Get Lost. (In Montana)

Post by Clemson Prairie Ecology Fellow Matt Nelson

This past Monday marked exactly one month since our arrival in Montana and also marked the first time our group has been split up to work on separate projects. In last week’s post Annie mentioned our ride with Goz to check the fences on the state land. Cattle haven’t been kept on this land for two years and so the fence was in quite a state of disrepair. The barbed wire stretches over time but the state land is home to numerous elk and contains many large trees. In several places trees had fallen and knocked down large portions of fence line. Other areas were only broken along the top strand, most likely due to elk jumping over the fence and hitting the wire with their back legs; it doesn’t hurt them but it is extremely annoying for those of us who have to fix it.

The easiest way to access this area is through the use of the Kubota, a two-seater vehicle with a small bed for carrying things such as tools, dirt, or whatever else you can fit in it. This made it hard for all of our group to go on the fence repair job and so I was asked by Goz to help out Terry this week in repairing the breaks so that the cows could be allowed to graze that land. Monday I actually went up the mountain with Terry’s dad, Bill Frost. A super nice guy it was interesting to hear some of the stories he had to tell. At almost 85 years old he has seen and done a lot and he still works like a twenty year old; I found myself having to keep up with him a few times. The next day I worked with Terry and we were able to fix some of the more destroyed areas of fence and by the end of the day left the fence open and let the cows out onto the land.

On Wednesday Terry and LaVonne allowed us to accompany them to do the set up for the artificial insemination on the neighbor’s cattle. They are just now getting into the cattle business so it was just as much a learning experience for them as it was for us. Now I am by no means an expert on cows and I don’t fully understand what it was that we were doing in order to prepare the heifers but the process was called seeding. From what I could gather we gave them a shot that would make them all more susceptible to the actual impregnating process that will take place later this week. For a more detailed explanation on cattle seeding and artificial insemination you can check out Marilyn’s blog.

The remainder of the week went by with us working on our usual projects along with the arrival of Marilyn’s family on Friday. After showing them around Billings during the day we all came back and spent the remainder of the day sitting on our back porch and did some birding. All of us interns had seen the many birds in the back yard but had never taken the time to actually look through our bird identification books and see what species they were. Marilyn’s dad is really into birding and I think some of that passion passed on to us in the short time they were here. Even in the past day or so we have all found ourselves looking at the birds a bit more closely than we have been. We were also lucky enough to see a double rainbow for the third day in a row. Almost every evening this week we have had thunderstorms and it has resulted in some spectacular rainbows right behind the house.

Today we went on a short hike around the perimeter of Crystal Lake, an area that is about 30 minutes south of Lewistown. The views were spectacular and we plan to return one Sunday and make the 10-mile round-trip hike up to the Ice Caves, a cave that contains ice year round. This next week should bring some exciting stuff as we finish up the artificial insemination on the neighbor’s cows and continue making progress on our research projects.