At the ranch
16/06/14 05:06
The sound of the rain on the roof of our camper was a pleasant way to go to sleep last night. It wasn’t a big storm, just a little spring rain. We had driven through showers for much of the last 75 or so miles, but it looked like it was clearing up as the sun slipped behind the Crazy Mountains. There is something about being back in the country where I grew up that brings back all kinds of memories. We are at Jarrett’s Duck Creek Ranch, which is in the Yellowstone Valley and not in the high country, but the sound of the rain on the roof reminded me of early summer nights up at camp, where the cabins had no insulation in the roofs and no interior ceilings so the sound of the rain was easy to hear.
This is the kind of country where no one complains about rain. The rivers and creeks are all running full and there is still plenty of snow in the mountains, but it hasn’t rained all that much in this country. They are irrigating heavily in the hay fields now, hoping to finish the alfalfa enough to be in the field putting up hay within a couple of weeks or so. If the water holds they’ll get two cuttings this summer. Either way, they count on that first cutting to have a decent yield and good nutrition to see the sheep and cattle through the winter. On our way into the ranch the mud puddles in the road were mostly the product of the irrigation, not of the showers.
But after we arrived and set up and went inside for a little snack and a short visit, the rain started and continued for a while as we drifted off to sleep with the music of the rain on the roof. I was tired after the events of the the day and the week that preceded it and was soon sleeping. I don’t know if it rained for a long time, but my sense is that it was just a shower that passed. The night was quiet and the next thing I remember is the birdsong of this morning. There are a lot of trees here along the creek, many of them are old cottonwoods with massive trunks and branches and spreads that provide lots of shade on the lush grass growing below. The trees also provide shelter for all kinds of song birds who commute from the southland to spend their summers at the ranch.
It always takes us a while to shift gears into vacation mode. We knew that we wanted to make a few miles yesterday in order to get to the ranch. My sister is leaving this morning to head to Portland to visit her kids. We wanted to sneak in a short visit with her and the way to do that was to push a little bit yesterday to make over 400 miles after church. It took us a while to finish loading the camper and get on the road, so it was about 2 pm when we left home and nearly 9:30 when we arrived at the ranch. But there is an advantage to heading west. We have gained a half hour or so of evening light. We set up the camper in the dusk and I didn’t have to navigate the gravel roads and find the place int he dark.
As we drove we talked about church mostly. We were bouncing around ideas for crafts and songs for Vacation Bible School. We know that taking a vacation requires us to be ready to dive right back in as soon as we return and we’ve had our eyes on things that happen after our vacation as we prepared to leave. As our vacation progresses, we won’t be thinking about work quite as much, but it takes a few days to move our minds out of our usual work mode.
Our plan today is to start to slow down a bit. We can take a more leisurely pace getting ready to leave. There may even be a chance to walk around the ranch, take a look a the lambs and take a picture or two before we hitch up the camper and head on up the road. And today’s journey will be up. The first climb is the Bozeman pass about 50 miles or so to the west. Then it is up over Pipestone where we cross the continental divide just east of Butte. There are two more passes in the Idaho panhandle before we head out into the big wheat country of eastern Washington. We don’t have a specific destination in mind for our camping place tonight, but the farther we go today the shorter tomorrow will be. If we make it to the edge of the Cascades, we are assured of a beautiful campsite and a short drive tomorrow.
It seems as if the season of grief through which we have been passing at church has been paralleled by a fair amount of grief in my home country. As we visited last night there were stories of the death of a neighbor who had been in this country as long as any of us could remember. He suffered a stroke a while back and passed away peacefully in the local hospital, but he will be deeply missed by the folks who live around here. Good neighbors make the world seem a bit safer and the work seem a little lighter. And here on the ranch, everyone is waiting for the return of the hired man who has been back in North Dakota for the burial of his wife, who died suddenly of an aneurism. They got her to the hospital and from there to a bigger hospital in Billings, but she didn’t survive long enough for surgeons to repair the problem. The whole ranch is going to seem different without her and it will take a while for the hired hand to learn a new routine for his life and work.
But life goes on. The deer are feeding in the meadows. The cattle and sheep are grazing in their pastures. There is no small amount of old machinery in need of repair and preparation for haying which will soon be on the ranch. Old machine and old vehicles are being spruced up to last another year. There isn’t enough profit in the ranching business for new equipment this year.
But this is ranch country and next year is always going to be better. And the rain on the roof last night was definitely a good sign.
This is the kind of country where no one complains about rain. The rivers and creeks are all running full and there is still plenty of snow in the mountains, but it hasn’t rained all that much in this country. They are irrigating heavily in the hay fields now, hoping to finish the alfalfa enough to be in the field putting up hay within a couple of weeks or so. If the water holds they’ll get two cuttings this summer. Either way, they count on that first cutting to have a decent yield and good nutrition to see the sheep and cattle through the winter. On our way into the ranch the mud puddles in the road were mostly the product of the irrigation, not of the showers.
But after we arrived and set up and went inside for a little snack and a short visit, the rain started and continued for a while as we drifted off to sleep with the music of the rain on the roof. I was tired after the events of the the day and the week that preceded it and was soon sleeping. I don’t know if it rained for a long time, but my sense is that it was just a shower that passed. The night was quiet and the next thing I remember is the birdsong of this morning. There are a lot of trees here along the creek, many of them are old cottonwoods with massive trunks and branches and spreads that provide lots of shade on the lush grass growing below. The trees also provide shelter for all kinds of song birds who commute from the southland to spend their summers at the ranch.
It always takes us a while to shift gears into vacation mode. We knew that we wanted to make a few miles yesterday in order to get to the ranch. My sister is leaving this morning to head to Portland to visit her kids. We wanted to sneak in a short visit with her and the way to do that was to push a little bit yesterday to make over 400 miles after church. It took us a while to finish loading the camper and get on the road, so it was about 2 pm when we left home and nearly 9:30 when we arrived at the ranch. But there is an advantage to heading west. We have gained a half hour or so of evening light. We set up the camper in the dusk and I didn’t have to navigate the gravel roads and find the place int he dark.
As we drove we talked about church mostly. We were bouncing around ideas for crafts and songs for Vacation Bible School. We know that taking a vacation requires us to be ready to dive right back in as soon as we return and we’ve had our eyes on things that happen after our vacation as we prepared to leave. As our vacation progresses, we won’t be thinking about work quite as much, but it takes a few days to move our minds out of our usual work mode.
Our plan today is to start to slow down a bit. We can take a more leisurely pace getting ready to leave. There may even be a chance to walk around the ranch, take a look a the lambs and take a picture or two before we hitch up the camper and head on up the road. And today’s journey will be up. The first climb is the Bozeman pass about 50 miles or so to the west. Then it is up over Pipestone where we cross the continental divide just east of Butte. There are two more passes in the Idaho panhandle before we head out into the big wheat country of eastern Washington. We don’t have a specific destination in mind for our camping place tonight, but the farther we go today the shorter tomorrow will be. If we make it to the edge of the Cascades, we are assured of a beautiful campsite and a short drive tomorrow.
It seems as if the season of grief through which we have been passing at church has been paralleled by a fair amount of grief in my home country. As we visited last night there were stories of the death of a neighbor who had been in this country as long as any of us could remember. He suffered a stroke a while back and passed away peacefully in the local hospital, but he will be deeply missed by the folks who live around here. Good neighbors make the world seem a bit safer and the work seem a little lighter. And here on the ranch, everyone is waiting for the return of the hired man who has been back in North Dakota for the burial of his wife, who died suddenly of an aneurism. They got her to the hospital and from there to a bigger hospital in Billings, but she didn’t survive long enough for surgeons to repair the problem. The whole ranch is going to seem different without her and it will take a while for the hired hand to learn a new routine for his life and work.
But life goes on. The deer are feeding in the meadows. The cattle and sheep are grazing in their pastures. There is no small amount of old machinery in need of repair and preparation for haying which will soon be on the ranch. Old machine and old vehicles are being spruced up to last another year. There isn’t enough profit in the ranching business for new equipment this year.
But this is ranch country and next year is always going to be better. And the rain on the roof last night was definitely a good sign.