Getting Thai

Tales from the Backyard…Every year our oil company sends out a calendar with pictures of puppies on it.  On that particular years cover there were 5 little puppies, all brown and silver, with their little feet over a log and just their heads and noses sticking out.  My wife said, “How Cute, I could have one of those”, wrong thing to say.  I went on line and found that these particular pups were St. Usuge Spaniels and one of the rarest hunting breeds in the world.  I happened to find a breeder in East St. Louis and he would only sell to a hunter, Dah.   We hit it off and when I went to pick up the pup in early April he only charged me $200, rather than the $1,200 he was charging.  (I did this on the sly, my wife not knowing a thing).  I continued west to see my brother and his wife in New Mexico and I remember the first night after picking Thai up, after I had stopped and got the camper all set up, I started to feed the dogs.  Since Thai was only 12 weeks old, I had special food for him and set it down right in front of him, first.  Wrong thing to do, I should have known better, Chip just walked over and grabbed him by the back of his neck and threw him about 15 feet.  I thought whoops.

The shed

Tales from the Backyard…On the farm we had an old shed which had fallen down, the roof half gone, a perfect place to climb, using the exposed nails as footholds.  So up we went, my brother Jerry and me.  I remember him making it all the way across the roof when he slipped and put a deep gash in his foot.  Trying to help, I also slipped and put a 2” gash in my leg.  We made it back off the roof.  Mom could only afford for one of us to go the doctor, so my brother was chosen; I was left with a cloth bandage.  I still have the scar…  Our water came from a well which was powered by an electric motor, which was hooked to the pump via a V belt drive pulley.  This belt was old and loose so when you started the motor, the belt would sometimes just sit there and slip on the pulley.  To get it going, you had to carefully (did I say carefully) give the wheel a push, keeping your fingers free.  Even when I reached six, I was never allowed to do this.  The same week as we had cut ourselves, my brother and I were in the driveway building pretend roads (our second favorite thing), when we saw my sister Helen running and screaming from the pump house holding her hand in front of her.  She had not been careful and had severed her finger clean off, dangling by a thin strip of skin.  Not having a car, my mother grabbed my sister and ran to the neighbors for help to the doctors and there they re-attached it in his office, no ice or anything even after several hours, and except for it being not perfectly straight, you couldn't tell.

Floating pickup

Tales from the Backyard…  One year at Klondike GRNP my superintendent wanted me to research and buy a jet boat for the rangers to use to get the equipment and supplies up river rather the expensive helicopter method.  So I picked out a 20 footer with twin 200 jet propelled Mercury’s for propulsion.  When it arrived, of course it had to be tested so my friend and co-worker Dave and I loaded it on the trailer and took it to a section of beach up river to launch it.  I told Dave to take the truck above high tide line then off we went.  Unfortunately, there were many dead-falls in the river so making headway was difficult and eventually we came to a halt, as I didn't think we could make it back out, going up river is much easier than down.  After many hours we headed back.  When we arrived where the truck and trailer were supposed to be, we found them floating in the bay, with a long line attached to the back of another friends pickup.  The tide that day was over 5 feet above average and had picked the truck off the beach and sent it floating.  Luckily, my friend happened to be driving by and had secured it and rather than trying to get it to higher ground, just sat there to see what would happen.  If it hadn't been a Dodge it probably would have sank it the bay, but it was so water tight that the inside never got wet.  That’s a story that is probably still told in Skagway around the bar.  I know I never lived it down while still there.

Hiking the Chilkoot

The trail goes down the canyon

Tales from the Backyard…  One year at Klondike my friends from Klamath Falls came up to visit.  They had planned on hiking the Chilcoot trail and my wife was going to go along.  I was much too busy but said that I would meet the them on Weds. morning and hike to the border with them, they would then continue on and I would head back.  The plan was for them to hike in to lower camp the first day, then to Sheep camp the second.  Sheep camp was 14 miles up the canyon.  That’s where I would meet them.  So on Weds. Morning I was up early and caught a ride to the trail head and began the hike in.  I arrived about 10 am and them being ready, we continued on and up to the summit, 3 miles ahead.  Once there we had lunch and they continued on as I headed back down the mountain and back to work.   My ride back to town was nowhere to be seen and after 35 or so miles of hiking in one day, my legs were toast, luckily the only cab in town just dropped off some hikers so I caught a ride with him back to town.  When I took off my boots and socks, my big toenail came with it, probably from kicking all the stones off the trail.  It was quite a day. 

The littlest Sea Otter

Tales from the Backyard…  My friends Jim and Bonny came up to go hiking the Chilkoot, but the evening before they went, I took them out fishing for salmon.  The mountains are so steep that you can almost touch them and still be in 400 feet of water.  The salmon like it close to the rocks so we were trolling slowly along when a family of Sea Otters came swimming by.  They then crawled up on the rocks right next to us.  About 15 feet back was the smallest otter with an 18 inch fish in his mouth, struggling slowly along.  When he reached the spot where the rest of the family were resting, the mother got back in the water and started swimming again.  The poor little otter had to just keep on going.  The mother otter swam another 100 feet or so and again crawled out of the water, the 4 pups right behind.  The last, still struggling with the fish, slowly made it to mom and again, she crawled back into the water and swam another 100 feet or so.  This went on for quite some time, them never more than 20 or so feet from us.  Finally, we turned and headed home.  I’m not sure what message the mother otter was trying to teach the little one, but I don’t think he was getting it as the last we saw of then, he was still struggling with the fish.

The wood stove

Tales from the Backyard…  One year my friend Ron’s dad built a new wood stove for his fish house.  We decided we were going to stay out all night and fish Walleyes and his dad said that he didn’t have the draft finished for the stove, so we better take a lot of wood.  We loaded the car and drove out on the ice to the shack and after getting the fire going, drilled the holes and started to fish.  When his dad said we needed to bring a lot of wood he wasn't

kidding.  It ate wood like a blast furnace.  We had no control other than to wait until it was almost out then throw on more wood.  The temp in the house began to sore and we began to shed cloths.  Soon we were down to skivvies and boots, the temp gauge had topped out at 120.  We were wringing wet with sweat.  Soon I had to go out and chop more wood.  It was like a sauna, so I grabbed the ax and went outside in skivvies and boots and began chopping.  A car drove up to see how the fishing was and there I was, outside temp 10 below zero, dripping wet with sweat, chopping wood.  They just shook their heads and drove off.  We ran out of wood about an hour later and went home, fish-less again.

The drop-off

Tales from the Backyard…  My early teen summers were always spent at the swimming beach.  I would stay well into the evenings, its where most of us would be.  One day my friend Ron and I found this section of dock floating along shore so thought it might be fun to push it out to see where the drop-off started, a good thing to know for fishing (this was before fish finders).  So we began pushing it deeper and deeper and as we went, one of us would dive down, find the bottom, turn and kick off to the surface.  We had been doing this for awhile when Ron stayed under for quite some time and upon surfacing said he couldn't touch the bottom.  I said let me try and took several deep breaths than held and went down.  I swam down and down and down but finding nothing thought a couple more big strokes and I’ll turn back.  Finding nothing I turned and headed up.  No big kick to help propel me up this time, it was all swimming.  Soon my lungs were on fire and bursting so I let out some air.  Up and up I went, I could see the surface, always just above my reach.  Again I let out air and by now my legs were useless and it was pulling water with arms only.  They were now beginning to feel like lead weights and had no power left, the surface just right there, I could see it becoming darker and darker and then I just stopped, no more energy to continue, everything gone black.  Just then, Ron reached out and grabbed me, pulling me to the surface where I drew in a huge gasp of air.  I said, I think we found it.