Work commences at eight, when the sun climbs from behind the trees and shines in our eyes. We’re nearing the end of the renovation! The railing has been built. The stairs have new stringers and have been sanded and refinished. I’ve patched holes in the kitchen floor, scraped it clean of old vinyl and cardboard backing, and laid down sheets of plywood to create a solid base for the new vinyl, which we’ll be installing sometime next week. We replaced all ten windows in a two-day marathon, tearing out the old, warped frames and panes with flat bars before fitting in the new. Two more days saw us perched outside on ladders with chisels and mallets, carving out the old logs to fit in new cedar trim, and presently we’re working on building window sills and frames inside. I did all of the work on two of the window frames all by myself! I built the frame for my own room out of smooth, aromatic cedar, and then engineered a rustic-looking structure out of old, weathered barn wood for a second bedroom. Bob wrote me a report card for my window frame work – my first independent construction project! “Windows: A+”, the card read. I found an old magnet and stuck it on the fridge. I am getting the hang of this carpentry thing. I’m not allowed to use the table saw, and I am hopeless at the quick figuring of measurements, fractions, and anything math-based, but my pencil and my tape measure have become new, indispensable appendages, and my arm muscles are becoming stronger and steadier with each blow of the hammer or swing of the mallet. My days are made up of foam insulation, wooden shims, joint compound, caulking guns, sand paper and nail guns. My life is construction and creation.

It is boring. And yet – good. For the first time since I can remember, I have time. I read (Vonnegut, Les Miserables, Baudelaire, Bill Bryson, the final Harry Potter book), I write emails, I write for myself. I’m cooking and baking: pita bread, chili, falafel, biscuits, pizza, corn bread, fried rice, curry. Bob and I are still working with the horses, though now we’re riding and training and spend two or three hours with them every night. Cal comes by in the evenings once or twice a week with a bottle of wine. To write it in detail would become quickly redundant. I could describe to you the hundreds of subtle variations of the light as it plays on the steep red sides of the canyon, or the way that storm clouds build, a bluish-black backdrop to the golden, waving grass in the field. The way the wind blows every afternoon at a certain time or the ongoing war I’ve waged against the mice in the house. There are a thousand small details to flesh out the life I’m leading, but to focus on them with deep description or attention would be to negate the unassuming charm that makes them magic. Every day is an adventure, true, but it’s a smaller, more subtle adventure. It is the adventure of a settled, unremarkable life: worthy, wonderful, but hardly cinematic or inspiring. If there is inspiration to be had, it is in learning to love the simplicity and to exist without the need to invent excitement or chaos or distraction: peace.

Still blinking sleep out of my eyes, a movement in the trees fifty feet away caught my attention. “Oh…there’s a bear!” I whispered, nonchalant only out of shock. Bob laughed, thinking my lack of excitement indicated a joke, and then choked abruptly as he looked where I was pointing. A young black bear was stalking us, slowly, cautiously, obviously drawn by the scent of our food, which hung in a tree on the other side of our camp. We lay silently, breathlessly, watching it to within twenty feet. “How close we goin’ to let it get?” Bob asked. “Not much closer than this!” I declared, and we both sat up hurriedly. “GOOD MORNING, BEAR!” I shouted, and watched it stop short to assess this new obstacle between it and its breakfast. Bob worked to keep it away by shouting and hammering his hatchet against the trees and logs. It kept its distance, but would not be deterred. It paced a half circle around the camp, sniffing our cooking gear, and even trying to walk off with Bob’s jute dish brush at one moment. Eventually it tired of the game, and lay down across a log to watch us and wait for us to pack up and leave it to sniff at our leavings.

With this exhilarating start to the morning, Bob and I climbed rapidly up the lake shore to our next camping spot, startling a bull moose and an impressively-antlered elk along the way. At Dead Horse Lake, elevation 9,000 ft, we dropped our gear and cooked up a filling breakfast of oatmeal and trail mix while admiring the view: a small, round lake, more of a pond, really, with spruce-lined shores and steep mountains surrounding it. Several large, recent rockslides spoke of the youth and instability of the peaks, but the tiny hillock where we made camp was peaceful and protected. It was, however, also home to about 3,784,331 mosquitoes. I know this because I was counting the number of times I slapped, whacked, squished and swore at the tiny, needled devils between spoonfuls of breakfast. Our repellent situation had taken a turn for the worse. The plastic bottle had broken, spilling precious, potent elixir all over my backpack. My pack, my book, my stove, my toothbrush, and my water bottle were all marvelously protected from mosquitoes, black flies, horse flies, deer flies, ticks and more. Bob and I, on the other hand, had little more than thin layers of polypropylene and wool to keep the buggers off. These two fabrics, while excellent for keeping warm and dry, put up absolutely no resistance when confronted with mosquitoes. We were covered.

We retreated to higher ground, to Lost Lake, where the elevation (10,500 ft) seemed to discourage the mossies, and spent a pleasant afternoon, miles from civilization, and that much closer to heaven. I read, took pictures, and later, growing sleepy, followed the lake to the place where it narrowed and began to flow like a tiny creek down the side of the mountain. The clear water ran across rocks and grass, and where it touched earth tiny flowers sprang to life and sucked gleefully at its sweetness. Indian paintbrush, purple-and-cream columbine, and dozens of nameless wild things in blues, whites, yellows, pinks, and purples. Bob found me later as I stretched and climbed and worked my way across a massive boulder field, rocks three times my height. “Where are you going?” he called. “To the other side!” I shouted back. “Why?” “To see what’s there!” I laughed. On the other side, I found, was a narrow green valley, and towering above it, a dark fortress of rock. Flat on the top and sheer on the sides, I was looking at a long castle rampart, booby-trapped with precariously balanced rocks and cornices of snow, just waiting for an invading army to attempt a breach. Gorgeous. I lay on my back in the stiff, prickly alpine grass, gazed out into the valley, and just breathed.

Then we had to climb back down. The sun was tending toward the western part of the sky, but several hours of daylight remained yet. As soon as we reached our makeshift camp, the mosquitoes returned. I could almost hear them laughing with glee as they dove upon us and plunged their tiny daggers through our layers of clothing and into already itching skin. Bob caught fish in the lake for dinner, and in doing so acquired enough bug bites to swell his eyes to tiny, puffy slits and his nose to a shape that Karl Malden might have recognized. I cooked potatoes in the fire, and sliced veggies and lemons to roast in butter with the fish. It was a beautiful night – campfire, sunset, fresh fish, outdoor cooking – but I barely took it in. I was rather occupied in squishing the daylights out of any buzzing thing that thought to land on me. The little bastards were relentless. Bob and I could have made up our own rhythm band with the beats we were creating, slapping and tapping and bopping and socking. All to no avail. The buggers kept coming. We stood in the campfire smoke until our eyes watered and screamed. We walked up and down, pacing the length of the campsite while we shoved the food into our faces. Still, we had to stop moving long enough to lay out our sleeping bags and wash our dishes, and the mosquitoes were so thick they formed a visible aura around us. As soon as the chores were done, we were in our sleeping bags, wrapped up and willingly foregoing fresh air in the interest of being without mosquitoes.

I fell asleep, and woke perhaps four hours later, suffocating. I poked my head out of the bag and gasped oxygen gratefully. It took me a moment to realize what was different. No mosquitoes! It was cold – perhaps forty degrees – and a full moon had risen magnificently over the lake, bright enough to illuminate the mountains around us, cold enough to have sent the mosquitoes to bed. It was a small miracle, and I gulped greedily at the air and relished the quiet. They were back by morning, and we literally sprinted out of the woods. Eight miles in four hours, barely stopping for an apple and an energy bar. Back at the Bronco, we slumped into the seats and grinned tiredly at each other. “I. Have. Never. Seen so many mosquitoes on that trail,” Bob panted. A week later, I’m still itching.

Back at the ranch, the days are darn near perfect. It’s hot – 95 in the shade today – but the house is usually 10-15 degrees cooler, and the air is dry, making the high temps far more bearable than a typical New England summer heat wave. My list of acquired skills is lengthening steadily. I learned basic plumbing: soldering pipes together to hook up an outside spigot; connecting PVC and copper to our temporary kitchen sink. We now have running water in the kitchen! I’ve disassembled old doors and learned how to create jam-extensions and casing around the old door frames, then worked on building up my arm muscles while I stripping several layers of ancient paint and finish from the doors themselves. Today I learned how to tape and mud sheet rock, and how to build a framed wooden panel to cover an access hole in the upstairs hallway. Our project for the next week will be constructing a railing for the staircase and then trimming, filling, sanding, and polyurethaning the whole lot.

Forest fires, both close and distant have obscured the horizon off and on for the last couple of weeks. Some mornings we wake to smoke in our throats and a thin gray haze floating through the valley where our house is situated. Then there were lightning storms, some with rain, some with only wicked purple clouds and brilliant white bolts. Bob and I sit on the porch and watch it all, content to be quiet observers, sometimes reading, sometimes talking, sometimes singing along to the radio. Most nights we spend at least a half an hour with the horses, grooming, playing, bribing our way into their hearts with carrots and other treats. There’s a little Arabian that I’ve named Lady – making her mine is my goal for the summer. Bob’s teaching me to gain her trust and slowly get her accustomed to a rider. First, the harness. Last night was the saddle, an ordeal that left the poor girl sweaty and edgy. We’ve got a way to go before I’ll be getting on her, but it’s something to work towards, and I love that I have the opportunity to live with and learn about the animals in this way.

It’s another windy night, and the cats are nestling closer, sharing their warmth. I love it, even though they make my eyes itchy. I’m rereading Les Miserables, the unabridged version. Soon I’ll get up and cook up some soup, or maybe I’ll just have a sandwich. Bob’s working at his shop in town, on a welding project or maybe rebuilding someone’s transmission, so for tonight it’s just me and the cats and the wind. Ahhhh yes.

See my skills!  New photos, befores and afters and inbetweeners and others just for fun.
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The situation, thus far, is fantastic. Bob is the man who’s hired me, an acquaintance from the Ice. He’s an excellent teacher: patient and understanding. For the first time in my (reasonably) long career as helper/general assistant/laborer, I’m being actively involved in the work. I am a part of the entire project, from conception to design, start to finish. I am learning. No more am I left on the sidelines, struggling to find ways to help – Bob’s determined to see me made a carpenter, and I’m drinking in the skills like the dry earth outside soaks up the water.  It’s an unfinished house, as I said, which means we’re living in pieces – there’s only one sink with running water, and that’s in the outdoor toilet. Our kitchen consists of a stove, fridge and a fabricated piece of cabinet/counter top to hold food and our few mismatched utensils. These are necessarily moved around every day depending on where we’re working. The front and back doors are always open; when I prepare for dinner, I have to rinse the sawdust out of the frying pan and wipe it off the spoons. This is life in a construction site. Still, I’m incredibly house-proud, living among the work I’ve done, fixing up this and that, slowly making this empty log shell into a home.  So far, I have: filled nail holes, sanded and polyeurthaned the wood trim; nailed down loose floor boards; caulked the bathroom; patched a hole in the wood floor; hung sheetrock in the kitchen; leveled the kitchen ceiling and then fitted the entire thing with tongue-in-groove aspen boards; insulated about fifty feet of hot water pipe; and today will tackle the plumbing so that we can have a sink in the kitchen.  At the end of work every day, around 6:30, I sit on the porch, tired, splintered, and filthy, a bottle of Corona cold in my hand and sweet in my dry, dusty throat: perfect.

In our off-hours, Bob and I sit on the front porch and watch the world turn. The ranch is so removed, so peaceful. There’s a sizeable canyon on the property, about a ten minute walk from the house. It is gorgeous. Tall, reddish walls, soft and round yet full of interesting nooks and crannies and ledges and chimneys just begging to be climbed. It’s narrow – perhaps only 15 feet across, and the water at its deepest point is barely up to my neck. The path between the house and the canyon is thick with cottonwoods, wild roses and gooseberries. When Bob gave me a tour of the property, he pointed out animal prints in the dust, and lectured me on safety in the Wild West: how to survive among grizzlies, mountain lions, bobcats, lynxes, scorpions, rattlers, wolves, coyotes, moose. It’s not all bad news, though – there’s no poison ivy! During the day the sun is hot and the air is dry. Rabbits hop timidly around the driveway, magpies screech in the trees, and cicadas shrill along the fence posts. On Sunday we watched a whitetail deer and her fawn prance and feed in the field next to the house.  There are horses too, five of them, and the promise of rides and pack trips to come. At night, the earth is still and eerily quiet. There are no night birds, no crickets or frogs. Silence. Cold, too – from one hundred degrees during the day to forty at night is the norm for late June at 7,000 feet.

There’s no one else around, except for Cal and Arlene, the aging owners of the ranch. Originally from Minnesota, the two of them have spent their summers out here since 1970. Arlene’s not well, but Cal is still actively involved with the upkeep and management of the property. He cruises around in a John Deer Gator, fixing fences, digging irrigation trenches, and periodically stopping in to see if Bob and I need anything. Two nights ago Cal invited us over to watch the sun set from his porch and enjoy a glass or two of wine. Other than that small excursion, my time has been spent reading, chatting with Bob, and exploring the garages and outbuildings for items to make the little cabin more inhabitable. My best find yet has been a string of party lights shaped like red tractors; Bob nailed it up along the front porch. Now every night’s a party on our porch! Is it strange, you ask, for me to be living and spending nearly every waking minute with this forty-something-year-old man?  Maybe.  Is it going well, so, far?  Absolutely.  He gives me plenty of space and privacy, and my time out of work is my own, though we have a surprising number of things in common, and I’ve found that I enjoy his company as a friend as much as a boss.

We’re still trying to sort out the internet situation on the ranch…there’s so much more to write, but I’m feeling pressed for time.  I’ve still got to stop at the lumber yard on my way back out of town, and it’s already nearly lunchtime.  Until next time, I’ll keep swinging that hammer and you all keep sending me love – peace.

Nonetheless – today was Christmas day! For me, anyway. As with Thanksgiving, I will have to work on the holiday itself, and instead get to celebrate with an extra day off, two weeks early. I’m not complaining, though. Having two days off in a row is like having Christmas come early. Oh, wait…

So today, Christmas day, found me engrossed in work – constructing toilet seats for science! I spent the day volunteering in the carpentry shop. The key to successfully lining up a better job for future Antarctic deployments (yes, I am considering coming back) is spending time in the work center in which you are interested, meeting the people in charge and showing them what you can do. One benefit of working in the galley is having odd days off – which means that I can visit other work centers and scope out future jobs. I’m trying not to put all my eggs in one basket, but if I was to pick a favorite basket, the carp shop would be it. The sweet smell of sawdust, the squeal of the band saw, and the satisfying whirr of the screw drill kept me in a happy, productive mood all day. To be working with my hands, creating and building and then seeing the results stacked up next to me at the end of the work day – ahh, awesome.

But, back to the toilet seats. Years of experience in answering the call of nature in the Antarctica has resulted in a unique and excellent toilet seat design: a plywood base with two inches of hard styrofoam adhered to it. Cut out a hole in the middle, use a rotor to turn hard edges into streamlined curves, and voila! A toilet seat that will never, ever get cold. These foam fabrications top the royal thrones (read: holes in the ground/ice) of scientists and laborers at work in the field. They’re used in areas that are more remote and can be more freezing than the South Pole – and yet, when folks get down to business, their bared bottoms are met not with wince-producing cold, but with warm, inviting foam. Thus it was that I spent today using band saw, skill saw, jigsaw, pneumatic adhesive gun, putty knife, clamps, grips, screw drill, rotor and sander, all to create comfort and luxury for that which I am here to support: science! The guys in the shop found my enthusiasm rather amusing – they’re hard at work at building important, complicated things like crane platforms, staircases, cabinets, shelves, tool boxes, crates. But at the end of the day, looking at my hands – splintered, dirty, scraped, covered in adhesive residue – and using an air hose to blow sawdust and styrofoam bits out of my hair, I was happy. Merry Christmas to me!