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Tales from the O-NO Ranch

Mad Jack Hanks
Wellington, Colo.

I have always enjoyed the Peanuts cartoon with that lovable Charlie Brown and crew. I feel like I have some things in common with Charlie Brown … like sometimes I’m a real “dufus,” an outsider, a bumbler just like ole Charlie Brown.

I don’t think that Charlie Brown has ever been confronted with hordes and hordes of nasty little vermin like prairie dogs. He more than likely would handle the situation much like me. He would enlist the help of his “little red-haired girlfriend.” I have that in common with Charlie brown ” I have Charlie Brown’s little red haired girlfriend all grown up and she is a looker! She also detests prairie dogs, just like me, and she volunteered to come up to the O-NO Ranch and help me do away with as many as we could on any given afternoon.

Let me tell you gentle readers, this little red-haired girlfriend is a workin’ son of a gun. Just so you know, I do have a pesticide license and am qualified to exterminate prairie dogs. Once upon a time there were only about a hundred prairie dog burrows on the O-NO. Then they got the plague and there were no more little vermin for about 3 years.



Suddenly they reappeared again and now there are about 500 burrows on the O-NO. Not only on my place but all my neighbors to the north and west of me are suffering from these pest.

I know, I know … there are some of you right now wondering how I could possible do such a thing to any creature. THEY ARE FREE. Yes, I will give you all the prairie dogs you can gather up and haul off, only if you put them on your place and guarantee me that they will not leave your property EVER!



Don’t want to do that, do ya? Didn’t think so.

The fight will continue and the battle will never be won unless the plague returns and wipes them out again for a few years. It’s expensive to wage this battle and it takes a lot of time and energy, let alone all the pasture they have destroyed that is for my livestock.

Guess what else? I reckon I finally got a little break just like Charlie Brown gets every now and then. IT RAINED! Yep, it rained and rained quite a bit. It will not grow much grass this late in the season, but it will freshen up the pastures and green them up some, plus ” it will salvage some of my trees that were on their last leg.

Charlie Brown always gets a good rain, but it usually comes when he’s tryin’ to captain his baseball team to their first victory. I’ll take a good Charlie Brown rain any day of the week and Charlie, thanks for letting me share your little red haired girlfriend (all grown up)!

Stay tuned, check yer cinch on occasion, and I’ll C. ya.


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