blackfoot-valley

The most evident natural vegetation cover on the valley floor, as one would naturally expect on a cattle ranch, is grass; acres and acres - no, square mile after square mile - of it. Even so, not all of the grass is native to the area. Some of the most productive areas, such as the lush fields in the drainage area of Wales Creek north of the “quarry-powerline hills,” of Your Name Creek just south of that, and of Nevada Creek just north of and including much of the Ranch headquarters area, are irrigated during the growing season. For that reason, non-native “foreign” grasses (such as alfalfa) that would otherwise not flourish in the region can be raised for hay. The native grasses include various bunch grasses such as wheat grass and blue grass. There are also many low shrubs and bushes which are of no interest to cattle. One surprise to this writer familiar with other parts of the west was to find the highly aromatic sagebrush (Artemesia tridentata, named for its three-lobed or “toothed” leaves). While this shrub is widely found and often dominates in the semi-arid plateaus of the interior west as far south as highland Arizona and Nevada’s Great Basin, sagebrush is not shown on the Vegetation and Wildlife on the Ranch 32