13. Jackrabbits

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] But on the face of the south side of the hill it just was nothing really but foxtail grass. Till you get to the top. Right up as soon as you got where the timber started, it would be jolly jumpups and bird bills, was always right up on top, right where the timber started. [Bird bills came a little after lamb's tongues, about the same time as ladyslippers. Cat ears grew along the Butte base. Excavations took them all out. Cartwheels: 4-6 inches, flat like a spoked wheel, reddish-pink with white border. And there are no more jackrabbits. WR]

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And the ladyslippers and dogwood were a little bit over the hill. And the lambs tongues. They was always just before you went down over into the timber.

13. Jackrabbits

Bob Zybach: How about grosses. Were there bunch grosses, other types of grasses that you can remember? Native grasses?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I didn't pay too much attention to grasses in those days. Lot of graydiggers, I know that was our biggest sport. Dad bought me a .22 and a whole carton of shells, he'd hide them things, the shells in his sock drawer. I knew where they was at. And he'd just dole them out. Cause they was kind of spendy, you know in them days they didn't have much money. And he'd dole us out a box and it was supposed to last us all week and it'd last a day or something. And we'd have to go steal one. And I know he must have missed them. And then I didn't think he'd know the difference. And there, every little bit of graydigger holes there on the side, wasn't there?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah, there'd be regular trails through the foxtails, down to our fields, see. And there'd be a hole off to the side, and then another little hole off to the side. And another one. And they'd all come down that same runway, and then there'd be other runways through there. And they'd fill those old pockets full of grain, you know, and then go on up and store it, see, and back down again, for another round.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] When they thought they'd seen somebody they'd set there by the hole, and look around, had their feet down like that. And we'd shoot them. That was more fun! And jackrabbits was thick in them days out there, on Schulmerick's place. We used to go over there and shoot jackrabbits in the evening. At night. I mean them

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: was genuine jackrabbits, they wasn't just cottontails. And then they all disappeared after a while.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah, they got a disease, and I don't know but what maybe somebody introduced that disease to get rid of them.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] You never see a jackrabbit. . . I seen one or two in all the years since.

Bob Zybach: Do you remember when the jackrabbits died out?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, gee...

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] That was just shortly before we come over here they started thinning out. Probably finished 'em in World War II.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Probably '35 to '40 was when they.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Was dwindling down, but there was still a bunch out there when we left, was some, but I imagine the soldiers pot shotted at them. I wouldn't doubt it.

Bob Zybach: That snow in 1937. Do you remember anything about that?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Our barn fell down.

Bob Zybach: Your barn fell down?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Yeah, the roof caved in.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Fell down. And one-fourth of it, or half of one side, the lower half, that's where we kept the cows, and they were facing toward the middle, and there was so much weight on it that it just bucked the wall on the outside, and so the outside, it come down, and so did the hay mow. There was no more support for the hay mow so it came down. But the front side, just above the stanchion stayed, and it hit the cows' tail bone.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] The ones that was laying down wasn't hurt.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] It didn't hurt them. But the ones that were standing, it skinned up their tail bones. I didn't see all that because I was in California at that time.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] The snow was three foot deep or better.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] And so they wrote me letter to come on home, the barn fell down. And I never did get that letter.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] You never got it?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] No, I never got. And then they wrote again, and found out about that time a plane went down with a bunch a mail near San Francisco, somewhere down in there.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: So evidently the letter was on that, so I didn't get home for, I don't know, 2 months or more, after the barn fell down.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] I don't remember. . . all I remember is we milked outside. We milked outside.

Bob Zybach: Could that snow have anything to do with those jackrabbit populations going down?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] It didn't really last that long, that snow, I don't remember how long that lasted. But it usually melted soon.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] It was a disease, really. Because they got, down around their belly they got these.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Warbles, or something, didn't they.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Almost like your fist, abscesses.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] We called them warbles.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] There used to be a lot of jackrabbits. I remember one time my father and I went in the Model T and Albert Zundt was with us. We went up Sulphur Springs Road, I don't remember who we went to see, whether it was the Goviers or what, but we were going up that way, and a rabbit run across the road. And we heard it hit, so we stopped and got out of the Model T, and went back to hunt for the rabbit. And we couldn't find it no rabbit anywhere. And we walked around in front of the car and there was the rabbit hanging on the crank handle, it had pierced his body and there he was hanging on the crank handle.

Bob Zybach: So there was a whole bunch ofjackrabbits and then now there's none. And they all pretty much died out in that five year period?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Somewhere, yeah.

Bob Zybach: Wow. Was there any coyotes or anything feeding that were feeding on them? Or any raptors?

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Mom used to talk about coyotes howling years ago.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, that's when we lived on the Writsman place.

Wilma "Willie" Rohner: [WILMA] Steel Hill, what she called Steel Hill.

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Oh, that's right. Mom always called that the Steel Hill.

Bob Zybach: What we're calling Writsman 's Hill?

John Jacob "Jake" Rohner: [JAKE] Yeah. I'd forgotten all about that. That's right.