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| Snow Lady below Maggie Beecher |
In the canyon we've had temperatures from single digit frozen days to fifty degrees above zero. The wet weather has made the norths even more treacherous, with thawed ground on top of frozen ground, and ice lingering in the draws. We marvel that the animals can get around at all. Thank goodness it finally did warm up because our water line froze between the spring and the house and turned our cistern into a 550 gallon ice cube.
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| My 'birthday present' to Mike |
Our two goals the last few weeks were to thaw and repair waterline and rebuild the corrals. Everybody who came to the river put in a lick on one of these projects. Cheryl. Jon and Prairie. Zeke and Gabe. Bashar.
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| Prairie cleans up weeds |
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| Jon hangs a gate |
We're getting ready to wean and the corrals need to be done before we can bring the calves in. The improvements to the corrals will make working cattle a lot nicer.
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| Some of our new posts |
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| Bashar gears up to go to work |
Bashar, the Palestinian exchange student living in Joseph, came down for few days and it rained and blew. He got muddy and wet, but he marveled at the cowboy gear that kept him relatively comfortable. I am thankful Bashar traveled all the way from Gaza to spend a year learning about another way of life in another country. We are learning from him too.
Hiking back from closing gates upriver, I was thinking of Jack McClaran who passed away this week. When I first met Jack, Mike and I were living at Tulley Creek working for Warren Glaus. Gabe and Prairie were just babies. Later when we worked for Jack, putting up hay along Lightning Creek in summer and wintering at Cow Creek, I got to hear his stories. Stories of growing up, of growing the McClaran ranch, stories that became part of my education on how to work and live in the canyons.
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| Bashar and Newt - heading back to the house |
Now Mike and I are watching our parents' generation pass on as we step into some of their roles. We have another generation coming on. Marriages, new babies. And we see ourselves trying to find out what our children want to make of the places we've cultivated, the animals we've raised, the opportunities they see.
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| Weston tries out snow boots |
During the many years we neighbored McClarans, wintering at Dug Bar and summering at the Steen Place, I'd bump into Jack in town and he was always ready with a smile and a hug. He always took time to ask about the children, our jobs, what we were learning, and later, on about the ranch, our cattle and our operation.
As man who meant a lot to a lot of people, Jack will be sorely missed.
I will miss him as a man who understood a life in the canyon, a life of neighborliness, of creeks and draws and benches, of high rims and slick norths, of horses sharp-shod and cattle balanced on an icy trail, of a hot cup of coffee on a wet day, of a stop-and-chat along a muddy road and a reminder that life is right here, right now.
From Sara at Magpie Ranch, home of Bunchgrass Beef
