Camping Continues

We've done a few more camping trips since my last post about it. This picture is of Sue and I in the side by side, wall tent in the background, and our tent hiding even further behind that. We have been going up to camp on Saturdays (with a few days worth of food and water), the guys gather steers and push them down into the valley on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, then on Tuesdays they push the steers they have collected over the weekend down the long walk into the meadows at the ranch while I pack up coolers, empty water containers, garbage, etc. and drive back to the ranch. For the last few weeks we have followed this routine, then shipped out cows out on Wednesdays and Fridays. We are down to only about 500 or so more cows to find (out of the original 4000), so the end is in sight.

I'd like to say that with all this camp cooking I am perfecting my dutch oven skills, but I'd be lying through my teeth. This last trip I made a blueberry cobbler, which turned out great-(thanks for the blueberries mom!), but the cornbread was horrible. It burned so bad on the bottom and sides that the entire thing lifted out like its own little pan inside the dutch oven. I cut out the middle of the bread and served it with the chili anyways....I didn't eat any (I tried it and thought the whole thing tasted burnt), but everyone except Brian had seconds.....crazy cowboys! Brian is well past the point of eating my cooking just to stay in my good graces, but there's something in Ranch lore about how important the cook is and how much respect they are supposed to get...the poor cowboys (haha).

Deer season has opened down here, so this last camping trip was flush with passers by who wanted to know if we'd seen any bucks, or would at least ask to be pointed in the right direction. The guys had seen some big bucks, but most of the hunters didn't want to have to get out of their trucks long enough to hike into the areas where the sightings were. We did have a handful of sage grouse hanging out around camp one afternoon, and one of them almost became dinner. Unfortunately it just wouldn't cooperate and fly in the path of the bird shot when it was fired at.

It sure has been nice though to have the big wall tent for the whole kitchen set up.....we might have to pick one of those up for ourselves, and then make sure we actually go camping and use it!

This last picture is the double wide trailer we've been staying in since mid August. Out front is the camp trailer we stayed in our first 3 1/2 months here. It was nice having more space and spreading out a bit, and to have direct internet connection instead of the slower wireless connection we had in our trailer. The only disadvantage is now I have to repack our trailer so we can head home next week, only to unpack again once we're back in Springfield. Oh well, I still think it was worth it.