Legacy of Love

Today I went four wheeling with my 90-year-old grandpa. This morning over breakfast at the diner, he told me that he wanted to go check his property for hunters, and see about the new fence that was just put in at his new property (Gaehny property). He drove me around all of his properties last year at this exact same time, and he had just recently purchased the Gaehny land at that time. It was his 'baby' and he was working on building logging road through it last year. It was absolutely beautiful to me. It was so green and lush, with really great fir and alder canopy overhanging a babbling creek.

We drove up to the Hereford Hilton cabin that his ranching partner/friend Wayne Nelson built years ago. This is on my grandpa's property known as the Cunningham Creek property. This is where I spent most of my time as a girl, on this very property. Riding the four wheeler around the loop with my cousins while grandpa was on his CAT building road, clearing logs. Taking a road we hadn't seen before, piling over huge dips and through massive puddles, just riding for hours until the gas tank was low. This is where I grew up. When we pulled up to the cabin, it immediately felt like home. I looked out across the canyon to the open prairie about 750 acres away, and it looked the same to me. The timber had grown up and was more mature, but I could tell that I recognized all of it. 

As I followed close behind him today on my own Grizzly, I was struck with moments of amazement, looking at such a wise and seasoned old man, riding through the beautiful roads littered with fall leaves, branches and mud piles. He knows every inch of every acre by heart. He knows every road, because he built it. He knows where every road leads and where all of his trees are. This is his life. This is his legacy. This is his heart.

He taught me about the terminal buds on the top of fir trees, and how sometimes multiple branches will compete for the terminal bud. He pointed them out to me; I saw the single terminal buds and I also saw the multiples. He taught me how to look for the summer growth versus the growth in the peak of growing season. He taught me that both alder and fir barks can be white, but the fir has sap and the alder does not; the alder bark is more flaky. He also taught me how to count the whorls up the tree to show how many years old it is. He taught me why thinning is worse than clear-cutting. He showed me the proper way to brace the ends of fence posts, and showed me an example of the wrong way. He showed me how undergrowth does not threaten his baby fir trees, how they grew up out of the brush and stood way above it. And how the baby firs out in the open grass had a more difficult time growing, as we couldn't see as many terminal buds but more growth outward on the tree. He showed me were BLM land strips were in between his properties. He showed me a planted section of trees versus some of the free standing trees. And he explained that how when you plant in a line like BLM, the trees are forced to grow more straight up because they are being threatened by the neighboring trees-- and how this produces straighter, more uniform trees, densely packed, with less knots and gnarls on the tree-- which all equate to more profitable trees that are worth more when cut and sent to the mills. We'd drive for a bit, then I would ask him about how old that patch of timber over there was, and he'd tell me. A lot of his timber is ready for harvest right now. Some of his less mature timber is 15 years old. Some of the ready-to-harvest timber is 45 years old.

We followed elk tracks back to the cabin for miles and miles. There were no hunters out there today, which is good for them if they knew my grandpa. My grandpa told me a crazy story last night and today about spotting two game wardens on some property years back- during hunting season, who illegally shot a deer, and didn't have the balls to a) admit it when my grandpa drove around the bend and saw them in their police cars (he heard a shot across the ridge and wondered who was shooting), b) go across the canyon to finish it off and get it, c) admit that it wasn't a spike which is what the hunting season was at the time-- spike only season. My grandpa talked to the county sheriff the next day, and in about a week's worth of time, had that news spread all over town so much that the judge called him into his office to talk to him about it and get my grandpa's side of the story. My grandpa saw one of the wardens in town shortly after all this. They both walked into a store from opposite ends, the warden didn't get what he even came for, instead he turned right around and walked back out of the store without saying a word to anyone. No one crosses my grandpa without good reason. And if you do the wrong thing, and worse yet: lie about it, it doesn't fly in my grandpa's book. It's all about respect, and my grandpa respects the animals and the land.

He led for most of the hour, stopping every now and then, I'd pull up beside him and he would point something out and tell me a story about that ridge up there, or this section over here, or the BLM or Bonneville power lines separating this section of timber here. When we were about 20 minutes away from the end of the loop back near the cabin, he told me I could lead if I wanted to. I felt a strange sense of entitlement then, like this is MY land, this is in MY blood, these are MY roots, MY grandpa raised me here, and I am driving toward everything that is mine. The cold wind was blowing in my face and through my hair, it smelled so good. I had a hoodie, down vest, AND a jacket on, with gloves. My thumb was getting sore and numb from holding down the throttle for so long, but my God it felt like heaven to open up that thing and just drive for miles. I have missed it so much.

We ended up driving from the cabin at Cunningham Creek, clear over 700 acres to the little open prairie on Gaehny property that was just a speck from the driveway of the cabin. We drove up on the ridge that overlooked all of the Gaehny land, and came back out at the bottom of the property and drove through the green open pasture, up over the hill where the patch of baby trees were, around the loop and back to the cabin. 

My grandpa has divided up shares/stocks of his land between the 4 kids on my grandma's side: my mom, my 2 aunts, and my uncle. I hope to God that one day, through an act of luck or through hard work on my part, that his land (namely the Gaehny property because it's my favorite) becomes a part of my life in such a way that I can protect the sacredness of it forever. I would give anything to inherit some part of my grandpa's land, solely for the sake of keeping it the way he intended when he first bought it. To keep a piece of him, his values, his hard work ethic and dedication, his history and childhood (he grew up in this valley that were were in today), his passion, his vision. I am so rooted here. I always say that when I come here, but the older I become, the more valuable it becomes to me and the more it settles into my fiber.

My grandpa bought this Gaehny property as an investment at the end of a long life of sheep-herding, cattle ranching, and being in the timber industry. It's not as big and it's not worth as much as his other properties-- but he saw value beyond measure and enough acres of trees to be harvested in 15 years. And enough acres to plant on, to be harvested for the next 100 years to come. Everything he has done and is doing to it is for the purpose of the future. He cares about the land, he respects it, he values it. I want to be a part of this forever.

I thank God, during this time of thanksgiving, for today. I have imprinted on my heart the memories and sights of today's trip with grandpa. It will remain in my heart forever.