October 15, 2004 (2nd entry)

Last evening the Fifth Annual Spring Creek School Soup and Pie Supper was held. Two weeks ago the Folsom community Club hosted its annual Supper, Bazaar, and Auction, which also took place at the Spring Creek elementary School. Both events are designed as fundraisers for the school, the Folsom Volunteer Fire Department, and the Folsom Community Club itself. I attend these functions; even though I have no kids in school, and even though I am a member of the Fire Department, I attend these events because of the camaraderie and community spirit that happens in this politically, racially, economically, and religiously diverse rural, western prairie community.

Everybody tells stories about the winter of 1985 or of the strange, unpredictable things they have witnessed: a beaver that couldn’t get back through his hole in the ice because it had already frozen over, or a rattlesnake that had eaten another rattlesnake almost as large as itself; everybody talks about the weather, the current jobs and related problems, the prospects for next year, “Of what is past, Passing, or to come.” (W.B. Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”) Most of these people are cattle ranchers who raise horses and put up a little hay. Some, besides us, the wildideabuffalo bunch, have buffalo and on occasion the conversation comes around to buffalo; and we are called on to answer questions pertinent to the ranching community at large.

These questions cover everything from the dimensions of our fences to our meat production processes, our animal and range management program, and our marketing practices. There are several reasons for this. First, they are just plain interested, curious and probably have never worked with buffalo. Second, if they share a fence with us, they are genuinely pleased because they benefit and/or have benefited by that sharing: they have the use of it and did not have to build it. Third, our production processes and marketing practices (about which our client/customers are familiar) differ from their own, which raises a natural curiosity about how and why we do what we do. Fourth, our animal and range management program: no making steers out of bulls, no assistance in calving, minimal sorting of animals, re. gender or age. What all of these do for us is: a) minimize stress to the animal, which is of paramount importance, and b) reduce the high labor intensity of those activities, which savings we pass along to our client/customer.

If we think of wildideabuffalo as an extended family or a community, we participate in and partake of the very best part of the ancient traditions of which the American Bison was and is the central figure.