Archives for June 2011
Spring in Wyoming
It has been fun being in Wyoming with somebody that has never been here before. To see it through the eyes of a newcomer.
We arrived on Friday late in the afternoon. As you begin your descent into Wyoming we saw some beautiful, snow-covered mountains. Then the plane does a sharp bank and the Grand Tetons are right there in front of you. That sight has never, even 16 years later, failed to bring tears to my eyes.
Even silly little things that I don’t even notice anymore, like the elk arches as you enter the airport, are exciting to somebody that has never seen them before.
After a quick stop at the town hall to register the expired registration on my pickup truck, we did the obligatory stop at Yippy-I-O Candy Co. I knew I would be cutting it close getting to the town hall before they closed for the weekend, so I called them from the Denver airport to see what their hours were. I got a message machine and left a message. Lorraine asked me if I really expected to be called back. I said I did. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later they did call me back, and they didn’t just call once; I didn’t hear it ring the first time so they called me back again! That, in a million years, wouldn’t happen with the Connecticut DMV.
You couldn’t imagine my surprise when we pulled up to the restaurant I’d made reservations at and across the street the old sheep herder’s wagon that had sat at Puzzleface Ranch forever was now in the front yard of a cowboy antique store. I came so close to buying it on more than one occasion as a guest house for our yard here. It still looked exactly the same, down to the quilt that my friend Melinda had on it when she sold it.
The boys posed in front of the stuffed elk on the square.
and we all went home and crashed into bed. It had been a very long day.
In the morning we went for the mandatory breakfast at Norah’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson where Evan fueled up on a chili omelette before the journey up to camp for the month. I always seem to run into somebody I know there, and this time was no different, running into our real estate agent. The moose that had so kindly appeared for Lorraine and James the night before as we were heading home for dinner, once again showed his face to send James and Evan off to camp.
Although it was quite cloudy, the drive through Teton National Park on the way to Dubois is still quite stunning with the Tetons so close.
There is one particular spot that, in the peak of the summer, can be covered with hundreds and hundreds of bison. That day there was only a small herd, but it was still exciting for Lorraine and James, who had never seen wild bison before.
But I don’t think anything could have prepared Lorraine, or me for that matter, for the amount of snow that was still up on Togwotee Pass. I think Lorraine, who was already extremely anxious at the thought of dropping her boy off in Wyoming for a month, was just about to have a heart attack.
It was pretty incredible to think that it was June 18th and there was still that much snow on the ground. It wasn’t just in spots up there, it was covered in snow, and lots of it. Even the ponds and lakes up there were still frozen solid.
Thankfully, as we started our decent down the pass the snow turned into patches of snow, and by the time we got to the turn for Teton Valley Ranch Camp there was no snow to be found anywhere but patches still up in the mountains above.
We got the boys checked, made their beds, showed James and Lorraine around and had some lunch. It’s pretty hard to imagine any swimming in Lake LeBotto with the weather they are having right now.
One last photo down at the barn, some hugs and kisses but surprisingly no tears by any of us, and we were off for our journey back to Jackson, leaving our boys for a month of fun and adventure in the wilderness of Wyoming.
Goat House Cupolas
When I first started researching cupolas to use on the goat house and chicken coop I was astounded at how expensive they can be. Michelle had drawn one cupola on the chicken coop and two on the goat house. At the prices I was finding that would have been prohibitively expensive. Then I stumbled across 3 birdhouses at a local decorating store warehouse. I thought they’d be perfect for cupolas. Then I came across these solar-powered attic fans and I thought that would be great for keeping the animals cool in the summer. We have an enormous old dinosaur of an attic fan in our house and it does wonders to cool off our house. The contractors said they could just build it into the lower box of the fan.
I was feeling so ‘green’ and energy efficient!
Just to really kick it up a ‘green’ notch, I added two solar-powered lights – one for each house. The houses look more technically savvy with all those solar panels than our house does! Then, just for shits and giggles I decided to distinguish the two houses with appropriate animals. I found a great copper rooster at, of all places, Pottery Barn! Perfect for the coop. Then I found really inexpensive goat weathervanes on-line. Two of those for the goat house. They are actually boer goats, but most people would not be able to tell the difference.
And the last items completed today were the ramps for the chickens to get in and out of the coops. Because of the big grade change around the houses, some of the ramps are quite steep! I guess I won’t have any fat chickens when they’re running up and down them all day.
I Was Drowning in Strawberries
That’s a lot of strawberries. Especially when you only have one decent huller. The twins and I took turns hulling, but it was still a 2-day affair. In the end, which was today, I have 18 pints and one half pint of very intense strawberry jam and 10 jelly jars of amazing strawberry compote. Amanda and I had some of that over vanilla ice cream tonight. Wow.
And then, because I’m an idiot, I bought a bunch of blueberries while I was at Trader Joe’s buying goat milk for the babies. With that I got 6 jelly jars of Blueberry Lemon Marmalade.
And if you didn’t catch it above, Amanda’s got home from college today! Finally. At last, and very briefly, my whole family is together again.