Snow in June?
Yes, a steady snow blanketed Butte and the surrounding hills. The temperature in the high twenties didn’t seem to bother the Montana natives. And me? I wished for sun which never arrived. Cold rain trailed the snow making walking just uncomfortable.
“Cows are selling for $600 more a head now than they were last year the head man at the famous Pork Chop John’s relates. I was thinking about this windfall for ranches as I moved along the deserted road. Two pick-up trucks, each hauling a cow trailer, pulled up to a gate in a multi mile long barbed wire fence and began discharging pack of steers on to the open range. Then a huge truck pulling a long trailer backed up along the gravel surface. When the trailer doors were opened 30 more cows obediently marched through the slim gate opening and on to the lonely pasture. I was annoyed that in the time it took me to walk a mile, the big animals, moving faster than me, had lined up in orderly flanks of two and had already hustled off to a ragged barn in the far corner of the field. I concluded that this heard either was very hungry, had a knowledgeable leader cow, or perhaps, they were just spooked by this lonely figure wobbling along in the middle of nowhere and like them, ignoring the heavy rain.
