Beeps, Buzzes, Chirps and the Yaha Tinda

It is a world full of beeps, buzzes, chirps, ringtones and other pesky noises. It always surprises me how many of those sounds are constantly in the background, even here at Dogpound North. But once you get 10 miles west of Sundre heading towards the Yaha Tinda Ranch those sounds rapidly are replaced with the sound of buzzing bees and creeks burbling along or thundering over the falls. Sunday morning Brenda and I waved goodbye to civilization and all of its annoying sounds and headed for the Ranch. It is only two hours from home but when it comes to decompressing it might as well be on the dark side of the moon. The only communication we have is one way, we can send a signal back home to family that we are OK or summon help with our SPOT satellite communicator, if they want us they have to either drive out or call the RCMP and have them let someone at the Ranch know we are needed, and they will come looking for us. I will apologize in advance to those with bandwidth issues, there are a lot of pictures in this post. It is a beautiful drive heading out there and we had a beautiful day to do it on. Those clouds were just rolling on by heading for somewhere else.

Quite often there is a band of wild horses grazing on that hillside in the picture above.

After setting up camp we headed up to the falls to refresh our memories.

 

After a short hike up the canyon we managed to get to the falls and with a little cropping we managed to remove all many other folks who were up here looking a little piece of heaven also. This trip we had a new traveler with us, we brought along my sons dog Mack and you will see him sprinkled throughout the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here he is looking out the window of the truck probably wondering where he is being drug off to.

Another shot of Bighorn Creek below the falls.

 

The collage above is the view that greeted us morning, noon and night from our site at the Yaha Tinda.

Day 2 we headed out on one of our favourite rides across the Red Deer River flats and up Eagle Creek until we branched off on the Poplar Bluff trail that leads us to one of the best lunch spots in the area. From up there it seems that you can see everything for miles.

Here is Brenda coming along the trail on our Strawberry Roan gelding, that we call Blue. Long story and I am sure I have told it many times over the years so I won’t bore you with the details. Don’t much matter as he doesn’t really come when he is called anyway.

Shady spot to tie the horses and a soft bed of grass and mountain flowers for me to lay on and enjoy the view.

And what a view it is.

View from the High Trail VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

The next day we took a ride up to the Scalp Creek waterslides, a naturally occurring chute that the kids use just like a commercial waterslide. Great place on a hot day I guess but boy that water looks cold to me.

Above is a shot of Brenda and the pups just watching the water roar by and the photo below a passing hiker took for us.

I have spoken of the Yaha Tinda on many occasions as it is one of our favourite spots to ride. It is a working ranch actually owned by Parks Canada the same organisation who administers all of Canada’s National Parks. This ranch was used until a few years ago to breed, raise and train all the horses that Parks Canada wardens use for their back country patrols. Recently their breeding operation has been shut down and they now purchase suitable mounts and bring them here to train them for their wardens. The wardens are also brought here for a little training on how to care for their equine partners. Now I know one of our readers Ivan from Roadtrip 2010 used to be one of those wardens so if my explanation is a little short or off base Ivan please jump in. The white shed in the background of the photo below is their feed storage area and just to the left of that and up against the tree line is the actual ranch headquarters.

After three days with no buzzes, clicks, beeps or chirps it was time to head back into the real world though. But it is possible to live without 24/7 online contact, I am hear to tell you. Although you do meet some strange folks along these trails out here it is a welcome respite from the real world.

Another Week Goes By

Caron and I headed out on Sunday to spend a little time at the Calgary Western Riders gymkhana. Although Caron has a great new horse he is a little green for this kind of outing so I loaded up an old favourite of hers from our remuda here at Dogpound North. Caron has over the years spent a lot of time and effort on Willows training so it is great to see her getting a little enjoyment out of that training. The photo below shows Caron and Willow and a little piece of the Canadian Rockies in the background.

The rest of the week has just been spent traveling back and forth to Calgary to get a bunch of stuff that needed to be done out of the way. I think we are getting close to having all of those things done.

A field just a little down the road from Dogpound North and the sprayer tracks crossing it.

After reading Al’s blog the other day I thought I needed to take a spin around my own neighbourhood and see what was up. Not having his talent with a camera I spent more time looking at crops and just enjoying the scenery than capturing a lot of great photos. I did see a few deer and one small bull moose right on our own driveway but it was getting towards dark and the photos weren’t great.

As we are loading up our horse trailer and planning on heading west to the Yaha Tinda on Sunday morning Brenda thought she should take a spin on Blue and get a little saddle time before we hit the mountain trails. We took a ride around our place and our neighbours for a total of 4 miles, not far but better than nothing. Both of our ponies have been spending a lot of time in the dry pen so they stay in shape so all that lush green grass was a bit of a temptation for them and they spent most of their time trying to steal a mouthful of grass.

That house with the green roof in the background is my son Matt’s place. He has headed back to Albania for a month or so and I am looking forward to hearing about his adventures along the Mediterranean Sea. Rumour has it that they actually drill a few wells in between beach visits.

Those nice green trees beside Brenda are the same trees behind the moose in the picture below. I took that moose picture out of our kitchen door a few years ago. There actually was another moose in the herd but he was standing to far out to fit the frame.

Alberta our home province use the logo “Wild Rose Country” on our license plates and this year the roses are a little later than usual because of the late spring.

Down the road AT Dogpound!

I am sure that out there in blogland there are sceptics that really don’t actually believe we are really at a place called Dogpound. I thought I would take you along for a little cultural exploration of our most famous celebration.

The rodeo has been going on for a lot of years and is always on the Wednesday following the last day of the bigger, but 6 year younger exhibition, the world famous Calgary Exhibition and Stampede. Now the Stampede hosts Rodeo’s Richest day on it’s Showdown Sunday but Dogpound is a must see for the true rodeo fan. At the Stampede the best view is probably on the big screen over the infield seats, at the Dogpound Rodeo you need to make sure you are not kicked by a bull raging by. Or a trick rider leaning out over the spectators.

Shelby Cumming a local girl living her dream.

The rodeo goes Wednesday afternoon but Tuesday evening there is a Ranch Rodeo where some of the local real cowboys show off their skills in a team style competition consisting of Branding, Doctoring, Sorting, Penning and of course the local favourite, the Rustling competition, where the cowboys get a steer loaded in a trailer out in the open field. Our favourite was the team with our neighbour and the Rodeo President, Billy Leask.

Hey this is an RV’ing blog so I thought we ought to see both cowboys and RV’s.

My favourite event is the Steer Wrestling, although I can never figure out what would make a cowboy jump off a perfectly good horse running 25 miles per hour just to wrassle a steer to the ground. Seems like that is what they make corrals or ropes for.

I usually don’t hang around for the bull riding event but this one had a local girl competing. Aaron used to run the ice cream shop in town but I guess she needed a little more excitement in her life.

Me I think scooping ice cream looks like more fun.

Dogpound like all rodeos has winners and losers and probably the biggest winner at this rodeo was this fellow who won the 50/50 draw to the tune of $1273.00.

Although I couldn’t get a good picture of him I am sure that he was grinning pretty widely, in fact I know he was, as it was my youngest son Matt, back from Albania, and his good old Dad bought him the ticket.

Brent Brown 1954 - 2011

A picture from Brent’s tribute reel, not sure who took it or where, but it did strike me as appropriate. He was always looking at far horizons while dealing with today,

and more often than not those horizons included a lot of ocean. June 30, late in the evening as Brenda and I were making the last preparations for our trip to Rocky Mountain House for Miss Ella’s birthday on the 1st and then our trip to Arizona the phone rang. It was my Sister-in-Law Tricia with the sad news that my little brother Brent had died at his mountain cabin near Exshaw, Alberta. My father was with them at the cabin but my mother was at her home in Calgary so I jumped in the truck and headed into town to break that horrid news to her. Now Brent had in the past had some rhythm problems with his heart but about a year ago they resolved all those issues and he had a clean bill of health, and he earned it, never was there a man more dedicated to eating right, exercising regularly and doing everything possible to ensure that he would be around to be there for his children while they were growing up. We heard on Monday night that it had nothing to do with his heart and was a massive non traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage. The pathologist figured that there were probably no warning signs and it was almost instantaneous so that was some small comfort.

To have lived well,
Laughed often and loved much;
To have gained the respect of intelligent men
and the love of children;
To have filled a niche and accomplished a task;
To have left the world better-
whether by an improved poppy,
A perfect poem or a rescued soul;
To have appreciated earths beauty
And not failed to express it;
To have looked for the best in others,
And to have given the best of yourself.
That is achievement.
- Robert Louis Stevenson's "Achievement"

Brent was an achiever, one of those folks who seemed to always be able to make any group he was with better with just his participation. As his father-in-law said the other day when he was around the whole was always greater than the sum of its parts.

Brent on the left

In his childhood he was “hell on wheels”, and you can see the devilment in that grin and the twinkle in his eyes, and I know drove my folks to distraction with his antics. He always lived on the edge, but with him that was a well calculated risk and although he frequently suffered the consequences of his actions he never regretted taking the chance. Consequently he did and saw things that other more conventional folks missed out on. Like my youngest brother, Kelly, he was a great skier as a young man, and one of those calculated risks left him with a bad hip that he had replaced 17 years ago. His comment at the time rings poignant now, “I need a new hip now, to do things with my children and my family, and I know there is a risk getting it done so young, but who knows where I will be in twenty or thirty years when that becomes an issue.”

From the right, brother Kelly, brother Brent, and Peter Hanson (aka the fourth Brown boy)

or was it really the Mod Squad having a day on the slopes at Aspen, Colorado

As a little brother he was a force of nature, there was nothing that he didn’t do well when he put his mind to it. All of our childhood he avoided mechanical stuff with a passion but later in life he took up sailing and figured there is not always a repair shop or chandlery around the corner so he needed to be able to overhaul his boat on his own. Same with navigation, just maybe the three or four GPS’s that were around the boat would all fail, so he learned to navigate by the stars with a sextant. I remember standing out by Glenmore Reservoir while he took a sighting to figure out our location. Heck, I knew where we were, there was a street sign right behind us. But he was determined to be able to bring himself back to home without all the new fangled equipment.

In his business life as in all things he excelled. The oil industry treated him well, particularly as an "oil trader extraordinaire". Recently, he served as President of SemCanada Crude Company and a VP at Petrogas Marketing. But his beginning were a lot less auspicious, he started squeezing oranges for Orange Julius in his early teens and by the time he was sixteen he was running their stands at fairs all over western Canada. They wanted him to come to work full time with them and who knows if he had of maybe Warren Buffet would be buying Orange Julius stock instead of Coca-Cola.

Brent and his family in Cuba for New Years Eve 2009

His kids were always at the centre of his world, his oldest two Ryan and Caron are finished university and well along their journey to making their Dad proud. The younger kids, Christopher and Remee, are just 11 and 9, so still have a lot of growing to do, but their Dad has given them a foundation that will support them whichever way they go, and both sets of kids are blessed with strong, independent minded mothers who will certainly help them and each other over the bumps ahead. It gives me great pleasure to observe the love and respect that these two women who at times throughout his life, have each loved, and been loved by my brother, have for each other.

Brent aboard his Taswell,  “Ain’t Life Grand”

Brent was a sailor at heart and up until a year or so ago kept a large sailboat on the West Coast. He and his family have had many great trips around the American San Juan Islands and the Gulf Islands on the Canadian side of the border. As well as sailing there he loved to go to the Caribbean sailing and tried to get down there as often as possible. One of my great memories is of a trip that he, my father, and my other brother Kelly took a number of years ago to the British Virgin Islands. We spent a glorious week wandering around those blue-green seas with no particular destination in mind and just enjoying each others company. Great time. Another time the four of us got caught in a storm off the West Coast and with a few equipment failures like the main engine, main sail, radar reflector and navigation lights, followed by all power managed to weather the storm until the weather subsided enough for the Coast Guard to pop out and give us a hand setting some anchors.

Brent traveled the world with his family and friends and last winter spent two months in Costa Rica with his family, chronicled on his blog a “Bunch of Brown’s on a Beach” (the first picture in this entry was apparently taken by my mother on the last day Brent and his family spent in Costa Rica). And then a couple of weeks in London and Italy at the end of April and beginning of May, with his wife Tricia. As we have come to expect from Brent his timing was impeccable.

 

I have always believed that life is all about making memories and Brent certainly made more than his share.

“Catch you later bro”

Almost Gone

Well the grass is cut and most everything is ship shape around Dogpound North, so Friday we will hit the road north to Miss Ella’s birthday celebration and then it is southbound and down. We are heading into the furnace that holds Dogpound South.

Today we took the rig up to Red Deer, we are having a few minor issues looked at while we are gone, so we are without our home right now. Seems strange to be in the big house with all this space but none of our familiar stuff around us. We are pretty fortunate to have our exit plan already set up but I still wonder what I have left in the rig that I won’t be able to live without for the next couple of weeks.

As for blogging material I am afraid we don’t have anything exciting to report, unlike Rod and Deb who are doing a bang-up job of sharing their explorations of Washington D.C., and Dee is touring around Canada’s capital, and Al is doing his usual great job of keeping us entertained with his photo’s and insights into his own world down there in Bayfield. Ed and Marilyn are moving forward after their devastating fire and have just today acquired a new Mobile Suites 5er to restart their trek to Colorado for the summer. Rollie and Gina are visiting with Mike and Janna in Montana, while Pat and Mike are enjoying their new trike in the Black Hills. And of course Rick and Paulette are home on Vancouver Island where Rick is working hard to keep the blogosphere up to date on technical issues, and Ivan and Hailey are sneaking out of the Alberta foothills to see bits and pieces of Western Canada. Now I am not going to recap everyone's whereabouts but there are a lot of folks enjoying the cooler weather in the northern states and migrating towards the Escapade in Gillette that Bob and Molly are the chief hoogama’s for. So any of you along I-15 keep your eyes peeled for our little black truck as we will be flying a little low heading south.

A view south off the lawn of Dogpound North, those specks are our horses enjoying that tall grass.

We are planning on just popping in on the place down south and then heading back up to see the Grand Canyon and work our way through eastern Utah and Wyoming and then into Montana on the way home. We are planning on visiting with Old WR, whose working in Vernal, Utah and then stopping and seeing that beautiful country around Mike and Janna’s in south central Montana.

Sunset through some of that Northern Alberta smoke and a few Southern Alberta clouds.

Oh and I wouldn’t want to forget that Dortha down in Fort Worth is having a birthday today so Happy Birthday Dortha.

Company at Dogpound North

We have been having fairly nice weather around here the last few days. No I don’t mean it has stopped raining but it has certainly slowed down a little. We are actually seeing a little sunshine on most days and although it is not drying up as quick as I would like it is great to see the sun from time to time.

Since my last entry I had the horse trailer up to Red Deer to get a couple of cabinets installed in the living quarters and then a visit in town with my Dad the next day. Other than that we have been mowing grass and cleaning up things around the place. Seems like there is an endless supply of “stuff” here that needs to be relocated to the dump. Only thing to do is start somewhere and work your way out, so that is what I have been up to.

Friday morning while I was relocating stuff I got a text message from our daughter Rebecca saying her and Ved were on their way to the farm to camp out with us. That exciting news got Brenda working on a menu for the weekend so we are in for some good eating, not unusual around here, but I am sure there will be some special things that just plain old “John Brown” may not have got on his own.

Ved and Bec arriving at the farm

Friday was the day our granddaughter Claire was to come out to have a visit with Grandma and Grandpa, before leaving for 3 weeks or a month at the lake, so late in the afternoon I ran into the city to pick her up at her Mom’s house after school. I picked up a few things at the grocery store on the way so we have all the things you need to have a campout on hand now. Smokies, Smore’s and Shrimps. We are planning on having Shrimp Taco’s for lunch Saturday and much to our chagrin the seemingly endless stock of Shrimps that we have acquired from the Gulf of Mexico has been depleted and we had to purchase some frozen ones, at a price that would make our southern neighbours shudder.

Although the rain made appearances from time to time throughout the evening we did manage to sit out around the fire for a good long time, and get some Smores eaten. Oh by the way Rebecca is at 31 weeks and counting, and I really do mean counting the time till she is due with our newest grandson. Coincidentally Labour Day and her due date are one and the same.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny so we had most of the day to enjoy another nice Alberta summer day around the campfire while Claire made us some brownies and Brenda whipped up a rhubarb custard pie. Boy when you put those two together you have a combination to die for. I think I have discovered my new favourite desert.  While all that cooking was going on Ved and I managed to resolve a lot of the worlds problems sitting around the fire.

Above is a picture of Claire and her Dad’s little pup, Mack, and below are Ved and Becky’s two pups, Nico on the left and Milo on the right. And for those who are wondering Ved gave Meg a little exercise chasing a stick so she is happy to have the company around.

Next week is shaping up to be a “get ready” type of week, Friday we are up to Rocky Mountain House for Miss Ella’s second birthday, it is a big holiday in this family and there are sure to be fireworks and I think the whole country is taking the day off to celebrate. Oh, coincidentally that is also Canada’s birthday, but that is not such a big deal for us. Then bright and early next Saturday we are heading off with just our pickup for Dogpound South. That will be the first time we have left home without our home in a couple of years, but we are hoping to make a flying trip into that scorching climate and get out quick while having a look around through Eastern Utah and part of Wyoming on the way home. Call that fair warning Mike and Janna, you guys are on our must stop list, right up there with the Grand Canyon.

Aboriginal Day

In Canada, June 21, signifies not only the summer solistice but also a day set aside to celebrate our Aboriginal People and their heritage. So although family history tells me that there is some Aboriginal blood in my veins it is a long time ago and lost in the mists of time. So without going into a long dissertation of all those connections I can lay claim to being a full blood Canadian, if you believe Canada is a melting pot of the world. Some of my family came over here 10,000 years ago and then kind of hung around enjoying the landscape until the rest came to join them in the last few hundred years.

Over the last few days we have been busy getting ready for our trip to Arizona in early July. They tell me it is a 112F down there right now so we will probably just slip in, drop our stuff, and head north again. We are hoping to do a little sightseeing as we come north. Folks tell me there is a kind of cool canyon in northern Arizona that rivals our Stikine River in NW British Columbia. Is it just coincidence that these great spots are smack dab in the middle of First Nations territory, in Arizona the Grand Canyon is in "Hualapai" meaning "people of the ponderosa pine" as well as the Havsuw’ Baaja (Blue Water People^[1]), or more commonly the Havasupai, are an American Indian tribe that has called the Grand Canyon its home for at least the past 800 years. I stole that last bit out of Wikipedia and the links should lead you back there. And Canada’s Grand Canyon on the Stikine River is right at the heart of Tahltan territory. Brenda and I have been to the Stikine many times so we have a shot of that,

and although it looks pretty narrow here, you can’t believe how narrow it looks at 60 mph in a helicopter 6 feet off the water. Hopefully next month we will have a shot or two of Arizona’s Grand Canyon.

Over the last few days we have been in and out of our rain showers but Saturday my niece Caron and I managed to get in a short ride around here between showers. Then Brenda and I ran down to Caron’s barn to see her new project, Jager, he is a three year old Warmblood, I believe a Hanoverian, which I think is German for tall. Just for reference Caron is 6 feet tall. He is over 16 hands now and still has lots of time to grow.

 

Then Sunday I ran into town to meet my brother and Dad, it was Fathers Day, at a soccer game that my youngest niece was playing in. She is pretty focussed and made a lot of great plays, while we were there. I had to use a pretty fast camera speed just to get her stopped so the shot wasn’t blurry. Good game Rem!

After the game and lunch at brother Brent’s it was time to head back out to the farm.

Once of the benefits of rain, other than the green landscape is of course rainbows and I got a few shots of them around the place.

Who knew that the end of the rainbow would be in our dumpster. Mack is going up to check it out.

And the double one above is just Down the Road from Dogpound.

Today was a beautiful day here and as usual on beautiful days it was time to get some stuff done outside. Washed both trucks and the horse trailer and then got busy with the lawn mowers and the trimmer.

Now another byproduct of that rain is our little friends the mosquito’s. Now they seem to like Brenda a little better than me so I just need her in the area and I am A-OK. But there are a bizillion of them around right now.