Freight and the Red Stocking Base Ball Club #western @jacquierogers #halloween

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Stocking Up for Winter
by Jacquie Rogers

October was a busy month in the Old West, especially in the northern climes. Silver City, Idaho Territory was not only north, it’s high elevation (6,200ft). They had to finish up the summer work and stock up for winter because no freight could go in or out for a few months after the snows came.

So it’s no surprise that October articles in The Owyhee Avalanche covered these things, for they meant survival to a couple thousand people. Here’s where they report a cattle drive. Since I wrote Mail-Order Ruckus (the second book in Mail-Order Tangle--the first book, Mail-Order Promise was written by Caroline Clemmons), anything that connects Owyhee County to Texas always interests me. A lot of folks there came from Texas and stayed. A lot of folks went to Texas and came back. Frankly, I’d rather winter down there than in Silver. Brrr.

News item from October 19, 1869:

On the 23rd of that same month the newspaper reported a freight delivery. Apparently, this 10-mule freight wagon was unique.

All this freight was welcome, but in the desert, so is rain. Silver City only gets about eight inches of precipitation a year, and quite a bit of that is snow. By autumn, the surroundings are so dry that the slightest spark could cause an inferno in a flash. (No pun intended.)

But all was not dour business. They worked hard and played hard. I didn’t see any reports from Virgin Alley but here is an article about a dance.

Speaking of balls, here's a report about base-ball.  If you ever wondered how interested cowhands and miners could be in Base Ball, just know that this game took place a thousand miles from the remote mining camp of Silver City, Idaho Terr.

And just for our friend Troy, I found this interesting tidbit:

That's it for today. Here's my latest release, a great Halloween read from Prairie Rose Publications. My story, Have Wand - Will Travel, is a mash-up of Have Gun - Will Travel, Narnia, and The Princess Bride. See what Nora does with her iron fan, and meet the Beavers of Extraordinary Size!

Cowboys, Creatures, and Calico, Vol. 2

Halloween short stories by

Cheryl Pierson, C. Marie Bowman, Jacquie Rogers, 

Kaye Spenser, Kristy McCaffrey, Kathleen Rice Adams

What better way to spend Halloween than with some handsome cowboys and feisty heroines who are determined to fall in love despite their supernatural powers—or lack thereof? Halloween’s a good time to take a chance on love—and to see what these Cowboys, Creatures, and Calico Vol. 2 stories might reveal to the unsuspecting reader—you!

Cheryl Pierson’s Spellbound will have you on the edge of your seat as safecracker Brett Diamond and witch Angie Colton take on a border gang leader who is pure evil. Can Angie’s supernatural powers save them? No matter what, Brett and Angie are hopelessly Spellbound.

C. Marie Bowen’s Hunter and Lily Graham is an unforgettable tale of a beautiful school marm’s love for her children that surpasses all. When a Cajun bounty hunter known only as “Hunter” shows up, Lily Graham knows he, and no one else, can help her save a young girl.

Have Wand — Will Travel 

is Jacquie Rogers’s offering about a handsome young mage, Tremaine Ramsey, who has a wand and knows how to use it…sometimes. Will his magic be strong enough to pull off a daring rescue of his father from the evil Gharth? Or will he need the warrior Nora’s love to help him see his Fate through?

Will Kaye Spencer’s character, Mercy Pontiere, be able to break a centuries-old curse and find true love all at the same time? It all depends on Reid Corvane and what he’ll do For Love of a Brystile Witch.

In Kristy McCaffrey’s story, The Crow and the Coyote, Hannah Dobbin is after an evil Navajo sorcerer who murdered her father, and she’s determined to see him dead. But she’ll need a bounty hunter, The Crow—to help find this vile man. With Hallowtide upon them, more evil is afoot than they can handle; but love will find a way.

A failed bank robber, Tombstone Hawkins, along with a fake gypsy fortune teller, Pansy Gilchrist, set out to make both their deceased fathers proud in one final spectacular heist. Family Tradition is Kathleen Rice Adams’s tale of the discovery of true love amid the commission of a crime—or the failure to commit a crime—while being overseen by the ghosts of the couple’s fathers. How can there be a happy ending? It’s Halloween, and anything can happen!

Available in digital at:

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Smashwords

*Also in Print*

DONKEYS--ASSES--BURROS by JERRY GUIN

As one would expect the names given above to the little beast of burden are synonymous and used interchangeably in reference to the animal under the Latin title of Equus Asinus.

Webster defines a donkey as a domesticated ass but is often used to describe a stupid or foolish person.

Webster defines an ass as a horse like animal with long ears and a short mane. It also is used to describe a stupid or silly person. The ancient name of ass or donkey is referred to in the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament many times.

Webster defines a burro as a small horse or a donkey.
In Spain the animal was given the name of “el burrito.” By the time “el burrito” came to South America and Mexico, its name was shortened to simply “burro.” The name burro stuck when it migrated north to America though ass and donkey are also used.

Some clarification:The burro is not a mule. According to Webster a mule is the hybrid off-spring from the liaison between a male donkey, (jack), ass or burro,whichever name you chose, and a female horse (mare). The resulting offspring is called a mule and is generally sterile. Webster also gives reference to mule as a stubborn person. Could this be where mule-headed got its roots?

Wikipedia describes the “hinny” as the domesticated equine off-spring of a horse (stallion) and a female ass, burro, donkey and it is also considered sterile. The hinny is often smaller in stature than a mule and its head resembles a horse more so than a mule and its ears are a little shorter. Tail and mane also favor more of a horse look than a mule. The hinny is often called a Jenny or Jennet.

The sterility of both the mule and hinny are attributed to their chromosomes. A Horse has 64 while the donkey, ass, burro has 62. The mating results in an offspring with 63. The odd number is the reason for virtual but not impossible reproduction. Some rare cases of mating mules with donkeys have produced a foal.


Now back to donkeys, asses and burros.
Webster defines a jack-ass as a male donkey.
The unhyphenated word jackass is often used to denote a fool or stupid person or his doltish antics as depicted in the 2002 movie “Jackass.”
A Jennet is defined as a female donkey or ass.

The vast desert areas of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and California are a natural homeland to the donkey. Some say that a donkey is smarter than a horse and able togo without food and water longer (four days) in some documented cases. Most horses would not make it that long in a harsh overheated desert environment.
Traditionally, desert prospectors, when lost, could simple turn their donkey loose to roamthen follow the animal to an oasis of some sort. The crafty little animal, unlike a mule that requires grain, is a forager and wouldmost likely nibble cacti or sagebrush along the way. Sooner or later he’d go where there is water.

Personally, I have owned but two donkeys. One male (jack) gelded and one female (jenny.) My friend and I wanted to take our sons into the Marble Mountain Wilderness area of Northern California and do some real back to nature camping; none of that RV camping for us. We figured we might need a little help in transporting the camp goods. If you’ve ever hoisted and carried a forty to fifty pound backpack for a few hours, you’ll know what I mean. I wanted eggs for breakfast and potatoes at night. None of that freeze dried or powdered stuff for us. The goodswe wanted to take along began to add up both in weight and bulk. We planned to take food for five days, cooking utensils, first aid kit, extra clothes, fishing gear, sleeping gear, some animal feed, a tarp and a bottle of hooch.

We bought the male donkey, that we named “Bucky,” on a whim and borrowed another older male along with lead ropes, wooden Sawbuck pack saddles and canvas panniers. We didn’t have any horses to ride and figured to hike and lead the donkeys along just like the early day prospectors did.

When we arrived at the trailhead, we saddled both animals then loaded the panniers, distributing the weight equally on either side. With lead ropes in hand we started out. We were a couple of greenhorns then, (I still am)and soon learned a few valuable lessons.

Donkeys do not like to cross over wooden bridges without a little or a lot of coaxing. Thinking back, perhaps a little,unimportant at the time, pre-training would have helped. There are lots of wooden bridges, many only three feet wide, along the national forest trails. I think the noise of their hooves on the planking is what gets them to balk as if stepping on ice. Otherwise our adventuresome trip to a pristine mountain lake was going along fine.

By afternoon of the second day we were sweaty and trail weary and had all stopped to have a rest alongside the trail.

Bucky decided that it was time for a good ole roll in the inviting dusty trail. I mean we were relaxing, why couldn’t he? Of course Bucky didn’t see fit to have the saddle and panniers removed, so consequently what loafed bread he carried in the packsproved to be a little squashed. I believe that I had a few choice epitaphs for Bucky’s earswhen this old photo was taken. To further our chagrin,Buckywanted to have his rolled oats at the crack of dawn and blasted us from our sleeping bags, with his braying, every morning until he got them!

Either I or my partner used Bucky several more times on like trips but we learned to strip Bucky of the packs before he got it into his head to take a roll. I like donkeys very much, despite their sometime cussedness. There is a lot of documented history exhibited in books and movies (Treasure of the Sierra Madre)containing the use of donkeys, asses, burros and a lot of fiction to go with it.The animals in my care exhibited a gentle nature and never balked at taking a trip. I’ve often said that I would have a herd of them if I had the facilities. I salute the hardy beast.

For an in depth study and some fine reading about donkeys I recommend William G. Long’s book “Asses Vs. Jackasses” published in 1969(currently out of print) later reprinted and renamed “Donkeys of the West in 1974.”