Month: November 2021

Seasons are not the same year to year. Everyone can sense the differences, no matter how small, if they are in tune. The changes here, however, November 2020 versus November 2021, are not subtle but I am enjoying the freedom. The ranch is mostly devoid of humans now, a hunting lull and most have packed and winterized their cabins, returning to their winter lives.

A year ago this week I was dependent upon Moon Bug to get to and from the house, the Jeep parked down at the junction of Borman and Kline. From there, I could still drive wheeled down the mountain as long as I was careful. It was cold, blistery and I was attacking my wood reserves twofold, notably for I did not understand the subtleties of modern wood stoves.

This year the ground is bare. The temperatures are in the fifties most afternoons under a fully pounding Fall sun, so life is much different here year to year. I am burning from my wood piles as of today, six weeks or so later to start diminishing piles carefully crafted over the summer. Moon Bug is tracked up, sitting idle. I watched friends take a booze cruise around upper Schierl last night in a wheeled vehicle. The entire ranch is still snow free.

Another day to go outside and enjoy the bonus of our Fall. I have company this weekend and next, with nary a snow storm in sight.

The old boy joined me twelve years ago today. I had an old goofy pit bull at the time and no one could tire that girl out, so I went hunting for a companion for the pit. Picked on a whim for the dogs bonded quickly, the old boy is the smartest, most in tune dog I’ve ever had.

He is aging, now at fifteen plus, but it has been a good life. He’s never known me to leave home for a job, working remotely since before he arrived. He has been part of packs, and has had a few years solo with me, my daily companion. This ranch is his retirement home, and it is a gift for him to explore as well.

I will scritch his butt when he rises; sleeping is his new favorite activity.

Arrival Day, 2009

Summer, 2011

Deck Chair Dog, 2014

Sitting on the Pit – his favorite seat, 2015

Sitting on the Pit, 2016

Vacation, 2018

The Elder, 2021

I have been told this several times by several different people – this is a healing valley. I now believe it to be true.

My second cabin is only two miles from town center versus our remoteness, but my new tenant has uttered the same. I have friends visiting next week who no longer live here, but are in the process of returning; one visit with me and they are again hooked on this grounding, calming, open, healing valley I get the privilege of calling home.

This late in the year I am still meeting new people, including a couple that plan to winter here next year. Another couple I met this summer are considering the same. This place draws you in, grabs you, and shakes your soul just enough to allow things to resettle themselves. It is a feeling that, once it takes hold, you don’t want it to let you go.

I know you cannot group all hunters together any more than you can group all non-hunters together, but a pattern does reveal itself as season two in this ranch unfolds. The visitors of this ranch do not treat her as kindly as those that live here at least part of the time.

Last week there was an elk carcass (female) on upper Schierl that was left in the ditch. Barely twenty percent of the meat was harvested, which seems wasteful in unto itself. It was literally in the ditch where our road guy dredges up material to flatten our roads, and also ensured any remaining rot surely will sully the Spring run off. The disrespect of this animal who gave its life was blatant and heartbreaking.

I have seen several hunters drive their vehicles across private lands in the fields by Gray Place and Brophy. I have seen hunters out at night with spot lights (only once), but the depravity of that activity?

Yesterday I ventured out on a mail and package run and stopped not once, nor twice, but three times to pick up trash off Merlo. Gatorade bottles should never be found in this ranch as such. Plastic food wrappers are shameful to find shining on the side of the road.

Many hunters in this ranch are here for a week or two a year, and they are here now. I respectfully request you respect this beautiful place, and yourself, and stop tossing plastic about. If hunters are eating what they harvest, why would they want our animals ingesting their plastic? If hunters want their ranch to remain beautiful, please respect both the land and the animals. I was raised differently; if we killed it, we ate it. All of it, not a token and the rest is left to rot and waste.

It does not seem to matter how long one lives in the ranch. This place seems to draw people of a certain make up, a certain set of base characteristics, a certain core that we all have bonded with, that drew us to this land.

Wednesday I met a man that just bought a cabin here. New blood replacing a couple with a twenty plus year bond to this ranch. He invited me into his home. With friends, we interpreted his solar system, helped get a fire going to prevent an evening chill, and met a very genuine nice man who is now our ranch neighbor. He asked many questions I asked a year ago. It was nice to proffer some wisdom, limited though it may be.

Thursday I made a new and true friend, simply for, when driving by, he stopped here to introduce himself. Another friend was here, we finished our errands, and ventured up the hill to this new fellow’s special, custom, hand finished cabin he had be laboring over for seven plus years. I’ve not seem a home in the ranch yet that is more personalized, unique, and brimming with one human’s life history embedded. A manifested vision, and it is a wonder to behold.

Friday night was dinner with neighbors and friends, and a chance to get introduced to some folks in the ranch. Slightly embarrassed, but comforted by familiar friends and a familiar setting, I managed to fall asleep in the living room during conversation. Apparently, I did not rouse easily, but luckily, was not snoring.

Saturday night was dinner with other friends, a fest, a night that ended after 1.30 a.m., but was full of laughter, sharing, and love.

Yesterday was a day of goodbyes. Two men whom I am proud to call friends left the ranch. The seasons are changing. People are making winter plans. I am too, mine just focus upon hunkering down here in the wilderness, excited that for a spell, the quiet, the blanketed snow, the peace shall return to this special place.

I am lucky to get to winter here yet again.