CALIFORNIA

"A large gang of sea lions" is occupying three docks at Ventura in Southern California, the first time the 800-pound animals have squatted within the harbor itself. Until recently, the sociable sea lions congregated on large buoys that lead out of the harbor, but now, thanks to what rawstory.com describes as the animals' "hostile takeover," they have moved inland and attracted the attention of a growing number of locals and tourists. Their presence creates several problems. First, the "appealingly pudgy creatures" are overloading their new homes, causing one dock to tilt alarmingly, and second, although they seem to enjoy entertaining onlookers by barking and cavorting in the water, sea lions have nasty pointy teeth and voracious appetites (fortunately, primarily for salmon). They pose a clear threat to anybody moving in too close. One person commenting on the story compared sea lions to people, with some acting like total jerks when their space is invaded: "I experienced a large male roaring in my face from about five feet after he jumped out from behind a big rock. You'd be surprised how fast they can move, and his roar was a hot stinky wind of fish death that blew my hair back. …" The Park Service says it's debating how to regain control of its docks, given the restrictions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Loud noises and flashing lights are both under consideration, though another commenter pooh-poohed their effectiveness: "Does anyone really think lights and noise are going to disperse these animals?" Instead, "Hauksdottir" recommended doing a scientific experiment: building different kinds of docks and then testing them to see what most appeals to sea lions, comparing docks with bumpy surfaces to docks that teeter or incorporate a slide, and then constructing the most popular dock wherever you want the animals to go. Her bet was on the slide, because she saw a steep, stepped rock near San Miguel Island, the westernmost of California's Channel Islands that has been colonized over the years by sea lions. "They would lumber up, face nose-down and slide in one exhilarating rush and splash, then swim back and do it over and over."

IDAHO

In Idaho's rural Lemhi County, population 8,000 and home to the town of Salmon, the sheriff's report in the Recorder Herald is a far cry from police news in a big city. Recently, there was the call about "a calf laying in the highway" and then there was the curious case of "a large unknown type of animal (dispatch thought it was a rock chuck)" that confronted a woman as she tried to get into her vehicle. "Woman ran back to her house and the animal chased her and then ran under her house. She said the animal chirped at her." Although maybe it whistled: Another moniker for the rock chuck is whistle pig. The animals -- which are officially known as yellow-bellied marmots --tend to run to chubbiness, with the males collecting harems of up to four females, and they whistle when an interloper appears.

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WASHINGTON AND IDAHO 

There are many things to expect when pushing a shopping cart around the outdoor garden department of a Walmart, but a poisonous snake is certainly not one of them. So when 47-year-old Mica Craig of Lewiston, Idaho, saw what he thought was a stick lying in the aisle of Walmart in Clarkston, Wash., he bent down to pick it up. Big mistake! The stick turned out to be a rattlesnake, which latched onto his hand, causing Craig to yell loudly for help before he "managed to shake the snake loose" and stomp it to death. Craig, who was treated at a local hospital with six bags of anti-venom, was told that his hand may be permanently disfigured, reports The Associated Press.

MINNESOTA

It wasn't a snake at the Moorhead Center Mall in Moorhead, Minn., a city of 40,000, that caused pandemonium, but a herd of six disoriented deer that crashed through the mall's windows and doors, reports WDAY-TV. One deer died instantly after plunging through a large window, and another was run over by a minivan, the thrifty driver taking "the dead deer home for dinner." The others made it safely back to a nearby river. Moorhead Police Officer Josh Schroder commented with admirable understatement, "This is one of the most interesting things I have seen since I have been up here."

MONTANA

The founders of al-Qaeda's English-language magazine Inspire may be out of the picture -- a U.S. missile killed them last year -- but their publication is back with new tips for making our lives miserable. However, the latest issue, which urges wannabe terrorists to set fires in Montana's national forests, is marred by faulty research and atrocious syntax, such as "It is of your freedom to ignite a firebomb." Inspire urges its readers to set wildfires "in the valleys of Montana where the population increases rapidly," using handy items you might find around the house, such as a clock, washing machine timer or acid to set the bomb off. Then again, they might as well drop a lit cigarette or place a magnifying glass over tinder in the sunlight, says the Missoulian. Missoula County's Sheriff's Detective Jason Johnson seems unimpressed, given his experience with methamphetamine-makers, sloppy hunters and the other homegrown American types bedeviling the woods: "I'd want to send a message to anybody in our neck of the woods who shares ideas with al-Qaeda," he says. "We have dedicated forces who will aggressively go after anyone who gets into that stuff."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

MONTANA

The Forest Service is getting more bang for its buck these days. Recently, rangers said they might have to blow up some frozen cows in Colorado to disperse them before they rotted; now comes the news that the Helena National Forest in Montana has already used explosives to bring down some trees -- 500 of them, to be exact, and in just three and a half days. The trees were beetle-killed pine trees that overhung some of the Pioneer Mountain Scenic Byway, where they had a nasty habit of falling over. They were also unsafe to log in a conventional manner, reports the Missoulian. "We don't have a whole lot of really good sawyers," says Charlie Showers, engineering program leader at the Missoula Technology and Development Center. So now a "blaster" controls how the trees come down by deciding where to place the ammonium nitrate-based explosives: "Drilling a hole in the trunk and putting explosives inside does very little damage to the wood, leaving a fuzzy stump," says Showers. "Shrink-wrapping explosives to the outside snaps the tree," the article says. "Proper placement can bring down 50 trees at once, laying them" -- as Showers puts it -- " ‘like hair on a dog's back.' " 

THE NATION

Wisconsin farmer Jerry Apps, a stern-faced man who favors bib overalls with lots of pockets, first published his Rural Wit & Wisdom: Time-Honored Values from the Heartland, in 1997; now, thanks to Colorado's Fulcrum Publishing, it's been re-issued in paperback with evocative black-and-white photos by Apps' son, Steve. It's a keeper, even if a lot of Apps' advice is about what you'd expect from someone who spent years collecting tried-and-true recommendations for a happy and successful life. But there are some surprising bits you might not have heard, such as: "Never trust a barn cat," "Don't turn your back on a billy goat," and "Don't make a pet of a pig; it will spoil your taste for bacon." We also appreciated his advice for how to enjoy below-zero weather: Walk outside, he urges, and "listen and hear nothing except your heart beating." Farm work, of course, is what taught him everything he knows about life, from the routine chores that need to be done with the right attitude -- no sloppiness can be tolerated -- to his dedication to farming itself, as revealed by this pithy anecdote: "A farmer recently won the lottery. When asked what he was going to do with the money, he replied, ‘I'll keep farming until the money runs out.' "

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ARIZONA

Phoenix broke a record on April , though we can't imagine anyone celebrated the event. The temperature climbed up to 105 degrees -- six degrees hotter than the previous record for that day.

COLORADO

A recent paid obituary in the Denver Post for a man named Michael "Flathead" Blanchard made for some delightful reading. "Weary of reading obituaries noting someone's courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors' orders, and raising hell for six decades. … He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died." He also said that "so many of his childhood friends that weren't killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell." But it's probably best to leave all children under 18 at home, the obituary advised, because of the "adult material" they might hear.

CALIFORNIA

Robert Biggs, 69, encountered both an unfriendly lion and an unexpectedly altruistic bear in the mountains above Whiskey Flats, in northeastern California. Biggs had been quietly observing the bear and her cubs, when suddenly the lion sprang at him, crunching his backpack and shredding the skin on his left arm. Much to his amazement, the bear ran up and pulled the lion off Biggs "during a wild 15-second scuffle," reports the Paradise Post. Then "the mountain lion bolted and the bear returned to her cubs before they moved on." 

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

COLORADO

Time has run out for the frozen cows of Conundrum Hot Springs, the immensely popular, 11,200-foot-high stopover for hikers in western Colorado's White River National Forest. According to the Aspen Daily News, several cows jammed themselves into a Forest Service cabin this winter, apparently to get warm, though unfortunately they were unable to figure out how to build a fire. After a while, they died inside, "piled up," and eventually, they all froze solid. The cows apparently belong to a Gunnison area rancher with grazing permits on the other side of the Elk Mountains, who reported 29 cows missing last fall. With spring thaw imminent, the ice-cows will begin to decompose, and the hot springs are at risk of contamination. At first, Forest Service officials said they'd blow up the cows with explosives, then they considered burning them, but both operations would require lengthy analysis and would have impacts of their own. Meanwhile, snow on the 8.5-mile trail ruled out using horses to haul the corpses away, and a helicopter was said to be too pricey. So the rancher sent up three workers with handsaws to help the local wilderness ranger divide them into "appropriate-sized" pieces to be dispersed around the area. "Nature will take it from there," the News reports, "between decomposition and hungry wildlife." Since the latter includes bears, the agency is asking hikers to stay away for at least a month.

NEVADA
A 30-foot-tall neon martini glass welcomes visitors to what some Las Vegas residents call the city's "real" downtown. This seedy and neglected area lies some six miles off the glittering Strip, whose casino-hotels are visited by an astounding 40 million visitors each year. In contrast, the city's quiet downtown has stubbornly resisted redevelopment for decades, specializing in dollar stores, pawnshops, vacant lots and low-rise condos. But now, a financial angel named Tony Hsieh, CEO of the shoe-mecca Zappos.com, has moved into the neighborhood with big plans. Using his own millions, he intends to transform the area into the kind of yeasty urban zone that appeals to both new businesses and budding artists, reports Bloomberg Businessweek's Brad Stone. He's already spent $100 million to buy land, invested another $100 million to develop apartment buildings, and is offering $5 million to back startup businesses. Hsieh says his for-profit company, The Downtown Project, will acquire equity in each business it funds, but won't take a penny until the business earns a profit. "We are not doing it to make money," he says. "We want owner-operators who care about this community." Hsieh says he could have created a cloistered set of buildings for his 1,400 suburban employees -- "our own little Paradise" -- but instead decided to relocate his entire staff to the downtown's former City Hall. As for this being a risky move, Hsieh, who wrote a best-selling memoir, Delivering Happiness, in 2010, says he's not worried: "I don't see my lifestyle changing. In some ways, you could argue I'm not actually risking anything." In his downtown apartment, Hsieh plots his revitalization effort with the help of yellow Post-it notes that detail the kind of businesses he wants to lure, "including a doggie day care and a barbecue joint." But is his vision of a startup hub in a long-ignored area of Las Vegas too audacious, even for a city that was dreamed up by the Mob and constructed in the middle of a desert not all that long ago? Stephen Brown, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has an answer for that. "Iconoclasm," he says, "is completely normal (here). Nevada is still a place where individual audacity can be successful."

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

COLORADO
Canada geese may not enjoy reading, but one pair has definitely become territorial about the Harmony Library on the campus of Front Range Community College in Fort Collins, Colo. When library patrons try to enter or exit the main door, the 10-to-14-pound geese hiss and flap their wings -- an "intimidating" experience for little kids in strollers who find themselves at eye level with the angry birds, says the Coloradoan. Yet the migratory birds' bad behavior has been tolerated for some years and even become "something of an annual tradition" during the spring, so library staff merely post signs that warn: "Aggressive geese. Keep walking!" Of course, visitors occasionally break into a run when the geese get their dander up, and it's advisable to step carefully, since the geese leave sizable calling cards on the sidewalk. Still, as one unflappable visitor put it: "They're just acting like geese. I'm just amazed they pick this spot."

WYOMING
In Wyoming's southeast corner, the Niobrara Shale oil play is big business with energy companies combing the area hoping to snap up leases. But though the pressure is intense on local people to lease their mineral rights, not everybody succumbs. Leslie Waggener, an archivist with the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center, has been collecting oral histories from residents to chart the progress of this latest energy development. One day, she met an "aginner" named Harry "Bud" Rogers, who says he turned down so much money he couldn't believe he'd done it, reports the Casper Star-Tribune. But Rogers said he'd "bought this property to pass on to my kids," and that was that. The oral history archive is available at http://digitalcollections.uwyo.edu:8180/luna/servlet/uwydbuwy~51~51.

UTAH
Even billboard-hating drivers in the college town of Logan, Utah, probably don't get angry when they pass an unusual sign on the corner of 700 North and Main. Its giant message isn't selling anything but niceness: "BE KINDER THAN NECESSARY." A couple of years ago, the billboard appeared for the first time on Interstate 15 in the town of Tremonton, the gift of an anonymous donor suffering from a terminal illness. He wanted "to pass on an uplifting message to fellow citizens," reports the Herald Journal. Since then, the Headrick sign company, at the suggestion of salesman Mike Watts, has kept the message alive at new locations, all at company expense.  n

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

NEW MEXICO
It's hard to know whether the calf appreciated its ride in the backseat of the car; maybe it got to poke its head out the window and flap its tongue in the wind, in classic Fido fashion. But the animal must have looked noticeably larger than even a very large dog, because a deputy sheriff in Luna County, N.M., pulled over the Honda Civic to ask the driver a few questions. Then he arrested the three men in the vehicle for rustling the 220-pound calf that was "sharing" the backseat with one of them, reports the Carlsbad Current Argus. The men were jailed and charged with suspicion of larceny of livestock, conspiracy, lack of a bill of sale and exporting livestock. The Associated Press did not mention how the calf exited the car or whether it had to hitchhike to get home again.

OREGON: Made with frilly pink slime, perhaps?

CALIFORNIA
An impatient driver in San Francisco recently received an unexpected comeuppance. After traffic in his lane ground to a halt, reports The Week, he decided to swerve around other cars and keep moving, only to find that his Porsche had entered a lane made of freshly poured cement: "The car sank about a foot and got stuck."

COLORADO
Now in its 20th year, the Pikes Peak Writers Conference in Colorado Springs, Colo., always attracts wannabe authors who eagerly collect advice from the writers and editors present. Invariably, one tip always gets mentioned, says Kirsten Akens of the local weekly Independent, and it has nothing to do with finding an agent. It's "Never, ever, pitch an agent or editor while in the bathroom." Someone once tried that ploy on a "famous" New York editor who was otherwise occupied in a bathroom stall. It proved anything but successful: After the manuscript was slid stealthily under her door, the editor said, "They were very lucky I didn't use it for toilet paper."

WASHINGTON
Speaking of toilets, if you took 400 of them bound for a landfill and ground them up instead, and then added the bite-size bits to concrete, you'd have a road material dubbed "Poticrete." At least that's what they're calling it in Bellingham, Wash., where poticrete was incorporated into the Meadow Kansas Ellis Trail Project. The project achieved LEED-like certification from the year-old Greenroads Foundation, based in Seattle, which means that the new road of former porcelain thrones meets a high level of sustainability.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

ALASKA AND THE WEST
Grizzly bears never cease to amaze. The latest news about the powerful bruins comes from The Economist, which reports that a British biologist observed a grizzly in the shallows of Glacier Bay National Park doing something unique. The animal would pick up rocks and then discard them until it seemed to find just the right specimen, perfectly encrusted with barnacles, whereupon the grizzly "rubbed away at its muzzle and face for roughly a minute before dropping the stone back into the water." Voila! The grizzly is "the only species other than humans to have invented the comb," declared Volke Deecke, a biologist at the University of St. Andrews. Other mammals have developed tools, including sea otters that smash clams open with rocks; dolphins, which wrap sponges around their noses to protect themselves while foraging on the seabed; elephants, which use their trunks to break off branches and swat insects; and humpback whales that gather in a circle and then confuse trapped schools of fish by blowing bubbles. But as far as we know, only bears have made technological breakthroughs in personal grooming.

In other bear news, a Brigham Young University study of wildlife encounters found that firing a gun at a bear "was no more effective in keeping people from injury or death during a bear encounter than not using a firearm." Biologist Tom Smith analyzed nearly 270 conflicts involving bears and people. A shooter might be able to kill an aggressive bear, he concluded, but there's always a risk of injury to the shooter or others, reports the Billings Gazette. As for what backcountry hikers and hunters should do if threatened by a bear, Smith echoed what conservation groups and the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks agency have been saying for years: "Carry pepper spray when in grizzly bear country and know how to use it."

MONTANA
Who do you call for help when it's the sheriff himself who tossed you through a bar window? That was Robert Savanda's problem last summer after he and the sheriff, Freedom Crawford, got into a fight at the Montana Tavern in Lewiston, Mont. Sheriff Crawford, who'd come to town to provide security during a murder trial, first pleaded not guilty and insisted that Savanda, 48, of Pennsylvania, "accidentally fell through the window." The Associated Press says that Crawford later changed his plea to guilty, admitting that he was undergoing treatment for alcoholism. "I learned a lot about the issues of why I was drinking so much (and) of what I wasn't doing to reach my full potential," Crawford said. A Montana judge sentenced the sheriff to a 6-month suspended jail term, fined him $1,350 and also ordered him to pay more than $2,600 in restitution.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

MONTANA
Ruby Garrett, the racy grande dame of Butte, Mont., died March 17 at age 94. For many years, Garrett was the proprietor of the Dumas, the town's last brothel, until it closed in 1982, reports the Montana Standard. Garrett had a couple of brushes with the law along the way, serving six months in jail for tax evasion and another nine months in prison for killing her common-law husband Andy Arrigoni while he was in the middle of a card game -- firing five bullets at him. As one person familiar with the case tells it, Garrett "was the victim of severe spousal abuse ... and she was beaten so bad that day that when she walked in that Board of Trade to shoot him, they couldn't recognize her." Garrett was also said to have respected and stood up for the women who worked for her. The Dumas, which first opened back in 1890, thrived throughout the town's decades of copper mining, when prostitution was "one of the main professions in Butte," said Bob Butorovich, who served as Butte-Silver Bow sheriff from 1980 to 1992. He should know, since he was the sheriff who shut down the brothel for good 30 years ago. "She was a colorful old gal," he said of Madam Ruby. "Part of Butte history is gone."

COLORADO He's even cooler than you are. Credit Shaun Gibson

THE DAKOTAS
Are you looking to get away from it all? If so, says writer Pete Carrels, consider South Dakota: It's just the place for people who prefer few neighbors and minimal regulation. A recent report from the South Dakota's Department of Transportation found that of the state's 66 counties, 36 can boast that they lack a single traffic light. But don't even think of bicycling in northwest North Dakota this summer, reports the Associated Press. The oil boom there has filled roads "with mile after mile of big heavy trucks that make cyclists feel very unsafe," says Jennifer Milyko, cartographer with the Missoula, Mont.-based Adventure Cycling Association. "They're scared out of their wits." As of this May, bicyclists who want to retrace the Lewis and Clark expedition will be steered 100 miles south of the association's Northern Tier Route, the biggest change in the nonprofit's 39-year history.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.

OREGON
Three peregrine falcons named Judah, Carbon and Zinc are the go-to birds for a Portland garbage station when it wants to discourage pesky seagulls that scatter food scraps and foul nearby roofs and cars with their droppings. The raptors don't have to attack the gulls to haze them away, reports The Oregonian; all they need to do "is fly around and look like a scary falcon." The gulls quickly get the message that they're in danger and move on, though a transfer-station manager in Tillamook has found that the falcons need to be brought by frequently to keep the seagulls from returning. And though the falcons seldom attack the gulls, which are formidable birds twice their size, sometimes the temptation proves irresistible, says reporter Eric Mortenson, who witnessed one astonishing encounter: "Streaking from a building fan tower, with screaming gulls peeling away in terror left and right, Judah selected a target and delivered a mid-air whack job." Falconer Kort Clayton, who was clearly startled, called that attack atypical behavior, for which "Judah earned a time out" in his wire cage. Meanwhile, the gull Judah nailed was a goner.

WASHINGTON
The issue before a Washington state legislative committee was beaver relocation, and only one person bothered to show up. But he was probably the right person since his name was Neil Beaver, reports the Olympian. Beaver advocated moving the animals away from places where they cause damage to new streams where they could build useful dams.

Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write betsym@hcn.org.