Just Some Stuff

Jax and I took a hike over to Last Hurrah to get a side by side that was left over there, drove it back, went on a hike for three or four miles and then wandered around. Just some stuff I came across while I was out there, wandering and wondering.

Years ago I saw a rattlesnake wrapped around this post and as I headed back to the lodge to get some tongs and a trash can to catch him and move him to a new location four guys from the company I ran at the time, Let's Play Sports, came by in the jeep. One of them said "What are you doing?" I said "Going up to the lodge and get some tongs and a trash can. There's a rattlesnake by the sheep." They hit the brakes and everybody bailed out of the jeep and took off running. I said "What?" They said "You said there's a rattlesnake in the jeep."

This is where the sheep use to live. Pinto, Thelma, and Louise.

Jax and I drove up to the main house to wish the guests Merry Christmas but the Polaris side by side was gone so they were out there somewhere driving around in it.

I was so busy back in September, October, November, and the hours were so long. I don't want to do that again and I may not have to. A couple weeks ago Johnny called and said he needed a job so he's been back helping around the lodge for a little while now. I told him how it was and we're going to get slammed with people again in a few months so to get as much stuff done now as possible so we don't have crisis we have to stop and deal with along the way. Jax and I walked down to the river and Johnny has cut the path extremely wide so that when the river floods this summer as it always does I won't have to spend three or four days down there in the heat with the mosquitoes to clear the trail again. This year the beach was an island the whole time. The small creek between the river bank and the beach never went away.

When Linny and I use to go hiking with Kobae and we'd head towards the Wind Caves we would wait under this ledge and sit on that rock in the shade waiting for Kobae to catch up. One day when we hiked out to the Wind Caves and were on our way back we noticed that the ledge had fractured in half and come crashing down where we had been sitting an hour or two earlier.

Doug's hogan construction up on the cliffs has been slowed down by holidays and snow.

I've always had three pair of ravens. They mate for life. A few years ago one of them lost a mate and it was miserable for days around the lodge crying and complaining. The other two pair stayed with it during the whole time until it found a new mate. I don't mean to be insensitive but these are the three pair that raid other birds nests, drag their young out, swing them around, step on them, slam them on the rocks, and flaunt and parade the killing of songbirds young while the smaller birds buzz them hopelessly trying to get them to leave. Linny and I broke up the mass murder of a few nests a couple times, I've broken up a couple more raids and a few years ago I had some disc golfers come back from a round of disc saying they couldn't finish the round they were so sick to their stomachs watching a raven raiding party slowly torture and kill the young of two birds up on the cliffs by the basket on eleven.

For a week or so recently a conspiracy of 30 ravens or so would gather outside the front of the lodge early in the morning before I woke. I'd hear them, look, out the window, and see them walking all around the place. I've had issues with them before and we know each other well. Especially in the finger canyons from a few years ago when they would spray me with gravel and push rocks off the ledges nearly killing one of my dates. I ignored them. They were looking for trouble. Since then I've heard bird sounds I haven't heard before and gone outside to see what it is and it was ravens mimicking other birds. They're up to no good and in the fingers where they live, we're still going to have issues before this winter is over. I feel it.

Jax is crazy.