Thursday, January 25, 2018

Tickled

So I dash up to Dad's for just a few minutes.

When I get back, Ruby greets me at the door with the empty peanut butter jar in her mouth. I take it away, survey wreckage in the kitchen (could've been much worse), and begin to deliver the standard scolding, "You know better than that!"
Sure, she's shame-faced .. but somehow she has a feather from my down jacket stuck on her nose, and it flutters every time she takes a breath. It's all I can do to remain stern, trying not to burst out laughing.
It was what my grandma would have called a ticklish situation.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

The Stray

2018.JAN.17

I felt a little bit guilty as soon as the snarky comment passed my lips ... but that only lasted a flicker.

A stranger came up to my gate ... my dogs going berserk, as usual.... "Ma'am," he nods, "Did you by any chance find a border collie around here?"

Victor - Arrived October, 2015
"Yeah." I smiled, pointing to the furry border collie bouncing around on the other side of the fence. "About two years ago."  
(I'm thinking: "If a you are
 now coming to look for Victor? Hah! Well, good luck with THAT, buddy.").

No. The young gentleman politely explained that the dog he lost on the day before Christmas, is a registered smooth coat border collie. Not Victor. 

(Dog's been missing for weeks and they're  just now coming around to make inquiries.) 

He went on to tell me that he is the manager of "such and so ranche", and he hadn't missed the dog until he got home later. It could have happened on the other side of the mountain, or on top of the summit, when he got out to "push some cows".

And that's when I spontaneously let slip what I really think about ranchers and their working dogs"And you actually CARE  about a DOG?" I murmured (with incredible subtly).
The reality is that MOST working dogs on the range are treated like livestock, at best.
They are expendable, disposable, and generally have little contact with humankind,
apart from their masters. My dog, Victor, is the product of that type of handling.
He came to me starving and terrified. To this day, he does not allow anyone else to touch him.


"Yes. I do." He seemed to choke up a little, and I felt that little twinge of guilt, and sympathy for a fellow dog lover. Perhaps it was wrong of me to rush to judgment. And then, he ruined it for me as he continued, "Well, this one, anyway.  My best cowdog. Registered smooth-coat border collie".

It was obvious to me that the dog meant more to the guy than just any old working dog; high-tone breeding stock, or not. It struck me that the instant the tough hombre revealed his emotional connection with the canine, he evidently felt compelled to nullify that, and to justify WHY he values this animal. He just had to put that value into economic terms.

Herein lies one of the most fundamental differences between agricultural folk and animal advocates: 

·         Ranchers and farmers maintain extremely rigid boundaries between themselves and their stock, including most dogs and horses. The capacity to compartmentalize [another's suffering] is a necessary defense mechanism for anyone who intends to profit from the death of animals, in whatever form that may take.
·         Conversely, those of us who develop very close personal relationships with our pets tend to extend our feelings to other sentient beings. We could no more butcher a cow than put a price tag on the heads of our darling furry friends.

I believe this core issue is the one insurmountable obstacle between us.
Compassion cannot be taught with words, or even video. It will never be developed through vitriolic contempt.


So long as compassion is a detriment to profitability, there is little hope of consensus between factions.


PS -- If anyone in the Cherry Creek area has seen a smooth-coat Border Collie wearing a camo collar, please call Jack: 775.296.3366. Otherwise, I sure hope Juan found himself a good home.

Monday, January 8, 2018

Mustang Story

2017.JAN.09

I was recently visited by a long-time friend who is politically conservative (like the majority of voters in my community), and quite vocal about her belief that America was a much better place in the 1960's. 

  • (On some items, I might agree -- but then again, we were white girls growing up in a blue collar town out west; untouched by the civil unrest that prevailed elsewhere, at the time.)

The conversation turned - as conversations nearly always do, in my house -- to the "wild horse situation". 

My friend informed me (presumably because I don't know much about these things) - that the wild horses were thriving in Nevada, right up until 1971, when a bunch of outsiders got Congress to enact the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, through which wild horses are managed today, under the authority of the Bureau of Land Management.

I was (AGAIN) reminded that, up until that time, the ranchers were guardians of mustangs on the range: 

"They cared for them! They turned out some of their best stock to breed with the wild ones,  improving the genetic characteristics of those horses, and in return, each year these ranchers would go out on horseback, round up a few ponies to train for ranch stock, culling a few 'bad ones'," (And presumably, turned the rest back out, to live the rest of  their natural days in wild independence.) 

It's a lovely story! 
(Well, what else a would a good daddy tell his little girl!)

It is the story that continues to prevail here in the rural west, where we still love our cowboys, and sadly lament their struggles to maintain a 'lifestyle' that doesn't mesh very well with contemporary thinking. 
Home On The Range - 1948
  • Most of the old family ranches are gone; having been consumed by large corporations. Cattle production represents a minute fraction of Nevada's economy, while rancher politicians continue to dominate the political landscape - thanks mostly to local sentimentality, and Big Ag lobbies, like the Cattlemen's Association and Farm Bureau.

My friend's version of the story does not quite match my own understanding of the original issue; probably because I heard about it from my close relatives, who were active participants in the decimation of wild horse herds in the west. 

Butte Valley cabin where my mother's family lived
during mustanging days (1940's). As a teenager,
she stayed here with her brother and his wife, and
their two little girls 
During the lean years, my grandfather and an uncle sustained themselves and their families by capturing wild horses in water bait traps. Some mustangs were taken and trained for ranch stock, while most of the rest were shipped off to be slaughtered and made into chicken feed or dog food, and sometimes, fish bait.

The mustang trade was a brutal business, and humane standards were scarcely a consideration. Demand for ranch horses declined, as machinery took over as the primary means of transport and labor on ranches. 

Americans stopped buying dog food made with horse meat in the 1960's.

Later, I heard tales of horses with severely elongated heads, short legs and stocky bodies. That was the result, they claimed, of ranchers having stopped turning out breeding stock to improve the genetics. 


  • Science, however, suggests the opposite: Wild equine populations had been so diminished that in-breeding was the only option available to horses on the range.

    Herd health has improved tremendously, yet this 40 year old myth about the inferior quality of mustangs continues to prevail in rural Nevada.

    In my lifetime on the open range, I have never seen a wild horse suffering from dwarfism. Incidentally, I have never seen a starving wild horse, either.

This is the story from which began my personal journey of investigation into the "wild horse situation", starting around 2000, when I returned to my rural roots in Nevada. My concern about wild horses began more intensively around 2005, when my interest was piqued, and I decided to observe a wild horse "gather" in nearby Utah. 

At the beginning, I was sympathetic to the BLM. I thought those activists MUST be exaggerating the brutality of these operations. I supposed they were being unrealistically sentimental, and that others had more expertise than those "easterners" who were raising Cain in my back yard.


I went. I saw. I came away with a completely altered perception of the BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program. 



  • I witnessed cruelty on the site of the gather, but subsequent experience proved that the worst brutality occurs beyond the periphery of the gather; out of sight of public observers, who are restricted to tight little observation areas, closely guarded under the scrutiny of fully-armed security officers.

    (Utah's BLM seems slightly less intense, and FAR more capable of managing public observers, than what I have witnessed in Nevada roundups.)


My friend went on to describe the differences between the "overpopulation problem" on the western side of our state, as compared to what's going on here on Nevada's eastern ranges. 

She seemed offended as she described the dangerous situation around Silver Springs, with "horses running all over the roads, getting hit, people getting killed" BECAUSE: "Those people over there PROTECT those horses!" ... and MEANWHILE - "Over here, where they have millions of acres to roam around on, they're being gathered and taken all the time. Why are they doing that?!!" she wondered. "It makes no sense!"


My knee-jerk response to my friend's rhetorical question: "Because nobody over here GIVES A SHIT!

"BLM does whatever the ranchers want them to do, and nobody here bothers to say a word. The horses do not affect them in any direct way, so the people keep on going along with the old 40 year old story line."




Ultimately, my friend and I did agree on a few things: 

  1. That neither the ranchers, nor BLM should be entrusted with the management of wild horses on the range. 
  2. Conditions that prevail in other areas are not the same as those that exist here in eastern Nevada, and cookie-cutter policies will not correct what is going wrong.
  3. Mass extermination of America's wild horses would be a national disgrace.


Friday, January 5, 2018

Change Of Course


I love photography! I will always love photography. I will always DO photography. If the stars align properly, my photography would be inspiring to others, and contribute to humanity. If my work has any meaning at all, that would be a big wake-up call as to what is happening, not only to wild horses, but to our Public Lands.


Over the course of the past few years, I have gradually come to the realization that, as a photographer, I am not destined for greatness. 

Perhaps, that awareness began when, at a local art exhibition, I discovered that my hand-made frames were of much greater value than my prints. 

The quality of my work is good ... professional quality and all that. I continue to strive to capture the essence of the subject, and with all earnestness, to bring the vitality of life in the Great Basin to visual realization. 

I would ordinarily expect to capture at least two or three images of excellence in any given year, but that has not been the case for quite some time.

I look at some of the things that have been achieved by peers who were at the same level as
 I, a few years ago; those who have experienced a level of monetary success, and moved into positions of authority in their field, and I have no choice but to admit that in this genre, I am not going anywhere. At least, not now.

This is NOT a plea for reassurance. I am confident in my capabilities.

I have merely come to the undeniable realization that I haven't the personality or motivation necessary to excel on a professional level in the marketplace. 
My camera has grown cold, and I feel less passionate about developing new photo skills. The field is a high-tech endeavor, for which I lack both passion and tools.

The notification that my website is being dismantled (for reasons that have nothing to do with me), was the final smack upside my head. Up to that point, 
I had continued to feel a nagging sense of obligation to keep on keeping on, even though my online photo galleries have been neglected for a long time. Frankly, when I was informed about the website closing, more than disappointment or regret, I felt relief.

I find greater satisfaction in other, more organic and three-dimensional forms of expression, now. I have held my enthusiasm for those in check; as if pursuing other genres would be disloyal ... to photography?

So, off I go, free at last! Free at last! Exploring new realms and mediums ... I see metal and glass in my future.