country living

Mild retreat

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

 

Bring it on

Ready for winter.  The wood shed is packed full. Ten cord of beetle killed spruce, split and stacked and ready to burn.

I have confession to make.  In the form of a hydraulic wood splitter.  Gone for me are the days of wedge and maul. Cheating?  At times I think so. Power tools.  Machines. Something ten years ago I (foolishly?) would have said I never needed.  I may not need it now (at least, I certainly am not going to admit that) but I do like it.  Makes the job go faster with much less effort.  Hard to complain about that.  Though the Mountain Mama in me isn’t always so convinced.  The draw towards traditional is bent out of shape by the noise of motors, moving parts, bells and whistles. This still seems a bit wrong to me.  But my ditch digging shoulders love it, and the job is done, so what can one really complain about?

The hay shed too is filled.  Stacked with small bales piled ten high to get us through the worst of winters.  The horses have already bushed out with their longer winter coats.  The smallest of them, my little Arabian, Flying Crow, started his early this year.  I think by the end of August.  Taking no chances.  Being “hot” here only lasts so long.  And that’s not very long at all.  Cold is a far more common state of being.  He’s been here long enough to know.  By now even memories of his barn and stable in the lower ground are long gone, I’m sure.  He’s a true mountain horse now.

Next we’ll fill the pantry and freezers, though I’m guessing we won’t need three hundred pounds of flour this year.  Forrest will only be joining us for Christmas break, so the cookie jar will empty at a much slower rate, and freshly baked bread will last us an extra day or so.

Yes, I’m ready, thought nothing but sun and mild temperatures are in the forecast.

Will I complain about that?

I think not… What I will do is lace up my hikers, or saddle up my horse and enjoy…

Horse matters

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

(photos by Forrest)

 

Yesterday was spent working with the horses in a different sort of way.  Starting with grooming far better than is normally needed for a mountain mount.  Currying off the mud along the back and girth usually suffices. But we were gearing up for a photo shoot with Forrest of three of our best horses.  Later in the day, when the monsoons did there thing, I edited, deleted and organized the nearly five hundred photos he took.  The end result will be up later today on our ranch website (www.lost-trail.com) on the new page “Sale Barn.”

Why the fuss over our four leggeds?  It’s time to sell a few more.  Downsizing.  Life is full of changes.  This one is harder than most.  Deciding who stays, who goes.  How do you decide which of your children to sacrifice?  Oh come now, it’s not going to be that bad.  (I have to remind myself.)  I will find the best of homes, new partners, and these horses will receive the care and attention they deserve – which will hopefully be even better than that which I give them.

Downsizing. It’s a down side of change.  Some plans get hurt in the process of building your dreams.  You can’t have everything, can you?  Somethings gotta give.  So, sometimes you gotta decide what matters most.  How on earth do I do that with my horses?  Except to look for truly wonderful new homes and partners… and trust….

Why can’t I keep them all, and find time (and money) to give them all I want to give?

On the practical level, there is the reality of us passing on our outfitting business and simply needing fewer horses around to complete the work we are continuing, like the ditch job.  In addition, the horse market is changing.   There seem to be more horses than horsepeople around. The cost of keeping horses and available land to keep them on is out of balance. Add that to the aging market and the change in our society as a whole, which is becoming increasingly less rural, more centralized.  As a result, we see the horse market nationwide becoming more elite.  I’m not big on elite.

But really, there is more to it than all that.  Something deeper. Consider the change of going from a small time breeder where every colt born was a celebration of life, and had a future on our ranch… to wondering if and how long he or she would live.  With the death of the first foal, everything changed.  And continued to change as foals continued to die.  Suddenly, birth was not the blessing I once considered it to be.  Life, or even the prospect there of, became tainted with a dreaded fear.  Birth became a time of trepidation, not elation.

“Only those who have can lose,” our vet told us in sympathy after one more loss a couple of years ago.  I intend to have.  But along the way, I know I’ll lose a few.  In the case of those I’ve chosen to sell, I comfort myself with the hope that I can and will find a perfect partnership for each horse.  Something I am unable to provide here for a dozen horses.

Practicality does have its downside…

The farce of the pioneer woman

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

I fancy myself to be a bit of a pioneer, living where no one has lived before, baking bread to feed my family from the old wood cook stove, using hand tools to finish my house built from logs my husband felled, and a horse and slip to earn my wages.

Sounds so romantic.

Wake up!

Think of the life for the true pioneer, and then tell me, go ahead, what I fool I am to consider myself as such.  Sure, I have an outhouse, and have dug the pits by hand.  But I also have a flushing toilet, running water and a hot water heater.  I can wash my hands and dishes in the kitchen sink, drive a truck to a health clinic in just over an hour, and while I’m in town, pick up the groceries I’m lacking to feed my family so our meals are not bland, simple and the same every day.  I have internet! Yes, in winter, we have to snowmobile or snowshoe that first 6 ½ miles out of the ranch, but does that make me a pioneer?  Perhaps in this modern world alone, where we’re spoiled and have too much, and still complain because the price of fuel to fill our truck is more than we’d like to pay.

I once was told the average age of the true pioneer woman was forty.  At forty-five, the age I am now, I would have been long overdue.

Pioneer woman?  We need another term.  We should care not to disgrace the women who truly struggled, and not pretend we come close to their hard work and hardships.

Yes, today my body is sore.  It’s a physical life I live. By choice. That’s the difference.  I am not here because I have no other place to be.  I am here, doing what I do because I want to be here, because I love the mountain, my work, my life.  And if I get tired, I can rest, and life will go on, my little world will not fall apart at the seams or get blown over with dust in the next storm.

We sit on the old steps of a cabin we are planning to rip out and replace.  I lean back against my son’s bony knees and he reaches up to rub my shoulders.

Ever felt anything so tough, I ask him? He laughs for he knows it’s my choice to ride the horses and hike the mountains on my time off.  I can come home and rest, sit on the porch at sunset with a glass of wine… and smile as I reflect upon my “pioneer lifestyle.”

I haven’t milked a cow in ten years.

Returning from my morning rounds (which do not include milking a cow) I glance across the fence at the property that was once part of the old homestead , but has been divided for, among other excuses, a comfortable place to retire.  Retirement, summer home, vacation lifestyle. Affording us all more free time and the option to pick and choose our country skills.  Have fun playing part!  The farce and folly of it all.  Hobby logging with a skid steer which has become the new man-toy, as the team of mules is turned out for yet another season to be no more than fattening pets; and riding a lawn mower, back and forth and back again, chemigating the pasture in probable hopes of becoming dandelion-free and resembling a slick suburban lawn, while the pups run alongside, romping in the wake of the sprayer.

Pioneer in spirit alone.  I claim to be closer, but who am I fooling? Living where no one lived before, building our own home, scratching out a living on the land… I read yet another story of one who left the “stresses” of the city for the “simple life” of the country, bought the little ranchette complete with old cow.  Their life does not depend on it.  Theirs is no more than a petting zoo lifestyle.  Is it wrong?  Of course not.  But dare we call ourselves pioneers as we sit back in the heat of the afternoon under the shade of the veranda and sip sweet tea as the stock rests idyllic beneath the old oak tree?

Rain at night

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Rain. Its primordial rhythm on the metal roof calls me, lures me seductively like an enigmatic wood nymph out into the ink black night. Akin to the murky depths of the ocean, the moon and stars are shrouded behind this heavy cloak. Darkness is complete. I stand in the doorway and look out as if with closed eyes.

Suddenly a close strike of lightening, the ranch illuminated before me instantly, seemingly unnaturally as if under glaring spot lights of a semi truck and I can see it all for just a second, the dirt drive, the cabins, the grove of aspen trees and old manure spreader we set there as an odd sort of decoration. Then the blackness returns and seems cavernous.

The dog and I step out into the abyss. Now the rain taps on my hard brim hat and I break the blackness with a beam from my flashlight. The drops of cold rain illuminated like a million diamonds falling from the sky. They feel close to ice, close to snow. A soft sign that summer fades as the tired aspen, leaves paling as their annual brilliant grande finale is about to begin.

We follow the flashlight’s beam to the barn and open the gates to allow the mare and foal a warm dry shelter for the night. They are there waiting, bright yellow eyes captured by the flashlight. I return to the cabin and release a contented sigh, kicking off the muddy boots and hanging the damp slicker by the door. They will be dry by morning when I slip into them again.

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.

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.