Took my horses on an exploratory mission over the Wyoming border today. We followed fencelines and cattle trails to attempt to top out on the ridge-- and found scrub oak! The one place on the ranch that has scrub oak, and I've found it. Great. I hopped off to create a pathway for us, and pulled out my trusty machete.
Swish, hack! Crash-- another tree sacrificed to the trail. Howdy and Cleo were tied off to my belt. With the next Swish, hack! we heard a new sound: hmmmmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!! We all three recognized the sound and leapt a startled 180 degrees to reverse course for some distance. It seems my hacked-off branch landed on a paperwasp nest that had been destroyed by a cow or bear. It was lying on the ground, torn apart, the wasps stumbling over it trying to find some order when I threw a branch on top and made angry bees angrier. We escaped alive.
The semi-tame fox was in the field on our way out-- watched us, and then came closer.
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