Some Stuff

Linda has been here this week helping Linny and we're catching up. I'm way behind on maintenance but chipping away at one or two things everyday. Each evening I fix the front porch and that night the raccoons dig it up again trying to steal skunk hot dogs. I don't fit it and they leave it alone.

It's almost time for babies, for everyone. I was over at Last Hurrah a few days ago, without my camera, and there are two new baby big horn. So cute. They came down to drink out of the pond even with people there. Fox, raccoon, and skunk will be showing up with their babies soon. Little bands of three to five coming to the Kit&Kaboodle bowls. The evenings are cool but the days hot. I put air conditioners in the rooms the other day. The coolers on the roof hoses keep breaking so at the moment though it would be a savings on power I'm not using them.

A month or so ago a side by side showed up and said they had lost an expensive bag of clothes out Jackson Hole somewhere but couldn't find it. Linny and I dying for a chance to get away from the lodge knew we could find it and took a side by side out to Jackson. We didn't find it either. The people thanked us and headed out. A couple weeks ago, in the mail, I got a package and it said "Thanks for helping us look for our bag. I noticed you were putting lotion on your feet when we were there so I bought you this Miracle Foot Repair lotion." Thank you. All the guests are parking with their engines facing the open parking lot away from where the bushes and the squirrels are and easier for Jax to spot when he sleeps in the window of my office with one eye open and on the parking lot. We've had one vehicle that a squirrel had just started to chew on a wire when Jax found him and that's been the extent of it this year. If you don't know some spark plug wires and starter wires are made of vegetable derivatives, and since all our rock squirrels have long criminal histories it's up to Jax to keep them under control. He takes his job seriously and with enthusiasm. Last nigh sitting out on the porch feeding critters a newly checked in guests brought me something with a lot of value they found hidden in their room and I've notified the last several people that stayed in there to see if they are missing anything. We rarely get bad guests or meet bad people. A few crazies. Usually Hurrah Pass weeds out all the people without heart.

Last evening I was pumping water at the main house next door. It was quiet. Just the bull frogs bellowing away in the pond. Waiting for the last holding tank to fill up I sat back in the side by side and laid against the head rest. The moon was bright but still the stars were amazing. I thought about how just a 15 year old and myself are running the whole operation on 145 acres with 10 rentals and lots of camping. Linny is pretty incredible to be this mature at 15 and blessed with such a strong work ethic. I saw a couple of large passenger jets at 35,000 feet blinking over with little noise. All the people in the planes from one destination to another with mostly hurried lives. I've had hundreds, if not thousands of people tell me how lucky I am but it didn't feel like luck working hundred hour weeks for 25 years and putting everything you have at risk over and over to make the business at the time successful. It didn't feel lucky driving around for 15 years off and on in the boonies looking for what I finally found. Still, that work eventually fed and led me into this and for that I do feel fortunate.