Food, Groceries, Mess, Chow, Snacks....

.... you'd think that the week was completely taken up with food, and you'd be mostly right.  All the food for every pack trip is prepared here at the ranch and then reheated in camp.  So, with two relatively large trips coming up back to back, and me going on the first one, I had to prepare ALL the food for both trips this week.  So, one trip food for 11 people for 3 days and another trips food for 9 people for 5 days.  Lots of shopping, baking, cooking, etc.

White & Ital Cheese Bread, Biscuits, Oat-Raisin cookies

Brownies

Just a few of the items I prepared were Strawberry-Rhubarb & Wild Berry pies; 3 types of cakes, various cookies & Brownies, cheesecake; 

Hollandaise Sauce

Mushroom Gravy

Pork Tenderloin with mushroom gravy, Flank Steak and roasted red potatoes, Seafood Pasta, Marinated Chicken Breasts, etc.; Lots of breads including w/w rolls, Italian cheese bread, white bread, french bread, and so on.

Triple Citrus cheesecake

Wild Berry Pie

In addition to baking & cooking, we also moved more horses up to the ranch from winter pasture.  As with any ranch-related task, it's never as easy as it sounds.  We started the day with a plan to go pickup our pickup and the ranch's horse trailer from the tire place where we'd dropped them the day before, and use them to help haul horses.  Headed down with the 4-horse on a ranch truck, and a 2nd two-tone truck to be repaired.  Once in town, we dropped off the two-tone at the repair shop & then headed to the tire shop where we discovered that the horse trailer & had only gotten 3 new tires instead of 4, so we'd have to return it later.  Then, the ball on our pickup was the wrong sizes for the 4-horse. So, we thought we'd just switch balls, but our "stinger" was locked on & we don't have they key. (info side note:  Many towing vehicles today, have a ball/hitch setup called a Receiver Hitch.  The part that the ball is bolted onto, is the "stinger" and can be easily switched out in most cases so that the balls themselves don't have to be changed.)  So, BACK over to the repair shop that we had just visited to drop off the blue two-tone, to see if he could either cut off the lock or loan us tools to unbolt the balls from both stingers & switch them.  He DID have tools, and it's a good thing they were big because it took a T-Rex size pipe wrench to get them off.  THEN, back to the tire shop to get the 4-horse trailer where we'd dropped it to put the gooseneck trailer on the ranch truck.  (Our pickup can only haul bumper-pull trailers, hence all the shuffling).  Finally all set to go, so after 2 more quick stops, we headed to winter pasture, where we arrived just in time for a massive downpour.

We took shelter in the vehicles until the storm passed.

Josie was NOT enjoying the storm as much as she typically would.

Once the storm passed, we were able to move horses into the holding pen and get them caught.  I do have video so will add later if I can.  In the meantime, here are a few pictures of them after they were corralled. 

 

And here I am on my way out w/ the 4-wheeler & a small load of horses in the 4-horse trailer.  (Shout out to Wayne & Sylvia here - we're putting the truck to work already!)

So, that was a look at our week through Thursday.  Next blog I'll catch you up on the last minute preparations for the trip and the trip itself!

Today is the first day ....

...of the rest of your life. Well, here it is the end of my first week of "tracking memories". While not a week of non-stop excitement, it WAS a typical ranch week for us. Last weekend, we spent Saturday finishing up fencing out at River Ranch which is part of our "winter pasture" for the horses.  

Info sidebar: Outfitters, guest ranches and even some cattle ranches, must always decide whether to "lease" their horse herd for their season, or to own the herd or a combination of both. The biggest advantage of leasing is being able to send them away for the majority of the year, when you are not using them. As most back country areas are only accessible for general pack trip recreation from mid-June to September, it doesn't make sense to pay for feed for your stock for a full 12 months. However, if the guest ranch or outfitter has winter pasture available, which the stock can graze on without supplemental feed, it can be much more cost-effective to own your herd or at least a portion of it. So, the term "winter pasture" generally refers to a location where there is grass that is typically free from snow, either via winds, warmer temperatures or low snow fall. While sometimes they may need supplemental hay fed, it is usually only for a short time.

  In our case, our "winter pasture" is relatively close (which isn't always the case), and is located on both private and public pastures down on the Madison River. Each winter, the river ices over and spreads out and the ice flow greatly exceeds the banks. That ice, as it starts to break up and move down river, carries the "jack-leg" fence with it.  

ANOTHER Info Side note:(Jack-leg refers to the wooden 'posts' which are crossed near the top to make a long "x", that just sit on the ground rather than being driven into it and are spaced approximately 10' apart, on which either wooden rails can be placed, or in our case, 4 strands of wire).

So, as the fence is torn apart & carried downstream, the wire gets broken. Our job was to find as many of the missing jack-legs that had been carried away, as possible. Return them to their locations and re-string the wire if we were able. So, from afar, you'd have seen several people wandering around a big open (ROCKY) pasture, pointing at the ground. (That was me doing the pointing) and Jeff coming along and picking up the jack-leg, one on each shoulder) and carrying them back to the fence line. Then MORE wandering, looking for wire and then looking for the END of the wire, culminating in the painful/frustrating/time-consuming/scarring task of trying to roll the rusty old barb wire up neatly for future use. Once we found as many jack-legs as possible and placed them in their homes, we filled in any bare spots with metal t-posts pounded into the (very rocky) ground. Once posts were ready, wire was re-strung. Fixing gates and corner posts were also some time-consuming tasks.

While there, we saw the baby fawn in the picture at the top of the blog and lots of Antelope.

Once that job was completed, we drove to Big Sky Saturday evening and spent the night at the Corral Bar & Motel. This was somewhat poignant as that was the last full weekend they were open. Due to new wealthy neighbor who has chosen to no longer honor the agreement the Corral owner (Devon) has had with owners of that parcel for years, the business has no location for it's septic system, requiring it to shut down. The owners did their best to raise the $400,000 the new neighbor was requiring in order to purchase the very small parcel, but just didn't have the time as they had to shut down by June 13th.

On Sunday, we enjoyed a wonderful "old home" week at Big Sky Christian Fellowship as several friends who had also moved away chose that Sunday to visit. After church, we picked up our "new to us" ride, a 97 Ford F350 4wd Dually. Now we just have to find a buyer for the Expedition (hint, hint to all you readers! :) After going to Bozeman for some errands, we had a nice drive home.

 The rest of the week was mostly taken up with ranch work and prep for our upcoming pack trip. This included a LOT of baking for me, a trip to Costco, and assisting our boss with some bookwork. Jeff spent the week spraying pasture weeds (a long & tedious task on 180 acres as you put a 100 gallon tank on the truck, fill it with your water & weed killer & then drive slowly back & forth, a truck width at a time, spraying the plants). He also took a day ride Friday, repaired window screen, irrigated, fenced, etc. (I'll give a more 'typical' day explanation in a later post). Ice cream Thursday night in town, and then a Prime Rib dinner last night were my birthday celebrations. We worked all week but do get tomorrow (Sunday) off so that'll be nice. AND we get to visit with Cora whom we've missed seeing.

Well, I think I covered this week. Not too wild, but we have seen lots of baby antelope and deer, a bear on the hillside behind the cabin, lots of beautiful Tanagers, eagles hawks and other birds. We live in a pretty amazing place. I hope all of you are living your wild dreams and preserving your wonderful memories.

When I'm An Old Woman....

..... I want to remember. I've been thinking about starting a new blog. I know I already have one ("Earning My H") but I really wanted to do one that was less about my personal thoughts & peeves, and more about our less-common work and daily lifestyle. But, I couldn't decide if people would want to hear about that. And then, today, as I was listening to a Steeldrivers song, I realized that the blog isn't about sharing with others as much as preserving memories. I think often about what it might be like when I'm an old woman... will I remember the Wild Country? Will I reminisce about wild things and lonely places? Or will it blur and fade to a pale picture? So, this new blog is for ME to remember and record what we do, because we love it so much (well, most of the time). But, because some of you have expressed interest in the past about our work or area or what we are doing, I've chosen to share it with whoever my want to read it. So, if you want to share it with someone, feel free to do so. With one caveat: It's MY life and MY blog for MYself... so if you don't agree with anything I may write, just keep it to yourself. If you DO like it, please feel free to comment. That's it for now, but will try to make the overall page look better and add something worth reading soon. :)