My mistake was telling stories about close calls with rattlesnakes. Jack didn't want to get out of the car, but I convinced him that I would watch carefully, where we walked, and besides, we were walking on sections of gravel or trails. It was not difficult to see that the path was clear.The day was beautiful, a perfect time for taking pictures.
I wish that I had had a movie camera. Meadowlarks sang. Like my grandfather did for me, I taught Jack how to recognize their simple trill: more melodic than the chirp of a robin or even the wail of a killdeer, but all three are sounds I love to hear. There were, however, only meadowlarks out there.
When I was young, I don't remember ever hearing one of those. There were robins, starlings, sparrows and a strange looking bird, that my dad called a king bird. They are marked similar to a robin and even the size of a robin, but their breast is lime green instead of red.
They were also aggressive. Anything below their nest was fair game. They would dive and peck at dogs or children or even adults. I hoped to see one, but there was no sign of them. And the trees were mostly dead now. That was one of the sad things about seeing the ranch.
Dad kept sprinklers going from early spring through the summer and well into fall. The grass was always green, and the trees were alive and well.
Nothing remains in the orchard. The apple and cherry trees are gone. The pines are now mostly dead. And even some of those trees that sent seedlings all over the ranch are now gone.
Piles of branches are everywhere.
Spots on the farm, where there were once pole fences are now mostly gone.
Those are the first things that begin to vanish. Deep snow and moisture rot the wood.
I've seen sites, dedicated to areas reclaimed by nature. Some are former vacation areas or resorts. It's depressing to see the changes, yet the pictures were also artistic in many ways, but having lived on that ranch, I took no pleasure in looking to find art among the ruins.
Rulon's chicken coop was a building, whose poor construction initially meant it wouldn't stand for a long time, but I never expected to see the roof gone.
Just to the right of that coop is a gully, one never having water in it for a very long time. I remember some water from the spring trickled along in a small stream when I was a child, but the town of Snowville wanted access to the Ward spring. The water was sweet and clear.
It never happened, because we took care that no water ever appeared being wasted, no water ever appeared flowing in a ditch, so that gully remained empty--except for the massive storm that hit the ranch in the late 80's.
I had finished working the ground on the other side of the road. Clouds were coming, and I could hear thunder, so I unhooked the tractor and took it to the house and parked it near the diesel tank. I filled the 250 gallon tank just as the storm entered the small valley of our ranch.
One large cloud tumbled over the Cedar Mountain at the left. Another, which was orange in color tumbled over the lava ridges above The Water Lane, and yet another massive thundercloud tumbled over the mountains behind the house in the area we always called The Big Pasture.
It became dark as night, although it was only four or five in the afternoon on a summer day. The miracle was that we didn't have a tornado there. That seemed impossible at the time, because I always believed the mountains surrounding the ranch would prevent storms like that, but since that time, stranger things have happened.
The lightning and thunder began. There were strikes ever 20 to 30 seconds. I watched out the large picture window of the house, but I stepped back. The sound rattled the windows. Suddenly I heard the roar of water. I ran to the window on the side of the house that looked at the chicken coop. A deep stream of water was in the gully, 30 to 35 feet wide and at least 12 feet deep. Water splashed around the base of the coop, and I feared the building would collapse.
I ran to get the two dogs locked in the coop, but it was dark as night. Lightning filled the sky. It sizzled and cracked loudly. It hit small cedar trees and fence posts, making the strike point glow. Then darkness would ensue for a moment before the next strike.
I returned to the house.
When the storm finished. I ran to the coop. The water between the house and coop was still three feet deep in spots, but I found a shallow area. I forced open the door of the rear spot, where we had two cattle dogs. It was completely silent. I thought both dogs were dead.
I whistled, and suddenly they swam to the door where I waited for them. They jumped to me and were excited to see me. I always had a connection with those two dogs after that.
Dad had been in Snowville just as the storm hit the area of the ranch, and he called me several times during the storm, but the electrical storm affected the phone. He could hear the static on the line, and he was nervous about my talking on the phone. He told me to stay in the house and avoid being near trees or anything tall or metal like a barbed wire fence.
In an area, where we fed cattle during the winter as long as I could remember, the storm brought out rocks as big as our current VW Bug and left piles of rocks 10 feet high. It was the kind of storm you hope only happens, when you are in a safe spot, but I learned that day, that a safe spot might be an illusion.
Memories like this are what I thought about during this return to the ranch. I hoped somehow to remember what my dad's voice sounded like or to see something familiar. Instead I saw how time changes things. I am foolish to think otherwise. All I really have to do to see proof of that is to look in any mirror.
Nothing stays the same. Life is never static but remains ever changing.
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