures until we reached the turnoff to the North Red Hills State Park at the foot of the Seminoe Mountains, where we once kept the bulls separate from the cows until breeding season. By then, it was lunchtime. I pulled to the side of the road, and we shared bologna-and-cheese sandwiches and cans of Diet Pepsi.

Silence filled the cab as Dad surveyed the landscape, a smile on his face as he chewed his sandwich.

“I haven’t seen it this green out here in a helluva long time,” he said.

A light breeze bent the blades of grass toward the northeast, but they sprang right back when it died down, thick and healthy as if waiting for the next bull to chow down. We sat there maybe twenty minutes or so, finishing our sandwiches and taking in the view.

“The country looks great, Mark. Let’s head back,” Dad said at last.

He didn’t get out of the pickup.

That was the last time Frank Miller ever laid eyes on the I Lazy D ranch, the outfit his grandfather had started in 1881. The new manager never knew we visited the place, and we never told anyone. From that day on, our family’s ranching legacy would live on in memory alone.

Frank Miller, 1968.

Insight

You can take the man out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the man.

Did You Know?

We always pastured bulls at least two fences away from cows when they weren’t breeding. Bulls always got pretty excited if they caught the scent of their female counterparts.

Until next time,

Mark Miller

From A Sometimes Paradise:  

“You were out there for sixty-four years,” I said to Dad. “Don’t you miss anything?”

Sitting back in his chair, he stared off into space and gave it more thought. Finally, he looked me in the eye and smiled. “I miss watching the cattle in the spring, standing in the meadow, hearing them fart and belch when they eat new grass.”