Hi, I’m Mike.
Every where you go you are going to find the odd, the strange and even the bizarre.
And I’m not just talking about the people.
Join us today as we look at a couple of the oddities of the ranch, on our Wyoming life.
Welcome to our Wyoming life, where each week we get a chance to explore the ranch life
and escape the ordinary.
This week we really go off the deep end and explore the inordinary, that is a word by
the way, I had to look it up.
The inordinary, the odd, and the bizarre, and the curious.
Every state has their oddities.
In Texas it’s the Chupacabra, which might be a coyote with mange, in New Jersey it’s
the Jersey Devil, a creature with bat wings, goat’s legs and the head of a horse, which
seems like a great thing to name a hockey team after.
Or how about the Alaskan Otter man, not ottoman, but otter man, half man – half otter, which
is so terrifying that rumor has it that Charlie Sheen and his friends went to Alaska just
to find one.
Don’t do drugs kids.
Wyoming has our wild and crazy creatures too but before we get into that, lets head down
a side road and look into a few other Wyoming folklore and oddities.
A year ago, almost to the day I tried to tip a cow.
I’d never done it, which is probably why so many people said I did it wrong.
Being from Montana, I probably should have had lots of practice, there wasn’t a whole
lot to do up there when I was growing up, but in my defense, I did get my first Nintendo
in 1989 and that took up most of the next ten years.
Long story short, neither me nor Mario were out tipping cows and drinking beer as we should
have been.
By the way, from what I have read and been told, alcohol plays a big part in most of
the folklore and oddities we are going to talk about today.
Just keep that in mind.
Ok, so back to cow tipping.
Last year we had a handy volunteer right here in the corral to give us a hand, that was
Bambi, Mackenzie’s pet cow.
This year, Bambi is out in the pasture and that takes care of one of the things I did
wrong.
Apparently, cow tipping only works on cows in the pasture.
This kind of seems like backwards thinking, I know from experience that catching a cow
in the pasture can be a little rough, but that’s where my next tip comes in.
You have to catch a cow sleeping in order to tip them over.
Well, its kind of hard to tip over a cow that’s already tipped over and lounging out.
So maybe the person that told me that I have to wait til they are sleeping is a little
confused, cows don’t sleep standing up like horses do, and here’s why.
A cow’s knees don’t lock like a horse’s do, and if she did more than doze standing
up she would fall right over, and I guess if I happened time it just right, it could
look like I pushed her over, but the odds of the timing working out are about the same
as the odds of me ending up in the emergency room after a pogo stick accident.
And Erin won’t let me have one!
Moving right along, another suggestion was that we just hit a cow with the gator, that
will knock her over.
That might work, but I’m not going to try it.
Seems like a quick way break a gator and a cow.
Another suggestion included the idea to kick the cow in knee, I guess to weaken her and
make it easier for her to fall.
This again, seems a bit counter productive and in all honesty not very smart, I have
never kicked a cow but if someone kicked me, chances are I would kick back, and I know
a cow can kick harder than me.
So that one isn’t worth the risk to try.
I’m sure the cow appreciates that too.
With those hints and tips, I guess that is what you would call them, out of the way we
can move on to the meat and potatoes of the whole deal.
Tipping a cow.
A year later and I find myself here again, leaned up against Bambi, this time in the
pasture and not in the confines of a corral.
And pushing with all my might.
Ok, now its time for some math.
I hate math, but sometimes math can help us out.
Force equals mass times the gravitational force times the angle of the lever times the
length of the lever from center mass divided by the total length of the lever.
Stay with me here, don’t make me go through this by myself.
The cow weighs about 1500lbs.
I do remember from science class that we need to convert everything to metric so that’s
682 kilograms, take that times the gravitational force 9.81 times a 66-degree angle times the
length of the lever below center mass .79 meters divided by the total length of the
lever at 1.58 meters.
Stick with me here, I’m not going to make it without you.
All that math gives us 1360 newtons of force required to get her past the tipping point.
One person can exert about 675 newtons of force which means we need at least two people
about my weight to push the cow over.
But here lies the problem, Bambi is a living creature and not a statue of a cow.
Once we even start to get her off balance, all she’s going to do is take one step away.
And I end up the one tipped.
Maybe that’s the whole point, maybe its not us cow tipping, maybe its cows people
tipping.
You ever have that friend that you wish you could get rid of for a couple of hours?
Why not take them hunting, not like Dick Cheney and quail hunting, but snipe hunting.
All it takes is a bag and promise of some very good eating later on.
People have been hunting snipe since the 1840s in the United States and snipe have adapted
by taking on different appearances across the country, in some areas they look like
a cross between a jackrabbit and a squirrel, others look almost like small birds and some
can almost pass for a deer but the one trick you need to know is how to call the snipe
and lure them into the bag.
Try it yourself, no one is going to think you are weird or anything.
The Jackalope is a terrifying creature, usually described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns,
hence the name jackalope.
Although most I have seen have horns that are more like a deer.
Imagine a long cold Wyoming night, so cold that an antelope and a jackrabbit ended up
cuddling together in a small washout.
We all know how jackrabbits reproduce so quickly and in no time at all a small litter of jackalope
or by its Latin name Lepus conutus.
Horned Hare.
Came hoping out of the den.
And onto jackalope square in Douglas Wyoming.
The only place in the world where you can still get a hunting license for these elusive
little creatures.
Hunting season is only one day June 31st and lasts only 2 hours from midnight to 2 am.
Hunters must have an IQ greater than 50 but not over 72 and thousands of permits are issued
with no limit.
I myself have never been jackalope hunting, after all we have freezers of beef and I have
heard they are tough and gamey anyway, but still certain precautions have to be taken
as they have been known to gore ranchers walking through pastures.
Getting them right in the legs with their horns, giving ranchers reason to wear stove
pipes on their legs when out checking hay fields.
Be careful though of stores selling jackalope milk however as some vendors will sell cow
milk saying that its jackalope milk, after all milking a jackalope is a fool’s errand
and will never end well for the milker.
Maybe that’s why it’s so expensive.
There are debates about whether or not the jackalope even exists or is it an urban legend.
Where they hunted to extinction in order to grace barroom walls and line the shelves of
Cabela’s, or are they just wonderful at hide and seek, only emerging for their favorite
drink.
Whiskey.
Its true, the only way to catch a jackalope, by enticing it with its beverage of choice.
The only problem is, the bait keeps disappearing.
Sneaky little creatures.
Since 2005 the Wyoming legislature has been considering bills to make the jackalope the
states official mythicalogical creature and each year it dies in Senate committee.
Politics can be so confusing but obviously some of our legislators believe it is a myth
and should be the state’s official mythological creature and some think its real and has no
place in the folklore category.
Will the politicians ever figure it out, probably not, but its fun to watch them try.
Thanks for coming along with us today as we took a look at a few of the oddities of Wyoming,
from cow tipping to snipe hunting to our friend the jackalope, it was a lot of fun to make
and we hope you had fun watching.
If you would like to see more from us and the ranch make sure you subscribe for videos
3 times per week, giving you a chance to explore the ranch life and escape the ordinary.
Find us on Facebook for exclusive content and more and until I see you again.
Have a great week and thanks for joining us in our Wyoming life.