Been busy as a bee lately. What's a typical day been like? Well, the other day I got up before dawn -- that's usual -- and saw to my kids and got their day going, then hopped into an old International 4x4 pickup with el jefe to jounce and jolt out to where some of the boys were doing clearance work. I operated the skidsteer, ripping out brush and picking up sawed off tree limbs and dumping them in the chipper.
We're opening up a new section as pasturage. It should support one cow-calf pair per 1.5 acres, at least for the first year, depending on weather. A lot of what we've opened up only supports one pair per four acres, so this section is pretty good. Operating the skidsteer was fun for me. It felt like I was 
wearing a Heinlein-type exoskeleton giving me super strength. Roar! But it was also sad to see the scrub land eradicated. I would prefer to leave the land as Mother Nature creates it. But since we've lost BLM leases thanks to Biden Administration rule changes we have to increase our own pasturage however we can. You do want your pasture-raised, grain-finished, USDA Prime Black Angus steaks don't you?
Come lunchtime, I had another chore to do so I borrowed one of the hand's dirt bike to ride home. El jefe would drop him off at the bunkhouse. At home, I cleaned up, saw how the kids were doing, helping them with a few things, nursing the young one, expressing milk for future feeding, then helped my mother fix lunch and ate with them and my mother. That done, I hopped into the Baron and flew down to pick up our hydrologist who had flown in from D.C. to the nearest commercial airport. By the time I landed back at the ranch, el jefe was home and he and the ranch foreman conferred with the hydrologist while I checked out the kids' school work, took care of some things, again nursed and played with the youngest.
When the conference was over, I flew the hydrologist in the Husky up to where we were doing some water work. There was no landing strip so I circled while the boys on the ground showed me where they thought I could set down. I made a few passes to satisfy myself it was doable, then dropped in. I walked around and listened to the hydrologist talk to the crew boss so I could report back how things were going, then I bounced back into the air and flew home.
I saw to the kids again and helped my mother prepare dinner and clean up afterward. Then I settled down with all to relax and chat about our day and what was going on in general and talk about tomorrow's plans. We had a singalong that was also a music and voice lesson in disguise. Then the boys bolted outside to play. (I heard simulated gunfire, shouts of "no fair" and "you did too miss me" and laughter.) My mini me worked on making rag dolls out of old socks and scraps of cloth, yarn (for hair) and buttons (for eyes) with her grandmother.
Hubby took care of ranch business while I worked on a research project I was involved in, interfacing with colleagues on-line, then it was past time for the kids to be in bed, so I took care of that, ensuring they brushed their teeth, bathed and said their prayers, and let their father read them to sleep while I sat in a chair by the window listening to him, my baby boy cozied up in my lap. At some point, I dozed off. I woke when el jefe touched my shoulder and led us to bed.
The next morning I flew the Husky to pick up the hydrologist. Before we turned for home he wanted me to fly around while he checked out land forms and took some photos. Mare's tail clouds streamed across the sky from the west. I saw a lone elk.
As soon as we touched down back at the ranch strip I had to turn around and fly back because one of the well drillers had been injured when a section of piping being lowered into the ground swung free and struck him. At least, I think that's what happened. Anyway, I fired up the Husky again and went back. The cirrus clouds had been overtaken by cirrostratus clouds and there was a halo around the sun.
The injured man had to be lifted in to the plane by a couple of guys. He was a big man, a really big man, and he wasn't doing too well. Considering the density altitude and looking around at the terrain, and studying terrain maps to determine the elevation rise, or gradient, compared to the rate of climb I could expect, I wasn't sure if I could get out. We drained some fuel and the boys pulled the plane back as far as was possible. I walked the field and spread a red jacket I borrowed from one of the guys over a bush where I decided my go-no go point on take-off would be. If my wheels weren't off the ground at that point I would abort the take-off. I also picked a terrain feature that when I reached it, if I was not at the altitude I needed to be at to clear the ridge line, I would do a box canyon turn and return to the field.
I set full flaps, pushed the manifold pressure up to 25.6 inches and the rpm to 2500, holding the brakes on, then let her rip. I couldn't find the red jacket for a few seconds and by the time I did, the plane was ready to fly. I put a touch of back pressure on the stick and we were airborne, climbing at not quite 900 fpm. We cleared the terrain with feet to spare, I began breathing again and pointed the nose for home.
The Twin Beech had been fitted with its air ambulance interior while I was gone and my mother, the retired doctor, supervised the injured party's placement in the plane and began preliminary treatment. While we were flying to the city she was in contact with the hospital, alerting them to the patient's condition. An ambulance met us at the airport and my mother rode along with the attendants to the hospital.
I flew back to the ranch to pick up the hydrologist who had finished conferring with el jefe and our ranch manager. Due to the emergency and the delay in flying him to the airport, he had missed his return flight. We re-booked him on a flight leaving from a major hub city and I flew him there in the Baron without delay to make sure he made the connection. Then I flew back to the hospital city. I got a courtesy car from the FBO and drove to the hospital, where I met my mother and visited with the doctors and our patient. They said he was stable and should be able to be discharged the next day.
Mom and I found a Denny's to have a bite to eat and rest. Both of us were pretty tired -- and hungry. We ordered Bourbon Chicken Skillets and, my, did they taste good, famished as we were. Then we flew home, landing long after dark. El jefe had bottle-fed the youngest from the milk I had expressed and handled the kids as well as seen to his work, so he, pretty tired, had put the kids to bed and gone to bed himself.
Mom and I walked back from the air strip to the house, the walk in the night air doing us good. We saw something white in the road while we walked and paused to try to make it out. It was a skunk snuffling along. We waited for it to amble off the road before going on. Once at the house, we sat in the kitchen and drank tea, she chamomile and I ginger, as we unwound, then bid each other goodnight. I checked in on the kids, showered and slipped into bed next to el jefe. He was snoring gently and didn't stir when I covered his shoulder with the blanket. In bed, I stared up into the darkness, reviewing the day, and without noticing it slipped into dreamland.
The next morning after the usual dawn rituals and contacting the hospital, my mother, my mini me -- who demanded to come along -- and I flew back in the Twin Beech to the hospital to pick up our patient and flew him to the little airport near his home, where his parents were waiting to pick him up. He would recuperate with them. Then, since there were a couple of birthdays coming up, we decided to fly to Spokane to hit Nordstrom's. We had lunch at Frank's Diner. Mom and I had the meatloaf dinner with smashed taters and gravy and my mini me had chicken fried steak. We shared sides of fried green tomatoes and deep-fried breaded deviled eggs. For desert, we all had fruit cobbler a la mode. Oh, my, were we stuffed to the gills. But the grub was so good. We're going to sneak back often to feast on the rest of the menu, all good American chow.
After we ate, we thought we'd walk around a bit, but there really wasn't much to see so we headed back to the airport and flew home, taking a meandering route that led us over Flathead Lake and and Glacier before pointing the old bird ranchward.
When we landed, the day was shot and we were kind of pooped, so we asked el jefe to fix dinner for us and the gang, which he did with a will, firing up the barbecue outside, grilling steaks, burgers and hotdogs, the latter for the kiddos and the former for us-o's, complemented with baked potatoes (potato chips for the kids), homemade molasses beans, Cole slaw and homemade rolls. He whipped up the Cole slaw but the beans were already made, as were the rolls. He microwaved the potatoes till they were almost done, then sliced them open, filled them with garlic butter, wrapped them in foil and let them finish baking on the grill. Dee-lish! Yet again, we were stuffed to the gills.
My mother, relaxing in a lounge chair, fell asleep while my mini me made her brothers green with envy, telling all about the wonders she had seen and the amazing things she had done, hinting smugly about birthday presents she knew about. I cradled the youngest and let him nurse, half-sleeping myself. El jefe, whistling quietly, cleaned everything up, then came to sit beside me and told me how his day had been and I told him about mine. Sunset came and went, nighthawks swooshed through the sky, as did some nightjars (I think). An owl hooted.
The kids ran around playing some 
game they invented, a cross between tag and the Battle of the Philippine Sea, it seemed. Apparently, my mini me was the designated Zero and the boys were Hellcats. One of the boys interrupted the game to rush up to his dad to ask if they couldn't have some sparklers and el jefe got up to go get some. He brought back a couple of strings of ladyfingers, too. One of the boys suggested tying a string to his sleeping grandmother's ankle and lighting them off. El jefe thought it might be fun but I said you are not going to do that. Do you want to give her a heart attack? And I gave el jefe my patented agree-with-me-or-die look and he decided it would be a bad idea. Leave it to mom to be a buzz kill.
The next morning our injured worker's father called to say he wanted his son's truck, which had been left on the job site. So I flew over and picked him up in the Baron, then transferred to the Husky for the hop to where the crew was and dropped him off. When I got back home I found out that the guy had gotten lost trying to drive cross-country to the ranch road, had to be rescued and one of the crew was driving him in to make sure he didn't get lost again, so me flying him up there had been pointless -- one of the crew could have just driven the truck back to the ranch house in the first place. It had been a bouncy flight with thunderstorms boiling up around us and he had had to use the barf bag. Now I was going to have to repeat the flight to return the guy who drove him back to the work site.
When they arrived, it was too late to do anything more so we put them both up in the bunkhouse and fed them supper in the cookhouse, informing our visitor that breakfast would be ready the next morning from five a.m. and he was welcome to eat his fill. He was not friendly and seemed angry at us, although we had done all we could to accommodate him and take care of his injured son, and left the next morning without saying anything to anyone. I suppose he blamed us for his son's accident. We could expect a lawsuit.
I flew the work crew guy back to the job site only to discover that a piece of their equipment that they needed had broken. Without it they were stuck. We pulled the passenger seat out of the Husky and managed to shoe horn it into the plane and I flew it back to the ranch. Our machine shop couldn't repair it and the only place that could do a rush job on it was in Overland Park, Kansas, so we loaded it into the Baron and off I went, dodging thunderheads and rain showers. At the airport there I needed to rent a van to transport the thing and fortunately some men at the FBO office volunteered to get it out of the Baron and into the van. At the repair shop they assured me they'd have it fixed by first thing the next morning but I was skeptical, so instead of getting a motel room I flew home, landing after dark, the whole day shot.
The next day, with no word from the repair shop, we called after lunch and they said oh, yeah, it was fixed and ready to go, sorry forgot to call you. So I flew back down, got a van again, hauled the thing back to the airport, had to find some guys to help me get it into the Baron -- yes, yes, I tipped them! -- and flew home, diverting around a big squall line. It was too late to fly up to the job site by then. The weather was not fit for flying up that way anyhow.
The next morning I was airborne a bit later than I anticipated, being delayed by one thing and another. But once I was in the air I had a nice tailwind and got there lickety-split. At the job site, there was a stiff crosswind blowing across the original landing patch and I was not going to chance a landing there. I flew around looking for someplace else to set down and finally found a spot that looked promising. I dragged it a couple of times to be sure, then dropped in as gently as I could and didn't get banged around too much.
I waited for about an hour before some guys showed up to get their gear. They mentioned the crew boss was mad that I hadn't landed at the original site near where they were working and so wasted good daylight. I told them the crosswind was too strong and they said it hadn't seemed bad to them. I just shrugged. Although it was still mid-day, clouds were building up, it was getting dark and dust devils were spinning across the valley I had set down in. The sky did not look friendly. Thunder rumbled. I asked if they had brought the Husky's seat that had been taken out and they said no, so I was going to have to come back to pick it up. But not today. Definitely not today.
I watched them drive off, then climbed into the Husky and bounced and jolted into the air, only to encounter a stiff headwind that slowed my progress to below highway speed. I climbed but couldn't get out of it so I dropped down to tree-top height, where it lessened, and hedge-hopped home. Before I got there, big raindrops began splattering onto the windshield and I saw lightning flashes. Visibility diminished. Turbulence increased. By the time I got the airstrip in sight, it was raining steadily and the plane was rocking and bucking. I came straight in and landed so I could turn in right at the hanger, it partially blocking the wind. The doors were open waiting for me, el jefe and mom standing just inside. I taxied directly in and just in time as hail began to pelt down. I shut down and crawled out. My knees were shaking and I had to brace myself against a wing strut to steady myself. An electric flash of lightning lit the inside of the hanger and I saw el jefe and my mom rolling the hanger doors closed, their heads down against the wind, rain splattering in on the concrete floor, a gust swirling dust and a loose paper. A huge crack of thunder boomed.
A secondary role in this play is portrayed by Fred Gwynne, who lived a varied life, at one point being a radio operator on a Navy sub chaser, was a cartoonist for The Harvard Lampoon, one of his cartoons causing the Middlesex County district attorney to try to ban the publication on grounds of obscenity. He worked as a copywriter for J. Walter Thompson, got into acting with some minor Broadway roles, then into the movies with a brief appearance in On the Waterfront, then got into television with roles on The Phil Silvers Show, which led to a starring role in Car 54 Where Are You? and then to his most remembered role as Herman Munster in The Munsters.
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