Hay bales as a rancher's weather forecaster

For those who want to know, Louie, the dairyman raised, now over 800 pounds black angus steer residing in our weaning corral for winter, cowed right up and moved along fine during vaccinations and shows no unnatural interest in any human entering the corrals.

The rest of the calves in the corral don't care who walks into it either as long as there is hay in the manger and some molasses in the separate tub over in the corner. Because after weaning comes daily feeding, the chance for all cowboy types to get a close dose of daily weather.

If there is hay blowing into your eyes, nose and mouth it means it is windy. If you pull a muscle out of your rotator cuff it means it rained then froze over night and the hay bails are bonded together until warmer weather.

If hay bales are wet, a driving wind pushed snow or sleet under your pole barn and doused all the exposed bales. Best to feed them off first so they don't mold too badly. If the bottom of the hay stack is soggy and bales weigh twice their regular weight it is raining so hard you have standing water that will leach into the ground eventually, but moisture will stay in the bales until they are fed to real hungry cows near the end of winter when they are willing to eat anything that falls from the feed-truck. And if you are hot, dry and sweating wearing only your gloves, hat and sensible shoes it is a nice sunny day.

Weather, the one safe thing most people could talk or complain about in public has become a sensitive political issue. It has become something to drive a nation, with many common interests among its citizens, apart. Why is weather a political issue? Some will tell you Vice President Gore made it so because it is his personal crusade. Some will tell you the oil industry and friends in the federal government made it so by trying to confuse people into believing pollution of the environment by human activity has no significant effect on the global aspect of weather.

Interestingly some of our nations most powerful Wall Street banks will no longer fund coal plant projects which caused TXU a big Texas utility to abandon eight of the 11 new coal plants it was planning on building in 2007. Bank of America, Citigroup and Merrill Lynch pledged on their own to reduce carbon emissions from their own commercial properties. And leading insurance agency, Allstate is canceling or not renewing approximately 500,000 casualty insurance policies along the East and Gulf coast from Massachusetts to Texas. Somebody, somewhere, with more resources than I have believes there is something going on with the weather no matter who or what is causing it and is trying to be proactive in their business practices.

So maybe this holiday season the greatest gift we could give each other besides world peace is simply openness to the idea that we have influence on our world, and decide to make conscience choices to make it a positive one.

Have a warm, safe, holiday and don't be afraid to talk about the weather. Personally, I am asking for a few feet of snow in the mountains for Christmas even if it means chaining up the feed truck.

n Marie Johnson is a Carson Valley rancher.