One of Those Blessings You Never Know You Are Receiving at the Time

We were driving out from the Prairie last year. The skies turned black and the winds hit. I had never seen any thing like it. It came on us so suddenly we had to stop because the blowing dust. It was blowing so hard the sage brush was being up rooted and blown across the road. The pick up was rocking, we would go just a few feet because it was almost zero visibility, and then we could not see at all. We would have to stop. Then it would lighten up slightly and we would sort of start again only to have to stop.

Then as quickly as it came on us it was done. It was so strange because it was like some one threw a switch and turned off the storm. But the sky was still black yet light penetrated it. It was as if light and dark were fighting to give it up. The lighting became so surreal, it was as if it was not of this world. It was a real KODAK moment. I jumped out and started taking pictures.






That night when we got in Ellen down loaded the camera and was so surprised not that we did not know where the old picture was taken. But the closeness to the exact location. We had never tried to pair them up. A picture of my family out on a Sunday drive circa 1890's. The young man on the rear end of the horse was my grandfather George known as Rawhide born 1887.



This is the image I took when the storm ended

Why a shop?

I know what you are most likely logically thinking why a shop and not get started a cabin / house. Actually the shop is a real part in this building project. A lot of the interior will be hand made by Ellen and I from lumber we harvest this fall and winter from the place.

Not only so we can make things there for the house. We will need to stage and store things there as well. It is fifty miles to a supply house in Boise. So logistically we will have to have some stock on hand. Electrical and plumbing, windows and doors. We also will be best able to 'shop' Craigslist and the big box stores for buys and have a place to put things from windows to the kitchen sink even that huge stained glass window we have been storing will go in to the house.

Remember also Prairie does not have a Home Depot, Lowes or even a Do It Best. There sort of a network of they might have it there, well if there is one up here. Meaning drive around from ranch to ranch, cabin to cabin and asking. It is also the foundation of I will make one myself. Believe it or not God did give us the ability to modify and change things.

Somethings however can not be changed nor modified so the treasure hunt begins. Sometimes this requires going out in to the fields and finding a trail of dust coming up from a lonely tractor. Or looking for a herd of cows being driven some where. The standard answer is 'Ya I have one but I can not remember just where it is. Lets go look for it." That coupled with the other conversation involved, the protocol that is ever bit as important as the meeting of two heads of state, or CEOs or CFO's.

Somewhere there it dawns on you as you are looking through old dusty boxes in a storage shed or barn 'This takes longer than going to Lowes.' But then more importantly it is part of being a neighbor. One of the many lost arts of the latter part of the last century. The lost art of helping out and allowing others to help you. Maybe not a whole day of hard toil but lending a hand and an ear now and then. Showing you care... Tragic as is is when part of America moved from being faith based to more humanistic we also became a lot more centric.

Breaking ground for new shop at the ranch

We broke ground August 10, 2010 on the shop! Pat and his helper worked at that while I fell some trees. A couple real crooked ones we were afraid that would go down in a wind storm on the RV area. Then there was one beetle killed one, and one that was very sick. All that will go to the saw mill at Pat Landers the guy below with the crawler and the transient. They will be turned into siding for the shop.



Then about the time they were ready to do the fine grading the heavens open up with lighting and then it rained - no make the poured. Pat and Randy had to shut down and take off. Pat had to load logs the following morning and had to work on his log truck with the self loader. This seemed to presented a very good opportunity.

They had to go to four wheel drive to get out. Pat has been going to do some road work there these past three years. It is not yet done; there just is never enough days in a year for him to get it all done. I complain to him about it when it rains. We do not sink but it is so slick on top you just spin and throw mud. It is not so bad where we have the fifth wheel but there and around by the orchard sometime you think you are going to have to walk out.

I too beat a hasty retreat to the fifth wheel and repaired the shower. Then the sun came out in about an hour and I finished 'bucking logs' so Pat can now skid them to go to the mill. Ellen and I carried the limbs and put them in a pile in the pasture to burn after the first snow or if we get enough rain in like Oct or Nov I might set them on fire then but I really like it when the snow is on the ground. I know we are not going to have any surprises then.



Tig has been named supervisor in charge over the whole project. This due to litigation she has threatened on me. Her brief brought to my attention she does not trust me with a chain saw at all anymore. She of course most of the time per her assignment and job description is to be very near me. However if I grab a chainsaw now she disappears due to mental anguish she cites when I almost dropped a tree on her. She claims I had no regard for her well being nor consideration fore her general welfare which indeed I will prove false herein. She therein her brief asks for a change in position due to extreme mental trauma that occurred last year when we were logging up in the Farlow Place. She claims I purposefully almost dropped a tree on her. Myself I feel I should counter claim she indeed was negligent. After all she was laying in the shade of a tree that the snow had over the years crushed down and they really start to grow side ways. I was falling it because it would never make a tree to harvest. I noticed it starting to go down. I stopped for a millisecond and hit the kill switch on the saw and yelled in a very panicked manor TIG!!!! Okay I girlie screamed TIG!!! She some how got out from under that falling tree sort of flew - sort of levitated as it was coming down on her. I did not see her again for hours. I put the tools up in the pick up and here she came. At the time she pretty much told me no more chainsaws. This current litigation was a total blind side yet in my good graces has caused me to offer a olive branch in the form of a title of Supervisor of Construction. This and a dog biscuit in hopes of bribing her to drop her current case.

Alas Poor Elmore County bastion for.....

Elmore County, poor Elmore County where our small ranch is at, went from a place where literally you could turn in a house plan drawn on the inside of a Miller Genuine Draft cold pack to actual planing and zone and real building inspectors. It went seemingly over night from a place indeed you could turn in a card board box turned inside out with a hand drawn floor plan and be granted a building permit. Now they have to be submitted --- Plans (drawings) shall be drawn to a professional standard, to scale, upon substantial paper, and be of sufficient clarity to indicate the nature and extent of the work proposed. Elmore county a place where building inspectors at the time seemed to be in love with or at least happy with the idea of when in doubt build it stout. Now a place of being codified and national building codes. What next shall happen we all ask ourselves.

However because there were several building failures. Apparently it came to light that what some peoples idea of building something stout sort of deviated greatly from one builder and homeowner to another. So this idea of doing it my way has gone 180 degrees to that of normal building practices complete with engineering data. Particularly in areas that required one hundred and twenty five pound snow loads and winds howl unmerciful in the winter time.

So Elmore County alas poor Elmore County long the bastion for those who wish to do it their way now has become codified. And for a period of time they were a revolving door for new building inspectors and managers. Now a new crew has signed on vowing to make buildings and zoning safe and sane. Or safer and saner for those who build or buy in that county.

So true to everything Ellen and I seem to do being a dollar short and a day late in all things have fallen pray to modern day building practices. Though we have not yet turned in plans officially for our retirement home. I too was tempted to draw some up in crayon and magic maker free hand on the inside the lid of a Justin boot box and submit that wishing to be a traditionalist and not wishing to make waves with the local people going against the grain.

I however felt with my problem with alcohol and being clean and sober since 1990. I thought that might be a little tacky going the direction of a Budweiser box turned inside out. I guess even ex alcoholics have some form of drawing a line in the sand. Though as of yet no one in planing and zoning really knows me or my families very storied history in Elmore County or for that matter Mountain Home the capital seat of Elmore County. Well okay I guess that is the county seat of Elmore County.

So it would have made little difference if I would have chosen a Bud box or the more traditional Miller Genuine Draft box or for that matter the lack luster Justin Boot box lid. I too would just have been seen as another in a long line of those who seen Elmore County as one of the last bastions of those who wish to just do it their way....... Sad but times change in all things. All the changes I seen in the railroads in thirty some years. Now the place we choose to live out our retirement. Sad....