I am sort of getting the fifthwheel ready to hit the road

I am sort of getting the fifthwheel ready to hit the road and doing some things that just have to be done. Hitting the road if we do that is going to be some time after Christmas and we are paid up herein this RV park until January 6. So we will be looking at a good opening in the weather from Idaho down through Nevada. Yesterday I replaced the cover at top of the fifthwheel that covers the chase that allows the heat and fumes to rise escape from the RV refrigerator. It was falling apart after spending too much time aging in the sun. I in my mind thought this would be easy. I would just be able to purchase the cover or lid that screws into the plastic housing already fastened and sealed to the top of the fifthwheel. So a couple days ago I removed and salvaged as much of the lid as I could and bundled it like an archaeological find. Carefully loaded in to my pick up and drove to my favorite RV parts place. It is over in the town were we lived. Though there were several closer. The owner has become a friend as we have grown to know each other over the years. He is about my age and has been in the RV repair business all his life. And we both have a gift to gab. And I trust his advise.

I carefully unwrapped my archaeological find. Larry is unimpressed. I plead my case “Just sell me a replacement lid wit the same screw pattern.” He shook his head and he handed down his verdict. My idea would not work because the screw pattern had been changed a couple years ago and besides, “The whole dam thing needs to be replaced anyway. You know that.” I knew he was right because the screen over the housing was shot but I figured a little hardware cloth and it is good as new. But no! So he hand me a new vent housing, a tube of self leveling sealer with some smiling guy’s picture was on it. It must have been some sort of famous RV repair man. Or maybe a lost person advertised for his recovery on a tube of self leveling sealer. Sort of like the milk carton thing a few years ago. And my buddy says he will throw in the strip of putty tape to put it on with. I started shaking uncontrollable the thought of removing the old self leveling sealer and the low thirties. I never liked it when it was warm, I can just imagine with it will be like now. I started to explain my concerns and he stopped me mid-sentence and reminded me I have worked outside in the cold before and it would not be that bad. So suck it up and just do it. This only served to scare me more because I have been there before. But he settled me down and I paid my bill.

Next on this safari I stopped off at another buddy’s hardware - lumber yard and stared at a pegboard full of scrappers and putty knives. He asked me what I needed and I started to explain and he handed me a real cool scrapper tool. I put it on my account and headed back home. Well not home, we have no home, back to the RV Park. So yesterday I hit it hard after I figured the frost had left the roof. About an hour latter I had the housing removed and all the sealer and putty tape along with about thirty screws. Clearly the engineers of this vent did not want it blowing off. The other one went on very easy and the tube of self leveling seal worked great. No wonder the famous smiling RV repair guy was on the tube. I gazed at his picture. I think I like him and his product. “Thanks! Who ever you are.” And I saved about $100 shop rate. Larry, he might be a friend but he has his employees to pay and keep his doors open, and his hot rods painted. And with anything you do and do it right there is a warm fuzzy feeling of accomplishment especially after removing the old self leveling sealer at 34 degrees. And where as we live in the unit full time it is sort of hard to schedule a shop time.

After I got that done I discovered the vent covers over the 14 X 14 vents were not going to last out our proposed road trip. So back to the RV parts place. Today I mounted them. Today a cold blustery wind blew here today in the RV Park. It was one of those winds at acts like a snake. Its tongue flicking here and there and sensing where the openings are. So that it can invade. It slips past caulking that was left undone when it was warmer and doable and pliable. Now it is looking for anything hard, gapping and lifeless. It seeks to sneak in around the door and the weatherstripping that should have been replace. Or a door that just does not fit right. Oh this breeze is a crafty serpent. Tongue flicking and testing looking for any gap. Then it pushes in with a sharp noise where ever it senses it might make some head way. All in all our fifthwheel though aged a bit repels this serpent pretty well though there are a few chinks in the armor.

This RV life is sort of weird in that I am more use to stable friends and acquaintances. Parked over in the short term was a real nice guy and his wife and a yellow lab. They were staying here for a few days while they visited there son here. They have a huge motorhome and were really friendly. They were pulling out the other day and I walked over and said good bye. We discussed his route as he was going from here to Bakersfield Ca. He was concerned about Donner Pass and I reassured him if it is not safe or not passable they will let them know. Just hunker down there and Reno and gave them some real good places to dine if they have to do so. We assured each other we will see each other on down the road knowing that most likely that will never happen. Our next door neighbor since we have been here left this morning for Parump, Nv. Where they live they wanted to escape before another storm moved through. We are heading down that way and he gave me some good ideas about RV parks there in Parump if we want to base out of there while going to Death Valley and making a trip or two to Vegas before heading on down in to Az. But on the other side of the coin there is the huge new motor home that pull into the short term where the friendly couple stayed. As I was outside today doing stuff. He was fussing and messing with his pride and joy and it is a beautiful unit. He was looking my ways so I waved. He just stood there and stared like I was from the wrong side of the tracks. Oh well so goes RV living………

One of those mysteries..........

One of the mysteries that seems to plague me currently is a set of pick-up keys. They have disappeared, vanished into thin air. Yet I can not accept that they are missing as if raptured by God in these last days. They are somewhere, just not here in my possession. You should not loose stuff in a thirty foot fifth-wheel trailer. Our current dwelling, our home away from home. Oh, but wait, this is our home now. That and two storage units and a shop filled with our stuff. But then that is another very touchy story. One that causes Ellen to tear up out of the blue. I asked her what is the matter and I receive in reply, “We have no home!” Now normally this causes a man to fly in to action and fix the situation. However because of all the counseling training I have done and had done unto me I know I can not do that.

There are places where I can swoop in on the vine, yodeling like Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, to carry her away, or times I can appear from behind the curtain as the hot headed D’Artagnan in the The Three Musketeers pulling my blade to defend my lady. These times are not those times. I have been told and taught and taught that I must let her process her own feelings. And mysel,f I do fall into the grief and anger of the moment from time to time. Usually when looking for things stored in boxes we can not find. Or looking at our stored furniture and not knowing how well it will survive the cold of winter. Then I want and do roar in anger at times. However that said we are comfortable, we are warm and dry and all in all life is pretty good. We have no major medical issues we know of. I am no longer trapped on a train somewhere unable to return home. We sold our home in a down market.

So with all that said, what does that have to do with lost pick-up keys? As the politicos all say, “That is a great question.” And strangely, it falls somewhere in the line of the pick-up tool box and the fifth-wheel trailer. The toolbox is one of those silver boxes that sits across the front of the pickup box. It sits suspended from the rails of the pick up box. 90% hangs down into the pick up bed. It fastens in with a bolted J bracket and a bolt in side the box. They are easy to unbolt and get out. It was a the most surprising Christmas I think I ever received. It was like a pony! A present from Ellen five years ago. To her I needed a tool box in the pickup and I so agreed. I am a ranch kid. You never go anywhere with out a shovel, an ax, a Pulaski and a chain or two. Then there is the set of jumper cables and enough wrenches, pliers and screw drivers to disassemble all the components of a Mack Truck along side of the road. Well that is during the good weather. Then in the late fall and winter time you need a set or two of tire chains. Because of the roads to the Prairie and the winter storms I opt for a set for the front and a set for the rear because it is a four wheel drive. (Might as well use them all when you are going to get stuck). Now indeed all that stuff can be hauled very messy and dangerously on the floor of the back seat. However if you ever occur a roll over with all that stuff in the cab with you. If the wreck does not do you in, rest assured two sets of truck chains and a very heavy duty logging chain will. So for safety issues and other reason I have a tool box.

However, with all that there is a problem. I can not haul our little fifth-wheel trailer with my tool box mounted in the back. It, like most of these old units, is set up where they are close to the hitch and mounted very low. (The main reason I love to pull it. You hardly know it is there.) So I have to remove the toolbox when I have the little fifth wheel. It is because on a tight backing or turning maneuver the trailer will get the tool box. This in turn will damage the fifth wheel trailer, that also will damage the tool box and then that will damage the pick up. So if I have to move the little fifth wheel, I empty out the tool box, unfasten the fasteners, and remove it. I set it some where when finished moving the little fifth-wheel, put it back in, fasten it down, and put all the valuables back in it. WWHHHUUUW! Lot of work just for that.

Now if you are a serious fifth-wheeler you have a tool box that sets down inside the pick up box. But they are hard to retrieve things out of. So I opted not to get one of those because we just move the little fifth wheel camp trailer up in the spring to the ranch and out in the early winter back to the valley. That is all the further it goes now days. Then we got the big fifth wheel. The hitch sits a lot further a head to the front and it is higher. In fact the whole unit is higher. So I have decided to try using my old tool box and not get a new one that sets down inside the pick up box. So my last trip to the ranch I grabbed our old tool box.

I brought it down here to the RV Park and mount it. I never have locked my tool box up. I never figure I needed to. It went mostly to the ranch and back. But here in this new environment of RV parks and our road trip down south and who knows what to expect next. I thought it would be handy to be able to lock it up. The only key I knew of that might fit the tool box was on my primary key ring. However it had gone missing for several days. Ellen and I looked and looked for that key ring. Then she came up with the idea, “Have you looked in the car?” I told her I just had the car to the car wash and cleaned and vacuumed it. I would have seen it then. I did however remember seeing four keys sitting by themselves not on a ring in a hollow place in the console while vacuuming. One was a key to the shop up at the ranch the others the were unknown to me.

I went back out and unlocked the car got the loose keys from the console and tried them. The first one I tried fit, it turned it matched with the second. There was two keys that fit the toolbox out of the blue. Ellen can not remember how the four keys got there. She thought I put them there, they were just laying there in the console one day. She made several trips in and out from the ranch with them. They survived there with three grandkids and three dogs. They survived her sacks of sewing and yarn going to her gals sewing circle up there at the Prairie and on and on and they were never lost. To which I do thank the Lord for keeping an eye out for them. That they never got flipped out on the floor and lost. Lets face it lone keys are so venerable to being lost. Then there is the issue of two keys for my toolbox I never use just show up out of the blue. A toolbox or tool storage or just a tool locker that we never have locked in five years of traveling in and out of the Prairie with it. Then I decided I have to lock it up. So I guess my real question is where in the world did those keys really come from? Well let see I think I can rule out someone broke into the car and set them there……… 

Mom's Knife and Comfort Food

It would be difficult for me to accurately describe my mothers knife.  Oh she had other knives, but to describe  the one she always used that would be impossible.  It was just an old fashioned butcher knife.  She used it clear up until the end when we really had very little choice other than to move her into an assisted living facility.  Alzheimer's or some other hellish thing had come upon her.  Her doctor and those at the assisted living places pinned it on Alzheimer’s.  We did as well, but were also informed they would not really know for sure until afterword and they could do an autopsy.  We chose not to.  She went through several companies and facilities as my dad did as well later.  She was never happy in any of them.  She seemed sometimes to me to go out of her way to be unhappy in any of them.  A sad end to such a person.  At any rate, after they both passed her knife came into my possession.  Oh it was not a thing locked in a vault though it should have been.  We sort of treasure it, I am thinking of framing it when I get my wood shop moved and set back up and in order.
       

I believe mom told me that knife her and dad bought after they were married or it might have came with the deal..  They were together for a long time; over 60 years.  Mom never claimed to be a cook.  Yet she was a master of home cookery and not to be confused with a home chef.  Yet from time to time she would venture out of her comfort zone.  Most of her cooking was from a cookbook from the nation of unpublished featuring the state of unmeasured bordered by untimed.  Her oven was set at 350 and do not ever touch that.  That was an act of war.  The stove I remember the most the timer you never touched, because it would never shut off.  Either it was messed-up broke or we were never smart enough to figure it all out.  Rather she knew when a casserole or cake was done by smell and sight most the time and a toothpick of course which she hardly needed but gave her the benefit of the doubt.

She cooked my kind of comfort food.  I hear people talk about comfort food and I have come to the realization that one mans comfort food is another mans distain.  I guess that distain can change as well over the years however.  I had a huge dislike back then for baking powder biscuits.  I swore that I would never eat another one after I left home.  Well I really never left home because after we were married I still worked for dad for about a year and was always a phone call way afterwords.  In short Ellen and I was around there a lot.  To her I am sure it seemed all the time some times.  There were cattle to sort and hay to harvest or to feed most the time.  Because of mom’s lack of measurements and her special terminology this tended to intimate Ellen about mom’s home cooking.
    

Today I think if I had to choose one meal that mom made a lot that I would so love to have again but at one time swore I would never touch it again.  That would be deer chops, fried potatoes and gravy, fried apples and baking powder biscuits and homemade strawberry jam.  Funny I remember that was served a lot in the late fall and early winter when there was a surplus of cooking apples and venison.  And for some reason that never went well with me.  Now I only can dream.  However that would never been called comfort food by me.  My choice of comfort food if I had to pick one would have to potatoes and white gravy.  The potatoes would need to be boiled (not mashed)  or fried and the gravy home made of course from the scrappings in the pan that cooked the meat be it beef or pork.  A little salt and lot of pepper.  Well most likely a lot more salt than suggested by those who try and run your life by food.  Moms style of cooking without a doubt shortened their lives a great deal.  Dad was 96, mom was like 88 when she passed away.
                     

Mom was a meat and potatoes cook and that was how I learned to cook.  She was a cast iron fry pan cook.  She was the boss of the kitchen cook.  She and the foul mouthed Gordon Ramsey could have yelled at each other all day and never done any good.  She was a peel the spuds with a knife gal never a fancy peeler although she had them in the drawer.  She use the same knife to trim the meat and the peel fruit and I guess anything else that needed cutting.  She was a fried spuds cook and lots of them, or a boiled potatoes person.  Very seldom did she mash potatoes other than Thanksgiving and Christmas now that I think back on it.  She always cooked extra back then.  And then there was alway someone popping in around dinner time.  If you stopped by there at dinner time; you best plan on eating.  (I think they knew that.)  Never mattered to her who you were be it one of the founders of Micron Corp who by the way would on occasion would visit us.   To an old Basque friend from Mountain Home that at one time owned a many bands of sheep before the USFS forced them out of business.  Or be it someone off the road they all sat the same at her table just the same and there was always plenty.  It never went to waste that is for sure.  In Idaho potatoes were cheap as was meat for us.  We raised our own beef and harvested a lot of wild game.  She came from a large family that came to Idaho from the dust bowl of Oklahoma.  To her Idaho was the land of plenty and loved to tell me about all the food they had after they got here.  But she was a died in the wool Sooners fan and an Okie at heart to the end.

What ever your comfort food is it means a lot to the person.  My grandfather on dad’s side was an old lathery cowboy who went by Rawhide or just Hide.  (That was just his close friends.)  When he was in the ‘nursing home’ dying of cancer his only complaint I heard him voice was the mashed potatoes.  "You can not get a damned fried spud here in this damned place."  Comfort food to some friends we had from Thailand it was sticky rice.  To some it is a thick rich stew and a chuck of crusty bread, or a hot bowl of chowder or Chicken and Dumplings.  Comfort food to me has to be guarded somewhat away from the norm lest it lose its magic and charm and become the norm.

Watching mom in the kitchen cooking was artistry in motion and the timing was magic.  Mom would peel the potatoes with the knife.  Pull out a heavy cast iron skillet and sit in on the stove with one hand.  She would heat up some grease, oil or what every she had on hand.  In went the the potatoes followed by salt and pepper.  She then would cover them with one of several hodgepodge of lids she had.  She would turn the spuds a couple times and then suddenly, almost magically just at the right moment a cast iron fry pan or skillet would hit the stove again with one hand.  A little bacon grease went in to it.  She would toss in a couple steaks, or chops salt and pepper and cover.  She knew when to turn them never a wasted motion or a second thought.  Off came the lid from the fry pan and the meat was turned, salt and peppered,  lid went back on and the heat was cut usually down a couple notches.  It was about here she would put together a salad, she had been a salad chef at he Hotel Boise and was very good at them.  Or she would open a can or two of vegetables that went on the stove.  She did a lot of improvising and on the fly creativity with canned vegetables.  Turn that down, uncover the meat, that went on to a platter.  Mom was a well done cook.  If you wanted rare, medium rare or anything other than done I am afraid you were out of luck.  Just best go some place else.  Funny she might have been a one speed meat cook but it was always cut it with a fork tender.  They were never as burned or dark brown and crusty and tough as shoe lather that one thinks of well done.  They were always moist and flavorful.  Anyone that sat at mom and dad’s table was always truly amazed how she did it.  She said she learned it cooking for a huge bunches all the time.  Be it family or a bunch of cattlemen or sheepmen and their herders it all went on the table at the same time.  I was amazed at how she could pull everything off at the same time no matter what.  When she placed the meat on the platter, she some how had the flour in the skillet and stirred that into the meat grease and thickening that up all at the same time.   She would grab the milk and pour just what she needed into the skillet and turned the heat up.  Grabbed the spatula turned the fried potatoes once more and cut the heat.  Sat that off just in time for the gravy to boil which she would attack with salt, pepper and a spoon stirring for all it was worth.  It was soon thickened and every thing went in to bowls family style.  Made no difference to her if it was just her and dad or ten or twenty.  Her table always seemed to be a talkative place, lots of food and lots of sharing.  Sometimes mom and dad communicated a lot by arguing.  

          

But mom was not a large lady, in fact she was sort of small and petite red head.  She could take a cast iron fry pan full of gravy one handed and pour it in to a serving bowl.  She might have been the queen of her kitchen but potatoes, and white gravy were king in her kitchen it seemed.  And so were the people.  I guess they were in most peoples kitchen back then.  We visited a lot of ranch people back then and it was pretty much all the same.  Or at least they were here in Idaho.
    

That is how her knife ended up in the shape it was in.  She literally wore it almost into before we had to sadly take it away from her and move her into assisted living.  We always figured it was the potatoes.  It was concave and wore out where the spuds were pealed.  But just how many tons of potatoes and pounds of carrots, apples and other things had to be pealed?

Thanks a bunch Mom for the knife and the memories!

Rick

               

             

“Well she might not be very big on cow and she is sure huge on momma!”

Ellen and I were at the cattle auction in the early spring a few years ago.  This was BR (Before Retirement)  We were looking of pairs, or cows with their calves to buy.  My reasoning for doing so is flawed economically I know that.  The key for any successful business or farming or ranching operation is you must take in a great deal more than you spend.  That is just good business, farm and ranch 101.  Just the same as any household budget, you have to make more than you spend.  Sort of Dave Ramsey FPU in a nutshell.

Though my reasoning is flawed I do this for a couple reasons.  Keeping back replacement heifers lessons your income when the feeder cattle go to market.  The good side of that is it also lessons your tax liability.  But it also really lessons productivity in your heard.  In that a heifer has to be raised up old enough to breed.  Then she has to go through her gestation period.  Then she has to calve and raise that calf up old enough to wean and sell.  Therein lays reason number two.  First calf heifers some times just have a heck of a time calving.  Your chance of loss of calves in calving first calf heifers is also greater for both heifer and the calf.  Then you even have the one that as in humans after they calve really have no interest in their off spring.  Yes even in the animal world after all the misery of carrying and panting and blowing and straining and pushing.  The confused proud young mother says to heck with this I am leaving this on a park bench, the orphanage door step or the folks door step and disappears in to the night.  Well heifers really don’t have that option.  Rather on occasion they choose to tap dance all over their calf, kick it and refuse to let it suck    So you have to sort of mother them up for a day or two and  after awhile they will bond 99 times out of a hundred.

So in order to be the least amount of pain in the derrière of the people that lease my property and watch over my cattle I usually go the easy route and just buy cows and calves and take the hit in the checkbook.  Not a good business practice but…. I really do not want to impose more than I already do. 

   

So with that long explanation Ellen and I find ourselves at the sale yard or cattle auction every year in the spring looking to replace the cows that we sold last fall or we lost for some reason.  We sit there watching the parade of cattle and listening to the sing song of the auctioneers.  Ellen loves to go to the auction and has went by herself and bought cows and calves for us when I have been working.  So she seems to get more into it than I.  She likes sitting there watching intently knowing the next time the gate opens it is something we are going to want to buy.  BR (Before retirement)  Me - my mind was most likely wondering when the railroad was going to call and I was going to have to leave and go to work.  Or I was trying to figure out if I needed to lay off sick or lay off sickness in the family due to the fact the dog did not look to healthy this morning.  Or then I might have been thinking about going to the great restaurant there at the Treasure Valley Livestock Auction.  Dreaming of having one of those double burgers with ham.  Topped with lettuce and nice slice of tomato, pickles and onion.  For a side I think a big old plate full of french fries and catsup, or maybe potato salad and a cup of coffee.  Followed by a piece of pie, most likely apple warmed with a big old scoop of ice cream and more coffee.  Or I might have the hot beef sandwich, with a big old scoop of mashed potatoes and ladled all over that drowning it in a sea of brown rich gravy, with coffee and followed by the pecan pie and more coff….eeee I screech out a yelp most likely from the wind being knocked out of me.  I am awaked from my daydreaming by my wife’s elbow in the ribs.  Instantly my hand flips up in the air repositioning my arm to shield my now sore ribs.  One of the two ringmen or gatemen hollers “YEP” to get the auctioneers attention.  I look down in the ring to see what I just bid on.  Everyone in the sale barn is looking at me and my flopping around and wild gesturing.  I stayed with it and bought it at a reasonable amount as I regained my wind.  The cow a black angus and a strapping good calf departed the sale ring and the gate slammed shut and I gasped out my buyer number.  Good thing Ellen is a good judge of cattle. That was done now back to day dreaming as I rub my ribs.

I attempted to multitask for a while.  My mind tried to stay on the cattle auction and my stomach started on a rerun of lets see now it was ……..with a side of mashed potatoes and ladled all over that drowning in a sea of brown rich gravy, with coffee and followed by the pecan pie and more coffee.  However the auction soon dimmed and my mind returned to both worrying about the railroad calling, and should I lay off or stay marked up and my pondering the reason for laying off or taking the trip off.  However I think most likely this gave root to a bowl not a cup of clam chowder with a very liberal sprinkling of tabasco (about the only thing liberal about me anymore I have noticed) followed by plain hamburger delivered on plate of french fries, lemon meringue pie or maybe a piece of……

I feel a nudge not a poke this time.  (I am happy)  I turn to my wife and she says,  “Buy her.”  I look down into the ring, there  is a small black cow young and by her side is a nice calf.  Most all the cows we have been buying are bigger cows, more roomy and nice looking.  This cow was small and the tassel on her tail has gone missing.  The calf looks nice but I really don’t care for the cow.  She is too small and ‘punched up’ so I don’t do anything.  Ellen is giving me a dirty look.  I know I am getting into trouble here.  The auctioneer is asking to start this cow and calf way to high and he drops the start down a little and my ears are starting to massage my brain.  My stomach is starting to churn and not from the food I have thought of.  I knew what was coming next, he dropped her down a little more.  Then he said the words I knew were coming.  “If I don’t get a bid I’m splitting them up.”  Meaning the cow will sell to a beef buyer (she will go to slaughter) and the calf well go to a person who raises calves to resell or some times for veal.  The price was right but she was just a little cow and without a switch on the end of her tail.  I so hated to see that happen to this little cow and calf.  Ellen gave me the look and out of guilt and valor of I will save you little cow and up went my hand.  Someone else bid back however dropped right out.  So we were the ‘proud owners’ of this little cow and calf.

The gateman on the side where the livestock exits to must have been thinking of a double cheeseburger with fries because he thought the auctioneer had split the pair.  The cow exited the auction ring and left her calf behind.  He slammed the gate shut.  There is just something to me when I hear that gate slam shut that says its over.  It has been finaled.  What occurred next was one of those things that light up your day.  The auctioneer said to the gateman, “Hey you forgot one.” 

The gates on an auction ring or the ones I have been to are always solid and heavy built made to open and close hundreds of times a day.  Bulls and cows test them.  They run into them, they shove and push against them.    You pull a spring loaded latch from the side with a rope so that you are out of the way.   They are not like a ranch gate that you can see through.  There is usually however a small window cut into them so the gateman can make sure the last critter that sold is gone to be yarded in the proper pen.

As the gateman jerked the rope to open the gate, our little cow who now had discovered that she was missing her calf had turned and was making a run at the now opening gate.  That little cow was coming on, her eyes were wild and burning bright like a locomotive busting through snow drifts when she knocked the gate aside.  Truly what unfurled was hell hath no fury like a mother protecting her children.  She circled the ring putting both gate men behind their guards built to shield them from such action.  The calf who was just sort of standing there sniffing the wood shavings looked up to see mom very upset.  He got a good talking to in cow language and fully understood he messed up.  Momma now was making the run for the exit and the calf was running hard to keep up.  Its tail was up in the air and rear legs were digging in and out the ring they went.  The buyers and the crowd laughed.  The auctioneer looked up at my wife and I and said with a smile.  “Well she might not be very big on cow and she is sure huge on momma!”                                            

                

“You got lot of rattlesnakes up there!”

To my amusement the area where our ranch is at has been blessed or rumored to have an abundance of rattlesnakes.  I have on more than one occasion been asked or told that.  I sort of have problems with sentence structure in this case.  I have to ask you the reader am I missing something.  Both sound a lot alike to me.

“You got lot of rattlesnakes up there!”

“You got lot of rattlesnakes up there?”

To which I usually reply, “Depends what is a lot of snakes.  To some people one is a whole bunch.”  Then I study their eyes and their voice.  If they reply, “No I mean, you got lot of rattlesnakes up there!”  I take that as being a statement.  The person has been there and made an assessment and determined to the best of his or her ability on their own snake-o-meter that there is indeed a bunch around.

However if they sort of quiver and look confused then I understand at that point it was a question.  And I may try to qualify an answer, however I figure I have already answered their question.  Or they may feel zero snakes of any kind is worlds of plenty.  Or if they quiz me more like on how do you avoid being bitten.  I just tell them only step where you can see, walk on top the rocks, and avoid walking through the brush.  Besides the brush and long grass has ticks in it.  Ticks cause more harm than the snakes with their Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever that killed my great grandfather (Mom’s side of the family) and lyme disease that for few years had one of my best buddies pretty well laid up.  (The guy that owns the lumber yard.)  And I do not know a soul that has been killed by a rattlesnake.  I do know on fellow that was sickened badly by one.  I know that talk of snakes and ticks does little to attract tourists to my small piece of Heaven and sort of makes me wonder if my little piece of Heaven is really Heaven.  But then I discovered a long time ago, not to be rude.  But I really don’t care if anyone discovers it up there or not.          

About snakes, driving those dirt roads now and then I will see a bull snake sunning itself.  I stop, get out, grab my shovel and walk up to it.  By now nine chances out of ten it is trying to act like a rattlesnake it has coiled and is hissing.  I take my shovel and sort of scoop it up and fling it off the road into the grass or the bush so it can live another day and harvest more ground squirrels and mice.  I sort of think people really do not take time to think of nature and the way it was set up to control pests.  They kill all the snakes, coyotes and badgers from an area and then are over run by mice and ground squirrels.  Then they complain about it!  Yet I do agree some need to be thinned, culled, or popped now and then when they become a nuisance.   

To be truthful even the rattlesnake population during our drought years took a tremendous hit in population.  In fact I went several years without seeing any.   Not that I really missed them.  During those years the one I did see was in the middle of the road on the Dawes Grade in the South Fork of the Boise canyon.  It was right after a freaky down pour and had been washed most likely off the steep hillside above and ended up in the road.  I stopped, got out and grabbed my shovel out of the back end of my pick up.  I found it to be dazed, confused and a tad bit upset sort of like when you have been caught in a down pour.

About half way up the Dawes Grade.  It was cloudier and wetter that day.......

 If I would have been a ‘kid’ again I would have chopped its head off.  Cut the rattles off and flipped the remains into the barrow pit and been on my way.  The rattles would have went into where ever I was keeping them at that point in time.  However this time I asked myself why kill this reptile especially where it was at especially when their number are dwindling.  No horses, cattle, kids or fishermen nor trails around these part.  It is a half mile or better to the river and mostly very steep down to the water and fishermen never frequent there that I have seen.  So I placed my shovel under this coiled rattling leviathan of the land and gave him a flip off the road.  I felt good.  I guess the older I get the less I like to harm creatures that do not really pose a problem at the time to myself nor others nor property.

Where the coiled rattling leviathan of the land went over the edge......

This euphoria continued through to a rattlesnake I chanced upon in the Willow Creek grade there at the switchback below the Kesl Place.   He was sort of short but big around. True to most rattlesnakes I have seen like that, he really wanted to hold his ground and struck my shovel several times before I tossed him over the edge.  Each time he struck my shovel would sort of thump.  This was the same type of place as in the canyon.  Once again I patted myself on the back……

Switchback below the Old Kesl Place

Then coming out in the evening a couple years ago I ran across one that was not in a good spot.  Cattle are prone to shade up there, there is a ditch close by that carries irrigation water to the Dement Place.  People frequent here.  They stop and take photos of the canyon, let their dogs go for runs or let the kids jump in the ditch.

The ditch to the Dement Place.

  So I decided after I ran the data I was going to whack this one.   I grabbed my trusty shovel and walked back to where I had spotted him.  He was missing, no where to be found, oh such an allusive reptile. Twas a pizzlement of the moment, yet me being the tracker that I am.  (Tracking a snake in road dust is not hard nor a great feat.)  I seen where this mighty reptile had scurried himself into the brush.  I started in after it, I shall not be denied.  Then it dawned on me as if a light shown down from above.  The shovel was not the right caliber for snake fighting in the brush.  So I bid retreat to the pick up and chose my 45 caliber wheel gun.  A revolver copied and patterned after the instrument that won the West.  (It, the railroads, barb wire and lot of hard working no nonsense people actually.)  ((The stupid dumb ones came later when they had passed enough laws they figured they could survive in this harsh environ.))  (((That is a later installment.)))   My wife and dogs did not offer any assistance in this effort.  My dogs do not like any of my guns and my wife has been suckered into too many of these to fall for another one. 

As I returned to the spot I looked into the bush and the rock.  I held my 45 Single Action Long Colt in my left hand.  (I’m left handed.)  I trembled not as I studied intently on my path of entry into this beasts den.  I studied where to place each foot and where each hand hold was.  I wondered why I was making this into a Peter H. Chapstick hunt in my mind.  His book Death in the Long Grass ran through my mind.  Yes, why pass up even a small chance at some drama.  So as I proceeded into in to this thicket of willows and rocks.  As I enter the thicket I hear nary a rattlesnake rattle.  Maybe he is old and crafty with wisdom beyond his years.  He most likely is laying in ambush under a rock.  Then at that point I decide to change from Capstick’s book Death in the Long Grass to Death in Silent Places another good read.  And I jumped a top of a rock.   As I studied the rocks below and the dense small willows growing in this thicket, the floor of which was carpeted with leaves and branches.  Knowing the craftiness and skill of natures camouflage, I felt myself dropping into a weakened state or condition.

The willows then were bigger, they have to 'clean' them out every so often or the ditch would plug up.

  Then I reasoned if I did get a shot off, most likely the ricocheting lead bouncing off the rocks would have had a good chance wounding me or worse.  Still faltering I could not help from thinking of the one on the switchback by the Old Kesl place and how it thumped my shovel with a thump, thump, thump.  Only to discover the thump, thump, thump - that was my Atrial Fibrillation with Rapid Ventricular Response which normally does little to bother me.  However with this anomaly I came to the stark realization,  just what the heck am I doing here.  None of the cows here are mine, and if people let their dogs and kids out there they ought to know:  “You got lot of rattlesnakes up there!”                         

The Ferry to Bella Bella


Another writer and I were sort of trading things back and forth a while back.  This trip Ellen, Cheri and I made up the Inland Passage of Canada came to mind.  Cheri was still in high school then I think.....


The Ferry to Bella Bella

I know not the name of the Canadian ferry we rode between Port Hardy and Prince Rupert.  I know not even the year.  I do know that we had to put in at Bella Bella a first nations village on the Inland Passage.  A First Nations person or native indian explained to me as we stood leaning on the rail of the ship watching the world go by.  We for some reason came together there on the rail he a little older than I and we spent hours talking about his world of logging and fishing, and mine as a locomotive engineer,  livestock and ranch.  Exchanging our worlds as we talked, we pointed out eagles and osprey.  Seals and what might be an orca now and then to each other.  He explained Bella Bella was only a flag stop on the route up and down the Inland Passage.  Meaning if there were passengers or freight for there they  would put in.  I do not think at the time there was a place to off load autos.  Little reason as there are no real roads into nor out of Bella Bella from what he told me.  In fact it is on an island.  Campbell Island I found out later.

As the ferry put into the dock we were greeted by one of the most wonderful adventures I have ever over looked.  On the dock there was a huge metal stair way sitting there on the dock.   The back ground was village and Canadian Pacific green.  The foreground was not ground but  rather inland passage water.  Though I am sure there was play ground equipment some where at a school or park in the village however this was the happening at the moment place for the kids.  After all the big ferry was  coming to town, momma or dad or aunts or uncles, may be grandmother from Victoria would be getting off.  Indian children were hanging off the stairway.  Some hung up side down knees locked around pipes and iron supports.  Looking at the world up side down.  Coats and sweater and shirts hung down over there heads as they looked at the upside down wold.  Shouting and waving at us as we approached.  Some of the most daring boys and a girl or two climbed high up underneath almost to the top.

Dogs that had apparently accompanied the children and the adults to the dock were backing excitedly.   Some too excitedly for some of the other dogs and soon several dog fights started on the dock as if by command.  No one seemed overly concerned about the dog fights and the dogs seemed to be able too by nature sort out  their differences very well on their own.  With a few sharp bites and tugs and growls, yollows and whimpers it was all over with.  No one came running to defend their dog.  If any were really their dogs or they might belong to the village.  Dogs might like it as well when the ferry comes to town.  This seemed to be a raw real world.  One where one lived only because you were able to live life there.

Amid the kids waving and laughing, a few adults standing around chatting and the dogs barking and fighting.  A 1978 or so Ford pickup made its appearance.  You could only tell that this was a 1978 Ford pickup because of the general out line of rust.  It was rusted through in more spots than it seemed to be held together with.   Slowly it drove up to the stairway and the kids shimmied and slid down off the stairway with the expertise of a high steel worker or firemen coming down a fire-pole.  They mostly hid from the driver.  He was shouting something at them in some tongue we could not understand.  He got out of the rusty pick up he seemed to be the boss.  He too was First Nations as were the deck hands.  They wore jackets or uniforms from the Canadian Ferry Line I guess to look official.  No one seemed all that impressed and more a job requirement.     

Ropes were heaved to the dock from the ferry.   After tying the ferry off to the dock, the deckhands all joined together in the ritual of shoving the huge metal stairway to the boat.  And the pilgrimage ended for some.  As a few men and ladies all seemed to be First Nations People or indians where I am from.  They made their way down the stairs.  Most carried boxes.  Kids and adults were shouting and waving at friends and relatives as they made their way down the huge stairway.  On the dock there were kisses and hugs and handshakes and nods and grins.  There was a ocean going  kayak expedition that off loaded as well.  Brightly colored yellow kayaks and fancy bags and grips and water-tights and dry boxes and on and on was carried down the stairs.  They so looked out of place in this place.  A place of wool mackinaws, blue jeans and stout leather work boots.  It was a place of fishing clothes and rubber boots.  Not plastic boats and synthetic carry ons.  It was a place where people lived in nature as part of it.  It hardly seemed to be a place to be attended for a week or two by outsiders.  Their presence there almost seemed to profane the place.   It was a place that nature begrudgingly let the hardy stay and let a few really live there.   

When all the ceremonial colonial off loading from the sea going expedition was accomplished.  Then the pilgrimage started for others up to Prince Rupert.  All carrying boxes tied with rope, there seemed to be an absence of American Touristor luggage, soft sides, or rollabouts.  This was real travel in the real world for these people.  A place you left only if you have to.  It was Sunkist Navel Orange boxes from Florida and Ruby Red Grapefruit boxes from Texas, it was apple boxes from Winanachee. Washington.  All tied  with rope.  Half inch hemp or line from a fishing boat, or twine from some ones unpacking.    How many wives here would even think of going some where, anywhere without at least a matching set of Costco soft sides?  Oh the embarrassment here in the states if men were seeing their women off and women were seeing their men off with Sunkist Orange and Grapefruit boxes.

The lines soon were hauled in, huge doors on the ship slid shut and we were started to pull away from the dock.  I could not take my eyes of this picture of real kids, and real people and their real world.  Then suddenly something else started to unfold on the dock.  The rusty pick up as starting to leave and drive back up the dock to the island.  The kayak expedition was still taking up most of the dock.  One had its bow or stern turned to the pickup.  Hard to tell kayaks especially when you do not know them.    The pick up ran over the projecting kayak and just kept right on going.  Someone from the expedition now was running after the pickup as hard as he could run, shouting and waving his fist.  The pick up never deviated its speed but clearly was winning the foot race....

I have often wondered the outcome of that accident.  Do kids still climb and hang from the stairs at Bella Bella?  Do dogs still fight on the docks?   Does drugs and alcohol take it tole on the First Nations peoples in Bella Bella as it does across this whole continent and the countries with-in?  Or are they lucky enough to have missed it?  I do not know what the soul connection was to Bella Bella that day.  I do know I would not fit there if I were to return.  I am not a First Nations person.  But oh how it stuck to me.  Stuck deep in my heart.  Oh how at times have I wanted to return?  Something in me wants to get off that ship in my work boots, blue jeans, flannel shirt and a wool mackinaw, pull a wool cap watch cap down over my head and yes carrying a Sunkist Grapefruit box on my shoulder.

I step on that dock turn and walk up the dock to the streets and roads of Bella Bella.  I nod politely at the ladies, stop and joke with the kids and teens.  Talk to the men asking about their families.  You still married?   How was the hunt?  The catch - what is running?  No halibut; still early yet; yes?   Your working in the timber where?  Wow your are lucky fellow, thats good job!  Man hang on to it!  You here for just your days off?   When you due to be back?  How are the kids?  Any chance we play some cards and drink some coffee?  When the Sockeye return this year we go fishing then okay?  Any crab jobs on up the coast?  Early winter?  Damn chilly wind for now!

Yep!!  Damn chilly wind for now!

String Trimmers, Global Warming and Cow Pies


Right after dad passed away I posted this to a forum on CountryPlans.Com  http://www.countryplans.com/ If you go there there, on the banner there is forum.  We are a loose knit family from all over.  We share our dreams.  There are a few very knowledgeable people there in the build trades.  There are some who never really will drive a nail yet we all dream.....


I hope you enjoy......
String Trimmers, Global Warming and Cow Pies

Because of certain events in the last week or two like a death in the family, then before that there was rain, rain then hot temps and high winds.  More trips up to the ranch than I think I really did.  So in other words we were far behind.

I woke up to the fact that the weeds were about to take over in couple places we cannot spray or do not spray.  No!  Strike that thought!  No, not about spraying, but the weeds.  They had taken over.  So after we finally got our garden in.  We plant mainly anymore  just a salsa garden.  With lots and lots of tomatoes and peppers then some the summer squash and cucumbers.  I decided it was time to attack the weeds.

I first had to run to the gas station and with a 2.5 gallon gas can for two gallons of gas to mix with two cycle oil.  Not really a can, I do remember those however.  Just old verbiage and nouns are hard to.......  Anyway this one is plastic and it does have the old spout.  Once again thank you Mr. Government for making life safer and simpler.  Have you actually tried to fill a chainsaw from one of those new gas cans?  It is sort of like needing someone to help you tinkle when you have both arms broke at the same time.  These new spouts and cans are a far worse danger than the old ones were ever made out to be.  They are going to spill more fuel and cause more fires than any of the old ones.

Two gallons of gas and two cycle oil worked out to about $10.00.  Remember when you could..........?  Actually two gallons of two cycle gas for most people is like a whole summer and fall with a normal sized city lot and dispose of some when snow flies in the winter.  Rick and Ellen go through that fairly quickly with two acres here and the ranch up there.  We heat mostly with wood.  Last year was 100% with wood.  So I very seldom let the fuel get old and stale. 

So it was time to unbury the string trimmer from the corner in the tool shed.  The head was full of line and there was even a fresh spool hang on the wall.  I think Ellen was outfitting me for action.  Can you remember when you got string trimmer line next to something and it would snap off.  Then you had to pull the head all apart and find the end of the string and rethread it and on and on!  Well that was aggravating.  However it at least gave you a break.  One to stop, rest your back and re-thread.  Not so with the new lines today.  You run them wide open and for a whole tank of fuel and the head just happily spins and dispenses line whistling and humming and thumping and a line never breaks.

I filled it with fresh fuel and gave the rope a pull.  Half hoping that the starter rope would not pull.  But the big old Husky-var-na trimmer roared to life.  And I commenced the spring ritual of mass string trimming.  Plus this gives me an opportunity to make my carbon footprint larger.  That seems important to me right now as I struggle with who am I?  This after the loss of my father.  Strange at 60 years old I now seem to be wondering just who the heck I am.  He was always there, even though the last couple years his short term memory was gone most the time.  He was still dad and my mentor and the family leader.   Now it is just me, well there is Ellen, but she is a girl.
 
I started in the Idaho Power easement, a wasteland of cheatgrass and foxtail this time of year.  It is most likely 25 foot wide and 120 foot long of which we really can not do anything with.  I own it, I pay taxes on it.  However I really cannot put a shed on it, I really can not landscape it.  It is just a dry part of my lot.  Idaho Power has to be able to get in there in the event of line or transformer repair.  It does serve as a good no mans land between me and my neighbor to the west.  Strange as I think of it. I have my yard fence there.  (Chain link, tall and stout.)  Then there is the easement, twenty five feet of no man's land.  Then there is the fence on the property line.  Then when the neighbor built his house he also installed a chain link corral for his five or six kids and growing family.  Plus this time of the year with all the foliage there is in my yard.  Landscaping which would make a landscape architect pass out, hardly with envy.  That, as well as the neighbors landscaping which looks a little more professionally done.  So if you are in my yard do not try to escape to the west.  I spent a day there string trimming the easement  Well it seemed like a day but closer to an hour.  Well long enough to run out of both fuel and string.  I stopped for a cool glass of water and to check my e-mail before I went out to conquer a few thistles and wild ash trees with the sprayer and the Agent Orange.  When I had finished defoliating my little portion of the world, and before protestors arrived on the scene, next on the agenda was string trimming a cattle corral.

The cattle corral where also there was an an over abundance of cheatgrass and foxtail grass and hidden down in them were these carefully disguised cow pies.  The weather being warm and if you have ever or never been around cow pies or the leavings after a cow does it’s thing.  I might need to explain cow feces is thin not watery thin but a little thicker than.....well if you are a concrete guy lets say about a eight or ten inch slump.  If you are a cook it it is sort of like a thick cake batter or pie filling.  The hot sun and weather sort of crusts it over.  It looks hard yet the inside remains remarkably fresh.

If you were in a pasture environment when you were a kid.  (There were more of us then, than now by a long shot.)  Spring arrived and off came the shoes.  As a kid the first thing you figured out do not step on the honey bees with bare feet!   They will sting you and somehow get their stinger into the most calloused feet.  The next thing is just because cow pie looks hard does not mean it is.  Just because the top may be brown and hard looking, it is a trick do not go there.  That is insulating that soft gooey center.  I am sure that universities have studied the time it takes to set up firm.  Those findings would be set into a step chart table with humidity and ambient temperatures.

I do not think anything pulls your mind back into reality of the moment, as when you sort of have your mind in coast.  You do not have the Agricultural University’s chart in hand.  No, you are just doing a mundane thing of weed whacking or string trimming.  You think you are in full control, the motor is running at a full open.  Fittingly making the largest carbon footprint it and you can possibly produce.  The trimmer's head is happily spinning and dispensing line, whistling and humming and thumping.  Suddenly your safety glasses are green and you can not see.  Your hands and face are moist and green, you and your clothes now smell like cow pooo-pooo.  You cannot believe it, and true to human nature you have to look and then take a second look. Like what caused that?  Did I hit a cow pie?  No silly, remember if cows could fly.  It was just a good thing you were not looking up.  Or your mouth was not open!

Then another thought came to my mind.  What if dad in his passing and he and his old cowboy and mischief friend.  My great uncle Bob Simmons just dropped in for the moment.  Not that I think stuff like that occurs.  However I could not help from thinking of Dad and Uncle Bob standing in the yard watching and laughing and Uncle Bob saying,  “By golly Dord he did it.”