Snow strands pueblo people, livestock ( NM )

KRQE news ^ | 30 Dec 2011 | Bob Martin

[george76]

At Acoma pueblo thousands of cattle and even a few residents are still stranded by deep snow. The pueblo continues to dig out from last week's blizzards.

Most of the 3,000 cattle on the Acoma pueblo have been isolated since the storms last week with no extra feed or access to unfrozen water. Ranch hands have not been able to get out there as the extreme cold of the high country keeps the deep snow from melting.

Tractor crews are attacking it, but there are miles to go.

Not only is access important for care of the livestock, but many pueblo residents heat their homes with firewood gathered from the area.

[george76]

Everybody wants to be a Cowboy until the weather turns

[bigheadfred]

unfrozen water

Unfrozen water. What else can I say?

[bigheadfred]

Everybody wants to be a Cowboy until the weather turns

And then they turn into INdians.

[nuconvert]

Can’t they drop food by helicopters? small planes? Don’t they have snowmobiles?

[JRandomFreeper]

You darn betcha. I did one winter at 7000ft in NM with a low of -18F. When you have to take an axe out to water the cattle... Well, once winter was all it took for me.

/johnny

[unkus]

Not only is access important for care of the livestock, but many pueblo residents heat their homes with firewood gathered from the area.

---

This reporter is an idiot. They stock up on wood >before<

winter. He makes it sound as if they gather wood on a daily

basis.

[Tijeras_Slim]

On my 16th at 7500’ here. It’s got it’s downsides at times.

[FlingWingFlyer]

LOL! Dang right. They also don’t go out and “gather” wood like in the movies. They go out with chain saws in the fall AND CUT IT DOWN!

[unkus]

Dang right. They also don’t go out and “gather” wood like in the movies. They go out with chain saws in the fall AND CUT IT DOWN!

---

And many of them shoot a deer or two to bring back with the wood.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Yup! This article is balony.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Reminds me of the 1968 snow storm on the Navajo Rez.

[mylife]

RioDohSnow?

[FlingWingFlyer]

If that’s the one at the end of December 1967, I remember it well.

[Flycatcher]

Damn global warming...

[righttackle44]

This article is balony.

How can you say that? This was written by a reporter. Who may have even gone to journalism school!

[familyop]

"Everybody wants to be a Cowboy until the weather turns"

Yep, especially when the bipartisan political weather turns toward confiscating hundreds of head of cattle for revenues and outlawing ranching except for the elite.

It's over here, george76. There might be some farming but no more ranching.

[LaRueLaDue]

Reminds me of the 1968 snow storm on the Navajo Rez.

Was that the year it got REALLY cold in the four corners, northern NM and southern CO? I remember a week or so of -30 to -35 ° F lows when I was a young'un. That would have been about the right time, I think... We put heat lamps under the cars and blankets over the hoods, so that they would start (hopefully) in the morning...

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

How do they get the cows to climb those handholds up to the pueblo?

[dog breath]

My grandfather raised on a nineteenth century farm reading penny westerns went and worked as a cowboy when young around 1906-1910 in Texas, he seemed seemed quite happy to pursue any line of work that did not involve tending cattle after that. I got the impression from him that old time farm life had been hard enough but the ranching was brutal. He was a tough old bird lived to be over a hundred. He imparted a practical love of the outdoors to my father and myself. It was a view of nature where cities, towns farms and wild spaces all had their own purpose, he was a conservationist not a environmentalist. Preserve a wetland so you can go shoot ducks and replant a forest so you can cut down more trees in the future. As for the people in the Pueblo the article is not real clear as to why they need help so badly, I would think they would of anticipated this possibility, but I wish them luck.