Richard and I were out for a drive after doing a presentation for the White River Electrical Association in Meeker (mainly known as the site of Meeker Massacre after which the Utes were pushed out of Colorado into Utah...of course no one mentions how many Utes were killed...ahhh ethnic cleansing long before the term was coined). The presentation dealt with a small hydroelectric plant they are thinking of building.
We went up over a rise beyond Meeker and followed the road around a bend and we pulled over at a set of markers explaining how a series of battles let to the expulsion of the Utes in favor of those who would "civilize and settle" the west. The valley stretched below us.
The pastures had been plowed clear in certain spots so that the cows could reach the natural pasture underneath. And then we noticed the calves, some of them days old, lying on the ground, absorbing the rays of the overhead sun. A few of them trying to stand for the first time...some giving up, deciding that laying down was really better. Spring comes to the valley quite regardless of what peoples live here now.
