Rain Storm Pummels Boise's North End

So I just returned home from my 4 day soire to find hundreds of pine cones littering my yard. The rain barrel that I water the chickens and hanging planters outside is full again. Despite the .85 inches of rain; it looks like I need to add some more Huma Green to the soil (iron and magnesium) for better tilth and feeding the lawn in this heat. I went form 65 and rain in Idaho Falls this morning to blazing sun and 94. That's okay, it's the reason I live in Boise. And I have my first cherry tomato turn red today. Raspberries are in full tilt, too. And Reuben the wonder dog is happy to have me home. It's great to have an awesome chicken and dog tender when I want to wander about.

Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend?

Anyone who has lived in a small town probably has had a post office box that they visited daily. It's a place to meet and greet friends, neighbors and all manner of humanity who reside somewhere "out there." Lately the US Postal Service has been considering closing a number of post offices that only make $50 or less a day, are open on average two hours a day for actual services, and more often than not are within 5 miles of another postal facility. Click on the Title for a List of Idaho closures.

One of the post offices in Idaho prospectively on the chopping block is Johnny Montezuma's old favorite, Clayton. Clayton, Idaho, where 7 folks showed up with entries to last weekends Chile Cookoff. Clayton is known as a wolf-hating side show by the Salmon River. It's a place you drive through, not to. My former roommate had his pickup truck shot up in Clayton by some anonymous miners he had shut down for Clean Water Act violations. It's that kind of place. Probably not where I would personally want to hang out if someone is "going Postal" as they say.

I can’t say that I’d notice if the Post Office disappeared in Avery, Desmet, Tensed, or Harvard. I’ve been to all of them in North Idaho and I doubt they get much mail. Desmet and Tensed are associated with CDA Tribal lands so maybe the Tribe would miss it. Avery is up on the St Joe River and was an historic logging town about 100 years ago. Avery is also locally known as a haven of felons and incest--great spot, huh?Harvard has no claim to fame other than it’s on the Bovill run, a drinking and driving circuit made famous by Univ. of Idaho Vandal college students. There is a post office at Santa, also along the Bovill run; and that one is amazingly popular as you can imagine. Santa Claus sends letters stamped from there with a hand stamp every holiday. I lived outside Santa and it was where I got my mail. Santa is NOT on the list.

There's one slated for closure in Boise that I didn't even know existed. Same for Pocatello. Then there is tiny little Almo, a sleepy Mormon hamlet with beautiful Victorian brick homes that were once filled with a bazillion kids eating lime green jello with crushed pineapple and marshmallows in it. Almo is slated to close. I guess they'd get their mail in Albion, where the long closed state Teacher's college, Albion Normal remains borded up. Albion was my first home in Idaho and my first post office box address. PO Box 171. I wonder who has that box now?

Going to the post office was the most fun for me when I lived in the Wood River Valley from 1981 to 1984. I had my original PO Box in Ketchum, but got one in Hailey instead. How I loved to go to the Post Office. In Ketchum it was where you picked up eye candy and got asked on dates. Really! And since it was before the advent of email,texting and cell phones, it pretty much was the spot you made plans because everyone showed up to get their mail between 4 and 7 at night typically. Also, for dirt bag skiers it was a great place to sleep in an emergency in winter because there were heating vents on the floor. No cold nights out in a doorway. The place was never ever locked. Can't vouch for that now. It was quieter and cleaner than sleeping in the laundromat.

I don't know what I'll do if the do away with Saturday service, though. I have gotten accustomed to getting Netflix movies then. But now that they've raised their rates, and I have access to REDBOX, I'll probably cut back to one movie at a time and watch others they have on line. So maybe Saturday won't matter.

I don't get much mail anymore. Most of those bazillion credit card offers have gone by the wayside with the economic downturn. I've gotten myself off the catalogs, and most of my bills are payed on line. But I do still get magazines and the occassional snail mail letter, both of which I love. So maybe I should write you all a letter instead of blog. Now wouldn't that be nice for the postal service? But alas, I didn't check to see if Cornville or Camp Verde, AZ were on the closure list or not. Hope not for your sake. And mine.

Learning to Drive-Surviving with my Teen at the Wheel

When you live with a teenager, well, you live with a teenager. Summer is her time off from soccer. Sort of. We finished up State Cup the week after school ended in June. But then it was time for tryouts for soccer for next season. Then it was getting a new soccer uniform. And then there's soccer camp the last week of July. Competitive soccer is an obsession throughout the country. An unhealthy one, I might add.
But alas, during the month of June starting immediately after school ended she was enrolled in drivers education. Yes, folks, my daughter at 14 1/2 will be driving in Idaho. We pretend to be a farm state, which we're not. We're a little archipelago of urbanization with huge wilderness and roadless areas interpersed throughout. Illinois is more rural than Idaho by a long shot.
Drivers education lasted 4 weeks, of which she drove 12 times with her teacher and the rest was classroom time. She passed the written test with a 94. Now she's enjoying sleeping in till noon for a few weeks, since she's finished with drivers ed class. Now we get to teach her on her learners permit.
I let her drive me home from her dad's house last night. Whew we woo. Talk about trying to not show my panic. She's decent for only having driven maybe 12 times. Lots of work to be done in teaching her to multi task in watching what's going on around her and anticipating dogs, kids, bicyclists, people pulling out of driveways, and also not side swiping a vehicle on our right. Hay carumba.
Luckily for her my SUV is an automatic. Her dads Honda Van is also an automatic. But his Ford Focus wagon is a stick shift. And she's going to have to learn to drive that, too. Stick shifts were a required right of passage in my household before you could drive a car. And the same will be for my daughter.
So stay tuned for updates on how driving with my teen is going. Not only should texting be prohibited in a car driven by a teen, but so should eating, drinking anything, and listening to music. An none of their friends should be allowed in a car with them until they are 18. The distractions are amazing. Even she admitted it is the hardest thing she's ever done. And this comes from the queen of multi tasking--she can listen to music, watch TV or surf the internet and do her math homework (A's and B's, mind you); but drive--totally different altogether.
I know the grey hair I already have will be silver by the time this is over with.

Lightning Storm in Boise- Early 4th of July Only Better

Last night we had one of the most incredible lightning storms I've ever seen in Boise. It went on for nearly an hour. It was so bright. I could actually see my hens on their roosting bar in the coop from my dining room window. Better than 4th of July fireworks.

MIddle Fork Salmon Shovel Brigade

That's right. We opened the pass. By hand when the USFS said no machinery allowed. And the others said you will never make it. They said there was a big, big slide looking like a porcupine so many logs sticking out of it. Never say never. With the help of a dozen folks, and even some folks from another trip going in two days after us, we did it. And I'm getting ready to prep the bill to the USFS for our work.
It seems in past years the USFS would grant the Outfitters the chance to plow if they forked over a $1000 bond. Not this year. No sir ree bob! We've got ourselves a new District Ranger and a new road engineer on this here USFS District. And there seems no bounds to lack of common sense.
Instead of plowing, dozens of trips dangerously undertook running Marsh Creek to enter the MIddle Fork Salmon. And Outfitters with clients were forced to pay an additional average of $2400 to $3000 to fly in their clients and gear to Indian Creek. All because the USFS wouldn't plow what amounted to about 75 yards of road. Give me a break! The National Park Service routinely plows open roads in late May to Glacier and Yellowstone so visitors can get in.
When one considers how coveted and hard it is to get a permit on the Middle Fork Salmon one would think the USFS would make the effort to plow the road. Yes, it was a big snow year, but contrary to popular pundits, most all that snow was already gone on June 14 with the notable exception of a couple of drifted in areas.

This river trip was amongst the best river trips I've done. The only one that even comes close to topping it was my Grand Canyon trips with Johnny Montezuma, Bryan T Brown and the cast of miscreants and dirtbag boaters in the 1980's that I ran with alot.
We ate great meals every night. We never got out of camp before 1 except the last day at about 11. We often ate dinner in the dark with the lantern going, a crackling fire and awesome meals like ahi tuna, pork tenderloin, chicken curry, beef tenderloin steaks, and chile rellenos. We didn't run out of beer or anything else for that matter.
Spunky the Funky Monkey came on the trip for our party night and soon became the beloved mascot of the trip. When you travel for 7 days with 18 people you really get to know folks. This group covered the range of sublime to ridiculous. We had it all from age 23 to 65 and I am happy to say that I now feel comfortable passing the torch to the younger boating and river generation if these whippersnappers are what's out there.
The trip did not go off without a few glitches. I sprained my ankle at the put in at Boundary Creek the first day moving gear to load. It's still swollen and healing. Two days later I got whacked in the nose when my friends knee hit the oar and had the Mt Vesuvius of nose bleeds at the pull in at Marble Creek. I'm still sporting minor remnants of a purple eye that would have rivaled any makeup work by Tammy Faye Baker. One boatman flipped at Velvet. The flip broke welds in his frame but we cobbled it together with boat straps.
We had rain, sleet, snow, grapple, and cold fast water with huge waves and holes in some cases. The river was 6.6 feet and stayed at that slightly lowering to 6 when we got off. It's now moving back up again and may hit 7.2 feet by this weekend. We had sunshine and it was close to 80 degrees and bluebird weather on our last day. We had a full moon and hot springs at Sheepeater, Sunflower and Loon Creek. We even had a day we only went two miles (from Marble Creek to Stateline Right) so we could hang out at Sunflower for a few hours. But best of all, we had the gift of friendship, river freedom and comraderie that goes with a great river trip.
Oh, and I dethroned the reigning extreme croquet champ at Loon Creek Camp. So Johnny, I'm getting better. It was a tough course up hill, across an irrigation ditch and through a tent or two.

I wish I were on the river today.

Thelma and Louise meet Italian Piaggio and the Middle Fork Salmon

It's been nearly six weeks since I posted to the blog. I'm not even going to apologize. I've been busy finishing, refurbishing and modifying the chicken coop II. It seems my Welsh Terrier terrorist takes great pleasure in tormenting and watching the two new chicks through the chicken wire mesh. In fact, while doing something else a week or so ago he managed to tear down the upper portion of the wire with his dog toenails and canine incisors. So I had to re-staple and adds some wood over the top of the edges where the wire ends to dissuade him.

I had painted the door what was supposed to be federal red, but was more akin to some 50's era red pinafore colored sun dress my mom would have worn. WAY TOO RED! So, off to Home Depot for a cinammon tan shade that toned it down. Thank goodness for spray paint. It works wonders for graffiti and also chicken coop doors.

So the coop is done. I've added a roosting bar outside that the new chicks seem to really like. The hens beat up on them pretty regularly, so they fly out of the coop and onto that out door roost. The big girls don't seem to bother them there. Though they've taken to knocking their waterer out of the coop and down the gangplank for spite.

My neighbor had to come over last week when he heard what sounded like chicken murder and intervene as the neighborhood "chicken whisperer" and break up the altercation. Things seems to be getting a bit better. Fortunately for me, my Thelma and Louise are really nice chickens and they like to sit on my arm and perch, or on my shoulder or even jump on my back or head. They like to be petted and come when I call them. Okay, enough drivel on chickens.

Below is an excerpt from an email I received from my friend Mark, who is currently travelling in Italy and Germany. Mostly Italy. Mark is also an exceptional writer and observer on life. Enjoy this tidbit.

"Subaru has been the official vehicle of the US ski team for some years. It is sporty,fast, good in the snow... a perfect fit.

In italy, there is a 3-wheel mini truck, the Piaggio, powered by a scooter engine that should be the official
vehicle for old codgers.
The truck for the older man who's "get up and go" has mostly got up and went, but who still likes to get out
and annoy others. (When you buy one, it comes with a free case of duct tape.)
It is grossly underpowered, cant go fast or climb, its noisy and stinks. It only has room for one
...and some junk in back. It is perfect for the misanthrope out scrounging wood or recyclables.

On twisty narrow roads like in central Italy, it has an additional feature; It is the one time your older driver
can make a large number of people slow down and go "his" speed..."Let that young guy in the new BMW, with his huge salary
and nice suit, just "cool his heels" a while longer.Heh heh heh."

My other main occupation the past few weeks has been to watch the USGS river gage for the MIddle Fork Salmon at Middle Fork Lodge. I leave on a trip next week and had been cautiously optimistic it would drop to 6 feet or below, and that we might actually have some sunshine and mostly rain free days. Things are looking up. It peaked over a month at just over 7 feet. The latest plateau was similar. The biggest glitch is waiting to see if the road will magically plow itself, since the USFS has prohibited the outfitters from plowing this year, even though each and every year when the FS didn't plow, the outfitters put up a $1000 bond and did it themselves. There is an ongoing battle with USFS upper management in Region 4 in Idaho the past couple of years due to an amazing lack of common sense as of late. I don't know what has happened to their upper management, but it has been making some of the most boneheaded decisions I've seen the USFS in our Region make in many years. Stunning in their lack of insight, foresight, hindsight.

So that's my little rant for the night, too. You are getting a triple hitter here with three themes in this blog. Enjoy, cause there isn't going to be another one for a while again.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the river I go.

Coop de Ville

Now that I've got two more chickens to house I figured it was high time I used up all that scrap lumber and old fence posts and fencing boards that I took down last year this time. I also had acquired a wooden recycle bin from work that was slated for dumpster diving. Originally I considered using the entire bin but we figured it was way easier to build a platform from some OSB sheet pieces I had and use the old full size 4 x 4 redwood posts that had been part of the 50 year old fence.
My friend Mike brought all his power tools over and opened up a shop in my garage. While he was getting set up I headed out with his Sawzall and proceeded to cut down small trees/shrubs and some Oregon grape and cleared the area of bricks and debris so we had a spot behind the garden to set up the new coop. I'm much better at demolition than running a table saw so I worked on dismantling doors and hardware for use while Mike cut OSB and turned it into the platform. Once the platform was built and the uprights for the roof added we moved the contraption from the garage to the back yard through a side gate. We'd measured twice and it just fit with a real tight squeeze and holding our breaths.
Any one who has built a coop knows it takes a lot of beer. At least a 12 pack or more per building episode, and we did this for 6 hours each of two days the weekend of "Earth Day" celebrations.
These hens are getting a Pergo floor from leftovers and that will make clean out really easy. We used the old recycle bin doors for the front lift up and drop down. There were smaller doors on the bin we used to create a roof and door for the exterior "bump out" nesting box for eggs. The siding came entirely from redwood fence boards. The only think I bought was three sheets of metal roofing and four 2 x 4 x 10 pieces where I needed longer lengths than my salvage. Oh, and some hardware cloth and a couple latches. Voila! Chicken coop with about 15 hours of work. The last piece remaining to be done is a chicken wire and hardware cloth "fenced" enclosure run for the girls that will be predator proof and adding a door gate from the garden to the coop, so that in winter time they can free range in the garden once the veges are harvested.