The Christmas Calf

So about that 99 percent demographic...
The members of one 99 percent demographic have something in common, something that they might never guess.
Nearly every member of that particular group – the 99 percent of Americans who do not practice production agriculture – are each two or more generations removed from the farm. A century ago, this figure was only about 50 percent. In the middle of the 19th century, non-agrarian Americans made up 10 percent of the population.
There's no shortage of “experts” today to tell you where your food comes from. A lot of them hail from New York City and Los Angeles. Surprised? Most of today's Americans are urbanites and suburbanites living within 100-200 miles of the east and west coasts.
The food experts you’re most likely to hear from are a passionate lot, firm in their convictions. They have a lot of good ideas and pose extremely important questions.
But like a color-blind person looking at a rainbow, they’re missing something fundamental. I can’t teach the experts to see color, but I can share a peek at the rainbow from my perspective.

Just for fun, a bit of a fairy tale. Once upon a time on a ranch...

“Looks like that cow’s got a calf coming backward,” said the man as he walked through the back door of the ranch house. “I’m going to have to pull it.”

“That’s just great.” The woman stood near the kitchen sink in a colorful red and green dress, pretty face marred by a deep frown. “What about midnight services? It’s Christmas Eve!”

The rugged man looked at his wife, a pained expression on his face. He started to answer, hesitated, then replied. “It’s only 10 now, like as not we’ll get this calf delivered in plenty of time to get to church.”

“More likely it’ll take hours,” said the woman. “Something always comes up when we have plans!”

The impending argument was cut short by sound of little feet scampering down the stairs and clicking across the polished wooden floor of the living room. A miniature version of the woman, complete to the red and green dress and shiny black shoes, burst into the kitchen in an explosion of sound.

“Daddy! Is that cow having her calf? Can I come with you? I can help you! Please?”

The expressions on the faces of the man and woman eased, and the sting vanished from the air.

“You’re all dressed up for church, sweetheart,” said the man. “You don’t want to miss baby Jesus in the manger, do you?”

“Yeah, but it’s Christmas, Daddy, and we’re havin’ a baby calf and I can help! Please?”

Before the man could answer, the little girl turned to the woman. “Please, Mommy, can I stay an’ help? Can I please?”

“Sweetie,” said the woman, “church is important, especially at Christmas. We have to go. You've seen plenty of calves born and you’ll see a lot more.”

“But Mommy,” said the girl, eyes tearing, “I can really, really he-elp!”

“No more argument,” said the woman, then added, softly, “You can see the calf when we get home. Now run upstairs and wash your face and we’ll go.”

Sniffling a bit, the little girl padded slowly toward the stairway, head down, shoulders hunched and quivering.

“Well,” said the man, “I’d best get to it.”

The night was inky black and cold. There was no moon, but the cloudless sky was awash with the brilliant pinpricks of stars. As he crunched across frozen snow the man looked up and smiled. He paused for a moment, breath puffing clouds of vapor into the air. Facing south, he picked out Orion, then let his gaze climb until he could see the glowing Milky Way, far overhead and thick with clotted stars.

Christmas in the Holy Land by now, he mused, thoughts nibbling at the corners of the big question.

With a sigh, the man continued along the familiar route, ghost of a smile still on his face. Ahead in the dark sat the old wooden barn, a faint glow coming from four small windows and dimly lighting the path.

In the barn the man eased a young red cow into the doctoring stall and quickly slipped a halter over her ears and secured the lead rope to a stanchion. He stepped into the barn’s “office,” a small corner room, and pulled gloves, calving ropes and disinfectant from a cabinet. The tiny room had a desk and chairs, a small refrigerator, a sink, and cupboards filled with various supplies. He slipped out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, then quickly washed his hands and drew a bucket of warm water. Grabbing the supplies, he walked back to the doctoring stall.

The cow was standing quietly in the stall, placidly chewing her cud. Every few minutes she would pause, grunt softly, and begin to strain. As she strained, a pair of tiny hooves, bottoms pointed up, emerged from the birth canal. When she relaxed, the hooves disappeared back inside.

“I’d sure like to know how you got bred four months ahead of your sisters,” said the man. “Okay, easy now girl, let’s see what’s going on here.” He poured some lubricant on his gloved hand and carefully examined the cow. “Ah, good,” he said. “he’s just coming backward. We’ll have your baby out in a jiffy, girl.”

Taking the disinfected calving straps from the bucket of warm water, he deftly secured them above the hock of each protruding foot. “Easy now, girl,” he murmured, “just give us a nice push now.”

As he waited for the cow to begin straining again, he heard the sound of the ranch house door slamming, then the flurry of small feet scampering across the barnyard. “Daddy,” his daughter shouted with delight, “Mom said I can stay an’ help!”

The barn door slammed open and the little girl rushed in, fairly dancing with excitement. Gone were the holiday dress and shiny black shoes. In their place were jeans and shirt, sturdy boots, and a bright red hooded jacket.

She stopped a few steps inside the barn, eyes wide and serious, suddenly remembering to “be calm and quiet” around the cattle. “What should I do?” she asked in a hoarse little whisper.

Smiling, the man pointed toward the office. “First things first, Punkin', go wash and dry your hands. Use the orange soap.”

The girl dashed toward the office, then suddenly remembered "be calm" and tip-toed the rest of the way in an exaggerated “quiet” walk.

“Did Mom go in to church, then?” the man called toward the office door.

“I think so,” she replied, voice muffled by the sound of running water. “She said to help but to be quiet an’ don’t get in the way.” The girl emerged from the office, wiping wet hands on her jacket. She took in the scene with big eyes and hesitated, unsure about coming closer.

“Go ahead and take off your coat,” said the man, “it’s warm enough in here. Just put it on that straw bale and come over here beside me.”

With his daughter beside him and watching intently, the man explained what they were about to do. “Calves usually come out head first,” he said, “but this one’s coming backward. His head will be the last thing to come out, and he won’t be able to breathe until he’s completely born, so we have to get him out pretty quick.”

“Can he breathe now?,” asked the girl, face filled with concern.

“Yep,” said the man, “his umbilical cord, his belly button cord, is still hooked up, and he’s breathing through that. But it’ll come unhooked as he comes out.”

“Oh,” said the girl. “Daddy, how can you tell he’s backwards?”

“You can tell by his feet,” said the man. “See how the bottom of his hooves are pointing up? If he was coming out frontward, and those were his front feet, the bottoms would point down toward the ground. He’s kinda laying in there on his tummy, with his head and front legs stretched out in front of him, and his back legs stretched out behind him, and these are his back feet.”

“Oh!,” said the girl. “Are we gonna pull ‘im out now?”

“We sure are,” said the man as he grasped the straps dangling from the hock of each small foot.

“Now you get over here on my right side and grab the straps. Hold ‘em just like I am. We’ll just wait here for a minute until she starts pushing again.”

In a moment the cow squatted down a bit and began to strain. “Okay, start pulling.” Father and daughter pulled and the calf’s legs began to emerge from the birth canal. The cow grunted, bore down, and began to shift her hips to the left. “If she starts to get wild you jump back quick, okay?” said the man.

“Okay,” said the girl, grimacing with effort. “This is hard!”

Slowly, inch by inch, the calf began to emerge. Pulling more down than back, father and daughter kept a strong, steady tension on the ropes. Soon the calf’s hips emerged, and then with a rush, the rest of it’s body slid out and landed in the soft, dry straw.

“There we go,” said the man. The calf lay still for a moment, steam gently rising from its wet, slippery coat. In a moment it began to move its legs. “Okay, let’s pull him over here, out of the stall,” said the man. Father and daughter re-positioned the calf and the man scooped up some straw and began rubbing it down. The girl hesitated for a moment, then grabbed handfuls of straw and started rubbing the new, wet bundle of life.

The calf quickly became more lively, struggling to gather its long legs together and to raise its head. 

“Daddy,” said the girl, “itsa, itsa…is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a little girl calf, sweetie, a heifer,” he said, “ And now we know why she came so early.”

“Why, Daddy?” asked the girl, eyes wide and sparkling with curiosity.

“See how she’s black and white?” asked the man, “do we have any cows that look like that?”

“Nooo,” said the girl, wonder in her voice.

“Can you think of anyone around here with black and white cows?”

The girl thought for a moment, lines of concentration etched across her forehead. “Miss Mabel,” she gasped. “Miss Mabel’s cows are all black and white!”

“That’s right,” said the man, “and I think this calf’s daddy is Miss Mabel’s bull. What do you think of that?”

“It’s a miracle!,” crowed the girl.

Chuckling quietly, the man stood up, business brain considering the sale prospects of a half-Holstein calf. Then he glanced at the little girl, his heart captured by the delight and wonder written on her face. With a start of surprise, he realized the girl was right.

"Miracle," he thought, "yeah, I’ll buy that."

The calf had gained control of her legs and was trying to stand. “Okay, sweetie,” said the man, “let’s let the cow see her new baby. Go on over and sit on the straw bale.”

Released from the halter, the cow turned and began snuffling, then vigorously licking, her new calf. Father and daughter sat a few feet away on the straw, watching quietly. The smiling satisfaction on the girl’s face was mirrored in her father’s.

The man turned at the sound of the barn door softly closing. The woman stood there gently smiling, dressed in work clothes and holding a thermos and three cups.

“You two cow doctors look like you could use some hot chocolate,” she said.

The girl jumped off the straw bale and dashed toward her mother.

“Look, Mommy, it’s a miracle,” she said. “It’s a girl calf, a heiferer, an’ we had to pull it out so it could breathe, an’ it’s already getting’ up!”

With the cow gently licking and nudging, the new calf tottered to her feet, then wobbled instinctively toward the udder and its life-giving milk.

From their bench on the straw bale, mother, daughter and father watched, sipping steaming cups of hot chocolate in a stable filled with miracles.

Outside, in the calm, silent night, the stars shone down with soft brilliance.

Live each season...

“Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.” 
-- Henry David Thoreau

Saturday

A thin fluff of new snow drapes the land in a fleeting cape, muzzing the stark gray of wind scoured-grass and hiding in perfect camouflage atop the lingering drifts. As I watch, it slowly recedes from the darker patches where nature has chosen not to pile the last ice of autumn.

Snowless areas reveal the shortgrass, leaves gray and sere and cured on the stem, the seemingly worthless detritus of annual prolifity. The grass looks darker than it is, monochromatic, in sharp contrast to the swirled, sculpted drifts. The bright-dark mottling is rare dazzle in a land usually adorned in a more uniform coat.

Overnight the temperature soared to nearly 14 degrees as a thin, broken overcast hoarded warmth. But the clouds depart with sunrise, and by 7:45 the temperature has fallen off to six or seven degrees. With the sunrise comes a breath of west wind, three or four miles an hour worth, enough to cause a shiver. I stand in beauty, but it’s a cold beauty.The air is dry, moisture precipitated directly to ice. Last night’s snowfall was no storm, just the water falling out of the sky. Long gone are the dust, pollen, molds, and assorted bugs of the other three seasons. The air is as pure as it ever gets around here, bracing and invigorating.

A perfect morning to trudge a joyful path through winter’s priceless gift.

The cold makes a prairie hike just a bit risky. I’ve got emergency gear in my ruck, and I’m warm and dry, dressed in layers and with top-of-the line boots and gloves, but the last thing I want to do is break a sweat and fence with hypothermia. This is not a workout hike. Conditions dictate the pace, and I move slowly, winding in and around the highest drifts.

I move along the north side of a windbreak. Small birds flit here and there, singly or in pairs, sometimes booming aloft in tattered flocks. They’re designed for this, endlessly searching out the minuscule seeds of summer’s bounty. There is wonder in the dynamism of this tiny slice of our ecosystem.

Many seeds will never germinate, and many animals won’t survive the winter. Here and there lie the carcasses of small birds; a dead vole is frozen solid near the mouth of its snow-tunnel home. I suspect the fallen are newly so, expired in the recent night, for coyote tracks meander in abundance across the snow, and as scavengers, coyotes are very, very efficient.

Tracks across the new snow provide an early-edition newspaper of sorts, telling the local story of the last few hours. Cottontails have been everywhere, as have mice. A small dog has made big, looping patterns across the snow, and feral cats have been slinking along the tree line. A few antelope wandered through just before dawn, moving south to northwest. I try to figure out how many, but I am not a very accomplished reader of the Prairie News.

After a few hours, with my wandering confined to about three square miles, I pause in the lee of a windbreak and face south, the sun warm on my face. My dark clothes soak up the sunlight and I feel warm and comfortable. I scan the horizon through binoculars, and spy a pair of mule deer traversing a saddle a couple miles away.

The wind picks up and another broken overcast moves in. The sun no longer bathes me in warmth, and the persistent breeze nips and worries at the collar of my jacket. Still dry and warm, I shiver nevertheless, and start to think of calling it a day. I eyeball my progress, guestimate I’ve come four or five miles. The same distance will return me to my trusty, winter-grimed pickup. It’ll be enough. I turn my back to the wind and head for home.

Hours later I crunch up to my truck and shed my ruck and rifle. I glance around, enjoying the final moments of my prairie expedition. I recall a mindless argument from earlier in the week, and grin a secret grin at how little such things mean out here.

Sunday

The day comes late and raw, blasted by a north wind. Snow swirls with intensity and begins to drift. I’m dressed as warmly as yesterday, but I’m nowhere close to comfortable. I stick mainly to the roads and the warmth of my pickup and madly snap pictures, desperately trying to capture some fleeting sense of winter’s majesty.

I pause near a favorite stopping place and try to remember what it looks and feels like in July. As I stand there, back to the howling wind, a coyote trots past a score of yards away. She scents me and her head snaps around; we make eye contact. I carry a perfect coyote rifle, but have neither reason nor desire to shoot. The coyote is a pragmatic survivor, though, and lopes quickly away. Miserably chilled by the wind, I scoot back to the warmth of my pickup.

As I drive away, a lazy peace lingers in my heart and a warm happiness fills me from within. I’ve seen and touched and tasted things that most people will never imagine, let alone experience. I’ve witnessed beauty and harmony and completeness. I’ve learned a tiny bit more about the prairie, and a whole lot more about me. These fleeting hours will last me for a time, will help me fend off harsh words and aches and pains. I realize that while I’m nowhere near finished with my journey, my life has been full and round and sweet. I look forward to many more adventures and expeditions, but if that plan doesn’t work out, this will have been enough.

Corpsman Chronicles II: Seven Seconds

What's the difference between a fairy tale and a sea-story? A fairy tale begins, "Once upon a time..." A sea story begins, "This is no shit!"

I try to be careful to change names, but to the best of my recollection the events and locations are substantially correct. Of course I can only describe events from my perspective, so there's that. Readers who were present will doubtless have different recollections of any particular event. This is what it was like to serve in my tiny slice of the U.S. Navy between the late 1970's and early 1990's. It really was an adventure.

Remember,

This is no shit!

An editorial note: I've updated this post slightly as of January 9, 2021. I've tweaked the writing a bit to make it flow more betterer, as well as to use more standarder words and phrasing and such. I've fixed (I think!) the font trainwreck provided by burgle in their transition to afunctionality across their blogging platform.. I haven't changed anything substantially.

In the previous iteration I noted that I don't have a mission statement in this place because, "Too bureaucratic. Too often written to mislead and deceive. Usually an effort to feel really good about something without doing the hard work and good work which can lead to good feelings." What passes for a mission statement here is in the italicized text at the top of the post. It holds true for the CC series. I'm not sure about the rest of the blog, which is kind of a mess! 😉)

##########

For Nimitz and CVW-8, it had been a very long deployment.

We’d been underway for eight months, having left Norfolk back in September. Four months in to a planned six-month Mediterranean cruise we were ordered to Gonzo (Gulf of Oman Naval Zone of Operations.)

By the time May 3 rolled around we’d been continually at sea for more than 120 days.

We’d been operating hard since early January. The deployment had been long and exhausting and, to some extent, heartbreaking. But the end was in sight. Ike was due to arrive in three days time, and after a two-day turnover, we’d head for home. But Ike wasn’t here yet, and May 3 was just another day at sea.

I was working nights on the roof. One of the day check guys was sick and on bed rest, so the Senior Chief asked me to fill in until he could find a temporary replacement. We both knew this was a fiction. Only four of us (two on days, two on nights) had our roof quals signed off. I was actually being asked to pull a 36 hour shift. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds and I’d done it before. Hell, I was still growing! I could catch a few winks in the Flight Deck Battle Dressing Station (FDBDS) from time to time, and there was a fairly light flight sked in the afternoon, so it wasn't a big deal.

As with most parts of the carrier experience, working on the roof was a paradox. I loved it and I hated it. It was fun and exciting and one of the most unique aviation jobs in the world. It was a terribly dangerous place to work, and that was why corpsmen manned the FDBDS. Four-and-a-half acres sounds like a lot of real estate, but throw 45 tactical jets, turboprops and helicopters up there, start ‘em all up, move ‘em around, shoot some of ‘em off with steam catapults while catching others with tailhooks and arresting gear, and do all this while pulling maintenance, uploading and downloading ordnance, fueling the thirsty aircraft, while the carrier is charging along through the sea at 30-plus knots…

And oh yeah, day and night, fine weather or foul. It can be sporty.

Exciting, busy, intensely interesting, risky, loud, kinetic, fun. Hot, swelteringly hot. Or cold. Bone chillingly cold. Sheer misery. Windy, both from the weather and from the ship’s velocity as she charges through the sea. Jet exhaust that stings your eyes and scorches your nose, producing tears and snot in profusion. Jet blast that can pick you up and fling you across the flight deck like a ragdoll. That's always a bad thing. Not infrequently fatal.

Long, long hours of this stuff. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. On a long deployment unbroken by port calls, excitement and danger eventually morph into boredom and complacency. Everyone walks a vanishingly thin line between safety and eternity. Not just on the flight deck or in the air, either. Complacency stalks everyone and is no respecter of rank, station or experience.

I got my head down for about four hours before flight quarters sounded. The narrow, thin-padded treatment table in BDS is actually comfortable if you’re tired enough. I woke to one of the sweetest soliloquies I know, the Air Boss giving the “start ‘em up” over the 5-MC announcing system.

“On the flight deck, time to get ready for the first go. Check helmets on and chinstraps fastened, goggles down, sleeves rolled down and flotation vests secure. Check for loose gear about the deck. Stand clear of intakes, exhausts, propeller and rotor arcs. Time to start the go jets, start ‘em up.”

As the huffers began to howl I pulled on my helmet and float coat, did a quick radio check, grabbed my unit one (aid bag), and stepped out onto the roof.

There’s a rhythm to the flight deck. If you’re on your game, completely in tune with the dance, it’s an awesome experience. It’s a bit like being omniscient. Somehow you can sense the totality of activity across the entire deck. It’s a state of acute observation and hyper-vigilance. It’s hard work, but at a core level it’s subconscious and can’t be forced. You’ve either got it or you don’t. When you don’t have it it pays to be exceedingly cautious. On May 3 I didn’t have it, so I positioned myself inboard and forward of the island, aft of El Two, in the area called the Six Pack. From there I had a reasonably good view of all four catapults and could watch for problems.

Nimitz flight deck layout. Click to enlarge.

The launch began and the sound became a living, breathing thing. As jets roared down the catapult tracks the rumble could be felt in every compartment, and as each catapult piston reached the end of it’s stroke it slammed into a water brake with a pounding thud that shook all 90,000 tons of the ship, Kinetic indeed.

Midway through the launch a VF-84 Tomcat taxied onto Cat 3.

Victory 222 in tension and zone 3 afterburner on Cat 3. In the foreground is a final checker about to give a thumbs up. The catapult bubble is in the port catwalk just above the canopy of the F-14.

From my nearby vantage point I had a perfect view and watched as the launch ritual progressed. Flight controls deflected as the pilot exercised stick and rudder pedals. Wings spread, slats and flaps came out, and the hookup man attached the holdback, then the shuttle inched forward into tension. The Shooter signaled for full power, then afterburner. The exhaust nozzles programmed wide open and twin blue flames roared to life, driving back in howling cones of fire and deflecting skyward off the raised jet blast deflector. Final checkers looked hard, then gave thumbs up. The pilot saluted the Shooter, who quickly polled the checkers and made his own final assessment of the jet’s readiness for flight. He turned and lunged forward, outstretched hand touching the deck then pointing down the cat track.

For endless moments the Tomcat roared in zone three burner, straining against the holdback fitting with 40,000 pounds of thrust. In the ICS bubble the cat officer flipped up a switch guard and mashed his thumb down of the firing key. Steam flooded into the catapult and drove the cat pistons forward, breaking the precision machined holdback fitting and dragging the roaring jet down the deck.

Victory 200 in burner launches from cat 3.

A Tomcat launches in burner from cat 3. This is a twilight or "pinky" launch.

About a second into the cat stroke, roughly halfway through the shot, the afterburner on the right engine snuffed out and the nozzle constricted toward the MRT (full “dry” or non-afterburner thrust) setting, then relaxed into trail as the failing engine began to wind down.

A Tomcat launches in dry thrust or MRT. Note constricted engine nozzles. 

At 2.5 seconds the jet left the deck and with both stabilators programmed nose up, pitched steeply into the air.

Under asymmetric thrust with port engine in afterburner and a dead motor on the right side, the nose of the jet pushed to the right while continuing to pitch up.

Along with every other man who was watching, I willed the nose to come down. Off the cat, full of gas, single engine. If the nose didn’t come down the jet would stall and crash.

An F-14 launches in burner from cat 3. The jet is slightly over-rotated.

At six seconds the stabilators fluttered, the yaw increased, and the jet began a slow roll to the right. As it passed through 90 degrees the canopy came off as the ejection sequence was initiated. Four tenths of a second later, with the bank angle at 150 degrees, the RIO’s seat fired. The jet continued to roll and the pilot’s seat fired after another four-tenths of a second. Both seats slammed into the water ahead of the ship as the dying Tomcat crossed the bow from left to right.

At 11.5 seconds the Tomcat plunged into the North Arabian Sea about 300 yards ahead of the ship and 300 yards to starboard.

Seven seconds from living the dream to finis.

What's the lesson here, the profound conclusion?

I'm not sure.

A couple of thoughts. Lieutenant Jack Watson was 27, Ensign John Graham 24. They did not grow old. The ship lost nine men on that deployment. Commander Dave Formo and Lieutenant Commander Nick Delello of VF-41. Lieutenants Junior Grade Mark Gontkovic and Tony Bilotti of VA-35. Lieutenant Bobby Dark of VAQ-134. AZ2 Kevin Tucker of VA-82 and MS3 William Saxton of S-2 division.

Formo was the Commanding Officer of VF-41. He was replaced by Commander Art Cebrowski, who later became CAG. Admiral Cebrowski died in 2005. My Skipper, CDR Ed "Hunyak" Andrews, died a few months ago. My fellow flight deck corpsman Frank VanNoske died two years ago. Sooner or later, it comes to all of us.

Which is probably reason enough to make the most of what we've got. I was pretty sure at one point that I'd never see 40. I had some very close calls. But I haven't yet lived those final seven seconds.

And that's about it. Ah, the 80's.

##########

Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.

Corpsman Chronicles I: Sea Chanteys, 70's Style

What's the difference between a fairy tale and a sea-story? A fairy tale begins, "Once upon a time..." A sea story begins, "This is no shit!"

I try to be careful to change names, but to the best of my recollection the events and locations are substantially correct. Of course I can only describe events from my perspective, so there's that. Readers who were present will doubtless have different recollections of any particular event. This is what it was like to serve in my tiny slice of the U.S. Navy between the late 1970's and early 1990's. It really was an adventure.

Remember,

This is no shit!

A long time ago in an ocean far, far away.

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company." Samuel Johnson

##########

In my time sea duty wasn't that bad at all, at least for me. The food was never bad (except for box lunches), and for the most part my shipmates were great folks. I never worried much about drowning, for various reasons.

Sea duty was a great paradox though. The work was great. As a corpsman I learned and practiced clinical and emergency medicine at a very high level. On the roof I was in the heart of the greatest concentration of tactical warplanes on earth. It was heady and exciting and risky. Flying from the boat in helos and tactical jets was amazing. You can do a lot of fun and exciting stuff on the beach, but it all pales in comparison to being at sea.

On the other hand, the boat is crowded, smelly, uncomfortable, confining. Unless you’re flying, the boat is your world. You’re there and there you stay until the boat visits a port or returns home.

There are things you can do to decompress and escape. Reading works well, and I read a lot. Listening to music was another tactic. You could get lost in music, at least for a few moments or minutes, and it was a great escape. I surprised myself by embracing non-CW music. The post-punk stuff had a different kind of twang and some of it I liked very much.

When I first went to sea, the boom box craze was just beginning.

As I began my first cruise supply had ordered hundreds of the things.

And sold them in the ship’s store.

A Chief with a boom box? Yeah, right.

This was before MTV. For the most part, music came without moving pictures. At sea we listened to boom boxes. On the beach we could catch the Midnight Special. It was all cool. Some folks think ‘70’s and ‘80’s music sucked. I’m not one of them.

Think I'll occasionally post up some music vids from BITD.

Be well and embrace the blessings of liberty.

Agri-Eco Tourism

I've always been a one-percenter. By that I mean I've always been part of a statistically small demographic. I grew up on a cattle ranch, and ranchers and ranch families have, in my lifetime, always been less than one percent of the population. I joined the navy out of high school, in the post-Vietnam, all-volunteer era. During my career the navy represented less than one percent of the population. Within the navy I was a fleet corpsman and aircrewman, again a sub-one percent subset. When I retired and returned to the ranch, the ranching demographic had become even smaller.

My life experiences have been and continue to be vastly different than those of my fellow Americans. Most of my fellows have next to no understanding of what I do. Worse, many have been told that the food I produce for them is poisoned or unsafe or unhealthy, that I'm a destroyer of the land, that I cause much of global warming, that I slaughter the innocent for pay. Most folks don't believe all of the bad stuff, but they hear so much bad stuff, so often, that they wonder, and they have anxieties and concerns.

I've been giving informal tours of the ranch for the last dozen years, part of an effort to fight back against the anti-agriculture narrative. I've found that I can really be of service to my fellow man by showing and telling. I'd like to do more, but I'm a businessman. I have to cash flow and feed myself or I'll be out on my arse.

So the question has been, for the last few years, is there a way to integrate the showing and telling into the business? It's starting to look like the answer is yes.

So just out of curiosity, what would you be willing to pay for a three-hour guided ranch tour? There's a poll gadget over there to the right.

An Americorps team meets the ranch dogs.

They loved the I-80 overpass.

Julie and Elwyn, farmers from Herefordshire.

Summer sunset ranch hike.

Families from Omaha on a ranch ecosystem tour.

Feeding Haji the bottle calf.

Tweaking

I'm trying to get the blog to look better and work better.

I feel like I'm using these...

When I should be using these.

What could possibly go wrong?

The people that we meet...Whew!

A few weeks ago on December 1, I was feeding calves at the home place. The late autumn sun was bright, and the air temp was about 36 degrees, but there was a snappish north wind blowing and it wasn't exactly a pleasant day. Par for the course in early December on the High Plains. As I forked hay and enjoyed the evident gustatory delight of the calves, I heard a loud whooshing sound, moving left to right as I faced south, followed by the unmistakable roar of straight-pipe turbojet engines.

The EJE Ranch adjoins Kimball's Municipal Airport, KIBM, you see. The ranch actually wraps around most of the airport. If you click here and look just across the county road to the north of the approach end of Runway 10, you can see where I was feeding calves. Right next to the silver roofed barn. Which is probably TMI.

At any rate, I looked up and located the cause of all that beautiful noise. Of course I did. I've got that mix of kerosene, hydraulic fluid, and avgas running through my veins. No way I'm not looking up.

A quarter-mile to the south a Magister jet trainer was climbing away from the runway. He was smokin’, too.

Touch and go? Nah, more likely a rejected landing. The crosswind was fierce. And holy cow, is that really a Magister? Cool!

I watched the elegant pretty, colorful, v-tailed jet long enough to see that he was going to make another approach. Almost certainly the pilot was stopping for fuel. I jumped into my pickup (a split-second behind Nona the wonder dog, who is also an airplane buff) and sped toward the airport flight center. I needed me some Magister pictures.

As the little jet trainer nosed into the fuel pits and the front cockpit canopy came open, I was there to greet the pilot. Mike Perry was the jet’s owner and was ferrying it from Rice Lake, Wisconsin, to his home base in California. We chatted a bit and I got permission to take pictures. Mike headed in to the flight center to close out his flight plan and use the facilities.

Before long the icy wind drove me back inside and we struck up a conversation. He met Nona and soon had his tablet out, showing me pictures of his dog. We talked dogs, ranching (he grew up on a farm), and aviation. As a business hobby he buys and restores military jets. He showed me pictures of his latest project, an LTV TA-7 Corsair II. If you’re not an aviation buff, you’ll have to trust me on this. It was a great conversation.

I had to get back to work and Mike had to head west, so we shook hands and parted. A little later his beautiful Magister roared back into the windswept heights, with easy grace.

You can click on the images to enlarge.

Look at the wind sock in the background. Click image to make more bigger.

Earlier today I got to thinking about Mike and his Magister. I'd given him a card and my contact info and he'd promised to shoot me an email. Having so far heard nothing from him, and not having his contact info, I thought I'd see if I could track him down. So I searched "us registered valmet magister n300fm"

About halfway down the page of search results I saw "ASN Aircraft incident 07-DEC-2014 Fouga CM-170R Magister"

Oh no.

I clicked on the link, and having done this far too many times looked first at the fatalities category. "Please God..."

Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1

"Whew!"

"Narrative: The pilot stated that he had encountered a gyro problem on the flight segment to the Grand Canyon Airport, but otherwise had no issues with the airplane. He added fuel at Grand Canyon, and should have had about 1.5 hours of fuel remaining when both engines flamed out. He made a forced landing in uneven desert terrain. The pilot was not injured."

A month and a day ago Mike came close to grief. All I know about the fellow is what I've written above, but in the few minutes we shared I decided I liked him a lot. I'm very happy that the outcome was far better than I'd feared.

There was, however, this:

Update January 10, 2015. This image also.

International combat dining

These videos are a lot of fun. Kiwi Dude is quite a good presenter, and his "boss" is charming.

Been a crazy week on the ranch so far. With two full days devoted to a ranching conference, undone chores have piled up. I hate that. I also have to be reappointed as County Veterans Service Officer. I won't say more about that for a while as I'm a bit cross about some of it.

At any rate, who's up for some inhaltsverseichnis und zubereitungsanweisung inliegend versorgungsnummer?

Sunrise, Sunset

The ranch is a visual feast, 24/7, 365. From a quick, superficial glance, you might think it's the same old boring country stuff. When you spend a few moments of precious time to observe, however, you soon learn that today is completely different than yesterday. Indeed, the view changes from moment to moment.

Sunrise

This truck wasn't here yesterday.

Truck carcass atop the fence.

At the close of day.

Sunset.

A post-Soviet meme

Maybe as funny as I think it is, maybe not.

After

Before

Header image

A word about the image at the top of this blog, which Blogger tells me is properly called a "header image." If I understand it correctly. You can click on this one to enlarge.

In the center of the image is a cow (ol' 963) and her hours-old calf. This is what I do, or is at least it's the thing that allows me to do almost all of the things I do. I'm a rancher, a commercial cow-calf operator. Which means that I have a ranch and a herd of cows. The cows eat the grass that grows on the ranch. The grass feeds them and allows them to make baby cows, or calves, every spring. I take the calves to the sale barn and trade them to cattle buyers for cash.

At top left is a picture of an F-14A from VF-84 landing on USS Nimitz. I'm the corpsman standing there at the left with my thumb up my backside. I got yelled at for standing there. I was the squadron corpsman for VF-84 in the late-70's/early-80's. I worked on the "roof" as well as down in sick call. I also flew with the Airwing's helo squadron, HS-9.

At top right is an image of a rescue swimmer "on the hook" beneath one of NAS Oceana's Sikorsky SH-3G Sea King SAR helos. The swimmer is not me, he's far too skinny and far too young. The picture was taken in the early 1990's, after my time at Oceana had passed. I've got hours in that helo though, and I spent time on that hook.

At bottom left is AD-635, the same helo as above, taken at about the same time. Oceana SAR's call sign was Deliverance. Which was pretty cool. Flying station SAR was mostly a blast, though at times it could be quite grim and even a bit risky.

At bottom right is a mistake. This is what happens when you trust wickipedia, which described the carrier as USS Nimitz. I focused on the F-8 Crusader with the Alpha Juliet tail code, thinking that it was a VFP-63 photo bird, which still flew from Nimitz in my early days with the Jolly Rogers. However, it's not a photo bird, it's a straight fighter, probably an F-8E. And the carrier is a 27-Charlie, fercrissakes. I gooned it. I'll fix it.

Fixed it. The picture anyway.

At bottom right is a Brazilian Navy SH-3D flanked by a US Navy SH-3H. Both ASW helos are trailing dipping sonar. This picture is dated 1987 and is a couple of years after I left VF-84. I'd have to dig out an old log book to check for certain, but there's a very good chance I've got hours in the HS-9 helo. In 1987 I was with VA-65, part of CVW-13, and deployed in Coral Sea (CV-43) to the Mediterranean.

Center left is me, pretending to do sick call for a cruise book photog. Man I was young.

Center right is me also, older and fatter and in the middle of weaning calves.

I've still got to fix the font for the blog name and description. I'll get to it.

Hopefully the header image will give an idea of what you will find in the blog posts.