May 1st-Turnout time. The annual exodus to the hills has begun. The cattle, tired of being hayed the long winter months, are on the go to grass. Grass... the most important ingredient in cattle ranching.

So begins thirty-one years of newspaper columns chronicling the lives of cattle ranchers and hay farmers in rural northeast Oregon. Ranch wife, camp cook, photo-journalist, and amateur historian Janie Tippett trails cattle to the hills, cares for her garden and the ranch, leads her 4-H Sourdough Shutterbugs into the backcountry, attends rodeos and the County Fair, celebrates the centennial birthday of the City of Joseph, and collects oral histories from local old-timers about Wallowa County's past.

Janie's journals capture the complicated struggles of the men and women who love their vanishing way of life.