buffalo roundup

The buffalo in the previous post deserve a better explanation. Yes, Ted Turner, they're technically bison, but for the sake of romance, we call them buffalo. The herd pictured was "born" on the next ranch upriver. Right next to the owner's house there's a big, beautiful metal-working studio and a forge. In a normal year, the river runs over the road in at least three places on the way up to their place, and they have to drive through the water to make it up there. The whole setup is built right on the floodplain, a pretty good idea on land which, in a drought, can be parched so dry that the river (if you've ever had a leak, you know water never gives up) has been known to actually run underground. At least you always know it's there. Needless to say, a forge can be fairly dangerous up there, especially in the dry times.

We love these rusty beasts, love that they're rusty instead of feisty. To be fair, buffalo aren't really feisty (well okay, maybe a little spookable). It's just that they tend to go where they want to go when they want to go there. Fences be damned. It's not that they don't respect a neighbor's fence; they just never see it, let alone feel it, no matter how snarly and barbed it is. But hey, if you were carrying all those tons of ungulate, you probably wouldn't either.