My Men of Memorial Day

Memorial Day at my parent’s cabin was wonderful.

As usual.

It’s interesting, as I look at the photos I took,
I only got photos of the guys.
My dad.
My husband.
My son.
My son-in-law.
My nephew-in-law.
And my grandson.

No photos of my mom,
or daughter,
or sister,
or niece.

What’s up with that?

Oh well…
Too late to change all of that.
Here’s some pictures of my men
on
Memorial Day
weekend.

My dad gave Scooter the job of cleaning bird poop off the deck railing.
Not a pleasant job, as you can see.
(He’s not crying. He’s grossed out!)

My Dad let us play hairdresser on him after he washed his hair.
What a great sport!

There is no well at the cabin.
(One will be dug this summer.)
So, my dad has to haul water from the community well.
He hauls it in this big 300 gallon tank and then pumps it into a 1,000 gallon tank in the basement.
When you have 10 people staying at the cabin,
we go through a LOT of water, so he has to haul it frequently!
He’s really looking forward to getting that well!

Not a photo of a man, but I practiced my photography with some small wild flowers!

This pic makes me laugh.
The guys were being so goofy with their pellet guns!

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
So, here’s the drama from the weekend.
While I was out practicing photography, I had Lola Dog with me.
I guess I was being too quiet because next thing I knew, a herd of antelope
went racing past me (within about 20 feet of me).
I didn’t know they were coming. They didn’t know I was there.
I thought they had gotten far enough past me without Lola seeing them, so I didn’t hold on to her.
Unbeknownst to me, there were 3 stragglers behind the group of 7 that had just run past.
Lola Dog saw them and off she went, racing to catch them so she could play.

I was only wearing slip on shoes and I’m horribly out of shape, but I had to run to try to catch her.
Sadly, I don’t run as fast as a dog chasing a herd of antelope.
Thankfully, my sister’s car drives as fast.
She and Beast jumped in her car, picked me up and we attempted to find the animals.

We found the antelope with no problem.
They were spooked and still running.
But we couldn’t see Lola Dog.
However, 3 deer had jumped into the fray, were further ahead of the antelope, and were running down the hill.
It was possible Lola decided she wanted to chase deer.
I jumped out of the car and started up one side of the hill where the antelope were.
Beast jumped out of the car and decided to search going down the other side of the hill where the deer had run.
(Keep in mind, we had seen a wolf the night before. A night out in the wild for my pampered dog
would mean certain death.)

As I was starting up the hill, I got a text and a phone call that Lola had abandoned her chase and
had returned (on her own) to the cabin.
So, that meant I had to chase my sister and Beast down and tell them everything was okay.
Red was easy. She heard my whistle.
But Beast didn’t hear it and once we got to the spot where he jumped out of the car,
he was gone. Outta sight. Outta ear shot.
We yelled.
We whistled.
We couldn’t find him!
BEAST!!! WHERE DID YOU GO!!

By this time, my mom had joined the search. She went down another connecting road to look for him.
She couldn’t see him.
We yelled.
We whistled.
Holy cow! What were we going to do?
Had he sacrificed everything for a lousy dog?

Finally, I gave one final yell,
”BEAST!!!!”
and I heard a faint,
“Yeah?”

I could hear him, but couldn’t see him in the sea of sagebrush and prairie grasses.
Finally, I saw him.
He was a long way away.
He must have busted his rear end to find that dog.
His devotion and sacrifice is inspiring.
What a good guy!

He was almost to the other road, so we told him to continue and we’d pick him up.
This is how we found him.
Wiped out.
Exhausted.
Plus, he had thrown up twice in his exhaustion.
Poor guy.

See the steep hill on the left of the picture. Just out of sight there is where he started.
It’s pretty much straight down, and straight up.
Beast, you’re the hero of the weekend!

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Chip was darling all weekend, in spite of being constipated.

My Dad and Flynn look at the remaining 300 gallons as it empties into the basement tank.

We took lots of mini hikes and walks over the weekend.
Even though the skies were grey, it was great walking weather!

Getting ready for the family picture.
See, there were girls at the cabin this weekend!

Papa and Squirt.
How cute is this?!?

Scooter and Papa head for the ravine full of trees.
We were looking for elk and antelope.
Maybe a bear.
Hopefully not a bear because
I forgot to take Lola’s leash.
I guess I’m a slow learner.
But we found no wildlife.
Just lots of trees.
Tall, old trees.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
And I close with two parting photos:

Is it a wolf?
Is it a coyote?
Most people lean toward coyote,
but my cousin who was a ranger in Yellowstone
says it’s a wolf.
I’m sticking with her answer.

And this, my friends, is why we love it up here!