In The Alaskan Range

Lee and I were driving through the Alaskan Range today.  Below is a photo of a river and mountains near the highest point we reached.  Above is a photo of a moutain Lee called "Rainbow Mountain"...Driving by it there were many different colors on the side of it.  Here you can see a little green and red, but driving by we saw more as the sun hit different angles.

Day 10

June 6^th, 2011. Did a lot of work today. Cut down a few old trees with a saw, trimmed down some more trees watered the garden and filled the horse trough. I have a feeling Lee is running out of things for me to do. He gives me a task and I get it done usually a lot faster than he says I should. Like today he said "Cut these dead trees down and load em into the trailer, that should take you a few hours". I got it done within 45 minutes. When I get things done too fast like that he usually has me trim plants with sheers or pull rocks out of dirt. I know I'm doing a good job, I always work hard. We got to talkin today and decided we should book a ticket for me to get back in advance so that its cheaper. We expected to find one a couple weeks out but the cheapest one (by 300 dollars) was a flight out the 13^th of June. So looks like I'll only be here for another week. I'm sure my work will get real crappy towards the end of the week as I wrap up things. After dinner he said, "Tomorrow morning lets go to town and get some gravel, we can stop by the store too"…There's no point in me going, I'm sure he just doesn't have anything for me to do. I already told him that trimming 1-inch thick trees at the base all day could be kind of tedious. He knows it's not realistic to ask me to cut down plants for 10 hours a day, so he's probably spreading the job out some. I volunteer to cook and clean, it allows me to stay busy. If this was my ranch I wouldn't want people coming and just sitting around either, but if I'm not busy then I'm cutting down trees or pulling rocks out of the dirt. Oh well, if the jobs done then it's done. I'm beat though, going to sleep…its 8:30 here…gnight.

Day 9

June 5^th, 2011. Had the day off today…needed some rest but it was super boring. I wanted to relax because I'm so sore, wish I woulda felt up to going on a hike. I slept for 11 hours last night, so I should be good and rested for work tomorrow. I met one of Lee's friends today, Laura, I think she is the lady he's going to get his flowers from for the flowerbeds I dug up. I forgot I brought my external hard drive, so I was able to watch The Town today on this computer…but I watched it sitting on a tiny little wood chair that looked like it was made for a 2^nd grader. I BBQ'd up some chicken for dinner, left the bones outside for the foxes, they come around every night but I never see em (Only once). Every time I leave something out its gone in the AM. I'm becoming easily amused though, I do get pretty bored, but I never woulda thought I'd go walk around the barn just to watch the swallows fly around. I did that twice today. I want to find a book to read though. When there is absolutely nothing to do your mind finds things to do for you. I'm learning the birds and horses patterns. I see what they do all day, how often they go for food/water, how they warm up when its windy, or cool down when its hot and sunny. The horses like to stand behind the little barn in the shade when its hot (For about an hour then go straight for water), and they run around aimlessly when its cold. Everything out here just kinda takes a natural course because theirs really no type of entertainment. The wildlife seems to be doing the best with pretty much nothing to do, but I could see how people could end up being more animal like living out here. This is gonna be a good experience, but probably isn't something I could do for life. I appreciate it all, but I'm too much of a "city boy" as they call me out here. I still cut my hair weekly and keep my beard trimmed. That’s more of a comfort thing, but certain habits take more than a scenery change to alter. Just knowing I'll be back in Cali in a couple months causes me to cut corners here and there. I'm guessing there will still be some sort of a culture shock when I get back though just because I feel like I'm miles away from another "city person". I've always felt I was good at foreseeing my future by looking at the path I'm currently on. Habits are made and broken all the time, but you need to remember that they change for a reason. The most challenging part of living out here is the physical work, which I feel lucky to be able to handle pretty well. I doubt any of these country folk out here could handle the city life as well as I handle their country life. I wonder if I'm getting the most out of it, I mean, if the challenge isn't as extreme as possible then the lessons learned aren't as extreme. I should try WWOOFing in another country some time, I think that would be really hard. Life is all about learning, and we learn our best in hard times, so if we can put ourselves in harsh situations delicately then we can learn some pretty neat stuff safely. Some people mix up hard with bad, and easy with good…they may go hand in hand at times, but its not safe to assume they belong together. What I'm doing is a perfect example of an easy lesson learned by hard work. I have no choice but to learn fast and pick up on things quick. It can be dangerous out here if you aren't paying attention, so as long as I'm listening to what I hear the knowledge will come with ease. Thinking like that really makes you want to take advantage of your strengths. Doing the bare minimum sort of stops time, its important that everyone realizes that when you're not progressing your digressing…you can't tread water in life. I think the real challenge comes when you try to find your niche…but even if your not doing what you dreamed you'd once do doesn't mean your treading water. Progression takes time, and before progression comes preparation. The most important thing is to stay positive and open, because you never know when something great might hit you. The more open your mind is the bigger your net is for catching inspiration. Ok I could go on forever with this philosophical crap lol…its fun to write…but Good Night!!!

Two of the other 20 horses

Did you know they still allow smoking in restaraunts up here?  Kids and everything inside...I like this pic above...lol

North and South From the Hilltop

I took a moment to walk up a hill to look around today.  The above photo faces south...you can see a little bit of the Alaskan Range here.  The bottom photo faces north, my bunkhouse is behind those trees somehwere. 

Day 8

June 4^th, 2011. Tedious work today…I basically just cut down mini willow trees that are sprouting up all around Lee's new how site. After that I dug out a bunch of big rocks around it where he wants to plant grass. My back was killing me, I spent all day hunched over. Bah so glad its over. But I get tomorrow off! After I got done working I went down to the bunkhouse and just passed out in the chair for about 2 hours. Lee came in and said, "You look disappointed". I told him, "No I'm just beat man". I literally work as hard as I can every day and just get burned out. Lee went on to tell me how good of a job I did, and that he was very pleased with my work. We BBQ'd up a couple steaks he said he was saving, so I had a really good dinner too. This morning I woke up and saw a bald eagle, red fox, moose, horse, and elk all outside my window. It is really neat to know that there's still a place like this. The work might be back breaking and bone chilling at times, but you get to experience stuff up here that seems to be no big deal from an outsiders standpoint. But when you see all this wildlife you start to think differently about other stuff. And being that Lee owns so much land we don’t throw out as much in the garbage as I've normally done in my life. Anything that is biodegradable can be recycled on the spot. The guys Lee has helping him with the masonry work on his new house told me about the last WWOOFer to come up here. I guess he just left about a month ago, Lee never told me. I can see how people can have a hard time getting along with Lee, but he's just a hard ass. When you're on his ranch you do things his way, but he and his ways are respectable. It just takes some understanding. His land is so big that I've never really got to see his other 20 horses, but today they all surprised me at the same time and said Hi! Lol, I went over and fed them some grass and petted them. I wish I could get closer to the elk, but they only let me get about 50 feet then they just bolt away like I was a mountain lion. I've only been here a week and it seems like much longer. I don’t mean that in a bad way, there's just so much I've learned and done. I'll admit that when I got here I thought it would be about 10% as difficult as it really is. But still I have to say that I'm happy to be here. Everything just seems so real here, its hard to explain how clear your mind gets when your this far away from home. It's like boot camp lol, or detention in high school. I'm here for a while, it's hard as hell, but I'm learning and I know much good will come from it. I keep thinking back to when I'd complain about work being too hard, or not being able to handle a simple task, and think, "wow really". Like I said, it has only been a week, but I can tell you its been the hardest working week of my life. When you get things done around here you get to see progress. The more work you do, the more you accomplish. And when I walk around the ranch and see improvements that I made it makes me feel good. Its not like workings in a warehouse where you load up 20,000 pounds of product in a truck and it drives away. This all stays here, I see it all grow and become something better. …. I thought horses liked apples??? I tried to give Clearwater (The white horse) an apple today and he didn’t want it…oh well, maybe he wants an orange lol. I did a load of laundry yesterday and accidentally dropped half a roll of toilet paper in their…all my clothes are covered in TP shreds!!! Good thing I'm not going out anywhere for the next couple months haha. Ahhh what to type what to type….I feel bad, today I had to knock down a swallow nest. Those little birds nest EVERYWHERE up here…But Lee doesn't want them nesting on the bunkhouse. Within about 3 or 4 hours of knocking it down they had already built about half of it back up though. They all work as a team, there's a gang of about 50 of them that just fly together. They make their nests out of mud, they look like little baskets up on beams or wherever they can stack it. Tiny little birds though, only .5 ounces, and they aren't dumb. They too have fun flying like the ravens do, I see them chase each other around all day. It's getting late, and its my only night to stay up late, think I'm gonna watch Fight Club then go to bed. Good Night from Delta Junction!

Day 7

June 3^rd, 2011. Today was another good day. I told Lee I'd wake up at 6:30 and get the coffee going for us but he walked in at 6:31. I actually woke up at 6:20 and had it percolating by 6:30. We poured our cups at about 6:40. Lee turned on the radio for the first time and we got to listen to a little news while we woke up. Normally we get out and start the day at about 8:00, but since we ran out of coffee by 7:20 we started then. I took the above photo at about 7:40 when we got to the shop a mile up the pasture. Those are a few of the mountains, which make up the Alaskan Range. This picture doesn't show what I really saw, I wish I had a better camera. It actually looked unreal, like I was looking at a picture. I helped do a little here and there at the shop, took care of some laundry, and dug up another flowerbed today. I'm happy with the flowerbeds, they take a lot more work than it appears. I had to dig out all the rocks, grass, weeds, even roots to make sure the soil was 100%. The bottom picture is of a bird lol. It's nesting just outside my bunkhouse and didn't seem to be scared of me at all. I was able to get about 3 feet from the bird without it flying away. You can see the little bird head looking at the camera, and tail to the left. It was very windy today, not too cold though. Lee took me to this tavern type place and we got a burger and a beer for dinner. The guys he has helping him with his new house are coming tomorrow so I'll be up at the usual time trying to help. I'm pretty tired…its only 8:19 right now but I think I'm gonna go lay down.