Today.

September 1, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Today.

Another week passes, with rain on the laden heads of grasses rich and bursting, waist high and ready to spread their store, and frost out on the flats along the Divide silver sparkling in first morning light, and clouds white and heavy and full of mischief enwrapping the stoic mountains that keep their stone face in spite of the teasing and tickling of the continued rains that drip and cover and pour and wind little ribbons of silver down charred matte black hillsides and let you know really, it will all be ok. Some day.

Some day. Today.

And now the water flows. In the ditch we have so carefully tended. It’s not our water, but we watch it, mesmerized, dancing down the course we have cared for.

A rare occurrence for this time of year. For our ditch. Perhaps it is the rains. Work is disrupted. A bittersweet parting.

Dare I complain about that which I so longed for only months ago as the moss cowering beneath the barren branches of the stripped spruce trees shriveled and dried and the grasses wilted and browned and my spirit became still in the wake of the winds that stirred mighty fires?

Today.

Now what? I ask myself as I stare at my hands held before my tired eyes. Eye lids drooping over a once solid steel grey stance. Do I already have too many years of squinting while working in the strong high sun? Too bad. I’ll take the wrinkles I have earned and hope my husband finds them as enchanting as the wild ride of a life that produced and continues to feed them.

My hands. I see calluses I have worked for. Only to watch fade away for now their work is done. For this season at least. What will the next one bring?

I hate to be done. For where does that leave me, what must I do today? Only that which I seek out and find, not that which is pressing and forced. It’s a matter of choice. And is that not often a bit more than we can bite off and chew?

Unless I knew the answer to the riddle for which I am always stirred to dance.

“What’s next?”

What’s next? Let me tell you as I try to figure it out myself. Make it up as we go along.

We leave camp, leave even our Little Cabin by the Big River. Leave silence, simplicity, hauling water, listening to the river roar brown and milky about the constant rains and the mud slide up river. Leave the outhouse, the bunk beds, the cabin twelve by twenty which we moved, for those who remember when, by snowcat away from that which was to that which will be. We’ll build some day. Soon enough. Bigger. Fancier. With a toilet and a kitchen sink.

As I move back up to main camp and luxuries like solar power and flushing toilets and washing dishes in the sink, I wonder.

Better?

Today.

Diving in… the Ditch Diaries continue

August 25, 2013August 25, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Diving into the Ditch Diaries.

Twenty days in camp and counting.

After a week off, we’re feeling good. Strong, in shape, recovered, ready to hit it hard.

Not bad for a middle aged woman from the Big City, I think.

Some ask me why I don’t volunteer, help the Forest Service crews clear the trails, stop complaining and get out there and get it done. I can’t afford to, for one. Volunteering is a luxury many cannot afford.

And as much as I love working with my old fashioned tools and have utmost respect for the simpler ways, I also love an outlaw.

Besides. They don’t want me. I know. I’ve tried. Maybe you’re either a Yes-Man or a I-Don’t-Think-So kind of person. You know which one I am. My reputation precedes me. We can leave it at that.

Woke this morning to an odd scratching sound and a beeping which reminded us of a back-up warning signal on a dirt mover machine. Not something you’d expect to hear out here. What we found was a porcupine with his head hiding under the log on which we store our saddles. Glad I saw him before the dog or horses did. He’d already done some damage to Bob’s old heavy saddle, chewed on the fenders and back cinch strap.

Always something.

Early morning after putting the horses out to graze. Gunnar and I hike up the North Fork trail. It has been cleared. Traditional methods. I’m impressed, but glad I wasn’t around to witness. Mid season, and I can guess by the number of trees I had counted that need to be removed and were – what was that, sixty four? – that there may have been a good size crew or it took a while.

Yes, it’s sticking to the rules, but is it lower impact on the forest? Or the visitors to the forest?

First time in how many years I could walk without climbing over dead fall. I’m grateful, but skeptical. A usual reaction from me.

A friend tells me she tried to hike up the Ute Creek trail to Black Lake and spent too long finding her way up, over and around to make her destination. Could have sworn there was a Forest Service crew parked there with horses and a group of volunteers for about ten days. What did they do if not clear the trail?

After my indecent proposal of suggesting we take chainsaws into the Wilderness once a year, early season, before the tourists, and properly address the growing problem of dead and falling trees and resulting closed trails, the reactions I received will not surprise you.

Those in the Forest Service were adamant about sticking to the rules, the traditions, at all costs. Everyone else, not so much…

The rules, the traditions… but folks, it’s all changing. Wake up. It always does, only now, more so than ever. Things are happening, fast. Haven’t you seen? The trees are dead or dying. Now they are burning and we all know the risk and know it’s far from over.

This is a growing problem. First the beetle kill. Then the burns. It’s not going to go away any time soon and if we bury our heads in the sand (or under a fallen log like my chubby porcupine), it’s still going to remain. And probably grow.

This is my mountain. This is my forest. These are my trees. These are my trails and my back yard and my home and my business and you know what? I’m going to do something about it. If nothing else, I’m going to grab you by your shoulders, give you a good shake, and make you open your eyes and look.

It’s yours too. What are you going to do? Tell me to hold onto the past and stick to the rules? I’ve never been big on either one.

Open your eyes. Open your mouth. Breathe in the thin air that’s probably going to be a little thinner when all these trees are gone.

Maybe that’s all we can do. But I swear, that’s a helluva lot better than burying your head and pretending it’s all the same today and maybe even tomorrow as it was yesterday and everything is just peachy.

It don’t look so peachy to me.

Gunnar is lying in a big nest that is our double sleeping bag, still warm from a night of tangled flesh, while steam rises from his wet back and his nose is tucked into his fat fox like tail. Bob is getting the fire going, the coffee is done percolating, condensation on the tent roof drips, the moon has set behind the wall of fuchsia sunrise, and the horses are hiding head down in the sea of fog that settled at the base of the mountain where the thick grass grows.

The changes we are witness to. Needle-less trees provide less protection from hail, rain, and I remember when in the years before we allowed ourselves the luxury of a tent, Forrest was at ease tossing out his bedroll under the boughs of a big spruce tree and that was usually enough.

Now the birds of prey fly through and hunt in among the trees.

Grass grows taller when not in the shade.

Raspberry bushes take hold.

There’s no shortage of firewood.

There are some silver linings to these clouds of dying trees.

The first flock of geese flying in formation for this season, heading south.

We step outside the tent to listen.

No motors.

Silence after they pass.

That’s the best part of being out here.

Solace of solitude.

No, I don’t want the chainsaws all the time. Don’t be silly. You should know me better than that. Don’t you remember what I asked for? Just one week, early season, to let my horses ride in safely. I even offered to help.

And what about the noise pollution of small planes that fly low over camp and buzz our horses out in the meadow regularly enough that they no longer lift their heads?

One hundred and forty feet of ditch in a day. Not dug from scratch, but cleaned up. Vegetation removed, upper bank cut to the perfect slope, bottom slipped and shoveled, lower bank raised, compacted, re-seeded.

At the end of the day, you lean on your shovel, look around and think it’s all a work of art. The ditch. The dirt. The slope. The calluses on your hands. The view. The sun going down behind the Pyramid. The horses grazing in the thick wet grass. Hillsides, even with dead red trees. Maybe even when they’re black and burned.

I’ll find beauty. I’m here. I’ll look. Closely. An intimate view, connection, touching, tasting, finding. And in the meanwhile, I’m going to care. About every fallen needle, deer in the distance, slope of the bank, and tiny little transparent green-grey trout fry swimming in the still pristine waters of the North Fork of the Pine River.

And caring sometimes might mean speaking up, stirring the waters, and splattering a little mud. Otherwise, like that porcupine, all you’ve got is a shallow view and a sense of self preservation that probably won’t last too long.

At the end of the day… you sleep pretty well out here.

Enough of a good thing. I’m tired of the rain, wet boots, cold hands, heavy shovels, soggy Levi jeans.

What a strange summer.

Sadness in the air, heavy as the sky cries.

We mourn the loss together.

Something about our team. The three of us. Links in a chain. The secret ingredient to making it all work.

At the end of the day, we balance each other out. With chores, interests, humor, drive… You take this tool, I’ll take that. We’ll get it done, together.

I’m the one to give lectures. They listen. Conversation is killed.

Follow your passion, I tell them, live like no one else. Life is an adventure, live the life you’d be envious of if you knew someone else was living it. Be the person you want to be. Start now.

Dare not only to dream, but to make your dreams come true.

They put up with me. I don’t know if they listen, but at least they don’t interrupt.

Just before lunch another hail storm hits. We’re in the tent, steaming ramen in flimsy paper bowls perched precariously in our laps, looking out the tent flap to a ground turning white. It’s loud on the tent. Oddly enough, it makes you sleepy. Why not indulge? It’s not like you can get much done out there in this, and you know it won’t last too long…

Rodeo.

All hell breaks loose around ten a.m.

Norman’s been on edge this year. Something about his confidence. I need to help him through it. If he’s part of the team, he’s got to work too.

In the meanwhile, he explodes, all fifteen hundred plus pounds of him, bucking, four feet in the air, head down, sacks of rocks flying off, metal racks tossed in the air, and away he goes a half mile across the big wide open meadow on the Divide with the dog and me behind him.

No matter how I tried, this time, I could not keep hold of the rope.

Work season is winding down. Then the fun begins. Hikes and rides and pack trips with nothing more in mind than to be here, appreciate the wilds, make the most of where we are.

I hope to do that every day.

Even while digging ditch.

Wild. Life.

August 14, 2013 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Ditch diaries. Year seven, week three.

One very wet week at the ditch.

We ride up as a creek of creamy coffee colored waters rushes down the narrow trail. The horses heads hunker low, manes dripping down long faces like faucets left ajar. My hat collects and pools and dumps as I lean over the side of my horse, turning back to see that the packs are not slipping coming through the steep slope on slick footing and a wet back.

We awake to a dark morning. Rain all night, white noise in the tent, and continuing. Beneath the heavy clouds, a blanket of fog spreads in the valley below camp. Silhouettes of the horses seen from the tent. No more mountains.

Somewhere I hear a duck. Maybe a distant coyote. The small commuter planes stay away from the mountains this morning. Otherwise, nothing but the sound of rain on the tent as I sit with a silent steaming cup of coffee held tight as if in prayer.

Disparity.

I read the word on a piece of newsprint crumbled to start the fire. Old news, I don’t even know what the article was about, but I do remember the word. I write it in my journal so I don’t forget.

Disparity.

The mountain sheds tears.

Wash me in a river of tears… Cleanse me of my past…Dip me in the river of rebirth and let me live again…

Some days you wonder if you’ll ever see the sun shine, and if your boots will ever dry out. Neither will happen today, I’m pretty sure of that.

Before bed I peel off the wet socks. I’m shocked to see brightly painted toe nails laughing back up at me. Bright blue and green, each nail like a little planet earth. I smile to think of my darling niece who spoils me (shouldn’t I be the one spoiling her?) and knows I secretly love those little lady like things, though they’re hard to find and live with under all this mud and muscle and layers of wet clothes.

I can’t keep track of the calories we’re consuming, and still we’re cold, tired and hungry. Sometime in the middle of the night, Gunnar takes over the lower half of the sleeping bag. I tuck in, wrap my legs around my husband’s to make room for the dog, reach down to pat his still wet fur. He is shivering.

The spring runs again and there are puddles in the ditch where we have never seen them before and my rain pants are soaked to my waist before we even start work.

The next morning, a deep frost. Snow on the Rio Grande Pyramid visible when the fog lifts. It is colder, feels like early winter. The first of turning leaves and the last of fading wildflowers, and that’s the end of our luscious little wild strawberries.

Really, I’d like to get over the sadness. It swells sometimes like a crashing wave, catching me unprepared, out of breath, as if I fell asleep at the beach and suddenly high tide moves in and I’m under it. Walking helps. Getting out there. Listening to what you might say is nothing. A woodpecker tapping at a dead tree. The soft trickle of a little spring over moss covered rocks. Snapping branches beneath my feet.

One of these days you’ll disappoint me or maybe I’ll say something to upset you. Human nature. I try to find the good in it. I’d like to think we are evolving and see some signs that give me hope but until I’m sure, I think I’m better off… far away. Out there. Here. Alone.

Maybe with my boys if they can put up with me.

These are wild times.

I wouldn’t want to have missed this. You know how many left, how many stayed away? Afraid to see it. Or maybe it spoiled their view.

It’s real and raw. It’s dead, buried, burning. It is wild. It’s my mountain. And I am so glad to be here with her, on her, enwrapped in her, entwined in her needless arms that still hold power and grace more than I will ever see a human have the ability to embrace.

Sister soldiers standing side by side.

Stick it out. Here, with her. Stand by her. My mountain. This sad stage in her mighty cycle. What if I didn’t lay witness to what she is going through? Leave when the going gets tough and come back when it’s all ok again.

Abandoned in heart and soul.

It will never be the same. Life doesn’t work that way. Don’t fool yourself.

My intimate involvement matters to me, and somehow, I feel, to her. What else can I do, like a mother with a sick child, but be there, by her side, strong and steady while she weeps. Pat her sweaty brow until the fever breaks. I know it will one day.

I was looking forward to being home. It’s what got me through rain, hail, snow, freezing weather, soaked boots, muddy gloves, and shovels that would not let go of the dirt. Dreams of a hot bathtub, fluffy bed, solid walls, dry boots…

Well, we got home, but then all of a sudden, I wondered what the fuss was all about, leaving camp, being here. The hot water heater in the guest cabin we raided wasn’t working well enough to fill a tub, and a family of pack rats moved into our cabin during our absence. When you’re talking a little one room cabin, 12 x 20, there’s not room enough for us all. At four in the morning, we set traps, grabbed our sleeping bags, and went to sleep in a vacant guest cabin. One advantage to our grave business we’re dealing with this year.

We’re back down in the Little Cabin now. The rats are still here, hiding behind the built in pantry. I’ve had better days…

Today, I’m done with the rain. For now, I’ve had enough. How about moderation? What I want does not seem to matter. That’s OK. I know this rain is good… only right now, all I really want to do is go down to the river, lie warm in the sun, and knit. I don’t know how to knit, but today it sounds like a really good thing to do.

I’m at home now with the hawk screeching in the wind and it’s the only music I care to hear. Wilds stirring in the brown waters of the river than washes body and soul of the land and me clear from the worries of yesterday.

A girlfriend travelling in Guatemala shared a photo of a handmade road side sign which translated to this: “It produces an immense sadness to think that nature speaks, while mankind does not listen.”

Listen. The earth speaks in wild whispers. The trees talk. Even the ones that have already died. Maybe they have ghosts. Their stories told in streams of sap now hard and cold on flaking bark. What stories they share of changing times and battles fought and lost and tales of two leggeds with bright eyes that remain blind to the woods around them. Listen. There are stories to hear, beauty to behold, wisdom to absorb, lessons to learn. If we care to listen.

My dirty little secret

August 3, 2013 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Another week worn and older and more work done at the ditch. We do good work. Life as a work of art. Work as our palette. No matter if it’s digging ditch.

Frost already in the morning. Rain so hard you wonder if you’ll ever dry and suddenly fire becomes a treasured gift though I don’t know if I’ll ever look at thunderheads the same way and not see plumes of smoke rising from the raging flames. Our views are tainted. Maybe it’s just me.

Get on with it. Dig. Sweat. Soak through. Cringe when you pause, rest against your shovel and watch another backpacker in the distance not figure out the way across the great Divide. The spine of the sleeping beast. I feel her roar, tilt back my head, and join in her wild howl. Maybe the backpacker wonders what scary beast lurks in this high country besides the usual fear of bears. It’s just me. Some crazy middle aged mountain mama out here digging ditch for a living.

Wild life, changing seasons, strawberries beneath every step on the hill up from the horse pasture. In camp come does, bucks, bull moose, mama grouse, and Gunnar flushes out a few little ones that spook the horses as we lead them to the river for water.

Here’s life’s simple. It’s no secret, really. It’s about hard work, silence, the disturbance of airplanes, simple living, simple food. Everything tastes better when you’re tired.

Dirt work, dirty work. This week Norman packs in two hundred pounds of lumber and we lay down our shovels, pick up our hammers and hand saws for two of our days here in the wilds during which time we reframe the diversion box that was sagging almost as bad as an old barn ready to fall over under the next load of snow.

I’m out there and I want to get further. I fantasize about owning the valley. Maybe the whole mountain. I don’t want to see the bright white or fluorescent colored pin point prick of a backpacker a mile away. I want to be alone. With my boys, my critters, my hard work, the wind, the wilds. A part of the elements. Even the dirt. I’ll take it.

I never thought I needed money. Maybe I finally do. I want enough to buy a valley – both sides – so no one is in my view. And no one is near enough to hear, to roll their eyes as I run around howling like the wild woman I can be.

I don’t think it’s that I’m anti-social. I just like to be alone.

In praise of the chainsaw.

Sixty four. That’s the number of trees across the trail on the lower half mile of the North Fork of the Pine River. Most of those down are beetle killed. Trees dead, dried and snapped in the wind. A few are still green. Their needles now enough to catch the wind in this thinning forest.

Of course if the chainsaw were always allowed, like any motor or wheel, we’d be out of work in the Wilderness. Instead we have horses, shovels, the two person, cross cut saw where it’s all about rhythm. Part passion, exertion, sweat. And part Zen, losing your mind to the back and forth push and pull.

The trail is still open. In theory. No “closed” signs or reports tell you otherwise. Though crossing horseback might bring tears to your eyes and a few rips and tears to your horses’ legs trying to find a way over, around, through.

A part of the Divide system, it’s still not a popular section of trail. In peak season on a normal year, you might get three or four groups passing by on any given day, going up, going down. We know because we see. Our ditch crosses the base of the trail and every once in a while a curious backpacker or lost Forest Service Newbie takes the wrong turn and comes down the ditch instead of the trail. Water only flows down the ditch when “in priority.” Otherwise, the ditch is a dry channel. I guess I can see the possibility of someone mistaking it for one heck of a well used trail.

It’s not a popular section of the Wilderness. Our use numbers are low, elevation high. It’s far away, even to get to the trail head, away from any city, without cell phone service and internet access. This is the real back woods. The high country. Left for the hard core. Left.

Well, I haven’t even mentioned the chainsaw yet and this section was going to be about that.

Here’s the deal. The trees are dead and falling, and trails are being blocked far faster than a dandy group of young and ambitious Forest Service yes-men-and-women can get out there and clear them. The trails are becoming impassable. The point of the Wilderness, for man to come, travel lightly, enjoy the pristine and untrampled, and leave, is being lost. Man – or woman – and the few that do come this far – can barely get in there and get around. The place is a mess. It’s a disgrace in places, and getting worse fast.

So, here’s my proposal. Tell me what you think about this. As chainsaws are about 400% faster than my dear cross cut saw, what if, for say, one week at the beginning of the season, early season, you know, when no one is really out and about up here yet for the year, we let them (or better yet, they let us, if you really want this to be about efficiency, but I know it’s still about more, like rules, regulations, control and bureaucracy…) take in chainsaws for just a few days and clear the trails, open up the access, clean the place up, allow our minimal use to continue and the tradition and dedication that made these trails possible in the first place to carry on in a respectful manner, to land and man, wild and curious.

Now we’re back home. Guests have left early so there is an empty cabin with running hot water. Showers feel especially good when it’s been five days and you’ve been out there really working. So does bed.

Home is still simple. For us now, a one room cabin, still propped up on blocks of firewood until we build something else, a little bigger, down here some day. For now, we have bunk beds. Forrest on the top; Bob and I down below. In the middle of the night a cat forgets we’re back and jumps from the top bunk and lands on my face. I awake to a bloody nose and can’t find a flashlight to find my way to a little water in the jug on the counter to wipe myself clean. Sometimes a little too cozy.

Though earlier I visited the outhouse in the dark of night with the door open to the sound of the river below and a spectacular show of distance lightning in the sky above. Beat that.

Simple pleasures. You think it sounds like fun, but do you really want to be here? For how long? Are you ready to give up your bed, toilet and kitchen sink, medical insurance, job security, regular payments towards your debt which has allowed you a bigger better life? Trade that for bugs and cold and wet and dirt and sore muscles and regular cuts and bruises and a bloody nose at best? Is it not enough to come here one week out of every year and dream about if for fifty others?

You may have more comforts and luxuries and fancy foods and nights on the town and you won’t get me to want to trade places.

I’ll take my dirty life.

Turn Around

July 19, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Finally the sound of children laughing. Families out playing. I didn’t forget. This is good stuff.

Life as normal. You might say. Though maybe not. Back on track? Or is that backwards? Maybe I’m ready to jump tracks. Again.

The road is open, guests are here, leisure people in the distance sitting around with cocktails and chatter, the miller moths have hatched, this is the worst season for horse and deer flies we remember, and afternoon thunderstorms drive us and the flies to shelter. We’re finally heading off to work at the ditch, the horses are fit and shiny, the grass is green, the road is muddy, and a fire in the woodstove feels pretty good right about now.

The forest fires are out, fire ban lifted, the crews have packed up and left, the rains are plentiful.

These are the cold hard facts. Pretty nice, I’d say. Now it’s only rumors still spreading like wildfire. Get over it and don’t drink the KoolAid. No need to preach doomsday here. Nor do I want to hear blind optimism and see shallow smiles. Get real. Look around. This one’s over. What’s next? In the meanwhile, get to work and stay out of trouble. Best advice I can turn to. That’s all I need to do right now.

We’re off to the ditch. Nothing like good hard work to cure the blues. This is about as good and hard as it gets.

The book on Ginny and the time in Argentina, by the way, was completed two days ago. I love deadlines. There will be some revisions, modifications, refinements. Hopefully not too much. I want it real, raw, and most of all, a fun read and an inspiring story. I think that’s what we’ve got here.

Now it’s back to the Ditch Diaries. What are we into now, Year Seven?

Until next week…

Sending love and light from these wet wild hills.

Gin

Ditch Diaries

August 19, 2012 / Gin Getz / 5 Comments

Week 4, Day 1

We ride back to camp mid morning, the horses smooth and solid with their understanding of where they are going, what is expected of them, what they should expect here. They know the routine. A job they realize well by now. They are a good group. A family. Literally. Father, mother, son… and Norman the New Guy. Now in his second year with us.

Earlier this evening, a neighboring camp invites us to join them for wine. How unexpectedly civilized, imbibing from camp coffee cups with the sun setting behind the Rio Grande Pyramid before us. The greatest pleasure beyond the view is the opportunity to meet new people, hear new stories.

And now a light show from up high. The most brilliant, dazzling display of a lightning storm we have ever seen. Seemingly nonstop flashes, blazing up the sky a brilliant blue and pink that lasts but an instant. The Pyramid and Window appear for a fraction of a second and then the horizon returns to black. And just when your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, another strike illuminates the high clouds and horizon and you’re blinded all over again.

As exhilarating as the Forth of July. The rumble in your gut as each crash of thunder follows the blinding flash. A little bit frightening, or it wouldn’t have quite the impact, wouldn’t leave quite the impression, wouldn’t draw us from the comfort of our tent to stand there on the hillside and stare at the sky.

Closer and closer the flashes appear. We are filled with an odd combination of anticipation and excitement, that intricate balance of fear and awe.

The cracks get louder, lightning closer and finally the intense and sudden rain chases us back into the relative safety of the tent.

We lay there warm and dry, silent together, listening to the storm now directly overhead, the tent glowing with each flash, the pattern of the rain on the fabric, the heavy rumbles turning to a odd and powerful and mesmerizing lullaby that takes us each away in our own tired dreams.

Day 2

Writing under the glow of candle light. My hands are sore. Even holding the pen seems trying.

Something new today. Learning to single-jack hand steel. You may laugh for what’s new for me is that which is rather old. Such are the skills we rely on here like felling trees with the crosscut saw and moving dirt with horse and slip.

Clang, clang, clang, the rhythm of the steel. Pulse and movement, swing and strike. I keep it up until my hand can’t hold up the hammer. This is no game, banging away for few minutes of fun. It’s all morning long, keeping at it, stamina and staying power. This is grit. Steeling holes in rock. Not for some praise, cheers and competition. Simply to make holes in otherwise solid rock. And into those holes we pour a material thick like just mixed concrete which will slowly expand and eventually break rock. A deliberate, powerful force. None of the drama of explosives, but similar results just the same. Breaking stone. Allowing us to remove obstructions from the ditch, and use the material to rebuild a weak bank.

This is a job. I am surprisingly grateful it is short term for I know I could not keep this up day in, day out, month after month. This week will wipe me out, I’m pretty sure.

A point and a purpose. I could no more bang away at the rock for fun. I believe it was Ray Hunt who said the horse knows the difference between running around in circles and running to get somewhere. A job to do. Point and purpose. Direction. Meaning to this madness.

Bob asks me if I ever imagined I’d be doing this when I was a little girl. I tell him no, I did not. I could not. For I did not know these things existed when I was a little girl.

Day 3

A darn good day of work. Our bosses get their monies worth with us. Eight hours of hard labor, plus taking care of the horses, tending camp, cooking, gathering firewood and hauling and filtering water.

Simplicity is hard work.

I am sore head to toe. It feels good for it is earned.

Today we hooked up Norman to the old steel slip and dragged the entire ditch bottom – all but the last section we will take on tomorrow – just to clean it up. If you can understand cleaning up dirt. It’s not like it’s going to go away. Maybe “clean” is not the right word. We just make it look better. And work better. We move the dirt around. From the high spots where it would be an obstruction when the water flows, to the low spots where the water could flow over if the bank won’t hold a full load.

Simple pleasures. Hard work with a purpose. I wonder if our draft horse, Norman, feels the same. I somehow feel he does. Why wouldn’t a horse feel pride in his accomplishments, in doing what he was bred for so many generations to do, what he does so remarkably well? I’ll sing Norman’s praises, for he can’t sing himself, but I swear, he knows he’s something special. And he is. One gentle giant of a horse willing to be out there with us, part of the team, getting the work done. Does he know the ditch we maintain for a few weeks each summer will flow water that provides for households and farms in the San Luis Valley eighty miles below? Of course not. And as for us, it’s not about who owns the ditch we are hired to maintain, who owns the water that has become liquid gold throughout the West, or where the water ultimately ends. It’s really quite simple. It’s just about doing a good days work and doing the best you can with what you have. Here in the Weminuche Wilderness, our tools are simple. The greater reliance is on our man power, woman power, and horse power. And although it’s just me, my husband, our son, a few horses and our dog, Gunnar, on days like today, I swear we can be a mighty powerful force.

Powerful, but quiet. If it were not for the clang, clang, clang of the hand steeling, I wonder if a passerby would know we were here. Or see our camp with our tent tucked into the timber unless the smoke from the morning fire was drifting down to the valley below.

Over dinner we talk about what it might have been like for those who build the ditch way back when. When? I’m afraid to say I don’t really know. Perhaps the 1930’s. Someone saw the river flowing down the west side of the Divide and thought, heck, I’ll just put in a ditch a mile long, bring this water over to the east side, and call it my own.

And like back then, I bet those who owned the water were not the same as those who built this ditch. I imagine a team of strong and silent individuals, loner types, private people with good working stock willing to put in a good days work. Perhaps a cook tent for the crew, a wood stove, you’d need a wood stove, without a wood stove we couldn’t be here working as we do through the monsoons. One can only stay cold and wet so long… And tents… What kinds of tents did they have back then? For you’d need a place to rest when the work is done.

These are the kinds of things I think about when I’m very, very tired.

Day 4

What were we thinking?

So there we are at ten in the morning busting through the ditch bank, knowing full well tomorrow we’ll be packing camp and heading home.

Why? It was an insubstantial section of ditch bank. A weak link to the chain. A thorn in our sides.

We’d known about it for some time, but were unable to dive in until we felt certain we could do it all in a day – break it down and rebuild it. For we would certainly not leave a job half done. Water doesn’t flow down a ditch with a broke open bank. Finally, between the hand steeling and breaking rocks, and Norman’s hauling power, we felt we could get the job done.

At noon our moods are short, our muscles burning, breaking rocks and hacking away at the hill for dirt. Fear and hesitation. What if… we won’t say it. None of us will. We only think it. What if… we can’t get it done, or do it well? We break for a rushed lunch. We’re in no mood to talk or rest, just refuel and head back out. Moods as tense as our muscles.

At three p.m., Norman pulls the rock that our old half-draft horse, Gizmo, back in the day could barely move. It’s been a landmark of sorts for us, left in the bank when we just couldn’t move it further.

“Where do you want it,” Norman seems to say. He gets it. He moves it. It’s in his blood and he understands. This is his job. He’s part of the team. And I swear this horse is pretty darned proud of himself and well he should be. Norman rocks! He not only moves rocks; he raises our spirits.

By five in the afternoon, we see it happening. The bank is being built back up, and better than ever before, with solid rock and soil, held firm by our tamping rods. We keep it up. Sure, we feel beat up, tired and sore and know we’ll be putting in over time, but somehow certain we can do it.

6:30 p.m. In the soft golden glow of evening light, with strong and long shadows adding drama and intrigue, we step back from the ditch and admire our work. What a beautiful bank we just rebuilt. What a lovely ditch we’ve worked on!

I know. It’s just a ditch. It’s just dirt.

But remember the importance of pride in your work. Love it or leave it.

Love it I do. Though tomorrow I will leave it. And sad as I know I will be to leave up here, I’m ready for a hot bath.

Day 5

6:30 a.m. and waiting for the coffee to percolate. A mild morning. No frost, not even in the bottom of valley where the tallest grasses grow, the sweet spot where we led the horses out to graze at first light.

I think of how many mornings mid August have been harsh and frigid, horses shivering on the high line, pawing until it is their turn to be led out, bull snaps on the picket lines frozen shut, my fingers burning from the cold.

A mild season. And still the most subtle signs show changes coming. It happens. Is it from the light, now just a little lower in the sky, and little less each day? Perhaps because I know what to look for, having looked so closer at this ditch bank, the valley, the mountain back drop for six summers now. The slightest signs. The show begins now. Lay low, be still and silent, and take a look.

Grasses turning brown, seeds heads tall and arching, fully ripe and letting loose in the wind. Leaves of the wild flower transforming from green to vivid orange, purple, red while the few remaining blossoms now look tired, battered by hail and time. Red from the hills of the beetle kill sweeping down to amber of the dying, drying valley.

Today will be our last day of work here for the season. I am utterly and completely exhausted. Yet leaving is always bittersweet. I love it here. I need not tell you why, for I feel you already know. You understand by now, don’t you?

An odd relationship with the land. I believe it is staying with her, seeing her through all her changes, moods, dark seasons. That is what makes a home. Here remains a mystery. Somehow out of touch. A forbidden fruit I am allowed to taste, touch, but never own.

There remains with me this, and I shall take this with me as I leave, as I return home and recover from this hard season of work, back to soaking in my tub each night and putting back on the weight that is taken from me here each year. An appreciation for every mild morning that remains, knowing what is coming, what is going, full of excitement for what secrets will be revealed right around the corner, the next bend in the… ditch.

Ditch Diaries

August 12, 2012 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Week 3, Day 1

Missed working here last week due to the unexpected encounter between mountain lion and horse. Left us with the feeling (the reality!) of more work to do in less time. One worries if one can do it. Will my body hold out? I know the miners and loggers and true pioneer folks did much harder for much longer. Perhaps we humans have softened. My son tells me I’m pretty tough as he rubs the muscles in my back which don’t seem to release, relax and let go. Muscle memory. I imagine soaking in a hot bath and hope my muscles will ease under the almost painful pressure of his hands.

Riding in to camp this morning. A challenge. The trailhead we use blocked with tourists in their RVs asking for directions, work men scrambling about, drilling rigs, back hoes and water trucks and I don’t know what all we had to ride through. I pretend it’s an Extreme Challenge race for my horse, Flying Crow, and he’s winning. Guides us through the worst of it. Success! I’m proud of him.

Finally. And finally, I’m proud of my training. Some days. Two steps forward, one step back. Always a process. Working with this little Arab, training him as a stallion, has been a huge lesson in patience, trust and learning to read the horse. It is working. I have never had a more difficult horse to work with. His natural balance of flight and distrust and questioning everything (“Do you really mean it?” “Do I have to go there?” “Will it bite?” and the most often he tells me with his not so subtle body language, “But why?”). I once read that Arabians are for people who really love horses, and really can ride. You have to do both to put up with these guys sometimes. It’s not easy. Not the training, not the testing of your skills, knowledge, love and patience, not the ride. And it’s not boring. Always interesting. Always a challenge. So there we go, through our Extreme Challenge. And winning ribbons. Though of course, only in my imagination, for there is no winning circle in the wilds. You just make it through or not.

We made it.

Day 2

Lunch break. Extended.

We sit in the sun by our tent watching our little herd of horses graze in the pasture below us and a formidable flock of charcoal grey clouds form above, into what appears a solid bank, rolling high and heavy over the Window and Pyramid, approaching our valley.

In minutes we are overcome, in shadow, embraced by portending doom. The storm arrives.

Now horses safe in the trees and we in our tent, we listen to the clap of thunder arrive at the same time as the lightning flashes. No time to count, “one mississippi…” Sound vibrations roll back and forth across the valley, a game of ping pong between the two mountains.

Gunnar sits at the open doorway of the tent, knowing it will pass but quite content to wait this one out as the rain on the top of the tent turns louder and the ground turns white with hail.

Time and again the tapping overhead slows and the sky lightens and we prepare to head back to work, only to be confronted with thunder so loud you jolt and clap your hands over your ears at each blinding flash of lightning. These clouds seem to be seeking a path up and over the Divide but instead roll around from side to side, circling above us, above the valley, round after round of intense storm.

Wait it out. This too shall pass, I remember the words of a dear friend quoting her mother. We will have plenty of time to complete our work.

The boys have dozed off. Even Gunnar left his post by the door and is sharing the bed with Bob. Me, I refuse to give in to heavy eyelids. I want to get back to work. But holding the pen becomes harder and harder, my written words scribbled and incomplete, and I give in to the sweetness of a brief afternoon nap.

Day 3

Night time. The Big Dipper just to the north of the Pyramid. Stars so close you feel surrounded, embraced, overwhelmed, very, very small. It all looks so big. Unanswered questions overhead. Unlimited curiosity, unlimited view, unlimited world of which we are a very small, very quiet part.

Today in the ditch. A small group of backpackers asking the way. The trail has been all but closed. Dead trees fallen. The newest findings of this changing environment. Fifty one across the trail in the first mile above where the trail crosses the ditch.

They are already tired. Yesterday, downed trees pushed them off the trail, finding their own way three and a half miles through the timber this side of the Rio Grande Pyramid. I am impressed they find their way without the trail. We see so many completely trumped when the visible trail becomes uncertain. There is comfort in the worn path. These kids relied on common sense and a sense of direction, two of the most valuable wilderness skills.

We lead them to the trail, point out the route and reassure them that if they make it through this first mile, things do get better. At least, as far as we’ve gone. They are going farther. The Continental Divide trail, they are doing, from Stony Pass to Wolf Creek. I think the highest continuous section of the Divide. And the most truly incredible, like being out there beneath the stars, looking up and out at this huge and beautiful world beyond what you’ve ever seen before.

Their journey would have taken them on a two or three hour section above treeline today. Mid day, when they would have been up and out there in the wide wild openness, another violent storm befalls the mountain. I thought of these kids, and somehow was not worried. Somehow I thought if anything, they would be so filled with wonder by the magnificence of it all, by the sheer immensity of the beauty and power of the storm and nature, and respectful of the simplicity and powerlessness of ourselves out there in it.

Day 4

Dinner bubbling on the woodstove. Here where work can be so hard even Hamburger Helper tastes great. Standing over the little stove, stirring. Keeping on my wet boots for that one last trip to bring in the horses from pasture. Wet feet. Forever cold and wet they feel here sometimes. I prefer to cook with cold wet feet then allow my feet to dry, and then have to stick them back in wet boots. How good it will feel when I’m done for the day and finally slip on warm wool socks.

Today, more felling and bucking in the rain. Oil the old cross cut saw to help it sing through the wood. Stumps left standing with the tell tale blue wood from the beetles’ deadly kiss. Curious to me the number the hikers up the mountain right now, and how few stop to ask what we’re doing. I don’t find myself that intimidating, and actually enjoy stopping to talk with the few who ask. Forrest called me Mother Bucker. Lady Logger. I like it. Sounds big and bad, but remember, I’m a forty five year old mountain mama from New York City who weighs in well under 120. With my wet boots on.

An evening walk after work across the big meadow where our horses graze, to inspect the work done on “the big ditch,” the one more often seen and found, owned and maintained by the Colorado Division of Wildlife. An organization I’m probably better off saying little about as I may not find anything nice to say.

Workers had been there for a few days this week, this year, still trying to repair damage from the year before. At this rate, from the work we saw “completed” it will only be a few more years before they send in the big crew to fix it again. A big ordeal made bigger. Trucks and trailers lined up at the trailhead and news of a formidable work force sent into the wilds, long pack strings following just to bring in their gear. This was no typical Wilderness adventure to stumble upon for those tourists trekking the Divide. Perhaps it is no wonder that the backpackers we see would rather let us be then stop for a welcome visit.

However work aside (and work here is important to us, as with all of what we do out here, from horsemanship to felling trees, we take such pride in our work and strive to improve ourselves each year), the greater upset was the way the wilds were left. Disgraceful. Wilderness Ethics were not a concern, or to be polite, perhaps just were not known. Horses tied to trees along side trails (the Continental Divide trail, no less), trash left in fire pits, sections next to the trail of grass tromped down to dirt from the large crowds, and worse yet was the hillside trashed, used as their toilet without bothering to bury.

My fury over such disregard of these beautiful wilds is washed away in the gentle storm that swept over us as we walked back across the meadow, looking ahead at where our camp is tucked into the trees, invisible to the passer by, arched overhead with a perfect subtle rainbow.

Day 5

3 pm and the storm has not passed, only varied in intensity. We are ready to return home for the weekend but the prospect of two hours horseback across the Divide in rain, hail, thunder and lightning allows us to wait it out. The storm stays longer than we would have guessed. I am anxious. Ready to move on. Stresses of home have returned. Sitting and waiting, not working, they sit there with me and hold to me like a ball and chain.

Waiting out the storm.

What have I left behind to be here? Running water (unless all these lovely little creeks can count) and internet connection. Financial burdens, personal obligations, communications, keeping abreast of the modern world when here our world is gathering firewood, cooking in the tent over the little woodstove, horses and handtools, hand steeling, double jacks, shovels and slips, wedges and the six foot crosscut saw I sharpened just the other day along a felled tree, and will have to do so again before we fell the next big tree. The beetles have provided us with an endless array of dead trees to clear from the water way.

What have I left behind?

I will return to clean jeans, a hot bath, sipping a strong cocktail, and slipping my feet into warm slippers. I will return to stresses I am able to leave behind here and now and need not think about as long as I am here.

I have here with me that which matter most. There is great peace in that realization.

We will leave when the rain lightens, the lightning storm passes. And in the meanwhile, this is a good place to be… waiting.

Ditch Diaries

July 27, 2012 / Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Week two; Day one.

Back after a break. Gunnar has healed well. Still a bit groggy at times, and left with a good scar above his eye which we say gives him even more character. But he’s good to go and back at his place working with the horses.

Peak season on the mountain, and we need to get away. We have learned to endure July. Moods fluctuate with the weather. July has it all, from heat to hail. Like ants on a birthday cake. Too many people driving by with blind, blank stares; passer bys who remain unnamed, unknown, unaccountable. I long for a friendly wave of a vehicle I recognize. A permanent place in the wind. A summer neighbor drives up fast and furious behind our full load of horses in the trailer. The only one rushed on the road. You can feel the stress from the car back there, too tight on our tail to see the wide places to pass as we pull to the side again and again to let her by. A rush to get off the mountain, back to work, back to one’s own reality.

My reality is here. Yes. It is very, very real. Though at times, like July, it seems a surreal moving image surrounding me.

I look to the morning frost on pasture and long for winter already.

Be here now. Riding up the trail. Beyond where most make it in a day. Higher even than the Aspen grow, delicate silver bark, flesh scratched with initials, scarred by those who come and go and leave nothing better than this behind for a generation to endure.

And then we are there.

I hear the horses heave and sigh and let go with their heads down in the rich high mountain grasses.

Late at night writing by the light of my headlamp.

Crazy the contentment I find here in the tent together with my boys, our dog between us, our horses in the trees just outside. The occasional stomp of their feet as they shift their weight easily, the snort of their relaxed breath. They are satisfied, tired, full bellies; they worked hard and well and have earned their rest. I am proud of them.

Crazy the contentment in this 12×12 tent, complete with woodstove on which we cooked elk burgers for dinner. A nice change from Hamburger Helper. Life does not get much better than this.

Day two.

Slept until the mountain was light. Gunnar and I get the horses out. They know the routine and handle with great manners.

Morning work proved other than perfection in paradise, between Norman balking at being out their working alone, and poor communications between the three of us. It’s bound to happen. It did.

Lunch in the tent while thunder rumbles across the steel grey sky.

We are damp and chilled and grateful for the woodstove. I remember July days on the beach, sun and sand and sweat and sundresses in the evening. I reach for my down jacket and felt hat and check the horses before returning to work.

Day three

Progress is slow. Perhaps we are out of shape. We would like great transformations. We would like the whole mile plus of ditch to be as well groomed, just the right slope, clear of vegetation, and solid high bank as the twenty feet we just worked on. We are down and know it is only up to us to make things better.

We turn to ditch digger humor to lighten our load. How much more down can a ditch digger get? It’s easy when you start at the top and work your way down. We do manage to keep each other laughing and really, being out there working with my husband and son, dog and horses, it is easy to rise up again. It never takes long. Put down the shovel, slow down the slip, and smile.

A better afternoon. Norman pulls a mean load, and the three of us get in the groove and get mean with our shovels and picks. Truly a dirty job.

Day four.

I am up and out earlier than usual, with camera and tripod, to get a shot at a shot at the Rio Grande Pyramid at first light. Gunnar and I sneak out before coffee and leave the boys to lead the horses out to pasture.

I am rewarded with clouds, color, and a remarkable view, unobstructed and uninterrupted, deep in the Weminuche Wilderness and realize that for now, no doubt, there is no place I would rather be.

Here and now.

Ditch Diaries

July 6, 2012July 6, 2012 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Year six, week one.

Heading higher.

My self, husband, son, dog, six horses…

That’s all. Enough. Perfect.

Away from those here to get away.

I lose myself, my home, my sense of peace and solitude. I find it again. There. Isn’t it odd? At Ditch Camp.

Some say it sounds so romantic.

Working in the high country. Maintaining a trans-continental water diversion ditch deep in the Weminuche Wilderness, over a mile long across the Continental Divide. Hard work and horse power. Just us, our family, our stock, side by side, push pull, sharing the work, the camp, the views, the silence…

And then there is the reality. Sore muscles. Sleeping on a thin pad after a day of working to the point of shaking, unable to lift the shovel or pull the saw one more time. Rain, cold, dirt, bugs, no relief from a camp fire due to the fire ban, and not quite enough sun in the morning to dry your jeans and work boots before dressing. Digging cat holes and squatting in frosty grass under dripping trees. Hamburger Helper and iceberg lettuce night after night because I’m too darned tired to cook and seems like we never can get enough calories in us up there. Leading hungry horses to pasture in the cold wet morning and back to the trees at night. Care and complaints of horses that would rather be back home on pasture, and know the way. Picking at the hillside, cutting roots, lifting rocks and shoveling soil, leading the draft horse, saddling and unsaddling in the rain. Pulling the cross cut saw, in out, back forth, over and over and over again in a rhythm like breathing only… harder.

And you know. I love it.

I give you this to read for the week. It is long. It may take you all week, if you care to read that much. And if I can keep myself from writing more, for my mind gets going and is hard to stop…

Day one. Arriving at camp.

It starts with packing along the dusty road with stranger after stranger driving by looking at us getting the packs on the horses as if we were a roadside tourist attraction, there for no more than their viewing pleasure. Some slow long enough to whip out their camera and take a quick shot. Most drive by as if we’re one more sighting of wildlife to add to their list to tell Aunt Jo back home in another town, another county, another state, just like it was when she used to come here for her one week a year to get away…

But she’s not here, and we’re not a tourist attraction, and I’m tired of my life being on display and those that find my life a curiosity or think we built our life for them.

And tired of sucking the dust of yet another ATV driving by anonymously.

Dust follows us as we fall in line, in unspoken unison, and ride our horses across the dam of the reservoir. Up the first section of trail we still hear the whining motors, following us like haunting nightmares. And then it is gone, all gone, over, and we are left alone in silence in the Weminuche Wilderness. And that, my friends, is where I want to be.

It continues with the best day ever, the best ride ever, on the most difficult horse I ever rode, ever trained, ever learned to trust in the mountains. Yes, my Flying Crow. He rose to the occasion, hunkered down to work and got the job done, ponying two mares and half of camp, and leading the rest. Faced his fears when I asked him to – and he has so many fears. Elk on trail, moose at camp, and innumerable boogymen that I couldn’t see.

Which reminds me. About chasing moose, the mother and baby. Gunnar did that. Again. People tell me it’s dangerous. I’m not saying it isn’t and I’m sure not saying it’s good. But I always thought he could handle himself, do his job of chasing wildlife away from his horses, and return unscathed. He’s a true shepherd. It’s his job. He has his own boundaries. It’s not about the hunt; it’s about getting them away from his charge. And if you see this little shepherd chasing off the big ugly moose, there is a tinge of David versus Goliath and a twisted smile, though I swear I wish he wouldn’t do it.

It ends with us there. Horses picketed or hobbled, heads down grazing. Sun setting behind the Rio Grande Pyramid there in view before us. Tent and tarp set. Tools leaning up against a tree, including the cross cut saws I so carefully sharpened and oiled and prepared for the onslaught that awaits them tomorrow.

The silence settles us.

We sit under the tarp with dinner in paper plates leaving grease stains on our jeans and boxed wine in enamel mugs and we breathe. Just breathe. And really, that is all I hear at first. The breath of my husband, my son, my self. My dog there with us. A few relaxed snorts from the nearby horses. And life is very good.

In time, there is the scratch of my favorite pen on paper. I actually missed the sound, the feel, the sight of my scribbled writing pouring from cold hands, light streaming from the little headlamp strapped around my wool capped head, while the rest of me stays warm in the double sleeping bag, tight against my tired husband, so close beside my son and dog. The four of us in the so-called two-man tent, and there lies a difference between many a two men, and my family. Here. Now. No place we would rather be.

Day two. The real work begins.

Twenty trees cut and cleared from across the ditch this morning. The cross cut saw sings with joy after the hours spent sharpening and setting the height of the scrapers and taking such pride in this old tool that once came off the wall of the log cabin as no more than a nifty rustic decoration.

Only four and half more trees cleared in the afternoon, including but half of the Big One that fell since we inspected the ditch only weeks ago.

Rain begins. Jeans soak in the moisture as we hope does the ground. We seek shelter under needleless trees that provide little protection. Instead we hunker down, wrapping ourselves under our raincoats, knees to chin, backs again the bare trees, and wait it out. The rain proves more tenacious, and for this we are grateful for we know the mountain thirsts. Yet we long then, selfishly, for a campfire which might bring us warm and dry again. Barring that, a sunny morning and enough time before work to hang the jeans in trees and set the boots on rocks to dry before the work day begins anew tomorrow.

That evening our plans change. A new horse to camp decides she has had enough and it’s prime time to go home. Bob retrieves her. Another, however, becomes upset by the matter, and runs around with the new found freedom of having lost his hobbles. Gunnar always runs with his horses, and ran beside this one too. I swear I saw the look of joy on Gunnar’s face right before the horse turned sharp and kicked back sideways and got Gunnar hard in the head.

Day three. Rest, recovery, and a little work.

I did not sleep much last night. Having had nursed my son through a head injury just months before, I kept a vigil and checked on Gunnar throughout the night. From time to time I drifted off and dreamed about packing him out of the Wilderness on horse, figuring out the logistics of which horse to ride, to carry my dog, to leave behind, what to do with camp two hours from the trail head and two hours more to the vet. He just needs to get through the night, I kept thinking. I don’t want to ride the steep trail blind in the darkness while holding my dear dog instead of the reins.

My dreams drifted back and forth between my one-eyed dog, a haunting of my old Zorg, the first shepherd I had who taught me one eye was plenty for keeping a good eye on me; and my mom and dad who had recently endured a car wreck. We headed to camp before hearing the final word of their well being, and there I was, worried…

We awoke to a little sun and a lot of hope. Gunnar’s eye was swollen shut but we were pretty sure the eye was not damaged. The bleeding in the nose continued but seemed to be draining the swelling of his horribly swollen bridge.

We cleaned the dog, the blood on our clothes, our sleeping bags, the tent, and laid everything out and in the little bit of sun to dry before the rain began again.

By late morning we put on still wet jeans and boots and return to work, hoping to get in a few hours of bucking before the rain, leaving the dog resting beneath a nearby tree, close enough to hear us sawing as he tries to watch us through his one good eye, and falls in and out of needed sleep.

Evening. We have decided to leave tomorrow. Gunnar should be able to just make the two hour trek out to our truck and trailer, and if not, then surely we need to get him to the vet. We have completed our saw work for now, and cleared the ditch of a total of thirty obstructing and fallen trees. There will be more. Plenty more. The beetles provide us with job security.

I once heard a fat man can fall trees. And sure enough, I’ve seen this to be true. But a lean lady sure can buck one up clean. Just a little something to think about…

An hour before sunset. I leave the boys resting in the tent with the poor pup and talk a quick walk up the North Fork trail to test out my new camera (more on that at a later date) and soak in the changed view of the now brown hills in golden light. Beetle kill. I count fifty one trees fallen across this short section of trail and I wonder the fate of horse traffic and travel in the Wilderness.

Day four. Heading home.

Fourth of July and we dread leaving the higher country early when what we want is to be there, not back here with the tourists and traffic and dust and noise.

But we make it home safe, set the horses free on pasture with the rest of the herd, and sneak down to the Little Cabin where we have not been able to spend time yet this year.

For the dog, we say. So he will not be disturbed. So he can rest and recover. We blame it on him. It’s easier that way. Though I’m not sure I’ve fooled anyone. My unsocial tendencies are well known.

And there we are at night, in the little cabin with rain falling hard on the metal roof and old warped glass windows, the wood cook stove chugging away with dinner in a steaming pot on top, where our insatiable appetites are allowed to find their fill, and warm dry thick real beds envelope us for the best night sleep it seems we’ve had in ages, Forrest in the top bunk, Bob and me in the middle, and Gunnar in his bed beneath us.

We’ll go back in a couple weeks. Let the dog recover, the horses get their fill. Spend our time working on some other projects around the ranch and at neighbor’s that need to be finished up first. Then, we’ll return to our higher mountain home. Get away; get back to our work, wilds and silence. A strange balance. I’ve been told it’s unreal. But that’s not the case at all. In fact, it is very, very real.

(a bunch of additional photos posted on Facebook)

Gin Getz

On the intimate connection between person and place. Sharing words and images of wilds within and around.

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Ditch Diaries

Ditch Diaries

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