A Year is Too Long!

Yep, been almost a year since a post. Shameful. Shamed into posting an update by Karren's friend Harper. So here goes;

We are firmly settled into Idaho life. Our big news stories consist of bears eating hikers in Yellowstone (If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone...), Bears getting hit on the interstate just a few miles from our house, neighbors having to shoot a cougar that was dragging a deer up the back yard (I don't blame them, they have small kids), and deer invading the garden and laying waste to our recently planted strawberries. Critters, they are a fact of life out here in the western mountains, and most folks from the city don't understand this experience.

So we tilled the garden last spring and got it planted.

That woman can work I tell you. She's a frontier woman and tough as nails. Just ask her students. Something about their writing skills...

Anyway, We felt relieved to have the crops in and settled back to watch the epic story of germination - growth - harvest. Here are the planters in their moment of reverie!

By the way, I just love my Mork suspenders. Those greenish-blue things are water walls, which guard against frost damage. Essentially mini-greenhouses. They are great for peppers and tomatoes during the early spring, which around here is late April-May. Also notice the rather large difference in size between the two individuals in the photo. It is an optical illusion - we are actually almost the same size - it is the selfie camera angle that exaggerates the perspective. Right? Or am I just really sensitive about our disparity? Moving on...

Cattle drive time in Idaho. The cows get to walk to their summer pastures, which can be virtually anywhere nearby. Lots of public land for grazing out here. It is always fun to watch them saunter down the road almost oblivious to the herding dogs nipping at their heels. here they are in front of the house:

Then the deer struck. They wailed on the strawberries, often just ripping them out by the roots. The peas got hammered as soon as they erupted, so something had to be done. Last year we lost our entire pea crop to the fiends. Enter the internet. I read about a novel system of fishing line and tin can noise-makers that showed promise. So I strung the fishing line around the garden and terminated it into large coffee cans filled with smaller cans. The first night was a constant din, but the deer were spooked. The successful strategy was augmented a few days later with the addition of a motion detecting sprinkler. It saw frequent action over the next few nights and seemed to keep the monsters at bay. Then we kept getting the same two does penetrating the defense, oblivious to the protections offered.

Enter phase three, the enforcer. Ruger makes an awesome pellet gun called a Blackhawk, and I procured one from a friend for a bargain price ($50!) and began the midnight patrols. After waiting a full four hours the first night I heard the tell-tale racket of the cans followed by the sprinkler. Dashing to the back door I struggled with the lock, then fought with the mud room door (it seems to swell in the summer, making it difficult to open). By the time I got the flashlight and gun combo aimed and ready, those deer were history. I vowed revenge and steeled myself for the coming effort.

Wouldn't you know the deer found other things to do? After a week and a half absence they managed to sneak in one night without detection and mow down half a row of carrot tops, two onions, and then ravaged the strawberries yet again. This was the last straw.

It began with the rustling of cans. I was out of the bed faster than Mama Cass fighting to the front of a Chick-Fil-A line. I had left the kitchen door unbolted and the mud room open to the elements. I had rehearsed the flashlight-gun maneuvers meticulously and took quick aim. I leave the rest to your fertile imagination. The result? Gone. Vamos. Exiled. End of problem.

It seems we have no other problem animals, or that we have just planted enough crops to feed them yet still harvest. Most others visit so infrequently that I have not had to take drastic actions again, but I do remain vigilant.

As June crawled by the rains came and the house was set in a verdant green of grass and weeds, but there were some wonderful discoveries. We found peonies, daffodils, various fruit trees, and more varieties of iris than we had ever known existed. They were all over the yard and in the tall grass. Here is a particularly stunning variety:

Another favorite we have is the color of a dream sickle, orange and white. The colors were vibrant and glorious. Not much of a flower guy but these things are beautiful.

I took a day and put some concrete and wood together to form a rudimentary rack for our truck topper. We were tired of using the chain hoist in the garage and losing the space, so we built this thing and can now remove or install in minutes! Highly recommended.

Here is the happy couple again, watching the garden grow and taking a moment to relish the absence of mosquitos - eat your heart out VA peeps! Notice the rather lush lawn which is now a forest of two-inch long, brittle, brown stalks of dried sharp stuff just waiting to punch a hole in your mower's tires.

So Karren got this crazy idea that we just HAD to get away during the height of the garden watering season and go camping. So, after training the neighbor's kids on how to water the place we took a full week off and hit the trail to Stanley, Idaho for some R&R. Of course this meant we had to put the stupid truck cap back on the truck on the hottest day of the year, but anything to make the admiral happy. I grumbled as I rummaged through all our camping gear. I grumbled as we pulled out the fishing stuff. I grumbled as I tuned up the canoe and greased the trailer hubs.

We pulled out of the driveway like a herd of turtles and as any good american would do, headed to Wal-Mart to stock up on provisions. Satisfied with our quotient of imported camping gadgets and block ice we proceeded to take the longest possible route to our destination and arrived a bit late to find an open campsite. Well, any campsite really. Then we just threw a dart at the map and said, "How about up this way?" I just knew we were going to spend a night moving from parking lot to parking lot but Karren refused to accept defeat. Accusing me of being a sourpuss she surprised me by pointing out a killer spot that no one else had found. It had all the merits a campsite should; Off the main highway about a mile, on a river, no stagnant water nearby, no adjacent campsites, a pre-existing fire ring, and enough space for the truck, trailer and our screen house. Presto! We were in camping heaven!

The next week was spent in timeless reverie of fishing, eating like starved Ethiopians, swimming, gold panning, reading books, and sleeping like the dead. Each night was cool enough to require snuggling into the down bags and each day was spent wading the river abusing trout. Here is a pic of Karren virtually standing in downtown Stanley, fishing the Salmon River just a few hundred feet from the main road. We must have caught 30 fish that day and the other fishermen were not having the same luck. Lightweights! We come from Virginia were the fish are smarter and bigger, but the rivers are dirtier and bigger, so "we is educated to the wily ways of any fishy fish." And we cheated with spinning reels. All caught on Blue Fox Vibrax and Mepps spinners BTW.

That girl is a fishing trick! Below, she is thanking the fish gods for her last catch. Or is it just an expression of sheer joy to be away from a desk and computer screen? We may never know.

Even though the water is runoff from the snow and glaciers it was pleasant enough to wade in. We'll be back. When we got back home we found the radishes had matured so we picked them. And ate them. And found recipes to even cook them. Of course it was time to plant more!

The beginning of August found us picking the first of many baskets of produce. Here you see squash, chard, peas, and beets.

This means the canning rituals are not far behind. This year I figured I'd get a more streamlined setup in place by cooking the stuff in the garage. The trial run worked out well and we now have about a third of our canning done for the season. A new canner for the glass cooktop is on order and we have a portable invection hotplate for jams and jellies too. Don't want to get that sticky stuff on our new kitchen cooktop. It's a glass smooth top and they don't do well with sugars. Gotta use flat-bottomed cookware too, hence the new canner.

We are getting serious about the zombie-apocalypse thing. Are we preppers? Not really, but there is a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that we can survive out here with wood heat, a diesel generator for the water well and refrigerator, shootin' irons with ammo, and a mountain of well preserved food from our own garden. Another nice thing is that most of our neighbors are well prepared too. This winter is beginning to show signs of being a serious one, so we are better off than most.

The next installment of the Western Ho! blog is likely to be in the middle of the winter so we shall see how the season goes. Until then, be safe and ..... Hey, did I just hear the cans get knocked over again? Sorry, gotta run!!!