Friday Nite Check In

 I suppose you all will accuse me of taking a "selfie"..., that doesn't make me look old, fat and bald?  Well..., I might have gained a pound or two this week..., an inch and a half of rain on Sunday..., half and inch on Monday..., and another half an inch on Tuesday..., kept me from working off any excess weight.  The Garden wasn't the only thing that loved it..., The Driveway and The Pastures did too..., but The Driveway expressed it more than The Pastures.  I finally ran out of gas..., and the weed eater ran out of string enough times that I was damn tired of restringing it and gave up for the day on Wednesday.  I had other duties to keep me busy on Thursday..., but I almost finished it up on Friday..., but needed to save some strength to take on the neglected Garden that I mentioned and pictured last week.

After I got all the weed eating done I saddled up Charlie Horse and ran him through his paces out in The Round Pen.  He seems to be taking it well though most of the "ground work" is geared toward gentling down a young colt and teaching it to respect and obey you so you can handle his feet so there are no farrier problems and you can get a saddle on him for further training.  I had already done a couple years of hoof trimming on him..., and this year turned that duty over to a real farrier because my old back just won't take it any more.  I have already had him saddled him up several times and have no trouble catching him or leading him around the property.  I figure that the extra training won't hurt a thing and he is still pretty spooky so I will be moving on to "sacking" him to help in that respect..., and a few other lessons before I swing into the saddle myself.

I mentioned the rain earlier..., so a little Johnny Rivers ought to be appropriate for your Friday Nite Music Video...,

Friday Nite Check In

 The Potato Garden needs a little weed whacker attention that I have been neglecting..., due to most of my attention being focused on Charlie Horse and the new Round Pen.  Truth be known..., I haven't been pushing Charlie too hard..., I don't want him to get bored and fussy..., I have just been being a bit lazy.  A couple of 80 degree days earlier in the week and a rainy day after that gave me an acceptable excuse..., to my way of thinking..., to be lazy.  

The lack of attention to The Garden hasn't hurt the plants any..., there are already some of them that are flowering.  That could be a good deal..., I don't have many spuds left from last years crop..., so I may be digging up a few in the not too distant future.

And I will be able to boil them up..., as well as the eggs I planned to hard boil for Egg Salad sandwiches..., now that I have installed the new propane tank regulator.  Yeah..., I had the eggs in a pan of water ready to boil on the stove..., but my burner was just putting out a pitiful flame..., not enough to heat a cup of water, let along a pan of eggs..., and no flame at all if I tried to activate an additional burner.  That was on Tuesday..., so no Egg Salad..., and I usually boil up extra potatoes so I can just microwave the extras for additional meals..., but I had no excess as fate would have it.  I had to resort to microwaving baked potatoes..., something that I am not too fond of..., the microwave just doesn't ever seem to evenly cook a baked  potato in my experience..., and cooking a Rib Steak in the big electric frying pan isn't much of a problem..., but washing the big SOB is like being assigned KP duty in the Army.  That non-stick 10" skillet is just right for a Rib Steak..., and doesn't entail any extra duty on the cleaning end.

Amazon Prime to the rescue..., they did offer to send me one model by the following day !!!  But it was one that would automatically switch tanks when one ran out.  I didn't want that feature.  It can be a bit frustrating to have to go out and manually switch the regulator to a full tank when one runs out..., especially if it happens in the middle of cooking super at night..., in the dark..., and it's raining.  But it is not as bad as going out to find out that both tanks are empty 😩.  So I opted for the manual switch option and two day delivery..., and after installation I have burner flames that are as big and blue as any I have ever seen..., or as DJT would say..., "as the world has ever seen."

Well..., speaking of frustrations..., James McMurtry nails it in this one for your Friday Nite Music Video..., though he mispronounces Coeur d' Alene...,  

"Back to Coeur d' Alene"

Friday Nite Check In

 Well..., earlier in the week I had the FNCI all mapped out..., with this picture and an explanation something like..., " Out of Sight..., Out of Mind..., can get Out of Hand here near the Rain Forest".

I was hoping that I could bullshit you into believing that I was hard at work all week and deserved all the beer breaks that I  took..., but the heck with that..., I have more important news to entertain you.

I have been watching Craig's List for a Round Pen..., thinking that it would be a good thing to aid in the training of Charlie Horse..., that I have been neglecting of late.  Nothing on The Peninsula has come up until this week..., and I thought maybe I could get out of purchasing it by insisting that the seller deliver it to Forks.  Damn my luck !!!  The seller said it could be arranged.  My insanity knows no bounds..., I offered to drive over to the other side of The Peninsula and help dismantle and load the 60' Round Pen..., and the seller thought that was a great idea.  Why the seller would want some idiot getting in the way made me a little suspicious..., but the deed was done.

It actually turned out to be a rather pleasant and learning experience.  Many, many thanks to Vikki.

Yeah..., Vikki rented the trailer and after I helped her dismantle and load the Round Pen on the trailer..., she made sure the load was secured and towed it nearly three hours to The Ranch.  These are just the last five panel pile.  We spread two other five panel piles around the area where I planned to situate Pen.

Charlie Horse was nearly as thankful for Vikki's efforts as I was..., and we tried to entice her to stick around for a few beers..., she insisted that she had other chores and duties to attend to back at her place..., darn it.

I would have much rather sat on The Front Porch sipping beer with Vickki and Charlie..., but with plenty of daylight left..., I figured it might be a good idea to attempt to assemble the Pen..., before I forgot the technique that Vikki had taught me..., and luckily..., Jamie and Steve arrived and witnessed the struggle..., and lended some much need help before I hurt myself.

Charlie Horse offered his help in the construction..., in the supervisory role..., as usual.

Charlie says he will be proud to call the Round Pen his own.

..., and says he will guard the gate if necessary to make sure no one else tries use it.

I don't know how many times I have used this one on Facebook back in the day for your Friday Nite Music Video..., but I never get tired of it..., and hope you don't either..., this video is a new one for me...,

Friday Nite Check In

 I did a little tree trimming on my property this week..., instead of helping the neighbors like I did a month ago.  Some of the limbs were drooping a little too low for my liking..., so I fired up the power saw and got a good load of limbs to load up the old Tundra.  The sad part is that I got a little to close to the barb wire fence with the chain on the saw..., luckily that happened after the heavy work was done.  It was super sharp before that happened..., in fact it had impressed the neighbors when I put it to use for them.  The saw had belonged to my brother before he passed away..., and he was very good at sharpening saw chains.  He used a file guide for precision sharpening and had the process tuned right in.  My neighbor Dave had been a life long logging contractor before he retired and I saw him eyeballing the saw..., and he asked what model of Stihl saw it was.  I had to admit to him that I didn't know..., and had even had trouble figuring out how to open the gas and oil caps on a saw that was 25 years newer than the last model that I had worked with.  I am not sure just why I didn't tell him that I wasn't the one who had fine tuned the chain that was on it.  And I am not looking forward to touching up that chain myself after it tried to eat up that barb wire.  I am pretty sure that super fine cutting is a thing of the past now.

I still have plenty of room for limb deposits over the bank..., and I will probably be making more deposts of apple tree limbs in the future.  The trees are so loaded with apples this year that they are shedding tiny green apples already.  I delivered a 22 lb. cat food sack nearly full the the little nuggets to my friends who feed them to the deer behind their place.

Other than that there isn't much to report on The Ranch..., so I will get on with the Friday Nite Music Video.  The hits on the blog have been a little low lately..., just 40 some hits in the last 24 hours..., and 11 of those hits were on the piece about The Clearwater Log Drive..., and my dear old Dad's participation in it..., titled "The Drive"..., here's a link to the story...,

https://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-drive.html

In the last 24 hours there were only three hits from the USA..., but 16 from Singapore, 7 from Vietnam, 6 from Brazil, and one and two hits from other assorted foreign countries..., so I hope those foreign folks like this song about another log drive up in Canada...,

Lyrics

In the melting snows of Ontario
Where the wind'll make you shiver
It was the month of May up in Georgian Bay
Near the mouth of the Musquash River

Where the bears prowl and the coyotes howl
And you can hear the osprey scream
Back in '99 we were cutting pine
And sending it down the stream

Young Sandy Gray came to Go Home Bay
All the way from P.E.I.
Where the weather's rough and it makes you tough
No man's afraid to die

Sandy came a smilin', Thirty Thousand Islands
Was the place to claim his glory
Now Sandy's gone but his name lives on
This is Sandy's story

Young Sandy Gray lives on today
In the echoes of a mighty yell
Listen close and you'll hear a ghost
In this story that I tell, boys
This story that I tell

Now Sandy Gray was boss of the men who'd toss
The trees onto the shore
They'd come and go till they'd built a floe
100, 000 logs or more

And he'd ride 'em down toward Severn Sound
To cut 'em up in the mills for timber
And the ships would haul spring summer and fall
Till the ice came in December

One Sabbath Day big Sandy Gray
Came into camp with a Peavey on his shoulder
With a thunder crack he dropped his axe
And the room got a little bit colder

Said, "Come on all you, we got work to do
We gotta give 'er all we can give 'er
There's a jam of logs at the little jog
Near the mouth of the Musquash River"

With no time to pray on the Lord's day
They were hoping for God's forgiveness
But the jam was high in a troubled sky
And they set out about their business

They poked with poles and ran with the rolls
And tried to stay on their feet
Every trick they tried, one man cried
This logjam's got us beat!"

But Sandy Gray was not afraid
And he let out a mighty yell
"I'll be damned, we'll break this jam
Or it's breakfast in hell, boys
Breakfast in hell!"

Now every one of the men did the work of ten
And Sandy scrambled up to the top
He is working like a dog heaving 30 foot logs
And it looked like he'd never stop

They struggled on, these men so strong
Till the jam began to sway
Then they dove for cover to the banks of the river
All except for Sandy Gray

Now with thoughts of death they held their breath
As they saw their friend go down
They all knew in a second or two
He'd be crushed or frozen or drowned

They saw him fall and they heard him call
Just once and then it was over
Young Sandy Gray gave his life that day
Near the mouth of the Musquash River

But Sandy Gray was not afraid
And he let out a mighty yell
"I'll be damned, we'll break this jam
Or it's breakfast in hell, boys
Breakfast in hell!"

East of Giant's Tomb there's plenty of room
There's no fences and no walls
And if you listen close you'll hear a ghost
Down by Sandy Gray Falls

Through the tops of the trees you'll hear in the breeze
The echoes of a mighty yell
"I'll be damned, we'll break this jam
Or it's breakfast in hell"

And Sandy Gray lives on today
And he let out a mighty yell
"I'll be damned, we'll break this jam
Or it's breakfast in hell, boys
Breakfast in hell!"

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Slaid Cleaves

Breakfast in Hell lyrics © Concord Music Publishing LLC

Friday Nite Check In

 We got a little rain yesterday..., not as much as the week before.  The Little Pond and The Pastures could use a little more..., but the Fire Weed flowers are already barely holding up their own weight.  The Little Pond once had blue water in it..., at least in the pictures that were developed by Seattle Film Works for my old 35mm camera.  I guess the film developers thought that pond water ought to be blue.  I do wish there would have been enough rain to overflow the pond and skim off the green alge that has settle on it..., but that won't make it blue..., nothing but Photo Shop could do that..., maybe.

The Potato Garden has been loving the weather with hot sunny days interspersed with some decent rainfall and a couple doses of well water from the sprinkler..., just for comparisons sake..., here is the shot from two weeks ago below...,

4th of July tomorrow..., I have several memories of The 4th's past..., but the best one was 1972 just before I got drafted and inducted into the Army on July 12th.  Joe Henson and I drove my new Ford Pinto to Spokane to pick up a couple of gals that Joe got to know when he was going to college in Astoria, OR.., and we were supposed to hook up with other friends and classmates at Yellowstone National Park.  We covered a lot of miles and made it to West Yellowstone, MT pretty late in the evening and hit a rock and roll bar before we continued on to The Park and ended up sleeping in the car.  The next day we spent exploring The Park and checking every campground looking for our buddies.  We finally settled in a campground ourselves for the night.  The next day we were headed out via West Yellowstone again..., and ran into our friends there..., and found out that they had been in the same bar we had hit on our way in..., and they had stay at a motel in West Yellowstone.  Jerry Moore, Jerry Johnstun, Don Judd, Mike Green and Robert Brown if I remember correctly..., were crammed into Jerry Moore's Chevy Nova..., and they shot bottle rockets they picked up in MT at us as we cruised down the freeway to Boise, ID..., where we camped out in Jerry's brother's back yard.  The next day we cruised around the city park before we headed north and home..., which brings us to the Friday Nite Music Video from that era...,