SOME CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS

STRING OF BALLS READY TO BE SHOT.

THE JUDGE

THE 22

KID'S LOVE IT---LOOK AT THAT SMILE

DEAD EYE

THE AR-15

MORE JUDGE

THE 0.17---MY ALL TIME FAVORITE
We started a tradition a few years ago of shooting glass Christmas balls on the day after Christmas---it is a hoot and the kids and grandkids all love it. This year we tried out a few new guns just for kicks and giggles.

'TWAS A GREAT DAY

CHRISTMAS SURPRISES

On Christmas eve we did our traditional Christmas Eve thing - we drove around looking at Christmas lights while listening to Beaver's Own Christmas, a tape that was made by a group of locals. Then we came home to sticky dough rolls, eggnog a chocolate and a white chocolate orange, and a cheese ball and crackers. I ate until I was stuffed and sick at my stomach...why do I do that????

Christmas was quieter this year, because we only had Lightning Strikes at home. Native Minnow and his oldest son did stop for a few minutes on their way to AZ on Friday night. The three of us had our turkey dinner and were thinking it was pretty quiet. Then Dr. Psycho and his 2 youngest kids came and our oldest son and two of his boys came. Lightning Strikes told her boy friend that we were shooting Christmas balls today and invited him to come if he wanted to. He came from Las Vegas and brought his two little kids. It was fun to meet them for the first time. So we quickly went from an almost empty house to a nearly full one but not until after dark.

IT IS FUN FOR ME TO SEE OUR RED NECK TRADITION OF SHOOTING CHRISTMAS BALLS PULL THE KIDS BACK FROM FAR AWAY PLACES. IT IS GONNA BE A GREAT DAY.

TO SETTLE THE ARGUMENT OF CAR IN PHOTO

1941 Ford Coupe---this is the car---I am disappointed.

1941 Pontiac

1941 Chevrolet--the car on the left (but not a convertible)is the car in mom and dad's photo. Turns out to be a 1941 Ford.

Mom and Dad in 1942 either just before or just after they were married.

CONTEMPLATING LIFE

I have spent the last two days basically in shock after learning of a friend of ours that had knee surgery. Following the surgery she had a blood clot go through her heart and to her lungs (and probably other places) and is currently in the hospital with no brain function while her family comes from around the world to say good-bye.

This was a vibrant woman that was a great science teacher and outdoors woman. She is highly thought of by everyone in the community where they live. She is married to one of my good friends and they have five grown daughters. The daughters are also awesome.

I know there is a better place after this life but this little episode has shaken me pretty badly. It shows that life is so fragile---we never know what is next---we should all strive to live so that our parting does not leave others wondering how we really felt about life and the people in ours. I do not believe this woman has anyone in her life that did not know where they stood.

I HOPE I CAN ASSURE THAT THOSE IN MY LIFE ALSO KNOW AND I THANK HER FOR THAT THOUGHT.

ONE MORE THING TO BE THANKFUL FOR

For the last couple of days we would get a spurt of air before the water started to run when you turned the water on in the kitchen sink. I told Inklings that was an indication of a pipe break but we didn't have one in the house so it had to be on the city side of the line. I didn't worry at all about it being on our side of the meter because there were no wet spots and the meter didn't continue to run when the water was turned off.

This afternoon Inklings was doing something in the room with most of our books and heard a tiny noise. She called me to come and listen. I went in and immediately saw where a water leak was in the room above (the kitchen) so I went up to investigate further. There was quite a bit of water under the sink indicating the leak was somewhere close. I turned on the tap and nothing happened. I turned it off and water started running like crazy from the tap for a couple of seconds. I got close to the leak and had Inklings turn the tap on and then off---sure enough the relatively new faucet we had put in was leaking for a couple of seconds after the water was turned off.

I got out my tools and pulled the faucet off (the first rule of plumbing is never touch anything to do with plumbing unless the parts store is open) and took it to the parts store to get another one like it. The guy at the store looked at it and said this is one of ours--I'll just trade you out at no cost (a savings of $69.00). I took it home and did all the replacement things except when I was hooking up the last water line to the faucet I stripped the connection nut (and that is the reason you don't touch plumbing unless the store is open).

We went back to the store and bought a new connection line and I came home and finished the installation. Everything not only looks nice but it works like a champ too.

And now I am happy for the following reasons:
1. The leak didn't show up until after all of our company went home; 2. The parts store was open; 3. The leak didn't do much damage to our books or the house; 4. I was able to fix it myself; 5. It looks nice; 6. I stole Inklings picture of it; 7. We should be in good shape with the kitchen plumbing for a few more years now; 8. It felt pretty good to do something that mattered again.

HOPE Y'ALL HAD A GREAT THANKSGIVING TOO!!!

GREAT THANKSGIVING

We had a great Thanksgiving Day at our house this year. Had Inklings Mom and Dad, one son and his family and all four daughters and their families. Twenty four in all and it was a great day. We live far enough from our kids that it is very difficult to get to see them. They are scattered enough that if we take a trip to see them then we only get to see each of them for a little while. So Thanksgiving was a really good day to see all of them and get to visit.

BEST PART OF ALL WAS THERE WAS NO CONTENTION---WELL NO FIGHTS ANYWAY ;-)

ROAD TRIP

We took a trip to Idaho to try to sell this little piece of land where my Grandmother's house used to stand. It is 0.14 acres and you have to have 0.5 acres in this town to build any structure on. Our only chance at selling this piece of land will be to sell it to one of the two adjacent land owners. I talked to the lady with her house just in front of this property and told her we were going to sell it. I told her what the appraised price was and told her that the appraised value was too high because of the size. I told her what I had paid to get the house torn down and wanted at least that much out of the property. She said she was interested. I told her I would call her in a week and if she wasn't interested then I was going to try to sell it to her neighbor. Hope she buys it---if it goes to the neighbor it makes both of their lands more difficult to manage.

While we were there I tried to clean the headstone for my Grandma and Grandpa. It didn't come completely clean but this picture shows how it looked after I scrubbed it with a full bottle of Lime Away. When I go back again I will go prepared to remove all of the lime scale from the stone. My Grandpa died on my Grandma's 47th birthday. He went out to the farm and didn't come home.

This is a picture of me scrubbing the headstone. When I saw it I was really disgusted that we have allowed their headstone to look that bad.

This is a picture of part of a 26 acre dry farm we own up there. It is always fun for me to see this little piece of land that used to be part of my grandparents land holdings.

ROAD TRIP

We took a trip to Idaho to try to sell this little piece of land where my Grandmother's house used to stand. It is 0.14 acres and you have to have 0.5 acres in this town to build any structure on. Our only chance at selling this piece of land will be to sell it to one of the two adjacent land owners. I talked to the lady with her house just in front of this property and told her we were going to sell it. I told her what the appraised price was and told her that the appraised value was too high because of the size. I told her what I had paid to get the house torn down and wanted at least that much out of the property. She said she was interested. I told her I would call her in a week and if she wasn't interested then I was going to try to sell it to her neighbor. Hope she buys it---if it goes to the neighbor it makes both of their lands more difficult to manage.

While we were there I tried to clean the headstone for my Grandma and Grandpa. It didn't come completely clean but this picture shows how it looked after I scrubbed it with a full bottle of Lime Away. When I go back again I will go prepared to remove all of the lime scale from the stone. My Grandpa died on my Grandma's 47th birthday. He went out to the farm and didn't come home.

This is a picture of me scrubbing the headstone. When I saw it I was really disgusted that we have allowed their headstone to look that bad.

This is a picture of part of a 26 acre dry farm we own up there. It is always fun for me to see this little piece of land that used to be part of my grandparents land holdings.

HALOWEEN

Someone asked me what I was going to wear for Halloween and I told them a western shirt, Wranglers and cowboy boots. Inklings said I should step it up a little and at least wear my black hat.

I never realized until one of my employees told me after I left the district that this was called my bastard hat. She said I only wore it when things were gonna get really bad for someone. I honestly didn't know that was happening. I have three different colored Stetsons. Silver (taupe), brown and this black one. Guess I have one for every occasion. ;-)

LOOKIN' BACK

Yesterday Joe Paterno tied Eddie Robinson (Grambling coach forever) as the winning-est college football coach in history. Not to take anything away from Joe but I seriously doubt he is in the same league as Eddie.

Back in the mid-80's I was honored by my employer to go to the south and recruit employees from five of the all black agricultural colleges. I had always been a Grambling fan and was always amazed at the number of players Eddie seemed to graduate to the pro's. I always thought it would be really neat to meet and talk to him. Well as luck would have it we arrived on the Grambling campus the night they were playing a football game. I can't remember who they were playing but I talked one of other guys that was with me on the trip to go down to Eddie Robinson stadium (it was brand new at the time) and look at the field.

When we arrived at the field the entry gates were locked. While we were looking over the field there was an old guy down on the sidelines pacing up and down the field. I told the guy that was with me that I thought that was Eddie Robinson. He said nah it can't be, he has got to be getting ready for the game. I told him I was sure it was Eddie and climbed over one of the gates. He asked me what I thought I was doing and I told him I was going to meet Eddie Robinson. I opened the gate and invited him to go with me. To my surprise he came into the stadium.

Now picture this---two white guys had just broken into Eddie Robinson Stadium on the all black (at the time) campus of Grambling University. We walked directly down the stairs toward where this guy was pacing and after a few hundred stairs we reached the edge of the field. The guy walked over to us and asked what we thought we were doing. I asked him if he was Eddie Robinson and he answered in the affirmative. I told him it had always been a dream of mine to meet him personally.

We visited about football and his old teams and the players I was familiar with from the pros. It was fun to have this guy welcoming us to his field even though by rights we had no business being there. It is one of the days in my life that really stands above most of the others. During the discussion I told him that I was always amazed at the numbers of kids he placed in the pros (over 200 in the NFL---not counting coaches he raised).

He smiled at me and said "THAT DOESN'T EVEN COMPARE TO THE NUMBERS OF KIDS I HAVE PLACED IN LIFE."

I dunno Joe---I think it would be really hard for you to top EDDIE ROBINSON. In my book EDDIE WILL ALWAYS BE THE GREATEST.

INKLINGS THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE OF THE RULES NOT APPLYING!

30-29-4

Wow do I feel old. Yesterday was my birthday and I have always said I wasn't going to get older than thirty---hence the title. I got a call the night before from one of my retired friends from work. He wanted to know if I would go with him to a town to the west for a trail management meeting in the morning and then go to lunch with him and another retired friend.

We have celebrated our birthdays together like this for several years. There are four of us with birthdays within five days that all worked together. YUP---the scales (Libra) had a lot of influence when we were all working. One friend was at the senior games while her other half participated in the shotgun competition so we missed seeing and visiting with her. I bet he won the shooting competition but time will tell on that.

I took my truck in for servicing and potentially a lot of expensive work on the right front axle, a safety inspection, and re-licensing. When I stopped to get it last night the service was complete and the work on the axle wasn't necessary so I felt really good about that. It still cost quite a bit of money but guess that is the price you have to pay to have a vehicle.

For dinner last night I took Inklings to a steak house here in the valley---interesting that we both had fish for dinner.

AFTER ALL WAS SAID AND DONE---I HAD A GREAT BIRTHDAY!

42 YEARS AGO TODAY

42 years ago today I married the woman of my dreams---and I am still having the same dream. I have now been married over twice as long as I was single.

Inklings posted that I should have known our marriage would not be normal on the second day of our marriage---when we took her 18 month old baby brother home with us because her mom and dad were in a different town and no one was watching him. We saw him nearly get hit by a semi on main street.

Was an interesting night---he had an ear ache and cried all night---Inklings sat up with him all night---just like she did after we got kids of our own.

We raised seven children and have eighteen grand children. Nine of our grand children have lived with us for an extended period during part of their lives. We sure do miss them.

IT'S BEEN A HELLUVA RIDE.

LOOKS LIKE THE BOYS AND GIRLS HAD FUN...

Inklings and I took our annual leaf ride today and I couldn't help myself. I just had to see how the last fuels project that was planned while I was the District Ranger was turning out. Seems that all of my efforts in training them is being well rewarded. Here are three pictures of their recent work.

They are also in the process of fencing these areas with wildlife proof fences in order for the aspen to have a chance to regenerate. These treatments are in the most heavily used elk habitat on the district. If these are successful then they will be able to go forward on the rest of the district without near as many regeneration problems. I told the environmental groups that we worked with on this project that I didn't choose it because it was easy but because it was the most in need. After looking it over with us they agreed and the project has moved forward nicely.

It is always good to see a well coordinated project move forward---TO THE CREW--GREAT JOB!!!!!

LEAF RIDE 2011

We went on a leaf drive today. Took longer than we expected but it was a great day. Ate at two of my favorite restaurants so that we could keep goin'. Here is a sampling of what we saw---beautiful day. The pictures are posted exactly opposite of the way we took them.

SHADOW LAKE

I just returned from the Shadow Lake fire in Oregon. Our base camp was at Hoodoo Ski Resort. When I first arrived the fire was 450+ acres and burning pretty hot and spotting all over the place. Which is what you would expect in this type of timber. When I left it was 10,000 acres+ and was secured along most of the perimeter. The weather changed significantly and the fog rolled in from the ocean and raised the humidity to 100% for a couple of days. I had forgotten how miserable that is to be wet all over from the atmosphere and not be able to get dry unless you went inside a building.

The fire burned the south side of Mount Washington as well as burning through a boys camp and many structures. The firefighters did great. They brought the fire through the structures and didn't lose a single one. There were over 40 pumps and 220 miles of hose and over 200 sprinkler kits out on the fire. It was amazing for me to see where they took the fire through and those structures won't have to worry about fire for at least 10 years.

It was a tough fire for me because of all the supplies that went out and came back. I worked harder than usual to stay in front of the fire fire fighters with the supplies they needed. I also came home really tired.

I'M NOT HALF THE MAN I USED TO BE.

HOME ALONE---SORTA

Inklings is in a town about 175 miles North of here taking care of one of her nieces that is in a hospital there. That leaves me and the CAT in the house. The cat spends the majority of her time yowling and looking for Inklings. Last night she was looking all over the house for her and finally came over and looked in my lap---yowled and went over to the place Inklings usually sits and yowled some more.

The garden has gone nuts---well not nuts---but it is producing a lot of veggies right now. I picked 15 beautiful tomatoes yesterday and gave some of them away. I have been pigging out on them but can't keep up. I gave all of the cucumbers away and will pick the beans today. I don't think there will be too many beans but there for sure will be some.

I went to a retirement party yesterday for a woman I worked with for over 19 years of my career. She is one of the people that I have always been amazed with the amount of work she could do in a short time. I was talking about it with one of my other co-workers yesterday and we agreed she worked easy---she was just able to get an awfully lot of work done and nobody really noticed it...THEY'LL NOTICE IT NOW...I ASSURE YOU. She will be missed a bunch---mostly because the people employed there don't have a clue what she does---or how to do it. I know what she does and how to do it because on another Forest I was responsible for most of her duties. I hated doing that part of the job. There was a woman from the Regional Office at the party and she told me she is terrified with the added workload of teaching someone else how to do all those things.

HOPE SHE HAS AS GOOD OF RETIREMENT AS I AM HAVING.

GONE AGAIN

I just got back from a fire about a hundred miles North of where we live. It was pretty small, only 886 acres but it was a good little fire to be on. They had trainees in every position on the fire so it was good to see the kids stepping up and taking on more responsibilities. There have been a lot of skills go out of the fire world the last three years. I was happy to get to go and really happy to see the young ones growing up.

ANOTHER FIRE RUN

Got a call Thursday night while we were at the rodeo and got asked to go to a fire near where we live. I told the dispatcher I really wanted to watch the bull riding at the rodeo before I went anywhere. (There is a bull rider from here that I am friends with his dad and grandpa and I wanted to watch him ride again. He bucked off in less than 2 seconds. I was really bummed out---I had hoped for days he would win it.) The dispatcher told me to go ahead and watch them as they had enough help over at the fire site to get through until morning but to come to the dispatch center after the rodeo and help organize deliveries and supplies for the next morning.

I went down and ran through the orders they had placed and what they had on site and figured we would be good for the next day. I got home at midnight and didn't sleep much because of the adrenaline rush I get every time I get called out. I got up at 5:00, picked up the breakfasts for the fire at 6:00 and went over for the duration.

When I got near the fire camp I could see the fire burning close to the main highway but there were a bunch of engines there so I figured they would hold it and went on to fire camp. Shortly after I arrived they came in for breakfast and said they had caught that side of the fire and after breakfast were going back to secure the entire side. The fire was at 380 acres when I got there and it finished up at 410 acres so the crews did a great job.

While I was there I ran into two people I had worked with on a northern district and it was really good to see them. Both were with hand crews on the fire.

I spent three very long days in the fire camp making sure the crews had everything they needed to fight the fire effectively and finally made it home. I always get home from these incidents worn out but I sure do love getting the call and the chance to go on them.

DR. VISIT

Went to the doctor today for a check-up. Had my blood tested for cholesterol and it is now down to 124. The medicine has given me several problems so he told me to go off the medication for two weeks and see if it is really the meds that are causing the problem. If it is he gave me some samples for the next month to try---if it isn't he wants me to get the prescription renewed for the one that I think is causing the problems because it has cut my cholesterol exactly in half.

Got checked for the chronic bronchitis I have from smoking for so many years. Progress has been made there again but he isn't going to take the inhalers away. He wants to cut the dose in half again like we did last time and see what that does to how I feel.

I'm thinking that by the time I have been quit for five years I will be in about the same boat with breathing that the rest of the world that is my age is in. That will be remarkable because I have had some serious breathing episodes but they are mostly gone now.

TODAYS DR.VISIT MADE ME FEEL LOTS BETTER ABOUT MY HEALTH.

HEALTHY???

It is somewhat frustrating to me to be going through all of the tests to determine my health. I have never had much wrong with me and it is really frustrating to be sent to the lab every six months for blood tests to determine the next round of treatments.

This all started when my Doctor found that my blood cholesterol was at 191. He prescribed a drug to help reduce it and ordered blood tests in six months. This blood test had my cholesterol at 214 so he changed the drug to another one to reduce it. Along with that he ordered blood tests in three months to see what was happening. It was interesting to note that at this blood test part of my blood was higher and part was lower so he gave me another drug and ordered tests in six months.

I took the blood test today and am seeing the Doctor tomorrow. I am going to tell him I am not taking the drug any more. It makes my muscles ache, makes me dizzy at times and makes it so I can cause a cramp anywhere in my body by simply holding the muscle tight for a few seconds. The warning for this drug has all of these symptoms so I'm not taking it anymore. IN FACT I MAY NOT TAKE ANY MORE DRUGS FOR CHOLESTEROL---I THINK THAT IS PART OF A DOCTOR SIMPLY PRACTICING MEDICINE.

TWITCHELL CANYON REHAB IS NOW TOAST

For the past two months to the day I have been trying to get the last three hours of work done to finish the Twitchell Canyon Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER). Today we got up there and finished it. The fire area is making a remarkable recovery. Much of the burned area is completely healed up and this is just the first growing season after the fire. It usually takes between three and five years to be as far along as this fire is.

This was a fun project start to finish but it HAS been a pain in the backside for the last two months waiting for the meadow to dry enough that it could hold the heavy equipment up. I am really glad that I got to do this project. I met some really good people and learned a lot of new things about rehabbing fires. Here are some pictures so you can decide if fire is good or bad yourself.