Ranch wife, cow camp cook, photo-journalist, and amateur historian Janie Tippett continues her thirty-one years of newspaper columns chronicling the lives of cattle ranchers and hay farmers in the remote hills of rural northeast Oregon.

In this fifth volume, she trails cattle to the hills, attends local rodeos and brandings, cares for her garden and the ranch on Prairie Creek, explores Nez Perce history, hikes and skis into the backcountry, reports first-hand on the effects of wolf attacks on cows and calves, 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.