Fire and photography

So the ranch has been CRAZY busy lately- Stacy and Elaine went to the east coast, their oldest son and his wife just moved here, OPB came to film the ranch for a segment they're doing on modern ranching, six Japanese are here to learn about beef/take pictures, another large group is coming in tomorrow, and meanwhile there's a fire in frenchglen so everything is smokey and the phone rings all the time with either news or questions about the fire!

The awesome sunset that the photographers wanted to have in the background of the dinner scene.

Three of the six. Out of all of them only the girl in green could speak English, she was the translator. The man on the left is one of the best photographers in Japan, and takes pictures for a high end magazine where the pictures will be featured.

It was a weird evening, Elaine was going crazy cooking up a storm while her daughter-in-law (Melissa) and I helped out cleaning and cooking and finding tablecloths and pitchers. The the Jappanese people came and picked Stacy, Elaine, their son Wes, Melissa, and ME to be in the picture. They picked the least cowboy person there, I wasn't even wearing plaid like everyone else.

So we all sat there and had pictures taken, some looking at the camera and some "candid" ones. Smiling wasn't too hard because we were all laughing anyways. The photographer kept speaking to us in Japanese with instructions as if we knew what he was saying while the translator no where in sight.

Everyone else was extremely relieved to not be in the pictures and stood by watching the funny scene. This is Scott, the Davies' youngest boy.

I'm sad I forgot to take a picture of the food- it was really really good, the Davies certainly know how to cook steak.

They're climbing in your windows!

They're climbing in my windows,
Clogging my showers up
So ya'll need to hide yo garbage,
Hide yo water
And hide yo self cause they're hoppin' up errywhere.

Seriously though.

They gon find you.

PS This is still my most favorite thing ever.

The Move.

Last Friday this Swiss man came to the ranch and Stacy askedme right then to move out of the tin house.

I now live in what was once the original ranch house... from the 1920's! Obviously it's been updated since then, but really it's just a big empty house.

I'm grateful to be a little closer to other people though, i.e. I don't have to cross two streams to get to the bunkhouse.

The house was a little messy when I first came in, but I've been working on it. There was poop all over the kitchen, I didn't know what from until I was going to sleep when I heard a rustling from my garbage in the kitchen. I got out of bed, turned on the kitchen light, and there were three frogs on the floor, another in the sink, and more in other parts of the house. I'm not really sure what you're supposed to do about frogs... so I just moved the garbage and shut my bedroom door.

The house is better than the shack though- I'm no longer living out of a suitcase, and instead of a rock chucks  I have frogs.

Planting Trees

I don't want to dwell on this one. Let me just tell you.

It sucks.

Food!

So the bunkhouse where the buckaroos stay has a kitchen and dining area. The cook, Santos, is a Mexican woman in her early 60's, and she cooks breakfast, dinner, and cookies every day.

The Kitchen.

I've only caught breakfast a few times, mostly my first week, because it's served at 6 in the morning, and I've found that I can sleep in until 6.30. By the time I come in at 6.45 everything's put away so I just have a bowl of cold cereal. There's always food out.

Generally Santos makes scrambled or easy over eggs, either bacon or sausage, and either pancakes or biscuits. There's a large walk in fridge that has a ton of milk and plenty of eggs.

For lunch the buckaroos have to pack a lunch, and I guess sometimes they never get the chance to eat it. But the office is attached to the bunkhouse so I just go over and make myself a sandwich.

Dinner largely varies. Well, half the time there's some shady looking meat that is pretty tough. When that happens I just make myself a quesadilla. It's awesome to have Santos as a cook because she makes homemade tortillas and keeps them in the fridge. Yummmm. Sometimes she makes us some Mexican food for dinner, those are always my favorite days!

5/20/12

Sunday

My legs are STILL tingly but not so bad as yesterday.

Here’s something embarrassing-

The Davies left for their son’s air force graduation/wedding, and I really wanted to go to the Burns ward, so I decided Iwould drive myself down in “my” truck. Thankfully there aren’t any stops until you get into Burns itself, so I drove all the way down there… and then couldn't find the chapel! I might have been more willing to make a better search for it if I wasn’t so freaking inept at the stick shift! There was one stop sign, and one red light. Between the two of those I probably killed the car 15 times. No exaggeration.

So I turned around and went home.

The lovely truck.

Anyhow, three hours straight in that car and no church. I then proceeded to watch all of Downton Abbey season two. Ummmm yes please!

Who remembers that scene in Princess Diaries where Mia and the queen are driving in San Francisco up that horrible hill? I never really understood why it was so hard for her, but then I had never driven stick before. There is a hill as you’re leaving Frenchglen, it’s steep and you have no momentum to push up it. Thankfully I didn’t pull out the emergency brake and roll back onto a trolly of tourists, but it was a little scary. 

Saturday Half Day!

Saturday 19^th

Saturdays are half work days, so I get off at 12.00.

Half of me says thank goodness and the other half asks what on earth I’m going to do all day.

I decided to go on a small hike on the cliff in an attempt to figure out how far over some caves are. Traveling sideways while going up is pretty difficult and slow, so I just guessed on how far over to go to get approximately under the caves, then started climbing up. I guessed incorrectly, and came back down. Going down is always much more difficult than going up. 


I had decided earlier to go hiking in shorts.

Shorts.

I knew my legs would get a little scratched, but didn't care much about that and didn’t think much of it.

Lately I’ve been worrying about snakes. There are rattlesnakes out here, and I heard that they like to be near water. Great. There are streams EVERYWHERE around here Roaring Springs, the water comes right from the cliff!

Notice the streams.

So I was worrying about that and then took this picture-

 to show where I’m afraid to go because of the snakes. and then I got stuck on a rock and had to jump right into that nice bright green bush pictured below.

This was my immediate reaction to stinging nettles.

My knees and shin got all mottled and gross.

I very nearly put some windex on it.

And thus ended my Saturday adventure. It proved to be very educational, and quite painful.