Happy dogs -Sparky and Raven in Dandelions
Tanagers are back
Dogs Run
This is Mary, Judi's high school friend, Lynn and Judi. We ate lunch together on Monday at Rendezvous Pointe - spaghetti dinner. 
Joe Walking Back to the House After Irrigating
Contentment - Antelope chewing his cud 
Grasshopper Sparrow
Lynn and Judi's daughter Shara with remnants of old desks from old Big Sandy School
Lynn, Judi and Vicky at Sacred Rim 
Lynn, Clinker and Sparky on a hike up Irish Canyon
Red Shafted Flicker
Taking cattle to the desert (click to see)
Curtis when he arrived Friday.Woke up beautiful fog that soon lifted. I love the shredded clouds that waft over the hills and canyons. It's a cool morning.
Saturday late afternoon we got another thunderstorm and rain as has been “normal” for several weeks now. This time there was an abundance of thunder and lightning and it woke me up from a nap. The main storm seemed to come from the south, which is a little unusual. I wondered if the power would go off. But there is no electricity south of us all the way to Farson. and that is a small blip on the landscape. Not much in that direction for lightning to strike - a lot of empty country.
It rained large drops that drummed on the studio roof, making "rain on the roof" especially loud. The wind rippled the hay – now about a foot high or more – looking like waves on the green prairie. It's a thing I love to see.
So lo and behold just about as the storm began in earnest, a man called – he had to be one of the weathermen from NOAA in Riverton. He said his name but not his job. Sandra told him to call me because we were the furthest south with a phone. She’s a weather spotter. He asked a lot of questions about the storm. Said their radar wouldn't reach the low elevations over here because we are in the "shadow" of the Wind Rivers. He said the worst of it should only last 20 or 30 minutes, but they were concerned whether it could hold large hail up to ¾ of an inch and wanted to know if we’d gotten any hail. We didn’t get hail here but it put down a lot of water with large heavy drops. Heard on the radio that there was a tornado watch/warning in most of the counties in SE Wyoming until midnight. There was a lot of flashing lightning and rain for about three hours and thunder rumbled nearly continuously. It was an interesting diversion in an otherwise very quiet day. Muddy Creek is high, and I’ve heard a lot of the irrigation ditches north of us have too much water.
Bonnie said: "I'm surprised that you didn't get hail. We got a lot and it looked like we were on the edge. Towards you it was much darker so I thought it was worse but I guess not. It didn't do my flowers any good. Kind of shredded the petunias. "
The book I’m reading – Shadow Country - has E. J. Watson killing Belle Starr http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Starr and fleeing to Floriida. It’s a novel, so I was curious how the author began with that piece of history and made it plausible. Like, how do you sake one rather obscure name in history and make him and all his relatives and neighbors come to life. I googled Belle Starr and found out a lot about her. And one of the suspects in her murder was E.J. Watson, a real person! I have a feeling that this E.J. Watson will end up not being the same E.J. Watson – or something like that. Anyway all his neighbors “executed” him, and the story goes from there with flashbacks and accounts from each of the characters. The way he writes you feel you are there in that time and place - the keys next to the Everglades on the west coast of Florida.
Joe drove his truck out to irrigate before the storm, just mostly along the main ditch. Usually a lot of debris will float down with higher water and then clog up the laterals. The dogs are finding something bad out there to eat, and Sparky looks kind of sick. Neither of them wanted their dinner. But Raven did eat the canned food. I gave them.
Today Joe is working on that utility room sink faucet. It has still been leaking. He's really giving the faucet the once over. It gives him something to do. We may still have to find a new one that fits.
Today is Flag Day here in the United States. Two hundred thirty-two years ago, on this day in 1777, the government officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as our national flag.
This is a photo I took from the house of Joe putting up that horizontal log above the big front gate. That's him up on the ladder on the left side. The distance from the house to the gate is 1/2 a mile. I probably need to explain what's happening. He has both the Chevy PU and the tractor down there. All the tools and things he needs are in the truck, and he rests in the cab every so often. You can see by the brush obscuring about 3 or 4 feet up the pu bed that there is that more height to the poles than you can see.
He balances the log on the tractor bucket and raises that as high as it will go. That is still about 6 feet short of the top of the poles, so he brings first one end and then the other up to the top of the vertical pole with a rope .... while he's about 20? feet up the ladder braced on the upright pole. Then goes to the other end and raises it. It's held in place with a large spike nail which he drives in with a 3# maul. I don't know how many trips up and down the ladder it takes, or moving the huge ladder from one pole to the other and back. The horizontal pole laid on the ground out there for over a year - drying it out. You may remember how I told you the story last summer or the summer before of how he went up to Irish Canyon to bring the pole down and it was too big/heavy, but he went back later after it dried out some and got it. All of this he does by himself. So this has been going on for parts of three summers.
I'm experimenting with the camera zoom. The other day I found I wasn't even beginning to get the full zoom. It goes up to 10X with the lens extended. Then somehow, digitally I guess, since I haven't read the technical parts in the manual, it can then be pushed again and go to 40X. YES I KNOW!! very big. So I've been trying it out to see what I get. It's hard to do that much zoom and hand hold the camera and keep it stead or focused.
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Eastern Kingbird - not common here. Not too bad a picture at 40X on something you can hold in the palm of your hand, although I've noticed how sharpness is lost with most of the zoomed in photos.
This is Norm's place from our house. It's about 3/4 of a mile away from here. This is probably higher than 10X but don't know how much, between there and 40X. It is still quite sharp.
This is zoomed in on just the house, and still not up to 40X - kept it below 40X just to get it all in. Those guys are going to have to be careful what they do there in the yard! This is the only other place in our valley, and they only come there to work these days. They have two other ranches and live closer to Boulder. There is a small bunk house cabin in the other direction near to our mailbox, with a set of corrals, an outhouse and a well, but no one has ever lived there. This is the one we call the Honeymoon Cabin. A sheepherder stayed there with his dogs and a wagon a few summers while the land was leased to a sheep rancher. That was fun - keeping a herd sheep out of our pasture while the sheepherder napped. They ran and knocked down about a quarter mile of fence once. Apparently nothing was hurt but the fence. Welll..... there's more to it than that ..... I went out with the dogs to herd them out after they'd been in here several times, and then the sheep ran. And the fence was in wet ground and old anyway.
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Friday the 13th comes on Saturday this month. For a month which had only one thing on my datebook calendar pages on June the 1st, it is already more than half full of one or more things to do this month. June has turned into being very busy. Nothing on the schedule for today though. I'm still just getting going this morning.
Just reporting - I took an oxycontin pain pill (which is more powerful and lasts for 12 hours) night before last. I just do not like them. I was headachy and anxious all day and the next night, still a little woozy feeling this morning. I know it's that pill. So will not do that again unless there is enough pain to make the side effects worth taking it. The small four hour hydrocodon or an alleve arthritis will do fine for most of the time. I'm actually taking fewer pills than since I first got sick. Some days only one or two.
Curtis did get here on his Gold Wing about 2:30 or so yesterday. I assumed he was staying overnight, but he was already getting anxious to be back home and wanted to keep on going - to Helena and back down Hwy 93, he said. It will be interesting to hear where he ended up. It could be anywhere. So he stayed and visited for an hour or so. It was good to see him and thoughtful of him to stop by. Curtis is a good son in law. I haven't downloaded the pictures yet.
We had more rain and today is cloudy, was very gray this morning. The weather report is calling for scattered clouds, but there is only hazy sun and not much blue sky to be seen. Still cool. The hay and grass on the desert pastures is sure benefiting from the rain, but it also needs some warm weather to really grow.
Joe mowed the front yard and part of the back yesterday. The "lawn" is sure looking nice. I'm going to get the weed eater out and running and cut down some of the tall stuff by working in stages, as usual where the mower doesn't reach the grass is very tall. I've been thinking of transplanting some Great Basin rye grass from here to the Arrowhead yard. It grows about 6 feet tall and gets a nice seed head on it. And is native so shouldn't need to water it. It would give a variety to the plants there and look good with those boulders. Maybe I could get Joe to think of the boulders as our pieces of the Wind Rivers so they would be more meaningful.
Talked to both the kids yesterday, and other phone calls. Got the yellow bedroom cleaned so all of a sudden it seems like progress is being made toward having this whole house cleaned. It's a relief. Bonnie inspired me. I made some banana pea can bread yesterday. The pea cans are a gift from Kathy who brought them from her family's pea can farm in Georgia. Ordinary puh cons must come from California. This is what you get from an idle mind.
Yesterday Bonnie came over and polished the woodwork in the house, especially cleaning and oiling all the cabinets and the bookcases in the studio. You can sure see the difference and they are sparkling now. THANK YOU BONNIE, I'M VERY GRATEFUL FOR ALL YOU DO AND FOR YOUR FRIENDSHIP. I got the studio carpet sprinkled with pet fresh and thoroughly vacuumed in there and the same in the living room. The carpet in the studio is an ivory color berber with flecks so its light colored. Wth the dogs in here so much it gets pretty dirty. I was surprised how clean the soiled areas came with slowly and thoroughly vacuuming. I did it about four times. It looks pretty good. So I don't need to consider using the steam cleaner right now. Guess I usually vacuum too fast. Betty always said I go at everything like I was killing snakes. Maybe its good to slow down.
It was pretty nice all day with some sun, but mostly cloudy. Bonnie took a few plants for her yard, and while we were out it was very dark - navy blue - to the west. But it just sat there the same for some hours. By dinnertime it was raining again, pretty hard at times, and rained all night. This morning it's partly sunny again. Joe walked out to irrigate a little. The Richies took a little bunch of their cattle out to the desert this morning. They had their yellow slickers on, but as they left they had lucked out and were having sunshine. The Salt Lake station says this rainy weather is just going to keep on the same way up into next week.
Sandra called. She has her grandkids here for most of the summer.
Curtis will be here tonight. He called and said he's taking a motorcycle trip up to Glacier Park and back, or whatever strikes him interesting at the time he will turn off and do. He called a little bit ago and said he was in Rock Springs, so will be here soon. The weather sure isn't very nice for traveling around here anyway. Off and on, you can't see a thing. But he said he has a little time right now - 5 days - and if he waits, between his work and the new house he and Debbie are building, he won't get any vacation all summer. Last I heard the house should be finished in September. It should be very beautiful.
Photos of a doe antelope by the house the other day.
I've been sitting here trying to write for the blog and nothing is coming out of my fingers, so I'll catch up here tomorrow. We are really having a good rain this evening.
This sounds like artists to me: When Barbara Walters asked Sir Laurence Olivier how he might wish to be remembered, he replied, "As something like an expert workman." Barbara said, "Sounds so prosaic." Olivier reflected for a moment and said, "Well, I think a poet is a workman. I think Shakespeare was a workman. And God's a workman. I don't think there's anything better than a workman. Or a workwoman."
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