“These are the times that try men's souls.” | Sorry I've been out of electronic world for a while. So yes, the Sage brush is a fire hazard waiting to happen, I would love to take you all on a tour here on a tour bus. However, your first requirement would be if I let you off the bus for a bathroom break you can't get back on until you light every one of the matches, I give you in a form of a matchbook.
This valley was a sea of grass when the first white man came to it, a few big cattle ranches then found it. They grazed cattle forever, then the homesteaders came and broke it. They starved to death in the 30's. The government bought a lot of the land back, a few of our families stayed. The government started planting grass back, then leased it out to run cattle on to manage the grass for fire. Our family's worked to help plant the grass back and also do restoration projects.
The Indians were the first ecologists on this land, they travelled from Idaho to the Great Salt Lake to gather salt. When they left the lit the valley on fire to burn brush and make wildlife habitat for good hunting. Now the government thinks it should all be sage brush. We actually have a management plan that stated we take out 1,000 acres a year of brush every year. However, the Forest Service got sued so many times in the last 35 years, they have given up on their own management plan. It has gotten to the point we need to sue the federal government for not following their own plan. However, you don't go around suing partners you are trying to work with.
The area had the Oregon trail cut through it, so a lot of wagons came though this area looking for something better. We tell people as a joke our forefathers wagons broke down, and they weren't mechanic enough to fix them to leave.
Here are a few videos of the valley that tells a little.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxc7mRKA7BU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy6bjUJiaZY
ICC, hope things are going good over there. Please don't send your ground squirrels over here!!!!!! That is the one pest we don't have yet in the valley, that and rock chucks. I was in Summit County, UT. the other day driving to the ranch, and I saw a great big chuck sitting in a guy's field. I so wanted to pull over and blast him!!! I'm sure they would have thrown me in jail if I did, as liberal as they are getting down there. As a kid I changed irrigation water in Summit County, grandpa would buy me a brick of 22 shells. I would sit on ditch and shoot until I got tired. Then I would pull out a Readers Digest condensed book and read and read. I kept a horse saddled and hobbled there to ride back and forth to the ranch house. I would ride back to have lunch then ride back to finish watering. Had to change water every hour or so on those side hills. So, I stayed on the side hills and changed water. It was quite a deal when we got a 4-wheeler in 82' to change water. Never had a motor bike on the ranch.
Doug61, hope this link answers some of your questions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Salt_Lake
Hillskinefarms, that green plant is a brush plant. I think related to Rabbit Brush. Sorry I don't have the name of it right now. I wish my father was alive to ask that question. As he was a range conservationist. He knew over 200 western plants all by their Latin names. And no cattle won't eat it.
Edited by Russ In Idaho 7/4/2022 05:28
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Just pics from last evening while checking cows
