I would take a big UHaul load up with my Mum for company while Shelagh stayed home doing final things.
We stayed over in Quesnel where we arrived late in the afternoon and had supper at my cousin Anne's home.
Early the next morning on a bright sunny morning we headed out on the Blackwater road and arrived at the ranch with no mishaps where we had lots of help unloading.
Returning to Quesnel that afternoon we turned in the truck at the U-Haul dealer there and after another night at the motel with a visit with Aunt Ruth and Uncle Roy we took the Greyhound for the 11 hour trip to New Westminster where we took a cab to my house. I then drove Mum home and was back by around 10 p.m.
Shelagh had been sick with a bug and the stress of the move and had to have her Mum and brother over to help while I was away.
We had only a few items left in the house which had to fit along with Harley, 2 dogs and 3 cats into the Cherokee.
The next trip up was also very pleasant as the weather was great again and we did it all in one shot arriving at the ranch in early evening.
I went straight to work the following morning with the routine of arriving at Al and Lorna's at about 8 where we sat in the kitchen having coffee while we planned the days' work.
The girls were up and in a routine as they home schooled and dressed and put on makeup even though there was nobody but us around.
Al had a massive list prepared and I was raring to go.
Although he ran the ranch with such few people, he had an impressive equipment inventory.
The fleet consisted of:
- 1978 Ford F-150 4X4 Pickup (I drove on a previous visit when it was new)
- Massey Ferguson 165 diesel tractor with loader
- Versatile 250 4X4 tractor (Al's usual ride)
- Ford County 4 4X4 diesel tractor
- Ford County 6 4X4 diesel tractor (both fitted with heavy duty skidder tires)
- Ford 9000 diesel tractor
- Cat 966 loader
- Cat D6 bulldozer
- Cat D9 bulldozer
- Galion grader
- 1964 Mack tandem dump truck
- 1965 GMC 3-ton grain truck
- 1962 White Freightliner tandem cattle truck
- 3 Honda 3-wheeled atcs
The equipment wasn't lined up neatly as one might picture but could be found at various places over the vast ranch.
My first task was to fertilize hundreds of acres of hay fields using a Massey Ferguson tractor very similar to the one pictured.It was late April, but cold in the Caribou. Al had me wear a snowmobile suit that made the work comfortable.
There were still areas with lots of snow in the shadows and brushy areas which we had to wait for melting to proceed with a big fence building project I was to complete before we started the other big project-clearing an 80 acre piece of logged land to the planting stage.
I revelled in the work and the beautiful setting with its river running through, a couple of small lakes full of trout and the vast meadows with the 300 head of Hereford/shorthorn/Angus mix cattle.
There were 3 horses on site too, but 2 were retired cattle ponies too beat-up to ride and the 3rd was an Arabian who only let my cousin Shannon ride him.
Diablo was as friendly as a dog as long as you didn't think about getting on his back.
He lived around the trailer where we stayed and was usually cropping the lush grass in our huge front yard or pulling clothes off the line in his mischievous way.
He often climbed the front stairs to peer through the open kitchen door until our husky/shepherd put a stop to that by attacking him and sending him bucking around the yard.
They had a feud going from then on resulting in Alex the dog being soundly kicked in the head on one occasion. He ran squealing to hide in his dog house. On inspection I found he only had a cut eyebrow and a swollen egg sized lump, poor bugger.
Our border collie mix, Bandit got along fine with the horses and cattle and had the instinct to work around them even though it was his first time.
Bandit insisted on accompanying me to work most days and ran around after the tractor as I circled the fields being totally worn out by days' end.
We were reasonably comfortable in the trailer although Al had promised to provide means to heat water and so far hadn't which began to be a hardship on us, especially having a baby just over a year old.
We had propane for cooking and a couple of lights and the refrigerator, but no electricity other than a diesel generator that was used part of the time.
It was very noisy and really cut into the peaceful atmosphere as well as finicky, quitting unexpectedly if an air pocket formed in the fuel line.
For a bath we had to heat as many pots and buckets as possible for about an hour every night.
Shelagh was working very hard maintaining the home and the weekly hundred mile round trip for groceries as the little fridge was marginally cold.
I did eat some terrific meals with the top quality organic beef provided liberally.
My routine was to load up the pickup with posts, drive to the site and distribute them along the area,drive the tractor along pounding posts every 16 feet as well as places for gates, then using one of the Honda Big Red 3 wheeled atcs I would string out the spools of barbed wire mounted on a pin at the rear of the cycle.
Next I spaced the rows of wire starting at the top and working downward stretching each string before loosely stapling them to the posts.
I found this work very pleasant and took great satisfaction in the progress I was making.
Al's neighbour complemented me by telling Al it was the straightest fence he'd ever seen.
I ended up laying around 5 miles in a few weeks in mostly good weather.
I took a break from fencing to begin the big land clearing job at "982" which was the Crown Land number issued for the piece we were transforming from forest to hay field.
Al and his helpers had done the logging a few years before and some of the big stumps and debris had been wind rowed into long piles ready to burn off after being left to dry.
As a real fire bug I couldn't wait to get at it.
As it had been sitting disused for some time we had to change the hydraulic fluid, batteries and grease it all over which took us most of a day working together.
Once it was fired up I revelled in its pleasant exhaust note as its turbo whined above the growl of the big diesel.
We needed more equipment still and next had to get the massive D9 Cat into service.
We drove out deep into the forest near the 982 project area and soon saw the big dozer looming in a clearing.
Al installed a fresh pair of batteries, then cranked up the "pup"motor which was a 10 hp motor that was the dozer's starter motor. The huge engine cranked for about 30 seconds and belched a big cloud of black smoke as it came to life.
Al explained it had a bad clutch on one side making it hard to operate and wouldn't let me use it (rats!)
We left the big cat warming up while Al took me back to the ranch to move the 966 up to the site and began preparation of work using the huge D9 Cat to use to push some big stumps around with.As I was leisurely driving the big loader lumbering along the narrow trails I spotted smoke coming from a partially logged section not far from our work area.
When I arrived at the work site I jumped on one of the atcs and rushed over to take a look.
On arrival I found a pretty good fire beginning to spread in the breezy late morning through the slash piles leftover from the previous fall's clearing work.
Simultaneously a forest fire spotting plane appeared overhead and circled in tight turns above checking out the source.
I rushed to where Al had begun pushing stumps to find him scanning the sky wondering what the plane was doing.
On learning of the fire he headed the dozer towards it and began making a fire guard easily with the big blade circling around the fire as I took the water fire extinguishers we had in the pickup to wet down spot fires.
We worked for a few hours at a fever pace and I remember being extremely parched when my cousin Lisa appeared on one of the atcs packing thermoses of cold water for us.
It never was as refreshing to me as that cool drink I had that day which re energized me to continue.
Al and I were black as coal miners and had everything under control by noon when a helicopter landed nearby.
The forestry crew was satisfied we had the job done, which was fortunate for Al who would otherwise have had a hefty fine and bill to pay.
Al figured the fire must have been simmering underground in roots or a stump until the melting in spring released it. We were doubly fortunate to have been on site and had the big cat operational.
We had to bring up two of the tractors for the job and Al wanted part of the road repaired to make it possible for them to make it over the boggy area in between the ranch and 982.
He enlisted more of his "toys" in the form of the old Galion grader, the old Mack dump truck and his Versatile tractor with loader.
We became a road building team the next day and assembled at his own gravel quarry near his house.
My former training on the infamous 5x4 transmission came into use again as I enjoyed being behind the wheel of the classic truck.
It drove very nicely although Al warned me the brakes were nearly shot and to bear that in mind.
He loaded the big truck to the max and with tires bulging I headed up the winding hilly trail towards the muddy section about 6 miles away.
I made several trips with no trouble until on one run I missed a shift on a fairly steep grade. Normally one would come to a stop, get into a lower gear and start again, but the failing brakes made themselves known as I began an out of control trip in reverse down the hill.
Using the mirrors I managed to follow the snaking road until I was on level ground and able to stop.
Thanking my ever present guardian angel I resumed my journey without further mishap, but did urge Al to get at the brakes asap!
Once that was done Al turned the 982 job over to me as he took on some other jobs around the ranch.
For the next couple of months I burned, piled and pushed debris around,always in a cloud of smoke and ash, filthy dirty and smelling of diesel.
I loved (almost) every minute of it.
When the last of the burning was done the next task was to rotovate the new land and chew up any stumps and big roots left underground.
The rotovator was brand new and took a lot of power to operate.
It had cutting "knives" that were curved pieces of high quality steel that cost $50.00 each to replace.
The progress was quite slow as I churned along.
Every time I contacted a big piece of pine root I'd feel an impact and see a big chunk fly up behind me.
A few times it was a knife that flew up when the root was too hard and at noon I would look the rotovator over and replace the broken cutters.
The big tractor drank a lot of fuel too as it revved at a steady 1000 rpm all day long.
We brought up a portable fuel "tidy" tank to refuel every day.
The finished ground looked good to me and I could see my accomplishments as the hours passed.
One concern I had was seeing the field mice and toads trying to escape as I crawled along at a speed where I could clearly see the small creatures moving ahead of me.
On one pass I noticed a dry grass nest that had been uncovered.
I stopped to check it and saw two baby voles curled up with eyes open, but as small as peanuts in the shell.
I picked them up in the nest and stowed it in my lunch bucket and took them home where we put them into a 1 gallon jar to live until old enough to fend for themselves.
They were very tame and calm for about two weeks until they began to move very quickly and seemed to be aggressive towards us.
We then released them in our garden and saw them regularly as they seemed to be familiar with us and unafraid.
On my days off I enjoyed fishing in my own private lake about 10 minutes' hike from our trailer to a beautiful setting where I would row my 2-man rubber raft out into the calm water where I could see the fish swimming through the plants beneath my raft.
It was ridiculously easy to catch several fish within a few minutes as I cast my line out, cranked it slowly in, felt the hit, played the feisty rainbow and landed a nice 3 pounder time after time.
We had a guaranteed trout supper anytime we pleased!
My other pastime was working in the large vegetable garden I had planted in an old corral outside of our trailer where we grew some great broccoli,turnips and other greens.
My regular daily job of watering the bulls was another pleasant duty I had.
It was hilarious the way those big boys were scared of tiny Harley and backed away from him in fear as he wandered in with me where I pumped water into 2 old bathtubs for them.
With us they were quite tame, but an unfamiliar little person mystified them totally.
The home scene continued to make our lives hard to deal with as Al still failed to improve our situation.
It became clear we would have to leave as soon as I could find work back in the Vancouver area.
On our weekly trips to Prince George it was our habit to call my Mum from a pay phone at a gas station on the highway into the city.
Mum was trying to come up with an idea to help us return to civilization when she ran into my old buddy, Phil who was now running his own business restoring hot rods and building high performance engines in a shop in Richmond.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.