Tastes grow with age...

    

Whew!  Finally getting that hot summer that everyone has been hoping for!  Mashing through thick brush wearing Carhartt’s and a long sleeve shirt in 85F sure makes one drink his Camelbak with earnest, oftentimes refilling half way through the day.   The underbrush is starting to turn a little yellow, the bees are coming out in full force, and the Huckleberries are ripening. 

 

We moved camp to the very Northwest corner of the Colville Reservation about a week ago.   It was a very gorgeous drive with large cedar trees lining the dirt road, awesome granite cliff faces, and Hall Creek running along the south side of the drive.

With every 100’ of gained elevation, it looked, smelled, and even really felt like I was back home.  If I didn’t know where I was, I would have thought I was 2 miles south of Canada at the tip of the panhandle of Idaho on my way to skinny dipping at American Falls. 

 

After setting up camp at what could have been the now defunct Shoe Tree, I went to work.  After an hour of very thick brush, I found my first ripe huckleberries of the season.  Knowing that a co-worker was a few hundred feet away hard at work, I yelled out ‘HUCKLEBERRIES!!!!’  and started getting my fingertips and lips purple with the fresh berries.  Since I had been working everyday for about a week and a half, I decided to look for more of those sweet hucks and took the day off to enjoy this new(although it felt like I’d been there for years) wilderness.  In about an hour, I picked enough huckleberries to last me(and the guys in camp, who were elated upon seeing the beauties) until today(about a week).  

 All of this huckleberry business got me thinking…I used to HATE going picking for those gorgeous, pleasurable, and tart orbs that bears, and humans alike, love for their taste and health benefits.  ‘Mommio’ used to tell me before bed at the Lake that I HAD to go berry picking with her in the morning, ‘bright and early, Timmer.’  GUHHHH, ‘why me? I don’t even like those nasty things!’ I’d say, as there was always my brother and ‘Daddio’ to go as well…I guess she liked my company better I’d like to think.   For a young kid at the Lake with so many fun things to do on or around the water, the last thing I wanted to do was go out in the woods to rummage around looking for gross huckleberries.  Somehow she’d get me to go out with her and our chocolate lab Tess to pick away at her secret spots anyway.  Tess loved it:  being off leash, running around, and actually eating the huckleberries right off the bush that you were picking, ‘GET OUTTA HERE, TESS!  This is MY patch!’   

 After years of despising picking with Mom, I finally started getting the itch.  It went from asking Mom if’ that was enough yet?’ (NOPE!, another GALLON!) to ‘ I found a JACKPOT!’   Soon enough I would be craving huckleberry pies, my Mom’s wonderful huckleberry bread with her homemade jams, and getting a Daiquiri at one of the many establishments around Priest Lake. 

 

I now have my own ‘secret’ huckleberry spots all around Priest Lake that I won’t tell anyone about(for if I did that, I’d have to kill them), and now have a new spot in the Colville Wilderness that will always be mine.  Huckleberries also got me to thinking:  I am definitely taking my daughter picking next week, whether she likes it or not! 

 

Anyway, after a wonderful day off to collect and enjoy myself, the rains came pouring down up in the mountains like a monsoon and I was very glad that I chose wisely and let the Huckleberry madness take over for a day.

The REZ

I just made the move to the Colville Indian Reservation just south of Kettle Falls, WA and West of Inchelium, WA.  The other guys I have been working and moving along with since the Cascades gave me a heads up before I headed over via phone conversation, 'It sucks, you should just stay home.'

Each designated campground in the area runs about $20 a night with an outhouse and no water if you are a non-member of the Confederated Tribes, so the guys set up camp in one of our stands about 10 miles west of Inchelium.  Here, we pay nothing as it is on Forest Capital Partners' land, but again, no water, no real suitable campsites, and you must pay a fee to obtain a fire burning permit.  It's hot, muggy, buggy, and 'primative' to say the least compared to previous living situations.  The boys were right, it sucks.

Unfortunately the town of Inchelium is stereotypically 'Rez Life', consisting of very poor 'indigenous' living in down-trodden homes with broken down cars everywhere,  cigarette cartons and beer cans all over the roads, and stores with poor selection except for beer and liquor(they were out of gasoline at the pumps).   There are a few properties along the way that are very clean and up kept, but overall they don't do the town much justice.  I took a few Northwest Native American Studies and Anthropology courses in school and know a lot about the history and situations the people are in, but man, this area is in a lot of hurt.

The land we are working on is very beautiful, however.  The south facing slopes are mainly arid with tall grasses and ponderosa pines, while the north facing slopes are scattered with hardwoods, western larch, and doug firs.  The brush is high in most places and tough to hike through, and the mosquitoes horrendous.

Though the hot weather, poor conditions, lack of water and resources are downers, camp the surroundings always brings some joy to the job(besides the cashola!).  I brought a guitar this time around to plunk around on and sing songs about mosquitoes in hell, we tell stories about our day, drink boxed wine and 16 oz. High Life, and generally talk poorly about the situation in an amusing tone.  It's tough sometimes livin' on the Rez, but there's always the idea that hey! we signed up for this, luckily it pays very well, the views are spectacular, and the company is great:

Summer? Is That You? I'll be your huckleberry...

After many rainy days and nights, summer has seem to hit North Central Washington!  What a relief, as I was getting tired of wearing smelly boots that weren't quite dried out enough from the day before.  The flowers are blooming all around the forest, the ground is drying up, and pollen by the nose-load is falling off of every Ponderosa and Lodgepole Pine I come into contact with, plugging up my whole system.  I even saw some budding Huckleberries on their plants today, a welcome sign that summer is getting here!

 I took a week or so break from the woods, visiting Sandpoint, the Moyie River, Missoula, and Priest Lake.  It was great to see friends, family, and take a brisk, yet refreshing, dip into the Lake....FINALLY.  As usual, the boat broke down with me behind the helm, lah-di-freakin-da.  Hopefully it will not be gushing gas out the carburetor when I visit for the Fourth...

Before, and after the mini-vacation, I have been seeing and encountering much wildlife.  Not grazing deer, no rabbits, but large bears, and cougar sign almost every day.  Once again I found myself in a large thicket, and a cub came rushing at me through the bushes.  GREAT.  I lost my voice that day because of all the 'HOOOAAAAh's' and 'HEEEYYYOOOO's'  letting those overgrown trash collectors where I was.  The next day I came upon a fresh cougar kill....DOUBLE GREAT.  I went up to a large Douglas Fir to measure, and right behind it was a fresh, not-eaten AT ALL, half-way buried fawn.  To make it official, there were cat claw marks up and down the tree.  Another day of losing my voice!  Since these incidents, I'm glad I am out in the middle of nowhere, because I'm sure people would be getting sick of my constant 'WHOOOOP's' and 'HI-KI-MINI-I-KI's' rummaging around in the forest!

Today I came upon an unlikely visitor in the road (it looked like they flipped her around the corner, after a night of slamming Keystone's that were littered all over my access road):

After the fourth we will be heading to the Colville Indian Reservation for another part of the current job we are doing.  I will miss our little campsite, and our 'Grandpa' Al visits...

May Showers Bring June Flowers

Here's some photos of wildflowers I came upon today in the woods, enjoy!

Surprise!

I can't remember when it rained so much at the beginning of summer.  The days of sunshine have been wonderful, but to a small extent.  After a few hours of cranking out some good work, it seems the sun just throws in the towel and lets the thunder, lightning, hail, and downpours soak me clear through to my underwear.

There haven't been too many exciting animal encounters this week, just some goofy deer.  Does(plural doe?) come up behind me while working and scare me, while yesterday three adolescent bucks walked through camp like they owned the place!  Coyotes have been coming pretty close to camp as well...

As I was about to chow down on my third helping of Bratwurst for the evening, a co-worker said I was driving up the road in my Volvo!  Turns out it was the lovely Kalee-Wobs making a surprise visit to camp for the night with Sasha in tow!  It was perfect timing, for if she would have come 30 seconds later, she wouldn't have been able to have the third brat, which was still piping hot and topped to the gills with mustard!  It was wonderful to see both the girls, as Sasha is going into the vet tomorrow to have one of her 'love lumps' removed and I will not be able to attend(THANK YOU KALEE!).  We enjoyed a few brewskis, and then headed to what I call the 'condo' to retire, as, once again, it was pouring rain.

All in all, a great week for getting work done(except when I high-centered the Jeep 8 miles from camp) and some good rainbow watching in between the storms.  Let's hope this whole summer thing kicks in soon...

This rainbow came in just as the girls rolled in:

G.D. S.O.B's

Whew!  It's been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks, hence, no blog.  Well, here's those weeks in a triple-peanut-shell length!  Hopefully I won't bore you.....I think you'll enjoy it 'til the end.

The Randle Project ended on some great notes.  I ended up working with the other two guys stationed @ the ol' Randle Motel and we got some great, quick work done to finish up the job.  We finished the project early, so it was nice to make a surprise trip back home to Idaho.  Here's an old growth Douglas Fir we found on the last day of work,  a whopping 98" in diameter:

Coming home for a week was great;  spending time with Kalee & Sasha helping out her parents move,  heading to Nolan's cabin on the Thompson River in Montana, and getting to hang out with my brother and family @ our cabin up at Priest Lake for Memorial Day Weekend.  It was great letting my body rest up before heading to the new project just outside of Republic, WA.

I had been through Republic years ago with the 'Old Man' heading towards Tonasket and Omak for soccer games as a kid, but never remembered it very much.  All that kept coming to mind was my Dad saying 'Don't make eye contact with any locals' as we drove through because of all the Aryan Nation business going on...  Pretty sure things have changed.  Republic is a bustling little logging/prospecting town in the heart of North-Central Washington.  There seems to be a lot of history in the Natural Resources realm, and everybody is more than happy to help me out.  It's really in some gorgeous country; rolling hills, snow covered mountains, and little streams everywhere. 

Casey(one of my co-cruisers) and I made camp @ the Ferry County Campground about a mile out of town.  Hotels around here aren't cheap like Randle, and this camp has showers(a major plus during tick season).  It is run an old school logger named Al.  I've never heard so many 'son of a bitch' and 'God damn's' in my life, God damn!  He is probably around 70 years old, and has lived and ran the camp since it opened in 1994.  He likes to say, 'I didn't want the fucker, God damnit!  My Old Lady wanted it, so we got it, and she passed two God damn years later of the God damn cancer, and left me with the son of a bitch! God damn!'  The place doesn't get much business(besides our first night, not a soul has showed up), so Al(lonely I am sure) comes over every afternoon when we get off work and talks our ears off, ALWAYS finding a way or excuse to come over(he drives his Mastercraft lawn mower over and leaves it in the middle of our camp, leaves his weed whacker,  etc.)  He has some great stories of being thrown through bar windows, shooting himself in the foot, shooting bears, and getting rowdy with the boys back in the 60's.  It's nice to hear his stories because a lot of them are from when he worked as a logger in and around the Pack River Valley, Priest Lake, and Priest River, of which I can relate and get some words in with the old son of a bitch, God damnit!

The woods out here are much different than the Cascades.  Although the trees aren't as plentiful, there is a lot of brush to hike through.  The country around here is much like Eastern Washington and North Idaho, arid and full of Ponderosa Pines, huckleberry bushes, and such.  The woods are cleaner(no trash), and full of wildlife, unlike the Cascades.  It was rare to see animals on a daily basis on the last job, but here, it's rare not to see anything.

In four days I saw(or saw sign) of 4 bears, a moose cow and her kid, countless deer, turkeys, grouse, and other little critters.  The second day I was out, I drove up on a big black bear sitting in the road.  Later that afternoon I was up in a stand for a couple of hours working, and came back to the Jeep to find a momma bear and cub had cruised right by the Jeep(I am glad I didn't encounter them):
Baby Bear:

Momma Bear:

The next day was full of surprises.  I was not alone at my first plot.  A moose cow and her kid were right where I needed to be.  Knowing that moose are ornery sons of bitches, God damn, I let them know I was around, and they finally walked off.  I then got a scare from a grouse who flew off like crazy, which she was in the right, as I was about to step on her and her soon-to-be offspring:

Finally that day, as I was coming into one of the darkest thickets I had seen so far, I saw a skull and bones that still had blood and tissue attached.  Walking around off-trail, you see a whole lot of bones and signs of animals past.  Usually they are bone-dry, but not today.  So my instincts kicked in, and I kept my eyes and ears open.  A little close to the plot were two VERY fresh and large bear scat with flys still buzzing.  Second warning.  I didn't see anything, but that's because I couldn't see further than 20 feet in there.  Finally, as I found my plot and was writing out my reference points on tape, a very large grunt followed by stomping around...I dropped my pen and tape, grabbed a hold of my 'piece' and very quickly got the hell out of there.  Sounded like he was about 20-30 feet away, but I couldn't see the son of a bitch, God damnit!  Last thing I want is to intrude on a big bear's territory in a place that was both troublesome to get in, and out of.  Lucky for me a couple of plots later, with adrenaline winding down, I ran into a patch of morel mushrooms to take my mind off of earlier. 

Sorry for the length this post, it won't happen again, as I've finally found a nice little internet cafe in Republic.  I'll leave you with this son of a bitch, who likes to camp out right on my access road from time to time.  He's a a stubborn one, whom I always have to drive around, as he sure as hell isn't moving, God damnit:

Argh! Republic Internet!

Tried to blog today...finally. I have some new stories and pictures, but, alas, the Internet at the cafe was down( and I don't want to type on my phone). Maybe tomorrow!