A Break In The Action

Time for a little break from the heat.  A picture from the past showed up on Facebook.  Let's travel up to the Sierras where it's MUCH cooler.  I couldn't find a really good map, but if you drew a line up from Lake Isabella and crossed over a horizontal line from the words Giant Sequoia, you would intersect about where the cow camp was.

I know I've shown this picture before.  The meadow is behind the picture taker.  I think that's my Uncle standing between the horses.  I'm also thinking maybe the child was his youngest?  The only way to get there was by horseback, so we learned to ride VERY early.  I was riding my own horse at four.  Notice the horse to the left ... no one ever went out without a rifle.   

One or two of the lead horses were hobbled and let loose in the meadow since there were no corrals.  MOST of the rest would stay put, though we did occasionally have to go find them on foot.  Again, a rifle was always handy since bears and mountain lions were everywhere, not to mention those darn rattlesnakes!!

What looks like a black tree coming out of that square structure in front of the cabin, is actually the smoke stack.  That's where all the cooking was done.  Behind the cabin to the left was the outhouse where all the snakes lived.  Just a coincidence I'm sure (men will be boys) and occasionally one would end up in a sleeping bag.  Not my bag thank goodness, and I was not amused!!  

Pretty hard to tell, but on the far right is a huge picnic table where we ate all our meals.  We slept about where the picture taker is standing, to be farther away from the smell of food that was hung up in the tree. There's nothing like waking up and finding bear tracks at the foot of your bedroll.  I wasn't amused with THAT, either!!  Yes, we slept on the ground after gathering up pine needles to make it more comfortable.  

The above cabin in way across this meadow in those trees.  This is the sign for the forest service cabin that we frequented on horseback.  That was because there was rarely anyone there, and us kids could jump our horses over every rock and log without someone yelling at us.  

We did become well acquainted with the cabin when my brother fell off his horse, hit the only pine cone in the corral and broke his arm.  We actually broke into the cabin looking for something to wrap his arm up with.  We took some bandages, some sticks and lots of tea towels.  

The ride back to explain what happened was fraught with fear.  We knew we were going to get our hides tanned.  Lucky for us they actually thought it was just sprained.  Pretty sure I've told you this story, about how on the way back the biggest grasshopper ever jumped on my shirt.  Silly me, I gave it to my brother because I felt sorry for him.  Later that day, he caught the biggest fish.  NO FAIR!

That's what was for dinner most days.  Even at that young age, I loved fishing.  With no fridge or even ice to keep anything cold, we lived off the land and dried beef.  Every day I was down at the stream catching native trout.  My least favorite was lunch.  Breakfast was most likely pancakes, followed by pancakes with peanut butter for lunch.  I love PB but NOT with pancakes!!  My second favorite was dried beef fried in bacon grease with potatoes.  We had that a LOT!!

Two weeks later we would leave the camp, riding the horses all the way back.  Just for kicks, they had the arm x-rayed, to find it was broken.  THAT'S when we got in trouble.  Jumping logs was no longer allowed.  Well ... not that they ever SAW!!

So here we are back in sunny Arizona.  This is the resident coyote coming for a drink a couple days ago.  I haven't put the camera out when it was pouring down rain.  It's waterproof, but I didn't want to push my GOOD luck.

I spent most of the day sewing again.  I did find out my quilting machine will be delivered Tuesday morning.  I need to get this finished because I'll soon be hard at work on all those quilts.

As a thank you for always checking on my house, I made a run by Dickman's Meat and Deli for their famous Ugly Steaks.  Yup ... they are that!!  On slow days they sell 2-300 of these beauties.  I knew at one time exactly where this cut comes from, but I forgot, and it's a secret.  I think they even patented the cut and the name.  Really, you can't go wrong with all that marbling!  These are almost better than filet mignon.

Mr. Dan cooked them to perfection!!  If meat was once again like this ... prime grade ... I would be eating it every day.  Sadly, this tasty treat is $17.99 a pound, thanks to inflation and ridiculously high wages.  Two years ago it was half that!!  

We had another crazy storm last night ... this one full of electricity.  I got a couple not so great videos I'll post tomorrow.  At least you can get an idea of what it's like to live in a plasma globe.  You know, the little glass globe that has lighting shooting all around inside when turned on.  This is the first time I've seen anything like this in seven years.  Needless to say, I stayed inside.

Keep cool my friends ... we are supposed to get all the way down to 95 today.  WOOHOO!!!!!