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[{"type":"text","text":"Luke Combs -- Ain't No Love In Oklahoma"}]

Mix Collage 14 Jul 2024 01 20 PM 2359

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<title>Monday Morning Dance Party: Luke Combs -- Ain't No Love In Oklahoma | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Luke Combs -- Ain't No Love In Oklahoma

Monday Morning Dance Party: Luke Combs -- Ain't No Love In Oklahoma

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Agriculture

When people see Timothy Barkman's four-horned Jacob sheep at his farm near Lingle, they stop and stare. 

[{"type":"text","text":"The sheep look unlike almost anything else grazing Wyoming pastures."}]

Their piebald coats are splashed with black, white and sometimes lilac patches. Some sport the familiar pair of curled horns. Others grow four. A rare few grow six, thanks to a genetic trait known as polyceraty.

They're striking enough that people often stop and ask questions, Barkman said. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Years ago, Barkman felt the same curiosity. "}]

"I had seen a few of them around and always thought they looked kind of cool," he said.

At the time, he was debating between Jacob and Barbados sheep. Then he attended an exotic livestock auction in Lexington, Nebraska.

"They had a couple of ewes with lambs," Barkman recalled. "So that's how I ended up buying my first ones."

Barkman's purchase eventually grew into a flock of registered Jacob sheep grazing the same ground where his family has raised livestock for more than a century.

"I'm a fourth generation in this house that I'm living at," he said. "It was my great grandpa's homestead, so we've had sheep, cows and pigs on this place for the last 105 years."

Today, Barkman keeps six breeding ewes and two rams. The prolonged drought and the cost of installing sheep-proof fencing have slowed his plans to expand, but he'd eventually like to grow the flock to 20 or 30 ewes.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Ancient History "}]

The Jacob Sheep Breeders Association says the breed likely originated in Syria roughly 3,000 years ago.

Historical records trace the breed's movement through North Africa, Sicily, Spain and eventually England before it was imported to the United States in the early 1900s.

The breed takes its name from the Biblical patriarch Jacob, and many enthusiasts believe it descends from the spotted sheep described in the Book of Genesis.

Barkman said several stories surround the breed's origins, but one of his favorites takes place in the Medieval Ages. 

"The crusaders liked them so much that they confiscated a bunch of them and took them back to England," he said. "They were just yard ornaments in those big castles because they just thought they were cool having the four horns."

Whether admired by medieval nobles or modern Wyoming motorists, the sheep continue to turn heads, Barkman said. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Built Different"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Jacob sheep aren't just unusual to look at."}]

Adult ewes generally weigh between 80 and 120 pounds, and rams tip the scales at 120 to 180 pounds, making them a relatively small and efficient breed, notes the National Breeders Association. 

[{"type":"text","text":"Their naturally spotted fleece makes a unique wool."}]

"The wool is considered one of the best for hand spinning," Barkman said, adding that the meat is also highly regarded.

[{"type":"text","text":"Barkman said the sheep are also remarkably hardy."}]

"Jacob sheep are extremely immune to most parasites," he said. "You don't actually have to doctor them near as much as you do other breeds."

"The main market for Jacob sheep is selling the horns, the hide, the wool and the meat," he said. "Pretty much every single hide is different."

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Family Affair"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"These days, the operation is a family effort."}]

Barkman's wife helps with the flock, while the couple's 4-year-old son is already learning farm chores by watering animals, feeding the sheep, and collecting eggs.

Predators, he added, remain one of the biggest challenges. Coyotes are a year-round concern, while newborns — roughly the size of a house cat — can also attract hawks and owls during lambing season.

[{"type":"text","text":"Still, Barkman wouldn't trade the work."}]

Asked for his favorite memory of raising Jacob sheep, he doesn't mention their ancient history, rare genetics or impressive horns.

[{"type":"text","text":"Instead, he smiles when he thinks about spring."}]

His favorite sight is watching a pasture full of newborn lambs race across the grass.

Jacob Sheep IMG 3156 6 27 26

<title>Lingle Farm Breeds Four-Horned Sheep That Look Like Heavy-Metal Mascots | Cowboy State Daily</title>

When people see Timothy Barkman's four-horned Jacob sheep at his farm near Lingle, they stop and stare at the ancient breed that looks part biblical legend and part heavy-metal mascot. The breed likely originated in Syria roughly 3,000 years ago.

Lingle Farm Breeds Four-Horned Sheep That Look Like Heavy-Metal Mascots

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

Business & Tourism

The first time Farmstead Cider went after old apples in Jackson Hole, it was just for the flavor. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"It soon became about the bears. "}]

Every fall as apples drop and ferment in the backyards and ghost orchards of Jackson Hole, grizzlies and black bears do what comes naturally. They follow their noses straight into trouble — calorie-rich fruits that taste oh-so-good when you’re a bear desperate to fatten up for winter. 

The first harvest, though, was all about the homesick wives, Farmstead Cider’s co-owner Orion Bellorado said. They had grown up on the East Coast, where apple harvests are a big deal. 

“We started harvesting the apples in our neighborhood off of peoples’ trees that were kind of derelict,” he said. “And they were tiny, so we pressed a bunch of juice and made some cider out of it.”

The party was great and word soon got around. 

“Someone from the county found out about it and said, ‘Hey, you should really put in for this community grant to start a business,” Bellorado recalled. “‘Because we’ve really been having issues with bears.’”

That was in 2016, and the business has been going ever since, bottling 5,000 to 7,000 gallons of native-yeast cider a year and selling it across Wyoming as well as other states such as Washington and Montana. 

In the process of climbing into backyards and abandoned orchards, Bellorado stumbled onto a bigger realization. Wyoming is curiously — if quietly — rich in apples across the state.

“They are everywhere,” he said. “I mean, Lander was called Apple Town before it was called Lander. It’s full on part of this interesting tidbit of our culture and our history that’s really been left behind.”

That history is being rediscovered thanks to a project called the Wyoming Apple Project. Through it, researchers have been cataloguing a hidden network of heritage and volunteer trees that have somehow survived a century or so of drought and neglect. Researchers say these hardy survivors might point the way to a new kind of apple economy in one of the harshest fruit-growing climates in America.

You wouldn’t know it from today’s landscape of hay bales and cattle, but Wyoming was once thick with apples. Homesteaders brought apple seeds to plant in their new homes, carving out orchards that were just as essential as a root cellar to their survival.

Apples meant sauce, butter, cider, vinegar and livestock feed. They were essential calories, but also comfort — the kind that could be stored up through a long, hard winter.

By the early 1900s, experimental orchards and private growers had tested at least 218 named apple cultivars across Wyoming, including 11 that were Wyoming-bred. 

Among the most ambitious of the early apple pioneers was an experimental fruit farm in Lander, which trialed 175 different cultivars under superintendent John Steinbrecht, who also developed 10 of the 11 Wyoming-bred cultivars. 

Not far away from Steinbrecht was Lander orchardist Ed Young, who planted a prodigious 3,000-some apple trees in 1882 — an act of faith in a place better known for blizzards than fruit blossoms.

At the time, Wyoming was held up as a national example of what’s possible on the frontier. 

“A lot of those early settlers, such as Ed Young, and their success in growing apples was used in news articles back east, to bring hope to people thinking about moving West,” University of Wyoming graduate and plant physiologist Jonathan Magby told Cowboy State Daily. “It helped show them that you can successfully inhabit this remote location of the United States.”

Wyoming’s apples at that time came from everywhere — Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, Canada and even Russia. Several nurseries were involved in seeing which varieties could stand up to Wyoming’s brutal mix of cold, drought and wind, including 

At one point, at least 70 out-of-state nurseries and 20 in-state nurseries across 11 Wyoming cities were selling apple stock to Wyoming growers.

Then, slowly, the state forgot about its apples.

Wyoming’s agricultural identity shifted solidly toward cattle and general row crops. Many orchards were abandoned. Irrigation ditches shifted. Families moved away or sold off land.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Winters kept coming. "}]

And the apple trees that had been left behind continued growing. They became part of an unintended Darwinist experiment — one where only the fittest would survive. 

What’s left of the apple trees that once dotted Wyoming are now the toughest of the tough. Trees too full of Wyoming grit to give up and die.

Among the most interesting is a gnarled apple tree in Lander. Its limbs curl up to the sun like an insect on its back, and its trunk is so hollowed out, one wouldn’t be surprised to find a hobbit — or some other creature of legend — sleeping inside.

Somehow, though, this ancient tree is still alive, still leafing out, still stubbornly insisting on producing apples, despite a century or so in a place that routinely tries to freeze them to death.

Wyoming is not a state known for hardy trees. It is, after all, among the coldest and driest of states in the Lower 48. And apple trees aren’t known for being especially long-lived, either. Most never see a 100th birthday.

That makes this particular apple tree special. It’s passed a 100-year stress test, one where Wyoming wind and drought are separating the true pioneers from the pretenders.

To Magby, the Lander tree is far more than a curiosity. It’s a symbol of what Wyoming apples once were, as well as what they could be again. 

These survivors could help develop ever more hardy Wyoming stock, making apples a potential new and viable agricultural commodity. Because of that, the tree’s tissue was pulled and grafted onto new stock, so it can keep growing for another 100 years.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Like A CSI Detective"}]

Magby has been searching out all the old heritage apple trees of Wyoming using DNA finger-printing techniques more often associated with crime shows like CSI. 

So far he’s sampled 510 trees at 91 locations in 19 cities, from Lander and Sheridan to Buffalo and Casper, to figure out which trees match known cultivars and which might be lost or forgotten varieties. So far he’s found more than 150 unique genetic fingerprints that don’t match anything in old reference collections. 

Some of those varieties show up in multiple towns, suggesting they are long-lost cultivars that no longer exist anywhere else. hey are a living link to an era when Wyoming was serious apple country.

Two varieties that keep showing up, meanwhile, are Wealthy and Haralson, both bred in Minnesota. They are roughly one-third of all the identified surviving trees in his data set.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"More Than Charming History"}]

Magby doesn’t see Wyoming apples as a charming historical footnote. He believes these survivors are pointing the way to a viable agricultural commodity for the state, one that could lead to more products that are made in Wyoming, such as Farmstead Cider in Jackson Hole. Making products in Wyoming — referred to as value-added products — is a better bang for the buck. It keeps most of the economic value chain in-state.

Apple cider production makes a lot of sense in Wyoming, alongside the growing microbrewery scene, Magby said. People also just enjoy fresh produce that’s been grown in Wyoming, whether that’s an apple or other fruits.

“We take pride in anything that’s been produced in Wyoming,” Magby said. “So I’d love to see someone take a strong stance of producing and backing development of cultivars and revamping testing of grape and pear varieties and other small fruits, just to provide that diversity, not just in fresh food products, but also diversity of economies.”

Bellorado is already living that future at Farmstead Cider, thanks to bear-safety grants that helped launch a business to haul apples out of backyards and ghost orchards. 

Now, instead of attracting trouble, those apples are a useful and delicious product in a growing business. It’s more joy to the human world, all from abandoned, pioneer apple trees.

Apples Ian Mc Gregor co owner of Farmstead Cider Courtesy Photo 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wyoming was once thick with apples. In fact, it was a top apple producer. Now those forgotten apple trees are being rediscovered by small cider houses. "They're everywhere," said one cider house owner. "Lander was called Apple Town before Lander."

Wyoming’s Ghost Apple Orchard Trees Have Been Rediscovered And Are Producing

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Outdoors

Hunting

Many hunters would be happy shooting just one buck pronghorn big enough to make the Boone and Crockett Club record books. Larry Hicks of Baggs has bagged 16, including 14 from Wyoming.

The key was figuring out how to consistently and accurately “field judge” whether a buck is one for the books, he told Cowboy State Daily.

In other words, he had to tell by looking at pronghorn, commonly called antelope, through binoculars or spotting scopes, and then decided on sight which bucks had trophy-class horns.

“After 20 years of trying, I finally got to the point where I cracked the code” for spotting record book antelope, he said.

Hicks’ accomplishment is phenomenal, prominent outdoorsman Guy Eastman of Cody told Cowboy State Daily.

“He’s got everybody I know beat,” said Eastman, who represents the third generation of the famous outdoor multimedia family that launched Eastman's Hunting Journal, along with a television show and YouTube channel.

Hicks, who serves as a Republican Wyoming state senator, regards antelope as a Wyoming icon.

“We so under-value antelope,” he said. “We are tremendously blessed in Wyoming."

Antelope live in several Western and Southwestern states, but Wyoming has the most abundant populations. So, there’s plenty hunting opportunity here, Hicks said.

Moreover, antelope hunting is highly accessible. It doesn’t require the expensive gear, time and physical effort of backcountry elk hunting, he said.

“If you’ve got a two-wheel-drive pickup and a .30-06 with a four-power Weaver scope on it, you can go antelope hunting,” he said.

And while the absolutely huge monster bucks come from New Mexico and Arizona, the sheer number of antelope in Wyoming means there are more trophy-sized bucks by volume here, Eastman said.

“Statistically, Wyoming is the best place to kill a Boone and Crockett (B&C) record book antelope buck,” he said.

"If you remove New Mexico from the list, we have more B&C antelope bucks than all the other states combined,” Eastman said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"By The Numbers"}]

The B&C record books are considered the gold standard for fair-chase trophy hunting.

Animals are scored by inches. For antlered or horned game, scores are compiled from numerous length and circumference measurements taken at different spots on the horns or antler racks.

For antelope, that includes measurements of the horns’ overall length, plus circumference at four spots on each horn. 

Also taken into account is the size of the prong protruding from the front of each horn — for which the species is formally named.

Green score, gross score and net score are also terms to bear in mind.

Green score refers to initial measurements taken right after the animal is killed, and the horns might still contain some moisture. 

An official score can’t be taken until after a mandatory 90-day drying period, during which there might be some shrinkage.

The gross score is the compilation of all the measurements after the drying period. What really counts is the net score, which is calculated after deductions are made for any asymmetry in the horns.

B&C has awards record books, which are issued every few years, and then the all-time records book.

An antelope’s net score must be 80 inches to qualify for the awards records, and 82 inches for the all-time records.

Hicks’ trophy antelope so far include three awards record bucks and 13 all-time record bucks.

His largest buck so far scored 87 inches net, 88 inches gross. He shot it in Carbon County in 1999.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"‘The Golden Square’"}]

While antelope can be found just about anywhere in Wyoming, the best place to find B&C trophy bucks is in the “golden square” at the heart of the Red Desert country in Carbon, Sweetwater and Natrona counties, Hicks said.

It’s thought that about 90% of a buck’s horn growth takes place during their first three years. Bucks have to be roughly 5 years old before they start to hit true trophy sized, Hicks said.

The peak years for antelope in Wyoming were from about 2000 to 2008, he said. There were several mild winters during that period.

However, a harsh winter during the last year of that streak knocked the herd back, he said.

An absolutely brutal winter hit the heart of Wyoming’s antelope country in 2022-2023. That sent trophy buck numbers plummeting, Hicks said.

The herds are still in recovery mode, and although there aren’t as many bucks that are old enough yet to be huge, “they’re out there,” he said.

Eastman agreed that overall numbers are down. This past mild winter, however, with abundant food for antelope probably contributed to robust horn growth.

Buck antelope shed the black outer sheath of their horns in October and November, and they grow back over the winter, Eastman said.

“The numbers might be down, but I think the quality of the bigger bucks this fall is going to be nuts,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mass Matters"}]

To the untrained eye, a buck’s trophy quality might be all about the length of the horns, Hicks said.

When it comes to judging horn length in the field, consider that the top of a buck’s ears is about 7 inches, he said.

So, a buck that has as much horn above the tips of his ears as below them might be entering trophy territory, Hicks said.

But those circumference measurements, or mass of the horns, it what really adds up, he said.

That can be devilishly difficult to judge in the field, Hicks added. A quarter-inch at each of the four circumference points on a buck’s horns can add an additional 2 inches to the score.

However, “trying to determine a quarter-inch difference through binoculars at 400 yards is extremely hard,” Hicks said.

“I tell novice hunters to look for a lot of black,” he said. Or in other words, signs of real mass in the horns. “Our antelope in Wyoming tend to have shorter antlers, and more mass."

As are as horn length in Wyoming goes, “16 inches is rare, 17 inches is really rare, and 18 inches is unheard of,” Hicks said.

Extremely mild winters with plentiful feed are what produces world-record setting monster antelope bucks in Arizona and New Mexico, Eastman said.

“There was a movement at one time to recognize them as their own subspecies, because they’re so ridiculously huge,” Eastman said. "Their horns will be 18, maybe 19 inches long, they’re just insane.”

The biggest antelope of all time came from the southwest and was in the neighborhood of 97 or 98 inches, Eastman said.

“As far as I know, no antelope has ever broken 100 inches, but they’ve come close,” he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Wyoming Antelope Are Tough"}]

Even so, Wyoming’s antelope have bigger bodies than their southwestern counterparts, Eastman said.

“Our bucks are big, horse-headed animals built for the winters," he said.

Wyoming antelope can survive conditions ranging from 50 degrees below zero in the winter, to over 100 degrees at the height of summer, he said.

“Pound-for-pound, they are the toughest animals in North America, in my opinion,” Eastman said.

Hicks said antelope are perhaps his favorite animals. Even when it’s not hunting season, he loves watching them.

“I invented distracted driving,” he said. “I’ve probably spotted 100 or more B&C trophy book-class Wyoming antelope bucks, just alongside the highways.”

Antelope meat gets a bad rap, but Hicks thinks that’s unfair.

The key is to “make a clean kill” and get the meat cooled off as soon as possible.

“If it’s a really hot day, I’ll get the meat off the bone and into a cooler right away,” he said.

When it’s handled correctly, antelope is some of the best wild game there is, Hicks said.

And he still hopes to add to his collection of record-book bucks.

“The good Lord willing, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department still providing the opportunity, I’m going to hunt antelope until the day that I can’t walk out of the house,” he said.

Larry Hicks Antelope 4 6 27 26

<title>Wyoming Hunting: Larry Hicks Is King Of Trophy Antelope With 16 Record-Book Bucks | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Larry Hicks of Baggs has bagged 16 record-book trophy antelope bucks, including 14 in Wyoming. “After 20 years of trying, I finally got to the point where I cracked the code for spotting record book antelope," Hicks said.

Wyoming Hunting: Larry Hicks Is King Of Trophy Antelope With 16 Record-Book Bucks

Jen kocher

Jen Kocher

Law Enforcement

Authorities are working to unravel the mysterious deaths of a man and woman who were found in Laramie County earlier this year within three months of one another in unrelated incidents.

The first, a woman thought to be between 30 and 50 years old, was struck by a vehicle and killed on the side of Interstate 25 outside Cheyenne in late April.

The second is an unknown man found near a commercial building on South Greeley Avenue earlier this month.

Both deaths are under investigation, pending autopsy results from the Laramie County Coroner’s Office.

The fatalities were not publicly announced by authorities, but instead entered into the National Unidentified Persons System — known as NamUs — which is the country’s only centralized database for tracking missing and unidentified persons.

Although anyone with an account can enter missing people into the database, only law enforcement and those with coroners' offices can add unidentified people.

For both, distinctive tattoos could help investigators track down who they are.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Potential Assist"}]

Two NamUs entries for Wyoming in one week are unusual, say two amateur Cheyenne-based genealogists who run a pro bono company focused on reporting missing and unidentified people.

“It definitely caught our attention,” said Ashley Kroner, who along with her twin sister, Megan McWilliams, are cofounders of Genetics Uncovered.

As usual, they made posters for both John and Jane Doe, with photos of identifying tattoos added by the coroner’s office and shared on their 

Facebook page with more than 9,000 followers

The posts reached hundreds of people, potentially including members of the John Doe’s family, who contacted Kroner and stated they recognized the tattoos.

Kroner shared their information with Laramie County Coroner Rebecca Reid, who is responsible for making the identification, per state statute.

As of Thursday, John Doe was still listed in NamUs.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Mysterious Circumstances"}]

Little is known about the individuals and the circumstances under which they died.

Jane Doe was struck and killed by a vehicle at the mile marker 11 exit, potentially near the on ramp, between 8 and 9 p.m. on April 20, according to Aaron Brown, public information officer for the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

Brown said troopers rendered aid to no avail, and the woman succumbed to her injuries on the scene.

Her death remains under investigation, Brown said. He declined to share any additional details, citing an active investigation, though he added no charges are pending.

The victim is described as Caucasian with shoulder-length blonde, strawberry hair and unknown eye color. She was about 5-feet-7 and weighed 136 pounds.

She had a distinct tattoo on her right hip: A cloud with three zigzag lines beneath it, a sun emerging from the cloud’s left side and a star above the sun, and two clusters of triangles running along the far left of the lines.

Along with her clothing, a black and white duffle bag was found near her body, according to the NamUs entry.

Also citing an active investigation, Reid likewise could not provide any additional information.

John Doe was found dead June 6 at the 800 block of South Greeley Highway in Cheyenne, slumped in a kneeling position alongside a commercial building, with no cellphone or other identification.

His death remains under investigation, according to Chance Walkama, chief deputy of operations for the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office.

Walkama said his office is awaiting autopsy and toxicology results from Reid’s office. No foul play is currently suspected, but the cause and manner of death have not yet been determined.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Giving Them A Name"}]

McWilliams and Kroner said they were pleased their efforts might have helped lead to the identification of the John Doe and also credited Reid for entering both Does into the national database, where the public – and family members – can see them.  

why they started Genetics Uncovered in 2021

Twin genealogists are working to identify a John and Jane Doe found two months apart in Cheyenne earlier this year. “They don’t have a voice,” the sisters said, “but their distinctive tattoos could help investigators track down who they are.”

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