As a farm kid, I faced some pretty scary bullies, but I knew the secrets to keeping them at bay. On our farm at the edge of the Clearwater National Forest just outside Grangeville, I faced my bullies at chore time. Continue reading
My spouse Jim is an avid fisherman. Did I say avid? He’s a fanatic about fishing. When I told him I was driving down to the new Springfield Fish Hatchery for sockeye salmon to interview the manager and have a tour of the facility there, he was more than ready to accompany me. “I’ll be your photographer,” he announced. Continue reading
When I was a kid, my family’s farm near Filer in southern Idaho was a magical place, where anything could happen.
We had parts and pieces of things all over the place—we could make forts, dig for queen ants, play with electricity (hot wire and hose pipe tricks), skip rocks, climb haystacks—you get the idea. What I didn’t know until I left was that growing up on a farm and being part of the operation was the best gift I ever could have received. Continue reading
I’ll wager few things were or are more important to Idaho farmers and ranchers than their water rights. Cattle might be stolen, or money, even wives or lady friends, but water theft has often carried dire consequences, including death. Following is a case in point from my own family history.
My father grew up in Lund. Although he moved to Utah, started a business in Salt Lake City, and raised his family there, he often said, “You can take a kid out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the kid.” He dreamed of moving back to Idaho one day and buying a farm or small ranch. After almost twenty-six years in Utah, he enlisted the help of my mother’s uncle, who was then living in Hagerman, to locate and purchase a small ranch on the bank of the Snake River west of Wendell. Continue reading
