Tag: Drift

Posted on by

Bone Yard Wagon Axle

Bone Yard Wagon Axle
Bone Yard Wagon Axle

Bone Yard Wagon Axle

I didn’t notice the foot prints of something small that paused under this antiquity. This ranch is a museum if you know where to look.

Any old ranch has a “boneyard” where utilitarian things you just don’t want to throw away lay. Some since the beginning of the place. I’d bet this buck wagon saw use from the start of this ranch in 1906. It was probably retired upon the first model T truck. No matter how many decades, here it lays with nothing but the cows for company in the summer. Not many wildlife bother it but for the mice that might live under or in the boards. 80 or maybe 90 generations of cattle calves and adults have rubbed against this wagon’s side and wheels. I see them do it every summer in that pasture.

Between Ice expanding between the grain of the wood. The drying contractions of hot summer droughts wear. But occasional soaking from our meager 14 inches of precipitation is insufficient for fast wood decay. This climate (ALL climate is local), is semi-arid with that low annual average of moisture. Wood might last 100 years, some woods like cedar, longer. I’ve seen posts here put in early with little damage. We even find leather shoes and Horse Harness materials in some of the old over the gully bank junk yards from the old homesteads up here. You never know what your going to dig up in those. The settlers here didn’t throw away much that worked or could be repurposed. We are the same way. You have to be.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands *Wyotana”

Title: Bone Yard Wagon Axle

Posted on by

Perspective on Snowy Backcountry Ridge

Perspective on Snowy Backcountry Ridge
Perspective on Snowy Backcountry Ridge

Perspective on Snowy Backcountry Ridge (Rare Halfie

The “thin layer” of Yellow Alpenglow colors the floating ice above the rising horizon covering the sun. This sets the stage across the middle of this “halfie”. I maybe take 10 ‘halfies” where the horizon is 1/2 way up the frame a YEAR. This capture won over my better instincts as it has such a big perspective. Leading lines are incoming in all directions. I think all the good things compositionally in this image over come the general rule against “halfies”.

“There seems to be no doubt that the vast quality of mutton can be grown here, pound for pound, as cheap as beef; and, if so, then sheep-raising must be profitable if cattle-raising is.”

Silas Reed, surveyor general of the Wyoming Territory, from his report for 1871.

It took a while for the notion of raising sheep to catch on out on the frontier. Eastern states and Ohio raised most of America’s sheep early on in the migration west. . Small numbers of sheep arrived in Wyoming as early as 1847 according to Levi Edgar Young’s The Founding of Utah, a Mormon pioneer company that left Omaha in July 1847 and arrived in Salt Lake City on September 19 included 358 sheep.

Back to the present. The stone Sheepherders Cairn just to the right of the sun has stood perhaps for 100 years acting as a marker or boundary point . Sometimes they were a place for a supply drop for the backcountry solitary herder hanging out with the sheep. The herder protected the sheep of course from coyotes/lions/other predators. They usually lived out of a covered wagon for months at a time literally alone with their flock.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Perspective on Snowy Backcountry Ridge

Posted on by

Wagon Box Full of Sunset

Wagon Box Full of Sunset
Wagon Box Full of Sunset

Wagon Box Full of Sunset

The closest “General Store” to this old buck board wagon was 15 miles. I wonder how many times this wagon was used to drive back and forth across the backcountry all the way to Biddle Montana or to Rocky POint Wyoming. They were about equidistant from our ranch headquarters.

A drive to supplies from here in a modern Car at 60 mph car is about 20 minutes. to drive the 15 miles to Biddle Montana. There has been a “General Store” there since the first settlers moved in. There were dozens and dozens of smaller ranches settled in the early 1900’s. When little chunks of land were available for settling.

Wagons like this were the main way that good made their way from civilization to the backcountry. A couple of good carriage horses should be able to convey a carriage 20-30 miles in an 8 hour day.. Carriage horses trotted but horse pulling loaded couldn’t travel as far. Trotting wasn’t an option with a heavy load of flour, beans and oils. Don’t forget cattle supplies and machine parts for fixing broken farm equipment. This wagon made many day long round trips from dawn to dusk. Probably 12-15 hours. Rough on the team plus rough under the Wyoming/Montana (Wyotana) weather.

Weather up here is dangerously changeable. I’ve seen it drop 40 degrees in 24 hours. Dust storms, wind storms and worse lightning storms. (a place called “Lightning Flats” is 20 miles east of here lolol) You and your cargo is at the mercy of the elements. I’m trying to image getting a winters supplies of food (months anyway) in this wagon.

Heck, the supplies themselves where hauled to the general store from the rail head by horse and wagon. Early trucks certainly started up hauling that 50 miles as the technology because affordable and available. The roads then were not concrete stretching across the country. Those roads were rutted 2 track roads. Most of which were originally game trails following the easiest path.

This place is a living museum. I’m always finding old technology discarded here. Old plows, discs and a long list of old grass machines found in the “bone yards”

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Title : Wagon Box Full of Sunset

Posted on by

Drifts Through the Discs

Drifts Through the Discs
Drifts Through the Discs

Drifts Through the Discs

I’m pretty sure that light can not get “flatter” than this but I could be wrong. What I love about this image is the huge number of grey’s there are resultant from that matte screen. This was pretty far away from the gravel / county road out to the ranch bone yard. The drifts between the plowed road and this old plow are numerous and sometimes high and wide. Short Drifts you can punch through, Wide drifts you go around or you get stuck lol

The Ranches “Bone Yard” is a small patch of ground populated with disused antique farm equipment, good scrap metals and old stuff generally. Some of it is serviceable, some of it is not. A little welding here/there, then a tractor and your discing with anything that will pull the thing. There are many spare parts out in the boneyard.

I spent a month one year cleaning it up of mostly wood and old tires which are now buried in a building materials only landfill. It’s taken full trailers of steel from long times past from that boneyard when steel scrap was worth something. I’d get 400 – 500 dollars a load or scrap steel back in the day. There are still a LOT of equipment there that no doubt traces it’s history back to the beginning of the ranch. 100 years of accumulation leaves some interesting stuff lol. I’m thinking that every ranch of any size and length of ownership has a similar “Bone Yard”.

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (Wyotana)

Title: Drifts Through the Discs

Posted on by

Perspective Snowy Backcountry Boulders

Perspective Snowy Backcountry Boulders
Perspective Snowy Backcountry Boulders

Perspective Snowy Backcountry Boulders

Trees growing out of large boulders are always a photographic target . Particularly with a LOT trees growing out of boulders. On the crest of this backcountry ridge, this is a sand tube area where sand was compressed into an elongated sphere early on when it was first buried but still soft and wet. This is ALL Hell Creek Sandstone which routinely flows around internally a bit like soft putty. Sort of like squeezing a tooth paste tube. . This leaves these relatively harder boulders for me to enjoy as they resist weathering better than the material around them.

Deposited in the Cretaceous era about 66 million years old as an age. That lichen can be 100 years or more old. Only rocks that are undisturbed have big lichen patches. Cattle pressure/wear from rubbing will destroy it. This boulder is way out there remote. Not a lot of people have been to this spot. I see wonderful sunsets from here.

Big areas of this boulder strewn surface covered with Sunburst Liichen (Xanthoria sp.) exists here. Called pincushion lichen by some. Bear in mind that there are hundreds of different species of Lichen that inhabit Wyoming and differentiating them exactly is sort of a science all by itself. Lichenologists have to have work of some kind. Academia is the obvious job path. I suspect that there is a use for court testimony however the job prospects of a Lichenologist is about the same as a masters in biostratigraphy such as myself. Though interestingly, biostratigraphers do a lot of work with oil companies .. My general comment about Lichen nomenclature is that you need a bachelors of science in Biology (which I have) to look at the photos. The text about the lichen is a foreign language.😀😀.

Perspective Snowy Backcountry Boulders

Posted on by

Wagon Wheel Snow Drift

Wagon Wheel Snow Drift
Wagon Wheel Snow Drift

Wagon Wheel Snow Drift

Any old ranch has a “boneyard” where utilitarian things you just don’t want to throw away lay. Some since the beginning of the place. I’d bet this buck wagon saw use from the start of this ranch in 1906. It was probably retired upon the first model T truck. No matter how many decades, here it lays with nothing but the cows for company in the summer. Not many wildlife bother it but for the mice that might live under or in the boards. 80 or maybe 90 generations of cattle calves and adults have rubbed against this wagon’s side and wheels. I see them do it every summer in that pasture.

Between Ice expanding between the grain of the wood. The drying contractions of hot summer droughts wear. But occasional soaking from our meager 14 inches of precipitation is insufficient for fast wood decay. This climate (ALL climate is local), is semi-arid with that low annual average of moisture. Wood might last 100 years, some woods like cedar, longer. I’ve seen posts here put in early with little damage. We even find leather shoes and Horse Harness materials in some of the old over the gully bank junk yards from the old homesteads up here. You never know what your going to dig up in those. The settlers here didn’t throw away much that worked or could be repurposed. We are the same way. You have to be.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands *Wyotana”

Title: Wagon Wheel Snow Drift

Posted on by

Bliss Dinosaur Ranch’s Best Back Yard Drift of 2018/19

Bliss Dinosaur Ranch's Best Back Yard Drift of 2018/19
Bliss Dinosaur Ranch's Best Back Yard Drift of 2018/19

Here at the Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, we keep track of the “Best” drift in our backyard each year, this was the winner in the winter of 2018/19.

That fence is 6 feet high at the top rail. Stark image📸

Location: our backyard fence, Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.

Posted on by

Biggest Back Yard Drift Ever

Biggest Back Yard Drift Ever
Biggest Back Yard Drift Ever

This might be the biggest backyard drift ever but there are some big drifts in the mountains lol. The building on the left is in front of a 300 foot long metal barn that acts as a wind block to about a 3 square mile field to the north (right). All that loose snow ends up here each year. I know this is a little out of season but I’m posting ALL my best old work again for some business purposes.

This photo is featured “The Living Wyoming (a Photographic Tribute exploring the NE Quadrant of Wyoming on page 98 if you have access to Robert Edgerton’s wonderful photo essay of this area.

I get a chance at this each year. This year the weather didn’t cooperate. Perhaps this winter will top this with all the water we’ve been having. That would be something lolol.

Have a great day all

Location: my backyard, the Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands.