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.

More not fun in the snow

Yesterday I mentioned a little stuck-in-the-snow episode which wasn't a major problem but also wasn't a heck of a lot of fun.

I was magnanimous about my mom's little mishap. "It's just one of the things that happens in the winter," I said.

Mom's snowdrift.

I could afford to be magnanimous because it wasn't me who had been so silly as to drive into a snowdrift and get stuck.

Snow is deceptive. There's a four-foot deep roadside ditch in there.

I recognized the danger of smugness even as I was being smug, and as usual, I threw caution to the wind and smugged right along.

And it caught up with me this morning.

First, a bit about snowdrifts. Most of the snow we presently have on the ground here at the ranch (southwest corner of the Nebraska Panhandle) came 12 days ago on Christmas. Nine inches of very fine, very soft, very white holiday cheer. We've had a smidgen more since, but not much. What we have had since Christmas Day is a lot of sub-zero, Arctic temperatures. Since December 25 the daytime high has averaged 20 degrees and the overnight low minus 12 degrees. Fahrenheit. For the metrical types, that's an average high of minus 6.66 (ruh-roh) and an average low of minus 24.44. Centigrade. Or Celsius.

(This afternoon temps soared to 50 degrees Fahrenheit as warm air moved through the region. Woo-hoo!)

The cold was (and is), well, cold. But we've had very little wind, so the cold was bearable. And once you become acclimatized to Arctic temperatures, they become normal. No big deal.

On the other hand, the cold allowed the snow to remain in its freshly-fallen state, light, fine, and powdery. So when a north wind came up yesterday afternoon, all that snow moved along with the breeze, forming drifts. As drifts form under these conditions, the pressure of the wind and the force of gravity cause the snow grains to pack tightly. Snow drifts are seldom soft and fluffy. They're usually quite solid, and sometimes quite hard. The outside of the drift forms a dense crust, which can often bear a surprising amount of weight. Some snow drifts, in fact, can support the weight of a car or pickup truck. For a few moments. Followed by a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of the driver's stomach as the vehicle breaks through the crust and becomes well and truly stuck.

So back to my smuggishness and its metaphysical consequence.

As usual this morning I set off to check cattle. The calves and cows are separated by several miles. The calves were fine and little was changed in their hay meadow pasture. As I drove down the hill toward the entrance to the south pasture I gave it a good look, knowing there could be some new snowdrifts.

What I saw from the road. Looks the same as yesterday. It's not.

Everything looked the same as the day before, so I flipped into four-high and turned into the pasture. I crossed the auto gate and headed down the trail road. For about 50 feet. Then came the sudden sinking feeling.

The scene of the disaster. This is six hours post-mishap, after sunshine and 50 degree temps (yay!) had shrunk the drift.

I quickly flipped to four-low and gently reversed. Almost made it, too. Unfortunately, where yesterday the snow depth on the trail road had been six inches, today it was up to 30 inches in places. Too deep for a small pickup, four-wheel drive or no.

This wasn't, as they say, my first rodeo, so I fended off the impulse to "rock it out," shut off the motor, and reached behind the seat for my trusty folding shovel.

E-tool, folded, one each.

The folding shovel, or E-tool (entrenching tool) as it's known in the military, is a godsend in such situations. It's light but sturdy, articulated, and folds into a very small package. It can be employed as a spade, with the blade straight.

E-tool extended as spade.

It can also be used as a mattock with the blade locked at 90 degrees.

E-tool with blade locked at 90 degrees.

The mattock configuration is perfect for digging out of a snowdrift.

It took a good bit of effort but after only about five minutes I'd dug a pair of parallel trenches behind the pickup tires, through the deep snow, and up on to bare ground. I refolded the shovel, fired up, and backed out. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy. As my English friends say. Rarely. But sometimes.

Having paid my debt to the universe, absolved (for the moment) of criminal smugging, I drove away with a song in my heart. It feels really good to extract yourself from a predicament without having to call for help.

Which is a bit smug, isn't it?

Kittens still love tolerate me.

Gratuitous kitten shot.

Fun in the snow

Not...

Everything is harder in the winter.

Mom decided to take her recyclables to town this afternoon. It's an eight mile round trip, a matter of a few minutes most of the time.

But not today. Light snow, bone chilling cold, and north wind produced a hard little snow drift on the south side of county road 28. A little-bitty drift, 10 feet wide and 50 feet long and no more than 8 inches deep.

Not really worthy of the name snow drift. But it was enough to mire mom's hybrid Avalon.

Wasn't this bad. Wickimedia commons. 

Wasn't this bad either. Wickimedia commons.

Or even this bad. Wikimedia commons.

Fortunately she had her cell phone with her. She doesn't always carry it, but did today.

It only took me 10 minutes to respond, and another 15 to get her car pulled out. Five more minutes to see her safely home.

Of course I broke one of the suspension rods on her car. I thought I'd hooked to the more solid strut but in the dark of early evening and with fogged up barfocals (when they fog up my vision is as clear as if I've been sitting in a bar swilling beer for hours) I hooked to the flimsy rod instead. Pop!

Like this, only broken.

Oh well, what's a few Benjamins?

Everything is harder in the winter.

Warming

On the second day of 2015 the world -- at least that part of the world near Kimball, Nebraska -- warmed up.

This old chain-drive truck skeleton has lain here for more than 100 winters.

We had a solid week of frosty, Arctic temperatures. The low during that week was minus 18 (wind chill was minus 45 at one point) and the high was 10.

Even with temps below freezing, snow on the sun-warmed grain chute of an old combine melts and drips.

As a rancher I have to get out in the real world every day. Doesn't matter what the conditions are or how I feel about the whole thing, the cattle need to be checked and their basic requirements for food, water and shelter met. It's what I do and I'm well experienced, so it's not nearly as bad as it might sound. But it's not optional, and genuine misery is an occasional occupational reality.

Closeup.

The cold always passes though, as does the sweltering heat of summer. The key is to suck it up and drive on, endure the harshness, misery, and bad stuff, and embrace and cherish the good stuff. While there is bad stuff, there's a whole lot more good stuff.

And again.

One of the good things about terribly cold weather is how wonderful a slight warming can feel.

Self portrait.

Today the mercury nudged 31 degrees for a few minutes, and spent most of the daylight hours above 20 degrees. There was almost no wind, and though the sky was mostly cloudy, the sun peeped down from time to time. The sun that's already noticeably moving north toward a rendezvous with the summer solstice in June.

Ice glory.

There'll be plenty of winter over the next few months; more than enough snow and cold and ice. But on the second day of the year, with a slight warming and intermittent sunshine, it's easy to enjoy the beauty of a still winter day and dream of springtime. Calving. Opening day...

Shea. 1969. Wickimedia Commons.

Rung in, New Year, one each

And so it's 2015, just like that.

I've decided, by the way, to start blogging again.

The first blogging mistake I'll make is not having a clear mission statement.

I hate mission statements.

I'm a sovereign citizen of the United States of America. I'm a liberal in the same way our founding fathers were liberals. I'm a rancher and a businessman, a steward of the land, a thinker, a writer, a former sailor, a scientist, an observer and recorder, a people person comfortable with solitude. That's where the writing and the images will come from.

First things first, an homage to OldAFSarge. Here's an image of the adult beverage I rang in the New Year with. Tasty.  :)

I'm a party animal

Beautiful day

Cold and crisp morning. It was +2 degrees when I shot this. There was almost no wind and the sun was shining. Cows were soaking up the warm rays and dining on tasty hay. Sometimes there's something very nice about not being chained to a desk and punching a clock.