Operation Ladder Bridge

Caretaker’s Log, Sunday, May 18, 2014

It’s an overcast morning. I’m wishing for the sun.

I water the plants.

Kinky Creek is starting to fill up, to swell.

I heat up some coffee.

The sun is burning through the clouds. Maybe it’ll burn them off completely.

The red tailed hawk is out early, scanning its domain.

After the morning things are tended to, I gear up and meander up to the dam. The water is churning faster, burbling louder. There is debris on the grate. I’ve brought a ski pole with me as an aid. It’s not any help at all. So I pull over the ladder that’s conveniently there—Loring had said they used it, but not how—and lay it between the banks.

Of course this is very safe. What could go wrong?

I inch out until I’m over the grate and reach down to clear off the weeds and sticks. The water is very cold. There’s one reedy plant growing up on the east side of the bank, leaning over the grate, collecting soggy detritus. If I had shears I could cut it back. I have a knife in my backpack, but I don’t feel like hacking the plant up. What else do I have? What I need is some rope. I check my emergency survival pack and find a box of dental floss. Perfect. With a prayer that it’s not going to come undone and destroy the environment, I loop it around the reed and tie it up tight. That should hold it. At least until I come back later this afternoon or tomorrow to clear the grate again.

I’ll have to take one to two trips daily to clear the grate until the creek’s flooding subsides. Probably sometime next week.

I see the bluebird of happiness on my way down.

Back at the Lodge, I heat up the last of today’s coffee, lace it with drops of almond and vanilla extract, and go outside to sit in the sun. The cat comes by for attention and then takes her place under my chair.

A helicopter flies overhead.

Just that quick, Kinky Creek is flooding. Flooding like mad.

At 4:20 I go back up to the dam. This is not the gentle lapping into the grate that I’d witnessed only this morning. This is wild, cyclonic, suctioning, and malevolent release. I can’t even see the metal bars of the dam grating. I’m glad I had a practice run this morning. Glad I brought latex gloves to protect my hands as I stick my arms in up to the elbows in cold, cold water. I hardly know if I’m clearing the grill, it’s so rapidly covered with gushing water. I do my best.

As if I haven’t had enough to do with water, I go to the Lodge and wash my temporal form and then do the dishes.

I’ve swept up the mud and dirt twice already today. Glad I’m the only one to track it in.

Dinner is ½ a can of peaches and a bowl of rice, garbanzo beans, and hummus. Lunch was the same thing.

Phinehas calls. It’s Sunday.

I see the beaver in Kinky Creek. I wonder what he thinks of the flooding.

Caretaker’s Log, Monday, May 19, 2014

It took me a long time to fall asleep last night. And when sleep finally came it was busy-dreamed and light. I wake up at 6:00 something, and again at 7:00. At 7:30 I just get up.

If I get moving quick enough I can be up and back from the dam in time to check the system in the generator shed at 10:00.

I’m not that motivated.

Besides, it’d gotten down in the low 20s overnight and there’s frost on the ground.

I see the bald eagle.

On the way across the field to the dam I see a bird of prey with blue wings. What is that?

My dam trip starts at 10:12 and lasts until 11:47—there and back again. The dam grate is pretty well covered in stick and weeds and sticks and reeds. I’ve brought better, thicker gloves this time, to keep my hands both warm and protected.

The dental floss is still tied to the reed, but the reed is dragged down under the force of water, completely submerged. I break off the reed sticks that hang over the grating after all. Guess I don’t need shears or a knife. When I’m done clearing the grate, I sort through the mess on the ground until I find the floss—pack out what you pack in, and all that.

I decide that if I’m going to be tired from today’s chores then I’m going to be really tired. From 12:00 to 3:30 I chop wood. I chop enough wood that I think I might not have to chop any more while I’m here. Not if the weather stays this warm.

I take an hour break to eat and sit numbly still before going back up the hill to the dam. There’s not much to clear this afternoon.

Two beavers are busy in the river. Busy, busy guys.

I get cleaned up. Wash my hair.

It’s almost time for the weather. After I record the temperatures and do my evening outside check I’m doing nothing. I’ve expended all my energy for today.

I see the beavers again when I check the generator shed and to do the weather walk around.

You know how there are kids that fall asleep while eating? That’s how I feel eating my dinner, that if I don’t pay attention and stay alert I’ll just fold over, over my broccoli and fall asleep.

Caretaker’s Log, Tuesday, May 20, 2014

I’m a continuing line of bruises, scrapes, and pain. My arms are much stronger. So are my legs.

The internet is not connecting. There is no access. A computer restart fixes the problem.

At 10:05 I head up to the dam. Although I’ve walked up at a snail’s pace it only takes me 22 minutes. Only two minutes longer than usual. Maybe I always go this slowly. There is hardly any debris on the grate.

Back at the Lodge, I take out the trash. Work some of this hard puzzle I’m working. I don’t really know how the afternoon gets by.

I’m just exhausted. Sore, tired, and incapable of making decisions.

My friend Jill calls.

I eat broccoli for lunch.

My mom calls.

I email Karen and ask if it’s possible to be taken to Billings, MT rather than Jackson, WY when I’m taken out of here. It looks like the summer crew will arrive on June 2^nd. If the roads are good. A man named Porgy is coming out this Friday, Saturday, or Sunday (Karen said she didn’t know which day) to test them, to make a trial run. Karen says that Billings is a possibility if I can stick around until she leaves the Darwin on June 8^th or 9^th. So I buy a Greyhound ticket to Oregon for June 10^th. I spend too much frustrating time trying to print out my ticket on the HP Laserjet 3200 whose driver is not recognized by my computer. Oh technology. 

 

It rains a little. 

There’s a rainbow on the east mountains.

I turn off the music I’ve had on all day just in time to hear the thunder.

God, I’m tired.

Goin' on a Bear Hunt, Gonna Catch a Bear

Caretaker’s Log, Thursday, May 15, 2014

I’m up earlier than usual and downstairs by 8:30.

I make up a batch of granola.

There are eight (8!) Sandhill cranes in the west field.

The birds are happy today, singing up a chorus from the trees.

I’m enjoying my coffee on the porch in the sun, thinking of what I need to do today, planning out a summer itinerary in my head. I make a list so that I can sit in peace and enjoy my morning without getting up every few minutes to start on something and then remind myself it can wait a moment. It’s nice to have a list to go off of.

I walk up to the dam.

Nearly there, I see some tracks. They almost look like mine. Look almost human. But they’re not. I’m pretty sure those tracks are bear. I stop. I stare at the tracks. They go in the direction I have to go. I wish I were better versed in how fresh a track is by just looking, like all the Louis L’Amour heroes. I’m not that good. I adjust the bear spray that’s looped conveniently around my shoulder and wonder what’s over that rise. 

Well, bear or no bear, I still have to make sure the trash screen doesn’t get clogged and the dam taken out. Maybe I won’t mention these bear tracks to anyone.  

The grating is almost completely clear of snow. There’s a little bit of weedy catch on one of the grating irons. I remove it with a long stick.

Back at the Lodge, I do an online search on what to do if I encounter a grizzly. It’s real reassuring.

I sit on the edge of the porch and read. Or really I sit on the edge of the porch and watch the ground squirrels chase each other around. One of them goes for the jackpot of food--it climbs up into the cat’s food dish and goes to town. Oh, ground squirrels will play when the cat is away. They don’t even care I’m there. They chase each other back and forth underneath my suspended foot.

It’s been 21 days since my visitor Todd came by. If no one comes today I’ll set a new record for myself of time with no face to face human contact.

There’s a green apple in the fridge that Karen left there. It’s still firm. Enough. I have it as my first dinner with tahini. I do miss fresh food.

I don’t have a second dinner after all. Just a handful of almonds and a few bites of chocolate with my nightly glass of wine. I settle in on the couch next to the fire and finish the #1 Superthriller of 1977 – Firefox by Craig Thomas. It’s actually a decent book.

There were butterflies out today. Just in time for my mom’s birthday tomorrow.

Caretaker’s Log, Friday, May 16, 2014

The thought that makes me smile when I wake up is that it’s my mom’s birthday today.

I call her up and sing badly, as is family custom, to her.

I set out some garbanzo beans to soak.

The ground squirrels are running quite a racket. One distracts the cat and the other goes to eat food out of her dish. The cat is completely unaware of this deception. She’s hunkered down in the hunt by the rock.

My sister in law calls and tells me that I’m going to be an aunt to a nephew sometime in October.

A spam message in my email says, “Momma Grizzly is about to strike.” Good grief, I think, I sure hope not.

 

Michaela calls to talk to me about our upcoming nephew.

Grandmama calls.

I’ve spent a pretty lazy day lazing.

There’s a mist over this valley. Looks like it’s bringing rain.

I have quinoa and broccoli for dinner.

Caretaker’s Log, Saturday, May 17, 2014

The mist has cleared from the valley, but there’s fresh mist over the mountains mixing with the clouds. It’s the kind of mist that burns off in the sunlight. Burn away mist, burn away clouds. I’m hoping for a sunny day.

I make coffee.

I put the garbanzo beans on the stove to cook. I’m going to make hummus later on.

Michaela calls.

After I check on things in the generator shed after the noon switch from bulk to float (and I do have to reset the system to go back on timer. I don’t know what drives it to flip on its own to something other than its preset program), I gear up and head in the direction of the Kinky Creek dam.

With the bear on my mind I decide to go up a new way. Through the brush and trees. Because why not. I pick my way through the sagebrush not liking when it gets too tall. I head to the creek, it’s clearer going along the bank, and admire the opposite shore’s pathway more than the one I’m on. The grass is always greener….

I cross the creek, absolutely grateful for the rain boots I’d bought last spring when I had a weekend stint as a chicken farmer, and slog through the snow up the hill. As if I’ve gone this way my whole life, I emerge over a hill (twenty or thirty minutes later) and come exactly up to the dam. I’m pretty impressed with myself. I wonder if I could do that again?

There’s no sign of bears, elk, moose, raccoons, beavers, cats, or badgers.

The dam grating is clear of all snow. I move a couple sticks off, and that’s that.

I go back down the mountain on the old and well known path.

The red tailed hawk is soaring circles above me.

I’ve seen that the main road in to the Darwin is showing now. For a lark, I venture over to test how muddy and impassable it might be. Sometime in the future someone is going to come down that road and take me out of here. It’s pretty dry in many spots. I walk all the way up to the top gate. There are a few patches, 100 or 200 feet long, with snow pack anywhere from one to eight inches deep. But it’s clearing.

There’s a downed tree around the first curve, not too far from the Lodge. I’ll have to take an ax and chop up the part that’s blocking the road. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it next week. I wonder if there’s a saw in the toolshed.

It’s a perfect day for a long walk. The temperature is in the high 50s, the sun is warm, the air crisp, the birds some company.

I get the last of the carrots, two cans of peaches, and four green apples (these have been in here since time began. Some of them have mold. I don’t know if they’ll be any good) out of the root cellar.

After I return to the Lodge and get changed out of my outdoor gear, I make hummus.

The hummus is really good. I eat it with carrots. The apple I choose is no good. I decide against trying any of the others just now.

Out of nowhere I think of the game-song Mammaw used to play with us kids. Going on a bear hunt, gonna catch a bear, gonna catch a BIG bear.

I imagine this catching of a bear to be done with a giant butterfly net.

I really don’t want to catch a bear. 

I make a cup of peppermint tea and take it to drink outside in the light of the descending sun. The cat likes this idea.

A mosquito bites me on the hand.

I relocate a spider from the kitchen to the great outdoors.

I watch a beaver for a while through the back room window with the binoculars.

Coyote Lovely

Caretaker’s Log, Monday, May 12, 2014

Some mornings are just not friendly for me. This is one of those mornings. It’s a painful start. Like a magic trick, it’s all in the wrists. I take my daily dose of painkiller, make the bed, and am grateful that the sun is, at least, partly out. Although it’s cold I may get out later. The pain will dull. It’s probably just the indication of an incoming storm. I’m your weathergirl.

While I eat my breakfast I see the cat hunting the ground squirrels. I don’t know what drives her moods, caprice? Most of the time she ignore them. Now, spurred by instinct, she pounces, and darts her paw into a hole, withdraws paw and self and hunkers down to wait. She twitches with anticipation. Silly cat. The ground squirrel goes to ground. Wisely, the ground squirrel stays in the ground until the cat loses interest.

I spend the better part of the day researching a trip I’d like to take to Montana when I leave the Darwin. Car rental costs, insurance costs, places to see, places to stay, food cost, gas cost, flights to the next place. It all adds up to a lot. I’m disheartened and unsure of my future plans.

A few minutes before 4:00, I gear up and hike across the east field, over the bridge, across the orange shrub (is this all sagebrush?) strewn pasture, around the river, and up the steep gray shrubbed (another version of sagebrush?) hill. I’ve not been this way before. A strange fear slows my steps. What if there’s a bear up there? What if the elk are in those trees and get spooked by me and charge? What silliness. I climb.

The view from the top is spectacular. The entire valley is spread out before me in colors of spring, orange-red, green, brown, yellow, blue. The river is littered with ducks. One of the Sandhill crane pairs is raising a fuss. There’s a sound like frogs. I don’t know if it is frogs or not.

To my right are two overturned plastic chairs, marking a frequented fire pit. The coyote has been up here. I’ve seen her prints in the mud all the way up the mountain. I see them in the hard packed snow still covering the ground beneath the trees.

Through the trees is the Professor’s cabin.

That same reluctance, like fear, causes me to approach slowly. Torn out bits of a chair cushion lay scattered over the little porch. It feels like trespassing to enter. But I do. The door is unlocked and I push it open tentatively. As if there’s going to be a bear hibernating inside. As if the professor is there. As if….

There’s nothing to jump out and get me. There is, however, a little dead mouse in the entryway. Rather freshly dead. After I’ve trespassed completely inside the professor’s little cabin, not wanting to linger long inside, not wanting to touch things or go through things, I use the shovel propped up against the outside wall to take the mouse and place it next to a tree. Rest in peace, little mouse.

I make sure the door is closed tight when I leave.

I follow the elk path down the mountain. It’s easier going down than up. It doesn’t feel nearly so steep which seems backwards. A motion catches my eye, there’s a large, dark figure crossing the eastern slope. I swing up the binoculars and glare through them. It’s a young moose! He makes his way along and I follow his path until he’s out of sight.

I see the red tailed hawk.

I love the red tailed hawk.

I’m nearing the Lodge’s fence line thinking it’s been a while since I saw a beaver when I see a beaver swim past.

The ground squirrels are omnipresent.

I sit on the porch when I get back and stretch out my legs. The cat takes advantage of the position and jumps into my lap. 

 

 There was snow drifting down when I left the Lodge at 3:56. There’s a different storm of snow drifting down now at 5:19.

I was very happy for what blue sky I got today. I was beginning to feel mournful.

There’s a mist creeping in from the west, northwest. It looks like another storm, only it’s too dark, too dusk to really see.

Caretaker’s Log, Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Yesterday was what might be termed as a Blue Eeyore day. I wake up in a much better mood this morning. The sun, I can tell by the skylight, is showing without much cloudly hindrance. My pain level, though evident, is less. I’d slept better through the night, more soundly.

The phone rings as I’m heating up my coffee. It’s Loring. He’s wondering if I’ll go search Willow cabin for a box of blank checks he’s missing. “At your leisure,” he says.

After a sip or two of my heated coffee, I pull on my boots and go nose through all the cabinets, drawers, and files in the other cabin. No success. No checks.


I call Loring and tell him that I’m sorry I couldn’t have given him more joyful news.

The bald eagle flies over the river toward the east field.

Later, the coyote cuts across that same field and I watch her, happily, as she trots, runs, walks her way to the front of the property. She disappears down the embankment by the Kinky Creek culvert. It’s a good day. On my way to retrieve something from upstairs, I see her again. She’s gotten over into the western field, making her way along the fence line toward the north. I watch her until she vanishes behind the red orange sagebrush and doesn’t reappear.

I love the coyote.

I take my coffee, a book, my notebook, the binoculars, and my camera out to the porch and sit in the sun with the cat for insistent company.

There’s that moose again! Louis L’Amour did say that movement gives away position. Motion catches the eye. It’s true. The moose is near the front of the property heading upwards as if he’s going to go check the dam for me. What a day this is!

It’s the first warm day in ages. Warm enough for me to sit in the sun without my coat on. The cat likes the company. I’m reading Firefox by Craig Thomas. “#1 Superthriller of the year.” The book is one year older than I am. I saw the movie when I was kid. I wonder how awful that is.

I make some quinoa and put it together with the beans I’d made the other day. I add in some canned mushrooms and some leftover pineapple pieces.

I talk with my mom.

I eat my lunch.

The red tailed hawk sits for a brief moment on the east fence then it’s off again. Places to be.

 

I needed today’s warmth and sunshine.

A flock of black birds, at least thirteen of them, take over the front yard. I watch them through the window as I eat my dinner. There are some nuthatches, too. One of the birds has scarlet feathers over the black as if he’s wearing a red velvet vest.

I start another puzzle.

The moon nears full.

Caretaker’s Log, Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Partly sunny, already 37 something degrees at 9:00. Looks like it’s shaping up to be another bright, warm day. I’m glad. 

Six weeks here today.

I vacuum and sweep up. This makes me feel much better. Nothing like a cleaner living space.

In the afternoon, I startle three Sandhill cranes when I go outside to see what 50 degrees feels like in the wind. They fly away, protesting as they go. The clouds are filmy and make it too chill to sit outside comfortably. I don’t feel like gearing all the way up in order to force myself on the great outdoors.

Eleven months ago a friend of mine was lost at sea on his way to New Zealand. His dad messages me to invite me to a Celebration of Life they’ll hold in July in England. Although, they still have hope that maybe Matt is still alive, they’re taking steps to give family and friends a kind of closure. I’m touched by the invitation and filled with memory, sadness, joy, and kind hope.  

 

I get the last of the lemons out of the root cellar. I’m excited to find more cans of peaches. I’d thought I was down to only pineapple. Not yet.

I talk with Michaela.

It’s broccoli and peaches for dinner.

The owl is out who-whooing again.

What a sunset!

It’s going to be a full moon tonight. 
 

 
 I research transportation options for getting across Montana. Wikipedia sums it up nicely, “The public transportation system in Montana is sparse as a whole….” I find this to be, unfortunately, very true. In spite of that, I’m beginning to have the start of a real summer plan.

  

I go outside to watch the full moon rise over the trees. 

There’s a night bird sounding out in the darkness. I don’t know what it is.