Guest Posts on County 10 are provided by contributors and the opinions, thoughts, and comments within are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of County 10.
We often hear complaints about the limitations of living in Wyoming. After an adult lifetime of listening to the whining of a couple of generations, I’ve heard just about all the reasons that young people can think of to slam their hometowns and dream of the glorious life waiting for them in some metropolitan area. Call it angst or something else, but these kids just don’t have the maturity to enjoy what surrounds them.
I witnessed something at a track meet long ago that reaffirmed my belief that we live in one of the best places on the planet. I was walking with my track team onto the Wyoming Indian facility in Ethete when I saw my friend Chico Her Many Horses getting the concession stand ready. I went over to talk to Chico just as an osprey flew over with a fish in one of its talons. The bird flew into its nest high atop one of the aluminum light towers surrounding the Chief Intertribal Complex.
“They’ve been up there all spring,” Chico said. “We can’t clear out the mess until they’re through nesting.”
A mess it was. A pile of sticks swaying high atop the tower in the face of a steady northwest wind. The track was a mess under the nest most of the time. Fish entrails, bird droppings, and the stray remnants of misplaced twigs littered the track.
It was an inspiring sight; some would even call it an omen of fortune to come. I don’t go much for omens, but the Ethete scenery combined with the crisp April air held enough promise for me.
The same thing awaits each summer at Roy Peck Field. Watch a Riverton Raiders game and your eyes will be drawn to a pair of ospreys that have called the pole in center field home for multiple generations of these amazing fish hawks. You’ll see them carry in a fish once in a while. It’s a lot farther to the Wind River from Roy Peck Field than it is from the similar power pole at Wyoming Indian.
The osprey pair below Arapahoe School have it made. Their nest is on the west side of the bridge over the Wind River. You can catch the fluttering red strands of baler twine in the wind that they’ve used for nesting materials.
It’s tough to see the beauty around you when the phony world of Hollywood, social media, and the Internet beckons with promises of quick, easy money and a glamorous lifestyle. It is an interesting paradox that as you grow older and your time grows shorter, you take more time to see and enjoy the things that interest you. Either that, or you get stuck in a never-ending spiral of work and worry. Give me an eagle in the morning sun anytime.
It’s tempting to read human motives and emotions in an animal’s actions. If this were true, the osprey must have gotten a great laugh late that morning when it dropped half of its breakfast on the track next to a group of fifth- and sixth-grade girls at the high jump pit. Screams of “gross!” echoed across the infield. A boy ran over to look and came back to tell me it was nothing big, just half a brook trout and some fish guts on the railing next to lane eight.
Few towns in Wyoming are exempt from wildlife encounters. Hard winters drive them into towns, and the local football field is always a popular spot to bed down.
There was a small herd of antelope that used to winter on the old Bailey Field in Shoshoni. On occasion I would spook them when I opened the locker room early in the morning for junior high track trips. A pronghorn exploding by you at 60 mph just as the sun rises is a much better wake-up than all the coffee or energy drinks you can chug.
Leroy Sinner had a ritual for his team each spring on the old 330-yard track at Morton. During the first week of practice, Sinner had the boys pick up the branches, trash, and tumbleweeds that collected on the field during the winter. In 1973 there was a little extra cleanup. A herd of feral horses had wintered in the hills just above the school at Morton. They left a field full of their calling cards. There are not many places in America that begin track season with rakes, shovels, and wheelbarrows cleaning up road apples.
I looked up from my classroom window one day in Shoshoni and glimpsed a moose running down the street. Antelope are one thing, but moose aren’t common on the desert plains surrounding Shoshoni. I went outside and watched as it darted through the gas pumps at the Fast Lane and headed west across the causeway. A Wyoming Game and Fish truck followed closely behind. I’d venture a guess that this type of event never happens in Los Angeles or Chicago.
Moose provide another type of excitement in Pinedale during the winter months. Many elementary students had harrowing escapes from the largest member of the deer family a few afternoons after school.
Moose love the vegetation, habitat, and protection of the brush along Pine Creek that flows through Pinedale.
During some winters the snowfall is so heavy that the city can’t haul it all away, so they plow it off to the side and create a wall of snow along the streets. A stray cow or bull moose is a routine sight in Pinedale, but you don’t want to meet it eye-to-eye. Moose sometimes chase children home, and it’s common for a call for Sublette County deputies or the Pinedale police to remove the 800-pound nuisances before they catch someone.
Mule deer in Dubois are as common as squirrels in Riverton, but it was always a thrill to see them look down on the field during a football game or walk along the skyline during a track meet. A close look at the grass in Dubois tells you they graze on the field as well.
In the 1970s, when Wyoming Indian High was still located at the St. Michael’s Mission, a herd of buffalo grazed behind the school. It was a general, but unsubstantiated, belief that the bison herd belonged to the school. Whether it did or didn’t, it made a beautiful backdrop.
We are closer to nature here than nearly anywhere else on earth. You don’t have to hunt or fish to enjoy the wildlife surrounding us, but you do have to take the time to notice it.
City dwellers and foreign visitors spend a lot of time and money for a glimpse of what we get to see every day. All you have to do is look up from your phone occasionally.