3 posts tagged “critters”

"Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam / Where the deer and the antelope play. / Where seldom is heard a discouraging word / And the skies are not cloudy all day ... "

We sure have deer up here. No antelope. More than our share of grouches and cloudy days.

But we do have buffalo. Near our home, within 50 miles, there are at least two ranches where bison are raised and bred. The one closer to us has been holding a Baby Bison Fest every June for the last few years, but we had never been to one because of other events taking place--either stuff I have to cover for the paper or our vacations.

This year we made a note of the date, and we adjusted the dates of the Canada trip (a story not yet written) to make sure we were home in time to take it in. So, on a recent Saturday, we got in the car and made the journey as a side trip during a normal visit to Iron Mountain.

The place keeps 50 head of bison, and the website explains that they are 100% grass-fed and pharm-free. "No drugs, pesticides or herbicides involved ... ever. Our buffalo are raised in an open, natural setting in an effort to keep them as stress-free as possible. They are never feed-lotted."

In case you didn't see the website, they tell you that several times while you're there.

We first visited a large metal storage building where they were selling buffalo-based items. (More on that later.) They also had littler, cuddlier bison for the littler, cuddlier people ...

They also had a petting zoo, a car show and a number of vendors for a number of things. But the stars of the show were grazing in the field a short distance away ...
They had a tractor pulling farm wagons into the field, where you could get up close and personal (but not too close or too personal) to the bison. Of course, we joined the line ...
When we finally got our turn, I found out we would be riding in the royal carriage. Two of the county's "Fairest of the Fair" were in our wagon, along with the reigning Wisconsin "Fairest of the Fair," who was crowned at the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis last summer ...
All three were wearing their tiaras, and they were taking pictures of the bison like everyone else ...

We heard once more how naturally the bison are being raised. It's hard to tell a happy bison from an unhappy one, but these looked reasonably content--at least until the wagon got too close. Then they moved off--both the big ones and the little ones ...


It was low-cost entertainment. You could park on the grounds in exchange for a $3 donation to the local high school's forensics team. The ride into the field to look at the bison close-up was $1 a head, which went to the local county fair.

Make no mistake, they raise the bison for harvest. They had bison burgers and bison brats for sale inside the metal building (also a benefit for the fair), and we each bought one. Yum! So good that my wife bought another five pounds of them. Last Saturday, we each had a home-cooked bison burger for lunch.

That's the ultimate fate of the bison at ranches today, like the beef cattle we see in the fields.  But there were 50 bison at the ranch we visited recently, and there sure were a lot of baby bison to look at. The population is no danger. It's a short life but a happy one.

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I have spent most of the last week watching with increasing disgust what is happening in Iran. It is a very important story, and the media finally started paying attention. Not that there is a lot we can do to influence things one way or another.

Weatherwise, we got pretty warm Sunday. I covered the local Father's Day car show and other events Sunday afternoon, and luckily I remembered to put on the sunscreen--it was mostly sunny and very warm. When I got back home, I found it had gotten up to 88F (31C), though the humidity was not too high. I had wanted to mow the lawn, but I delayed that until after supper, when it was a little cooler.

On Tuesday, the temperature rose into the low 90s (about 33 C), and it got close to 90 today (Wednesday). It is supposed to cool off over the weekend.

This started out as a very cool June, but that changed about two weeks ago. Now it's summer here, too. Unlike other parts of the Midwest, though, we haven't had a lot of rain. We could use a little more.

If you happen to bump into the weather man, tell him that for me.

(Not the red stuff that you pour all over your fries. Just “ketch(ing) up” with things.)

Life has been moving on swiftly for me, much too swiftly for me to write blog posts when I get some quiet time. Last week, my wife and I made that brief trip to Canada. Last weekend, we went to a Baby Bison Fest. And in two weeks, I will be at the airport in the Twin Cities to pick up B, at the start of our adventure.

I will post about the Canada trip and the Bison Fest when I find the time. We also recently went to a logging museum that had an old-time one-room school that I liked, plus I got some interesting handouts. I’ll also put that on the “to do … eventually” list.

Long-time readers know that for the last few years, I have been documenting the life of the robins that have nested on our front porch. In case you were wondering, there have been no nests so far this summer. We cleaned out those corners of the porch and put out the welcome mat, but no tenants yet. I don’t require them to sign a lease, either. I’m quite a nice landlord. Even if I am a bit intrusive with the camera.

Another occasional topic for me is my adventures with wildlife–especially bears. Early this week, I found out about a wandering bruin near a city park, so I went over with my camera to watch the fun.

It was at a far corner of the park, in a mostly wooded area but still close to city streets and residential homes and little kids playing. Mr. Bear was about halfway up a tall tree, and the authorities were on the scene, trying to persuade him to climb back down. Mr. Bear said no, I like it right where I am …

By the way, he was not a large bear (and there’s no way of knowing if he really was a he). Some people watching the fun said he was a second-year cub–a bear born last year.

Enter the DNR–the Department of Natural Resources–whose biologist came over to try to help. The plan was to tranquilize the bear and give him a ride out of town. But the local DNR biologists don’t have the kind of tranquiilizer gun you see all the time on animal shows on TV. What they use instead is use a long aluminum stick that has a needle in one end. Give him a couple of pokes with the tranquilizer, and pretty soon your target will get very sleepy.

The DNR guy climbed the ladder and got his stick ready. But Mr. Bear climbed higher, out of range. Up, up, up he climbed until he reached the very top of the tree, where he sat and thought bearish thoughts.

The cops were on the scene, too, with the county animal control officer. No ladder was anywhere near tall enough, so a new plan was needed. How about guns? How about making lots of noise with loud guns and shooting at the tree above the bear, to scare him back down? Bang! Bang! Bang! Mr. Bear didn’t seem impressed … or scared. The standoff continued.

But then the heavy artillery was brought in–a city bucket truck. The DNR guy got into the bucket, and up he went, up, up, up until he was nearly at the bear’s altitude. He brought his tranquilizer stick along, too, and took aim …

Mr. Bear got the message and started climbing down. Down, down, down. He paused about 12 feet above the ground then climbed down some more–maybe about 4 feet from terra firma. But then he noticed another DNR guy standing by the base of the tree. It must have been a scary sight–the bear reversed course and started climbing up, up, up again. Within moments, he was about 2/3rds of the way up.

But the guy in the bucket soon was close by, and he took aim. Another stick or two, and Mr. Bear started thinking it was time to go beddy-bye. …

Before anybody could sing him a lullaby, he lost his grip on the tree trunk and fell to the ground. The DNR guys brought over an oversize plastic pet carrier, quickly had the bear inside and carried him to their pickup truck. After that, I presume, they gave him a long ride into the deep woods, opened the door and sent him on his way.

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Bloggy blahs seem to be nearly universal now. I can understand why I am not writing so much–I’m busy with other stuff and never can seem to catch up. But everybody else? They’re under a different standard!

Namely … a double standard.

Time marches on ... into fall! The calendar page still reads August, but we got a preview of coming attractions this morning.

Our area had a frost advisory early Monday morning, though we didn't quite get there. I looked outside early this morning, and the ground was not frosted. We only got down to 34 (but the official temperature, near the river, reached 29).

My life continues to be busy, and what with work projects, other personal projects and the last days of the Olympics, my blog-writing has been on hold. Maybe motivation is a problem, too. I wanted to ... and yet I didn't want to. You know how that goes? I still have other things on my mind.

I have two photo entries coming up. One is from the county fair, held here about a week ago or so. That one is nearly done and could be posted pretty soon. The other is from that powwow we attended in early August. When things calm down, I'll work on the photos from that.

The most important thing this week is that we have a short week at work--we put the paper together on Friday instead of Monday, due to the Labor Day holiday. That coincides with the first football games of the new high school season, kicking off Friday night. So what do we do about that?

Here's what we do: I cover one of the games in person Friday night, then come in Saturday morning, write the report on that game and process some pictures. I also get a phone report on the other game and write a report on that. Then I put my page together; someone else uploads it to the printing plant later. I hope to get it all done by halfway through Saturday afternoon. I should; all my other work ought to be done by then.

Once my pages are all finished, my wife and I are hitting the road--to visit my in-laws in NW Wisconsin over the long weekend. My father-in-law died last December (our most recent visit). Since then the rest of the family has been dividing up things at the house. They put several big boxes of things aside for us--we are supposed to take them home with us in our little car. (FYI, there are four girls and four boys, and my wife is the eldest.)

Of course, there are only so many big boxes you can cram into a little car. We will get there Saturday night and drive home either on Monday or Tuesday. So it's either two or three nights away from home. It must be getting old for the kitties.

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Now here's something that happened to me last week. I was in the office, working on this and that, when we got a phone call. It was someone I knew, and he was excited. "I've got a bear in a tree near my place; come out with your camera if you want a great shot." He told me how to get there. I called my wife and got her off whatever she was doing so she could see the fun, too.

Here's what the fun was like. See that tree on the left side of the road? Look about three-quarters of the way up ...

That's what you could see without binoculars. But I have a telephoto lens; it's useful for situations like this. Through the lens, here's what we saw ...

In all, we have four bears here: the mama bear and three cubs--one below, one above and the third near mom's belly. They were moving around while I was there (about 10 people had gathered to look--it was about 11:30 a.m.) The guy said he discovered the bear while mowing some grass--he saw some fragments of bark at the base of the tree and looked up.

We were there about a half hour, then headed back to town. The guy later told me that the bear and cubs came down about 2 p.m. Just in time to scare the mail carrier while she was making her daily deliveries.