RANGE WATCHER

The days of covered wagons and trail drives are long gone for Margaret McGuffin of Caprock, but she still watches the range for changes brought on by the weather.

An active rancher until a few years ago, 85-year-old McGuffin remembers the days and nights she spent guarding herds of cattle. She recalls several years of severe weather, but believes the worst was in the 1930s.

"One March, some of the little calves were freezing to death," she says. "My husband put a calf in my lap. Then, he rode off to find the calf's mother. I took it inside and put it in front of the heater on a burlap feed sack. Everything comes in paper now. When my husband came back, we put the calf in the shed with its mother, but its ears and tail still froze off."

More of a weather watcher than predictor, McGuffin says the most recent change she's noticed is that the desert Southwest winds are getting milder and the summers are getting hotter.