Deadman's Basin Reservoir

We took the weekend off and headed two hours north of our place to Deadman's Basin Reservoir for some fishing and camping with Jon's sister and family. Approaching Deadman's is like any typical drive in the country until you turn down a dirt road and crest a hill to find a giant lake nestled in between farm houses.


We thought we had the place to ourselves but on Saturday morning, we acquired neighbors on both sides. On our right, the jet skiers who insisted on riding directly on top of our fishing lines - thanks! On our left, the drunks with a boat. They were piss drunk at 9:00 am when they pulled up. I was expecting high entertainment, and hoping for no fatalities. There were neither.

When we returned, nobody asked if we had fun. They only asked, "Was it windy?" This particular reservoir is notorious for wicked storms that whip out of nowhere, capsizing boats and not too infrequently, drowning people.

The answer? I'll let you judge for yourselves.



On Saturday night, a storm did roll through. We hastily gathered everything in camp, stashed the chairs, weighted down our camper awning with massive logs, and took shelter.


We fished for salmon and trout, but caught a fair share of suckers and carp, which are junk fish.



We learned that Gus is fanatical about going after your fish as you reel it in. That dog has a serious chasing issue: squirrels, mice, rabbits, horses, sheep, cows, and now fish. Thankfully, he leaves the neighbors' cats alone.

Every time someone got a bite, he raced over and plowed into the water to attack the flailing fish. This is fine unless you like teeth marks in your dinner and digging fish hooks out of your dog's paw - which did not deter him, I might add. I only had one bite the whole weekend and I lost the fish because Gus tore the line as I was reeling it in.

For most of the weekend, Gus stood a few feet offshore waiting for a catch.


The Falcons brought their canoe and did a good bit of trolling in it. Taya, my niece who has the entire family wrapped around her five year old fingers, caught more fish than any of us! Not wanting to miss out on anything, she would yell, "ARE YOU GOING ON A BOAT RIDE?!?!" anytime we came within 20 feet of the canoe.

Laying Pipe

One of the irrigation methods used by farmers in these parts involves 20-odd foot sections of gated, 10-inch diameter PVC pipe. In the summertime, Jon and I often help our neighbor Josh put out pipe. If we are lucky, Josh comes to get us in the cool evenings and not in the heat of the day. Jon and Josh are just six months apart. Three generations of Josh's family live on our lane and so they grew up together - they will surely be lifelong friends.

For irrigation, water is diverted off of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River and into the irrigation ditches that snake their way through the farmland. Having irrigated pasture is an expensive, but critical piece of farming out here. We are fortunate enough to have about half of our acreage irrigated and we pay dearly for it. While we don't farm our ground, we irrigate the fields to grow grass that we then lease to a rancher that runs cattle on our place. That money then pays for our shares of the irrigation ditches. Rinse and repeat, every summer and fall.

Farmers route the water into this pipe which has lots of little "gates" that they can open and close to control the flow of water. The gates are spaced on the pipe so that they flow perfectly in between the crop rows.

The pipe is heavy and takes two people to manage. First, you hook up the pipe trailer to the truck or the tractor. Then, if you are me, you get distracted by the old buildings on the farm and wander off.


This doesn't happen to Josh and Jon.

Oh right, we're loading pipe. I supervise while Josh and Jon load the pipe onto the trailer and then we pile into the vehicle and drive to the field.





If you are lucky enough to have three people working, one drives the truck while two pick the pipe off of the trailer, lay it down, and connect it like lincoln logs. The driver creeps just far enough forward so that the trailer is positioned exactly where the next pipe needs to go. It's a well-oiled machine.



It's a big help to Josh to have the extra hands for laying pipe, but to us it is just an opportunity to help out. The work isn't hard. It's a good time to socialize and it feels right to foster the sense of community we feel with our friends and neighbors.

Quiet Struggle

This past week has been a tough one for me, more on that later. It followed an eight-day vacation and visit with my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew which was fun, followed by fun, rounded out by fun. This was their first visit to Boise and Jon and I reveled in the opportunity to share our city.

Although having two extra adults and two toddlers in the house with our current count of three dogs led to a certain degree of chaos, it was welcome, especially now that they have gone. I won't try to pull the wool over your eyes by saying that there weren't mornings I awoke to a crying, okay occasionally screaming, child. There were battles over watching television and chocolate milk versus juice. There were disciplinary events highlighted by warnings such as, "Do not sit on your sister!"

My nephew, who is three and a half, discovered the joys of peeing outside while on a recent camping trip back home. He has not, however, learned the subtleties of when it is appropriate to pee outside. On several occasions, we lost track of him in the backyard, only to find him in various corners with his pants around his ankles.

It was fun to see the world through kid-eyes again. We turned over rocks everywhere to look for earwigs and roly poly bugs, visited three different playgrounds, and he learned how to fish with his new Spider-Man fishing rod. Every moment of silence was broken by, "Can I go outside and go fishing?" and "Where is my fishing rod?" After several days of practice while we camped on the Middle Fork of the Payette, he was casting like a champ. Thing is, he kept catching the same red plastic fish!

We caught lots of trout on our camping trip. My brother and Jon renewed their vows with fishing and we could barely peel them away from that river. I myself caught three fish and my brother commented that fishing is like gambling: "just one more cast." The fish were cooked and enjoyed especially by the kids who gobbled them down without hesitation.

After they left, the house was q-u-i-e-t and Jon and I had several "what do we do now" moments. But we settled back in and geared up for the school and work week.

On Tuesday, September 2nd, the search warrants in Nancy's case were unsealed.

I've kept a pretty tight check in the last few weeks on how much I delve into the media and my emotions; some might say too tight, but I felt like I needed a break. But on Tuesday, I poured over all of the available documentation; old and new scenarios danced in my head. On Thursday, I received a completely unexpected call from the detective on the case. The rest of the week was a grief-ridden spiral.

Things are a little better now, but I heard someone say on a radio show last night that grief is not a process. The word process implies a beginning and an end and belies the life-altering proportions of death. I have yet to know how my life will be irrevocably changed by this event, and that unknowing scares me.

Priorities

After more than 80 days working in Montana on our ranch I returned to Boise, and the many summer projects that need to be finished before school starts on August 25th. The list was very long a week ago, but we are crossing things off at a pretty quick rate. We've replaced a dilapidated screen door with a new Andersen glass door, replaced multiple door handles and deadbolts, power-washed the house and deck, repainted exterior doors and trim, built a bench on the deck, painted the deck, and done more yard work and weeding in the garden than one ever thought possible.

The trim repairs proved to be a bit more complicated than I expected. After removing the rotten trim I discovered a surprise; the old fascia boards were custom cut to fit together like a puzzle. To replace them would require a table saw. Off to Home Depot after doing some research on Consumer Reports. Creating the new fascia was a piece of cake with the right tools! We reevaluated some of the project priorities and decided that we needed a bench on the deck, and with the new table saw I figured I could handle it.



It was a chore to complete in the heat but we are quite pleased with our new addition!

Just as a side note, thinking of the ranch. Here's a picture of my 1965 John Deere 4020 with the loader. Althought it is nice to be home, I kind of miss the massive amount of daily labor that we managed to do every day on the ranch. I spent most of yesterday (and most of my next several days will be spent) catching up on my studies.

Coming soon...

I can't believe the last time I blogged was July 30th, and that I left ya'll hanging about the sheep. There are many more stories to tell about our summer that I'm sure we won't get to all of them.

I arrived back in Boise with Cash and Gus (the two sheep-marauding dogs) a week before Jon and Tucker and it is has been somewhat of a difficult transition for me and Gus. Per usual, Jon adapts readily but I am slower to ease into the old routine. I have been home for a week and a half and my suitcase is still sitting open and full on the floor of the guest bedroom. I find myself barely able to be inside the house. I find myself wanting for physical work on a scale that just isn't available here in the city; although, the backup of six weeks of yard work gave me a good run for my money. Gus quickly bored of the confines of our yard. He found a hole in the fence and decided to explore on his own. Fortunately, he didn't go too far and when I found him he was so excited that I had decided to join him for his adventure!

I am sure we will try to do some posts about a few more things from the ranch, but for the most part, life will move on. School starts at BSU on August 25th for both me and Jon. Just like last semester, my night class falls on one of the few nights that Jon doesn't have class. Arggh! But, a friend of mine will be in the class with me which will make it much more enjoyable. Jon starts his clinical nursing rotations so the semester should be very interesting and busy for him.

Summer is not yet over and I hope it has treated you all well. We will make the most of what remains.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

Last night was a sleepless one--or at least sleep only in short bursts. Since we moved the camper to be closer to the bath-house, there are more sounds from the nearby pastures and hills. Between the coyotes howling, the dogs barking at the coyotes, and then the dogs howling with the coyotes, last night's sleep was fitful at best. I woke three times that I recall to a canine symphony starting with yipping and howling coyotes in the not too far away distance, joined by barking dogs in three pitches: Tucker, Cash, and Gus, building to a cacophony of barking and howling dogs and coyotes. We looked out the camper window to see Cash with his nose pointed high in the air singing, "aaaawwwwwooooooooooo!"

And somewhere in between was this sleepy conversation:

--unidentified animal noise--

--barking dogs--

Jon: "What was that?"
Me: "It was a cow."
Jon: "That was NOT a cow."
Me: "No? I thought it sounded like a cow."
Jon: "It sounded like a mountain lion."
Me: "I didn't think we had mountain lions down here."
Jon: "Me neither. Maybe it was a bobcat."
Me: "Okay, now I am totally freaked out and I have to go to the bathroom."

All of this makes me nervous because tomorrow our neighbor is putting 20 ewes and their lambs in our orchard and corral areas to eat down the grass. It is a mutually beneficial agreement: our grass needs to be eaten and the sheep are hungry.

But, I am worried about the coyotes preying on the sheep. Our neighbor says as long as our dogs are around the sheep should be fine. I am worried about the dogs chasing the sheep, or worse, because our dogs aren't accustomed to livestock. Our neighbor says his sheep are used to dogs, but still, I worry.

Really, I couldn't sleep last night worrying about it. Then again, maybe it was the coyotes...

Happenings

We’ve been mighty busy over the last several weeks working on the ranch out here in Montana. We’ve hauled nine loads of refuse to either the dump or the recycling company; the loads have ranged from 2200 pounds up to 4000 pounds. We’re down to a fewer number of small piles that still need to be hauled into the Billings. I wasn’t sure we’d ever find the end of the trash piles and I’m sure that when the tall grass is gone we’ll find more garbage hiding, waiting for us to load and haul.

The little house we are planning to renovate is finally cleaned out! Sadly, we came to the realization that we would not be able to do very much construction work on it this year. We emptied and sorted all of the stuff that had been stored inside: furniture, paperwork, bottles, jars, and other household accessories. We then removed all of the drywall, the floors, the doors, and the trim. We had a structural engineer who specializes in historic homes come out and evaluate it and to our delight, he said it was in unusually good structural condition, particularly given it's age of probably 100 years or more. It doesn't look like much, I know, but it will!




As an interim solution to our current “camp living” situation, we had the idea of converting an old lambing barn into a bath house. It’s only 12’x16’ but it will have all the amenities of a small home: toilet, vanity, shower, washing machine, bed, and refrigerator. The major stuff such as roofing, electrical, and plumbing are complete and the toilet, sink, shower, and floor are in as well. It’s amazing how special it feels to have a toilet that flushes. The shower is nice as well, not only for me, but also for everyone that spends any time around me!




We even made time to throw in a flagstone patio out front, made from slate collected around the property.

One of the summer's big projects was to upgrade all of the electrical services on the ranch. Everything was brought to current code requirements and the service was expanded to several new areas. Our houses and outbuildings are no longer unsafe.

The main shop also got a shiny new roof! I liked the aesthetics of the cedar shingles that we had to cover up, however the rain and sunshine that could be seen or felt from the inside were not so desirable.


In our efforts to practice sustainable grazing, we decided to lease our pasture to some neighbors that need a place for 28 pairs (cows with their calves) of Charolais cattle . This decision meant I had to do a bit of fencing, so I spend about four hours today working on the fence that forms the boundary around our 80 acres of paradise.

Earlier in the summer, the plan was to mow the four or so acres around our outbuildings, orchard, and corrals, but the grass grew so fast we didn’t have time to pick up the junk and tree limbs. As I drove home one night, I noticed our neighbor tossing hay to his sheep because he had run out of grass for them to eat in his pasture. Perhaps I didn't need to mow it, but could lease it to our neighbor for his sheep--sheep make great lawnmowers! The neighbors came down to check it out and agreed that there was a lot of good grazing to be had. So now I’ve also got to fix that section of fence. It seems like no matter how much we get done, there’s always more to do out here in Big Sky Country. Sorry for posting so few pictures, more to come! I've got to get out and move some water!

Surfacing

The search is over, the vigil and memorial in North Carolina have passed. Nancy's family has returned to Canada for a few days and I guess this is the time when many of us will try to create a degree of normalcy in our lives.

Sunday was the first day that I didn't think about Nancy, her death, and her family incessantly. Monday, yesterday, was the first day that I didn't wake up thinking about Nancy. For days, I would wake in the morning and realize that I had already been thinking about her before I even realized I was awake. At times my grief was paralyzing and at times it felt distant because of my geography.

Life and death roll on.

Our friend Mike, who we met in Boise and who later moved to San Francisco, visited us in Bridger for a long weekend. We explored the reaches of nearby natural wonders in Yellowstone National Park and the Beartooth Pass.

Our Montana neighbors lost one of their dogs; Kathleen went to check water near the highway and her deaf dog wandered into the road.

Our work on the ranch continues with the realization that we will not finish the little house this summer and the conversion of an old lambing barn into a new bath-house.

Tucker supervises the electrical work on the bath-house (if only he had thumbs).

Mountain Pornography

Posting some more pictures of the Sawtooths because they were so breathtaking. These shots were taken while riding down Fourth of July Road outside of Stanley, Idaho.

Shepherd Camp with Hobbled Horses

Fire Damage from 2007

More Fire Damage from 2007

Stole this solo-bike-in-photograph staging from Jill Homer.

Weekend Update

Hello out there in the blogosphere! Kate and I have been busy working and commuting from Bridger (Jon) to Boise (Kate) during the last week. We spent last weekend in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho with our nephew, a bunch of mountain biker/hiker friends from Boise, and six dogs. The cabin was south of Stanley, Idaho, on a ridge just a few hundred yards above the Salmon River; breathtaking.

Saturday there was hiking or biking for everyone, and rumor has it there was also a bit of swimming for Troy. Kate went to mountain biking camp in Ketchum, Idaho on Saturday and the rest of the boys rode the Sawtooth Mountains. The ride really took the wind out of my sail. After not having ridden in a month, I really bit off more than I could chew. We rode all 19 miles of the Fisher Creek loop from 6700 ft to 8200 ft. It was brutal for me, but worth every minute of it to check out the scenery.

On Sunday, some of us decided to ride from the 4th of July Creek Road, elevation 8720 ft. We had to work with the Forest Service guys to clear some trees from the road to make our way to the trail head.

Jon, Kate, Troy, KJ, and Ryan
(not pictured: Molly, Erin, Jim, and the dogs)

We eventually had to turn back because there was way too much snow. What an experience!


The following week, we headed back to Montana separately. On Wednesday, Troy and I made the drive in 11 hours and Kate made it in 10 hours on Thursday. It sure is nice to be here on the ranch. Upon our arrival, we found that someone out there ordered a nice gift for the residents of rural southern Montana.


Thanks, we enjoyed it here in the Clark's Fork Valley.

Toys!

New toys are the greatest, aren't they? Well, this one is more of a necessity than most of our toys. After months of deliberation about how our summer was going to play out, we decided that living in a tent at the ranch over the summer wouldn't be that much fun. We looked around Boise and found a reasonably priced camper and after a few days of negotiating we purchased a Jayco Tent Camper. It's going to be great to have; aside from living in the tent trailer this summer, we are already planning camping trips in the fall! Here are a couple of preview pictures. We can't wait to go camping with you!