April has been and remains highly variable, if nothing else. Although there was plenty else, and so for a change we could have no end of gossip, news, and perhaps even hot tips!

Except I've given up attempting to predict the future. Well maybe not altogether, but it's been one surprise after another here lately so you roll with it, right?

One recent surprise quite literally cropped up in our fields. I know, some people think farming is dull, but not long after tax day we became aware we had a heck of a stand of camelina going. This was on the stuff where it "failed" last year. But lo and behold, it didn't quite fail completely, but seeded itself back to a near-perfect stand which recently emerged when the glacier melted. But then the ice age returned, and melted again, exposing the baby camelina to 15 degree temperatures, which accounts for some of the yellowish leaves in the photo, but it's pretty tough stuff it seems.

It's really a heck of a deal. My horses had access to a field destined for summerfallow (or so I thought). Thirty year old Bo, the last of my Blackfoot Indian horses and not quite retired yet, seemed taken with something growing there in brief intervals between snowstorms. I'd interseeded red clover last year, for a nitrogen boost. It'd taken hold, is set to get serious this year, and is known to not be good for horses. But still, the clover was just tiny, and there was all this other little green stuff which I initially thought was fanweed, the prior resident winter annual.

But no, the plants grew like mad during the couple of days of sunshine and warm temps inbetween blizzards, and we discovered it was camelina! Old Bo clearly has good taste, or knows a healthy snack on sight.

To our flaggergastment, the Montana Department of Agriculture isn't so sure. In fact, instead of approving camelina oil and meal for human or animal consumption, they've put the brakes on. Temporarily, one hopes. Because yes, there is evidence that too much of a good thing can be bad.

No...! Oh, gosh, the possibilities...

So this matter is being researched. Speaking of researchers, this camelina fluke of ours is sufficiently unusual that one of the best came out today, Alice Pilgeram. She's co-director of the Biobased Institute at MSU. In yet more small-world circles it turns out she grew up adjacent to our old Hi-Line haunts. So she's been around Bo's type before, and thinks the old-timer probably knows enough not to eat too much. He does just kind of snack on it for a bit, is still quite taken with the full diet of hay he gets, and I swear, a big part of the reason he's lived this long is anticipation of his daily winter ration of pellets or grain. He may have a refined palate, but he's a tough old codger, only recently bumped down to #2 in the pecking order, and remains the only one of my horses who's bucked me off. Twice.

The most recent was only a couple of summers ago, and still gives me a grin. I've had Bo since he was eight. A Morgan/Quarter cross, he already had a good bit of packing and mountain experience due to time spent with the best outfitter in those parts, who later tragically died in a horse wreck. At least since I've known him, Bo has viewed humans with suspicion at best. That's not unheard of with horses, some have never forgiven us for "domesticating" them.

Bo's getting to be an old man, though, and while I'd never describe him as friendly I'd like to think he'd at least give me a positive review. So it was a nice summer afternoon, I wanted to gather up the horses for some reason, and came on Bo first who was uncharacteristically separated from the others. Not only that he didn't even attempt to evade me, or at least made only a token effort. Catching a horse is usually a mental chess game to some degree.

I'd never been tempted to ride him bareback before, but here I had him caught, he was being so docile, and it'd be fun to ride the old boy & gather the others. He even stood there while I grabbed a handful of mane and momentarily psyched up for the leap aboard. I made it, too, for at least a couple of seconds before he hit the eject button! And then, the old boy only ran off about twenty yards and stopped. I swear, he was almost contrite, and everything about him said "nothing personal, but that's over the line".

I may even have to put a bit of camelina meal in with his dessert. Of course as it stands that might be illegal, except I'm not selling it for such a purpose, it's my own production and Bo is, shall we say, not destined for consumption. No, he gets to live out his days here. Besides, it appears camelina meal is kind of self-limiting in a diet, as if animals get too much they tend to go off their feed. That's right, it might be viewed as a natural appetite suppressant!

Hmmm...

Plenty of things are bad for you if consumed in excess, but it appears we already have some pretty good numbers on camelina, and so one would hope the wheels of bureaucracy wouldn't lock up and slide us into the ditch, or at least the slow lane.

Recent experience runs contrary, though. This has been an intense week so far, but in seemingly unrelated exchanges I've ran into FIVE separate instances where bureaucratic administration is stalemating progress. Good grief, if I wrote all that down it'd probably ensure I could never work in this state again!

On the other hand you have people like Alice, down in the trenches as it were doing just incredible work on agricultural alternatives for Montana, discovering new uses for alternative crops that could create huge new markets, so I'm not painting with too broad of brush here, but come on guys, it's time to get out the (red) tape cutters.

Aside from that, at least here in the Gallatin spring has barely teased us, and in fact we woke up to several inches of white again this morning. We're back to green by sunset, but I doubt anyone's sunbathing out there. We did a bit of grass seeding a couple of days ago, and stuck the air seeder in the ground yesterday far enough to verify it was still borderline mud. Otherwise I don't think anyone's turned a wheel in the immediate neighborhood, and now likely won't again for a bit. Makes "volunteer" camelina look even better!