Buffalo Dan's Bison

After weeks of planning and assembling equipment, we were finally able to complete site preparations for the new hives, which included assembly of the hive stand and installation of an electric fence. This weekend it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained and rained.  It was only supposed to rain on Saturday, but it also rained on Sunday.  It wasn't a down-pour, which was nice.  Rather, it was I would summarize it as a "strip-tease rain."  It would rain hard for an hour and then begin to taper off to the point that you felt it was safe to start working out-side.  However, just as you got started working the rain would begin increase in volume and rain hard again.  Then it would taper off, which gave you hope and made you keep working.  Then the rain would start up again and so on.  I guess it's not really like a strip-tease since the concept of "strip-tease" implies the eventual realization of a final goal (i.e. nudity).  The weather this w

A few weeks back my parents delivered the Scamp to us.  We currently have it parked on the edge of a field until we set up a permanent location for it.

Last year when Jess and I were visiting a bison herd in the Badlands National Park, I had a late night encounter with a large bison bull that made me think that having night vision goggles could come in handy for dealing with my own herd.  We were camping at the Park's Sage Creek Campground and I had been experimenting with long exposure night photography using black and white film .  A massive lightening storm was approaching our region from the west and I decided I would try to drive our car a few miles away from the camp ground and set up my camera along one of the less travelled roads.  About a mile down the road I reached an intersection and turned left onto the crossing road.  As I turned onto the road, my headlights settled on a big bison bull standing not 30 feet away.  He was completely surprised and disoriented by the headlights and bolted forward.  This massive furry mountain was suddenly hurtling across the landscape in a complete state of panic.  Fortunately, I was not

Not long after we purchased the land for raising bison, we installed the trail camera I had been using to monitor the skunks and raccoons hanging around my honeybee hives.  Our initial intent was to use the camera on the new property to see what kind of wildlife was in the area, but I ended up discovering a whole different kind of "wildlife."  We didn't check the memory card on the camera for quite a while, but, when we did, we discovered that compelling number of people had been entering the property for unknown reasons.  Some of them came on foot, but most of them were driving vehicles.  Most of these drivers only appeared to have stayed a few minutes before turning around and returning the way they had come.  Though somewhat perplexing, these brief visitors weren't our main concern.  Our main concern was the few individuals who spent more than a few minutes or came back more than once.  One particularly concerning individual came to the ranch multiple time

Jess primed and painted the three large gate frames I had welded a few months back.  By mid afternoon, she was finished and had even managed to prime and paint both of the extended t-post pounders I had fabricated (leaning on the pine trees in the background). I was finally able to repair the stump lever and demonstrate it.  In a previous tangle with an oversized stump, Jess had mistaken my hand signal for "STOP" with my hand signal for "GIVE IT MORE GAS"  While she was operating the truck.  In retrospect it is true that: 1) we hadn't developed an agreed upon set of hand signals, and 2) my signal for "stop" and my signal for "go" looked nearly identical from the driver's seat of the truck.   This was a small stump, which I could have just pulled with a chain, but you get the idea.  You can see in the background the fence area I've been clearing. Notice that the cross-bar on this lever (the place where the chain c

 I once startled a beaver that was foraging late during the night and I've heard them down by the river loudly gnawing on wood, but I have yet to get a good look at one.  All I've seen so far has been their unmistakable signs.  Two stumps of recently harvested trees.  The beavers tend to leave these stumps in a very sharply pointed state, which make them down-right dangerous for anyone trying to walk though the area.  The beaver lodge.   The turtles on our ranch are very illusive, so I had to sneak up on them to get a picture.   I've heard of turtle stacking, but never seen it before.  Even more turtles. 

The weekend after Jess got the truck stuck in a field, I got it stuck again in a different field.  Fortunately for me, Jess had not accompanied me down to the ranch that weekend, so I was able to call her for help.  She drove down with the car and picked me up. Once I arrived back home, I immediately ordered a winch, winch rope, winch carrier, and about 200 feet of additional cable.  During the previous week I had been doing a lot of research and had decided to purchase a Warn hydraulic winch.  From what I've read, hydraulic winches will last a long time and are very powerful.  However, one downside of these winches is that, unless you have experience with automotive hydraulic systems, you are going to need to pay someone to install it for you.  For much of the week I had searched for a mechanic specializing in installing these winches, but could find no one in my area willing to do it.  The only people I found worked on ATV winches.  By that time, it was the weekend and I