Author: Gin Getz

Morning moose

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Early morning as the sky begins to lighten. I’ve been looking out regularly (and throughout the night) at my son’s mare due to foal today. A young female moose steals my attention now. She is lying in a patch of yet unopened iris out on pasture not far from the gate. The same pasture the moose have claimed for the past two weeks, and probably the same moose I’ve been cussing for grazing heartily on our already too limited pasture.

There, now, she is resting so close to my unconcerned herd. The horses, once so quick to spook and snort at the sight or smell, have become conditioned to their regular presence and mill about at ease. I watch her through the binoculars and the sky brightens and my vision improves. For the first time, I find such beauty in these otherwise awkward animals. She is a soft charcoal grey, I imagine touching her neck, stroking soft and silky, with the wavy hairs along her back like the mane of a horse, and her long nose, almost regal. I see a different side to her this morning, a shared familiarity, as she lies there. The female side. I’ve never seen their beauty, but nor have I shared this intimacy of a peaceful morning rest.

She’s up now, trotting off to meet up with the two young bulls she’s spent the spring with that must be lower down the pasture beyond my view, told by the direction of the horses heads, all turned in unison in that direction. The horses do not turn to watch her rise and leave. My attention returns to the expecting mare.

Connections

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Sometimes it seems it is all about connection.
Connections growing, holding on to established ones, clinging to the ones we had and fear are slipping away, and longing for ones we do not have.
Connection to each other, our family and friends, our dreams and goals and aspirations, the land.
It often comes back to the land, though our society seems less connected; a void left unfulfilled.
And suddenly we begin to care from where our food comes, or about the change of color of a once green hillside now red and brown from beetle kill, or recognize the subtle sound of a single trout upon an otherwise still evening pool after catching the last fly of the day.
A forgotten connection on the surface deeper than we will ever erase.

And letting go

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

And then it
is over

Winter
tucked away so neatly for the season

Not unlike
the box of shiny ornaments in the attic from the Christmas tree

The white
peaks surround, a reminder like left over wrapping papers and ribbons

Scattered still
in the corners of the room.

Somehow we
sense she is finally through

What we have
known

The givens,
assumptions, the safety of knowing

Is suddenly
gone

The bottom
dropped out from under

Searching for
solid ground

When we were
so used to walking on feet of snow

We are left
empty

Surprised to
find ourselves suddenly without

The habit of
heavy boots and zipped up parkas

As I head
out in morning to feed the horses

Who too are
finally letting go of their winter coats.

We leave
behind the wilds of winter

Easing into
summer so civilized with folks living for cocktail hour

And we may
never see it again.

Holding on

/ Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Winter won’t let go.

Seems like snow most every day.  This morning, no more than a soft dusting across meadow and hillside, fine white lace along the still bare branches of the Aspen and the needles of the Blue Spruce.  Temperatures are only a fraction below freezing.  My peas still have not come up.  I wonder now if they will.  Or are they no more than a gift to the soil, a trial run, and will I start anew in another week when the forecast promises more sun.

Winter, but a memory, lingering, holding on, grasping to what was, what could have been.  My last one here. I find myself caught between holding on and letting go.

A snowball tossed from the morning snow onto bare ground where the sun has already touched, only to melt before mid day.  As if it never were.

Inside looking out

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

The world returns to white. 

The view out my window is soft and heavy and wet and white.  I slip on my boots and down jacket and head out to feed the horses.  The boots I thought were retired for the season, now brimming with snow, deep snow, dampening my jeans because the boots aren’t high enough snow.

Ten. That’s how many Mays I’ve been here.  Ten. And I’d never seen snow like this in May.  “Back in the day,” my husband tells me. And even then, he says, snow like this was a crazy thing.   You just never know.  The mountain is mightier than we are.  The best we can do is work with what we she gives us.  She gives us plenty.  And this spring, that’s plenty of snow.

It’s crazy, alright. The robins are perched on the fence post looking down at the white ground and wondering what went wrong.  The chickens hide under the shelter of their coop and can’t figure out what cruel joke was played on them this year, just when they started laying regularly again.  And Norman, dear Norman, the new guy – his training continues in spite of the snow.  Perhaps he’ll learn to pull a sleigh before he has to pull a slip and plow.

Ten Mays.  I came and said I’d stay a while.  Now it’s been a while.  Some days, it feels like too long.  We were ready to leave long ago.  A friend wrote yesterday, “How do you like your new mountain and your new ranch?”  He can’t believe I am still here.  I can’t either.

Ten Mays and still it is not mine.  I knew it never would be. Not because of the elements, the elevation, not even the snow.  Those things are in way mine.  I know them, feel them, am with them intimately. Those things we can work with. It’s something more.  Deeper.  A connection.  Was it severed, or did it never grow? 

A land that is both a mirage and memory for most.

I seek something fuller and richer and deeper than that.  Hands immersed in warm soil, toes buried in sand.  Seeds scattered, roots spreading.   A connection.  A place to live and die and toil.  I’m not looking for a place to get away but to remain. 

It seems so simple.  Basic.  A good place to start.  Funny it should take me so long to find. 

And so, where will my mornings find me, with what view out my window in the lightening sky as I sit here and write you?

Ah, the view before me. White and muted behind the veil of falling snow.  I have been glad to be here, am gladder still to leave.

I’m not big on retrospect, too often filled with sadness or anger.  Let it go.  I’ve seen too many hold onto a lifetime of resentment, hurting themselves most of all.  A bitter pill swallowed every day.

I’d rather take my chances, spit it out, and see what lies ahead.  Or right now, for that matter, because now is a wonderful time too.  A time of change.

Change. To where? Where am I going?  What will I be doing? What adventures are we creating?

For now, our hands are full, tied.  Tied to mops and window cleaners, to reins and driving lines, hammers, saws and moving boxes. 

And that’s just the beginning. But I guess that’s enough for now.

Walking for water

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Because I believe so strongly that it is the adventures we create in our lives that bring us the greatest riches.  And adventures aren’t always easy.

Because my husband believes in riding for the brand, trying a little harder for the boss, doing all he can to get more water.  In a way, it was all about the water.  Checking on the ditch.  Seeing if we could open the headgates on the other side of the Divide and start the flow in the ditch earlier than usual.  Although the snowpack prevented the water from getting through, it did not dampen our adventure.  Only made it a little “more.”

Because my son was first thinking about work, and the money it brings, and the ensuing parts and repairs this would allow him to whichever motorized toy (snowmobile or dirt bike) he’s currently tweaking…  however when we said money probably wasn’t involved, we were looking at it as “a day off,” his enthusiasm did not waiver.  He was not going to miss out on a family adventure.

Because the pup had some energy to burn and of course, not being with us would never cross him mind.

And I don’t believe it did.  Nine hours and fourteen miles later.

My Hands

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

It’s breakfast time.  I’m sitting at the kitchen table with my boys.  This table, sanded for hours and finished soft and smooth by my hands.  My hands, so rough and worn and weathered. I hold them before me now.  A curious sight.  The most intimate part of me, attached and exposed, in constant use, in constant view.  Tactile, touching, sensing and creating the world around me.

I never saw hands like this when I was growing up except on the very old with a lifetime of stories to share.  I am still constructing my stories.  How will these hands look by the time I am through?

Skin like leather.  Like a sun parched, windswept landscape, rutted with years of scars, deep lines each with a story to tell, from hot New York City dates to high mountain horses bucking.

Hands that have built homes, birthed and buried how many animals, built fences and barns and homes, nurtured trees and gardens and roses in fertile soil, shoveled a mountain of manure and snow and dirt at the ditch, kneaded how many loaves of bread, and remained somehow tender though probably never enough for my husband and the child I’ve raised.

I hold these hands before my face and look at them oddly.  Broad and coarse and unrefined, furrowed with deep lines, drawn over with fine lines, wrinkles earned from years of use.  Not battling the elements, but a part of them. Hands in the world around me. Shaping, building, forming, feeling.

And still a tender touch.  Hands that stroke my dogs’ silky side, rest on my horse’s warm neck, hold my son’s worried or proud hand, touch my husband’s secret soft side.

These are my tools, my livelihood, the lines of my life.  My hands.

Planting Peas

/ Gin Getz / 10 Comments

Because life is too darned short to sit around and wait until you find the perfect place, the perfect weather, the perfect conditions.

Who defines “perfect” anyway?

Sometimes you just have to leap before the net appears.

And plant before the last frost free date. 

Because up here, there is no guarantee of a frost free date.

Who says you can’t?

As our friend Marv once told me, the word “can’t” isn’t spoken in this house.

So, I can plant peas.  Even in the snow…

And today, lettuce, chard, carrots, radish, beets and bok choi.

And maybe the net will appear, and I’ll have a basket full of bounty from these humble raised beds.

Or maybe I can just say I had fun trying.  Because really, just being out there, working the soil, yes, even in the heavy falling spring snow, sure feels pretty close to perfect to me.

Meet the new guy

/ Gin Getz / 11 Comments

How do I describe him?  If you were here, I bet the first thing that you’d say would be “Big.” Or note his super sized feet.

The two year old son of the woman who raised Norman called him “bright.”  And indeed, in his slick summer coat and highlighted hair, he shines.  He glows.  He has a halo about him.  Although he is somewhat big, I think what we have here is a four legged angel.  With furry wings on his feet.

For those who have known me for at least a little while, you know a big part of our summers consists of heading to the high(er) country and “digging ditch” deep in the Weminuche Wilderness.

Gizmo had been our faithful ditch digging companion for the past four years.  But out of due respect, we decided it was time to allow him retirement.  We’d rather let him enjoy his later years in style (Texas style, no less) than keep pushing and using and possibly wearing him down.

Besides I love a challenge.  That’s how I learn and grow.

So here’s Norman.  My newest challenge.  A big horse for a little woman. A five year old Percheron/Belgium cross draft horse that I can tell you already has a similar heart of gold that Gizmo has.  A heart as large as his big ol’ feet, and then some, maybe.

Norman found us by way of a friend in Pennsylvania who saw an ad for a draft horse in Texas.  Five years old and never been trained. But handled with love and kindness.  That’s the foundation I look for.  Forget those who are worried about “spoiling.”  Just like with kids, kind and gentle care is the best I can ask for.  No baggage, no fear, no worries about people and dogs, and when he sees you coming, he perks up and walks over to greet you.  I’ll take “spoiled” any day, thank you.

Not a lot of folks out there breeding, training and using draft horses.  When it was time to look for a new draft horse to replace Gizmo, the most common recommendation we heard as we asked around was to ask the Amish.  “Get an Amish trained draft horse,” we were told more than once. But since when am I going to do what I’m told?

From what I saw last year, the first and only time we’ve seen the Amish and their stock make it high up this mountain horseback, I’ll stick with doing my own training.

Before we even encountered this group we saw the tracks. Far bigger than Norman’s and the trail was just not built for a side by side team, though the tracks told us that’s what these horses were used to.  Our trails are narrow, twisting, tight and fine.  Not the best place for a really big horse, not to mention attempts at walking side by side.  They just didn’t fit.

So there we were, end of last summer, heading to another few days of digging ditch, riding up the trail in our usual silent smooth procession, looking down following these giant tracks, most of which are off the trail (“Trail?  What’s a trail?” Not what a valley farm horse knows.).

Lo and behold we meet a man, a frantic rider on a nervous horse. The horse is small, made for riding, but clearly not used to the mountains and elevation.  He’s being pushed on, his eyes are wide, head high and tight, nostrils flaring, in full sweat, froth dripping from his chest, ears and between his legs, exhausted and clearly out of his element as he whinnied and pranced in place and carried on with the man on his back.

“Have you seen a loose horse,” the man asked us as he tries to control his mount?

No, and we point out to him that you could tell if you looked at the ground, there were no recent tracks in the soft trail heading down the mountain from where we came.

Next we arrive at our camp only to find a Forest Service employee wondering if this was our camp… or the camp of the Amish that they could not find.  We look across the valley and in the distance see a loose horse still running wild through the trees, another tied alone to a tree, we could hear his crying from over a half mile away, and a couple more going back and forth, containing the carnage.

Then he told us of the Big Wreck.  Now, I suppose many people starting out have wrecks. Packing is not as easy as it looks. And this was a doozie.  World class wreck for high mountain horse packing.

He tells of odd gear sprawled across the hillside, spilled open sleeping bags, the old fashioned kind you used in your backyard tent when you were a Boy Scout, and various pots and pans sprinkled all over the trail. He tells of horses running, gear flying, people yelling.  And he tells us it was the worse of the wrecks he’d seen, and was in awe that so far, the horses made it through relatively unscathed.

He’s told me enough!

You know, if you place me behind a team out in the flats somewhere, you’d probably find a similar wreck. Out of my element.  But for now, I’ll stick with the mountains.  And mountain horses.

Well, all this story does is show you why I was happy to find a draft horse that was NOT Amish trained, not too big, and just darned nice.  Now, turning him into a skilled and seasoned mountain horse is our next adventure. 

Or at least, one of the many that we’re embarking on as the season progresses.

Starting with a typical day

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

And us…

Starting with a typical day.

Yesterday.

5:30 a.m. and my world is already light.  I hate that.  I’d rather rise not only before the sun, but before the light.  But somehow, when we don’t finish dinner till after 9, then clean up, wash up (ah… the beloved bath… enjoy it while I still can as another summer without indoor plumbing or running water awaits us), catch up and reading to unwind… somehow this makes waking earlier harder. 

In spite of the bath, I wake with sore muscles.  A pleasant reminder of how much we got done the day before. A permanent part of early spring.  Taking it easy and going slow is out of the question when you’ve waited for months to see the ground.  Now is the time to DO.  Winter will come again.  Though this coming winter promises great surprises.  For us as well as you. I’ll explain all that another time.

The pup has learned his place, quiet beside me, ignoring the cats that remain always frisky in the first of morning.  I sit on the sofa with his warm furry body on one side, the wood stove softly purring on the other, and the computer on my lap.  Less creative writing, more correspondence as tourist season approaches and the mountain and our world prepares to open up.

Chores, feeding the horses, a pleasure right now, as the panic of winter has passed and the horses have this easy calm about them.  Soft eyes and ears, they’re happy for breakfast when it comes, but are not tense in anticipation.  Now they have time to look me in the eye as if saying a polite, “Thank you,” then lower  their heads with a gentle sigh and graciously take what is given to them.

The last of their winter coats are still holding, despite daily brushings and their spring de-worming.  Another week, and they too will be bright and shiny as was the description of our greatly anticipated Norman, the new draft horse arriving tomorrow from his family in Texas. Almost a swap, for Texas is where our old draft, Gizmo, was allowed for an early retirement.

Then we jog, on this morning, just Gunnar and me.  Yes, jog. Usually all of us.  As if we didn’t get enough exercise throughout the day, you ask?  Heck, I’m only up to two miles.  A long ways to go before any marathons.  But not too bad for 10,000 feet elevation. Part training for the pup to stay with me at a heel, and training for us two leggeds, for it began just a month ago inspired by Forrest’s fundraiser (the High Country Hustle).  In any case, we started on packed snowmobile tracks, then frozen slush, then mud.  Biting snow blowing in our faces as we faced into the morning storms was not unusual.  We’re hearty. And you can’t let your life wait on soft sunny days. Get out there, I say! So there we were, in muck boots, if you can picture that, the three of us with our long skinny legs running up the mountain in tall rubber boots.

Now the road is back to dirt. Hard, dry dirt.  And I don running shoes.  And truly, it feels fabulous!

We return and the boys are up. Sort of.  Silently stumbling around, but at least with smiles. I get breakfast going on the old cook stove.  Homemade toast fried in the big cast iron skillet, home grown eggs with big and brown shells and glowing orange yolks.  Nothing fancy, but hearty and rich.  “Eggs and toast again…”  I’ve heard them complain.  Forrest has yet to have cold cereal for breakfast.  Ah, college will bring many surprises for him.

Then the day really begins.  There’s a gate to fix. Bob’s out there welding.  We bring the horses in for training and grooming, brushing off their winter coats, and polishing up old manners, teaching good new ones.  Two yearlings, two three year olds, and a few that just need to shine up the rusty patches.  I know the feeling.  Working with the horses, sitting in the saddle or on their soft warm backs, feels awkward again at first.  For maybe the first two days.  Then I’m back to wishing I had nothing better to do and could be there all day (and I swear the horses wish the same).

Nearly fifty by noon, but a good biting spring wind to remind us we’re in the mountains.

But we have lots more to do.  Getting the ranch and cabins set for our final season.  And construction.  Always construction!  Starting with the bathroom remodel.  The last of the old bathrooms from the original guest cabins… We ripped it out, exterior walls and all, last fall. Figured we’d just start from scratch.  Had the big cavernous hole to the cabin blocked off with tarps for the winter, and only now are we able to break up the ground to dig in new pipes – with a jackhammer.  Frozen solid soil.  Testament to how deep our frost line goes and how late it remains.   (Don’t worry, Bob P – we’ll have it done in time for you!)

Anyway, that’s just part of it.  Suffice to say I find myself quitting before the sun does, wishing I could hold out longer, but fantasizing about how good that bath and a hot dinner will feel.  Except of course, then I have to cook that hot meal. Thus the late dinners in Spring.

So… the rest of my updates will wait for another day.  I’ve got work to do.  But as Maggie reminds me, there should always be time for keeping up with friends.