We'll See What Happens

In February I will be starting my 20th year at Base Camp. I've been bitten by lots of things, stung by others, allergic to most things out here, caught in terrible hail storms, nearly washed away by floods a couple of times, stranded while the water rose around me, nearly drowned in the river, fallen some pretty good heights, eaten some stuff I wasn't supposed to, broken things and have had years where I've spent more time at the Emergency Room then some of the people that work there. This was one of those years. There are a few things wrong with my body but the severe one was I had five stomach infections at one time. Losing 28 pounds in three months, I've gained two of them back, I was incapacitated July and August with stomach pain so severe. It's better, but not yet perfect. Had some returning pain the last two days but still there are some nights I can sleep on my stomach. When the pain is that less I almost giggle it feels so good when I lay down and I sleep through a large portion of the night, with Jax of course.

The last two, maybe three years have not made much money, if at all. Had my last illness not ended well the new owners of the property would have been responsible for any negative and that's Heather and Linny. If there is much of that I suspect it wouldn't have been long before the whole place was up for sale. There is significant equity in a sale. So, not wishing to leave them with any problems and to insure the future of the property I'm going to offer off some of it. I have gotten a lot of verbal offers over the years so I guess I'll find out if anybody was serious. My friend Randy Day is going to list it. At the moment I would prefer just to sell the far side with the houses and hogans and keep everything else. However it looks a lot more attactive sale wise if all but the lodge were in the listing. 100 acres instead of 30.

I'm emotionally attached to the lodge and I need a place to stay anyway. I'd like to hang on to the boat ramp, Hull's Place, and the Hurrah disc golf course and have one weekend a year where I have the whole place for Doug's disc tournament. If I got enough to pay off the debt, walk with significant cash, and leave the lodge free and clear that is a pretty rosy future. I emailed some people that have expressed interest and I'll see what happens for a week or two before Randy list the north side. Maybe nothing will happen. Guess we'll find out.

Three Floods

The three floods we had this year did extensive geography damage to the roads, creek beds, and drive ways. The lodge driveway took a real beating with almost all the gravel washed away. Teresa, Jax, and I have been making a trip to the gravel pit most days bringing small loads back and filling in empty spots in the driveway and then pushing it around to spread it out. It takes it getting pushed down or run over to settle in. With winter (mid 50s), and few guests, I csn get in three hours of administrative stuff each day, three hours of working around the property, and three hours of hiking with Jax. That will be a good off season. I've got about sixty days before things really pick up.

Grey Fox

Most days this time of year you can walk to the west end of the porch and see a grey/gray fox watching. Get it a couple hot dogs and it will come pretty close. I've seen as many as five at one time during the day. At night there are 10 to 15 in addition of up to five red foxes. They blend in well.

Jax and I

Good hike out to Land of the Skinny People.

The Days

This is such a good time of the year. We have one set of guests at the moment and Teresa and Jax are out hiking with them. I like to sit on the porch for half an hour each morning and observe. The white crowned sparrows eat at one feeding location. The house finches at another and the black eyes juncos at one more. The Eurasian doves go back and forth as do the most populous bird right now the red winged blackbirds. They live in the reeds of the pond next door. The day they leave in late February the cow birds en masse will show up and take their places both feeding and nesting. There has been a canyon wren bouncing around on the porch for weeks looking for a place to live and finally last week a second one showed up and they are hanging around together. The bird I've felt the worst for is the single pinyon jay who comes every day by itself but even it finally found a mate this week. For the last couple weeks three skunks have come to the porch. Jax got sprayed by this one twice last week. We came back from hiking yesterday and Jax walked through the door and two seconds later came right back out. Five seconds later the striped skunk come out of the kitchen.

Four or Five Days

The pain went completely away for four or five days and Jax and I got some good hikes in. Pretty happy with how recovery is going.

Heather

Good day to be pround of a daughter who takes time out of her life to honor those. They certainly took time out of their lives to honor us.

Linny and daughter CC

Linny riding Kobae 20 years ago when they were both little. Then CC riding Kobae when he isn't so little.

The Big Horn

Good picture of the big horn in the canyon below where Jax and I were hiking.

Every Day

It's a rare day when Jax and I don't head out hiking. The trips are getting longer each day as stamina keeps coming back. A few days ago I had about a five minute spell hiking back to the lodge where I didn't feel any pain at all and the nest night same thing happened for a little longer. It feels so nice to not have the terrible pain I had during the summer.

I think it was Nov 30th when the last guests checked out and a bunch of disc golfers showed up. For the 12 days af

ter that I didn't see a single person. Nobody came to the lodge at all. The critters weren't in short supply at all. Two adult skunks come up on the porch every day. One is really clean and the other one really dirty. Without even spraying it stinks. We're only had one ringtail for a month now and sporadic but a replica of that one started showing up, though smaller, about a week ago. They are so funny.

The raccoons are huge. Bulking up for the winter. Soon they will mostly disappear for the winter. I followed tracks all the way from the boat house next door to the front porch of the lodge for feeding. They walk a mile eash way for cat food. Up to five gray foxes that come up the hill each day from the river to feed in the day time. They'll get within 20 or so feet sometimes.

Life

I mentioned a week or two ago that I was pretty ill over the summer and had lost 28 or so pounds in three months and was mostly incapacitated during that time from the pain. I'm on various meds of which one is pain. Over the last six weeks tha pain has gone down substantially and while I haven't had a completely pain free day yet it's massively better. The stomach swelling I had has gone down by 75% percent. I know longer think I'm having twins.

Jax and I, and somedays Teresa goes with us, are out hiking everyday. I'm getting my endurance back but it's going to be a long road. My hope is by February I'll be able to hike back from town again.

So far one of the best off season's I've had. There are currently 13 big horn, six mule deer, three grey foxes and two adult skunks that show up during the day time to get hot dogs. Jax knows not to mess with the skunks but he is curious and he does not understand why two of the last four days he has walked down the porch just to check them out and say hi and they have sprayed him. Teresa has stepped up and cleaned him both times. He looks so lost when he gets sprayed like "what did I do wrong". Today he wouldn't walk down to that end of the porch even when I just went to feed the foxes as they alternately took turns coming up the hill.

Mountain Lion

Every year when guests ask me if we have a mountain lion I tell them 2nd to 3rd week of March and right around Thanksgiving. There are three hawks currently patrolling the canyon. A male and a female sharpshin hawk and the third one I'm not sure of yet but have seen it from a distance. Each morning the ravens have been gathering and heading toward the north side of the property where I see the female the most. Linny and I have seen this befoe where they gather to kill a competitor. I told Teresa the female sharpshin would be dead in a few days. I have seen at least one raven shadowing it everywhere it goes. At the boat ramp I saw a raven sitting on the next branch same tree to the female hawk. Two dayw later I saw six ravens come out of the tamarisk at once. I was confident I was about to find the dead female but when I walked over there it was a dead three point mule deer I have seen many times on the property over the years. The first day I saw it was still complete from the neck up and I didn't see any marks from a mountain lion or tracks. The next two times I visited I did notice that the neck was broken and bent back as I've seen the mountain lion do before.

The Fingers

Can hardly go wrong hiking back in the Finger Canyons.

Not a No Cows Day

Jax loves to chase them. With normally four potential directions to chase them you would think that the odds of getting him to chase them the way I want them to go would be at least one in four to get them off the property but in reality there is almost zero chance.

The Beach

North side of the beach is not looking so good with dead foliage that was washed down but the south side looks great. Turning into pretty good sized.

Disc Golf Kind of Day

Ignore the dates on the camera they are way off and I don't know how to fix it. We had disc golfers come in by truck, Jeep, motorcycles, bicycles, and the Moab Jett group came in by boat.