Recent Happenings: Staging Gather, Team Bonding, Too Many Grapes, And Scaring A Bear

A bit about what I've been up to these past two weeks.

Oct 18, 2024

We’re only halfway through October, and so far, two cows explored south of Highway 50, 10 gallons of local grapes gellified, the Jeep frightened a bear, food poisoning struck, and Jazzy’s walked nearly 40 miles.

Thank goodness it’s almost time for the cows to go home. The grazing season is like a school year; everything’s fun at the beginning. But by April, you’re ready for summer break.

I’m ready for the cows to go home.

Dan and Camden, looking cool. Who can name those horses??

“There are cows on the highway.”

After clearing 18.72 miles worth of cows off the National Forest in preparation for gather last Sunday, Dan, Camden, Brenda, Madison, and I dropped rider Andy and his horse back off at the bottom of the Rainbow Road. Just as Andy attempted to pull his truck away, another truck wheeled in and cut him off, blocking us all from leaving the parking lot. He asked if Dan was in charge of the cows, and promptly shared there were two cows on Highway 50, walking south, near Bay of Chickens.

Everyone (besides Andy, he’d earned a direct flight home) sped over there, flashing our blinkers and parking on the shoulder as soon as we saw the cows. Brenda and Camden attempted to slow traffic, but cars didn’t stop speeding by at 65 mph despite the spectacle. So, I untrailered Jazzy, rode across the highway, and cut the cows off while the drivers moved the trucks.

(Dude, riding on the highway felt pretty dang cool.)

The others set up a trap with cattle panels. Dan’s gooseneck would capture the load and carry them to the corrals.

Horses loped next to the blacktop, herding the cows away from the vehicles. Without incident, the cows begrudgingly jogged into the trap and Dan swung the gates closed behind them.

With incident, however, we digested dinner.

Bad Chili

Until 2 a.m. last Monday night, I’d never had food poisoning before. I’d heard food poisoning is no walk in the park, but this… this was truly awful.

Dan, Brenda, Camden, Madison, and I shared a chili dinner together after corralling those cows Sunday night. Starved, we all ate heaping bowls of it. Dan ate two. Little did we know, explosive stomach pains would wake us just hours later.

I got up first. Then Dan. Then Dan heard someone in the guest bathroom. Around 4 a.m., he told me this was likely a group adventure. By 5 a.m, I’d visited the bathroom four times. Each time, I couldn’t help but think this pain was as close as I’d get to feeling contractions without literally birthing a child. With the food now so low in my gut, waves of pain radiated from the exact location my period cramps do. The beans, tomatoes, and ground elk descended closer to my intestine’s exit with every deep, hunched-over exhale I groaned out.

Everyone’s alarm pinged at 6. We shared horror stories over water, not coffee, despite our lack of sleep. The diuretic effects of a cup of joe could not be risked.

I’ll leave the fecal details out, but Dan still rode and Camden still repaired a barbed wire fence as planned. They endured some, um, outdoor incidents. Brenda, Madison, and I stayed home and shared my house’s two toilets for several more hours.

The next time you need a team bonding experience at work, school, or summer camp, don’t practice trust falls or play name games. Try simultaneous food poisoning.

Graped In The Mouth, or I Can’t Be The Only One Who Remembers This YouTube Video From 2009

Lonny’s sister has an bonafide orchard in her backyard. On my way home from bird hunting in Wyoming, I stopped by her home in Montrose to pick some grapes and apples.

Lonny’d mentioned that his sister and her husband grow a ton of fruits and vegetables, but after getting a brief tour of the garden, I began to comprehend just how many pounds of food this couple cranks out annually. They showed me the box of apples and asked how many buckets of grapes I wanted.

Buckets. Buckets of grapes!

I said two because I didn’t want to seem like a wimp who only wanted one bucket, and no part of me wanted three. They handed me a pair of shears, told me where to pick, and asked me about where I’m from and where I’ve been. When red, purple, and white grapes reached the top of the buckets, we dumped them into a cardboard box and stuck them in my car along with two 10 lb zucchinis, four heirloom tomatoes, four cucumbers, and the box of apples.

“Do you want to see my sand paintings?” The husband asked me. Lonny’s sister raised her eyebrows, deeply aware about what I’d get myself into if I said yes. I didn’t know what a sand painting was, so I agreed to step inside.

I now know far too much about sand paintings. And yet, even more rocks filled the room than paintings. Pre-gardener, he was a government and contract geologist. It shows; in one room, geology books fill ceiling-height bookshelves, hundreds of glass vials cup sand, and a 25 pound lump of turquoise and an alleged $50,000 boulder pile adorn their front yard.

Someone, anyone, write an essay about this man! Interview him any one of western Colorado’s many rock and gemstone festivals; you’ll find his table decorated with sand paintings there.

Anyways, today, I finished making 22 jars and 1/2 gallon Ziploc bags of grape jelly from the grapes grown in their yard. It only took two and a half days and every jar I own.

Next year, I’m not letting my pride get in the way. I’m asking for one bucket.

A Jeep, Oh My!

Between all the food poisoning and riding, I didn’t have much time to hunt my bear tag. I could only squeeze in one afternoon afield before first rifle season ended. So, I borrowed the Jeep, drove 3 mph up a road better described as a boulder field, and set out to find the “huge, all-black bear.”

Before it thunderhailed, crunchy aspen leaves cracked under my boots and the dim sunlight filtered through darkening clouds. Five deer delicately stepped over deadfall just inside the meadow’s treeline—three does and two fawns. Two miles of walking told me that the rosehips here were eaten, and thrashed gooseberry bushes said that the big black bear was the one who ate them.

I looked for water. A spring filled elk prints in a tiny pocket marsh, but that’s not quite good enough. This is an entire mountain, after all, and the obvious cow pond along the roadside was proof of other ponds’ existences. Just then, a flash of light caught my attention, and a thunderclap erupted overhead. I took cover from the immiment hail under a dead willow. Thirty minutes and four snacks later, I emerged damp but unbattered. I wiped ice from my rifle’s blurry scope, just in case.

I went back to the Jeep and motored north into a cooler, darker, thicker aspen forest. I crested a small hill and a pitch-black, cow-sized blur ran in front of me into a thicket.

Welp, that was the bear, I thought. I parked the Jeep and took out my rifle, noticing a cool, clear pond just off the road. Until the storm, yellow leaves had likely coated its entire surface. Now, they’d all been blown to the northeast side. I took a one mile lap around the bear spot before setting up on the pond. While waiting for the bear to manifest or the end of legal shooting light, whichever came first, I couldn’t help but contemplate the parallels between the pond’s surface tension and my own.

What have you been up to? How are your hunting seasons going? Have you ever witnessed a geologist’s rock collection, or known two really annoying cows? What’s the weirdest AI “art” you’ve seen?