Sky Ranch

by Bobbi Phelps

  “Did you hear what Dad said, Matt?” I said. “Another lesson for us.”

  I stood and checked our dinner. I pierced the potatoes to check their firmness. Nope. It’d be another half hour, giving me plenty of time to prepare a salad and broil two large steaks.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Halloween Snowstorm

  Winter settled in with a vengeance, and for several days we were cooped inside, not venturing out except for me to check on Smoky. Although nothing much happened at Sky Ranch, the Angler’s Calendar and Catalog business was in full swing. October, November, and December were our busiest months as orders from my catalog poured into the office. The full-color, forty-eight-page catalog had been sent to two hundred thousand individuals worldwide, displaying over a hundred high-end, fly-fishing gifts.

  The Angler staff plowed through drifts of snow to come to work that October. I only had to walk upstairs. We opened mail, answered phones, and filled orders. It was definitely the most hectic time of our work year.

  On one specific snowy evening, Mike, Matt, and I settled on the living room sofa, watching Columbo on television. As the TV detective snooped around an apartment building, we warmed ourselves by the flickering flames in our fireplace. Once the blaze died, I stirred the logs until the embers glowed an iridescent red. With dinner over and dishes finished, we sat cozy in the living room while a snowstorm moaned and raged outside. Unexpectedly there was loud pounding on the front door. Mike pushed himself off the couch and wandered to the entrance hallway.

  “It’s late for callers,” he said. “I wonder what’s up?”

  Just as he opened the front door, a gust of wind blew in our neighbor along with a blast of snow. “Dean! What’re you doing here? What’s wrong?”

  “We’ve slid at the corner,” Dean answered. “Marsha’s in the car but there’s no way we can get out. We’re trapped in the borrow pit.”

  Dean brushed snow from his shoulders, shook his wool cap, and rubbed his hands together as he stood in our stone-floored entrance. He wore a dark suit and obviously had not dressed for trudging through snow from the ditch along the roadside. Once Mike changed into padded overalls, Dean followed him to the garage. Grabbing his down jacket from a hook beside the back door, Mike added gloves and a wool cap.

  “Here, take this,” Mike said as he threw a jacket to Dean to put over his suit. “I have some extra gloves in the pickup.”

  The two of them climbed into Mike’s truck and headed toward the ranch headquarters to pick up a tractor with a blade. I shut the fireplace glass doors and gripped Matt’s hand along with a load of blankets. We ventured into the garage and donned heavy clothes, gloves, and boots. Once we scrambled into my car, I backed out of the garage. The wind picked up and snow blew against my Subaru, encasing the windshield with ice. I engaged the wipers and added heat. In a minute the wipers had knocked off the snow; and I put my car into second gear, slowly moving out our driveway, toward 4900. There at the corner sat an older car, half in and half out of a deep ditch. Its driving lights gleaming through the snow, but no one was in sight.

  “Matt, you stay here until I know what’s up.”

  I trudged through the snow and across the road to the trapped vehicle, bending into the wind and shielding my eyes from the blistering flurries. Just as I reached for the door handle, the face of a frightening clown flashed at the window. All black and red with orange hair sticking out from above its ears. I jumped backwards just as the window rolled down.

  “Am I glad to see you,” Marsha said. “It’s freezing out here.”

  “Gads, Marsha, you scared me to death,” I exclaimed. “Get in my car. I have the heater on and the guys will be here shortly. They went to get a tractor.”

  Once Marsha and I lumbered back through the snow and joined Matt in my Subaru, she wrapped herself in a blanket and explained the situation.

  “I was giving a clown presentation for several youngsters at the Church. I kept on my makeup because Candy had a few gals at the house, and they wanted to see what I looked like.”

  “Did anyone stop to help?” I asked.

  “One car slowed and then kept going,” she answered.

  “Can you imagine if someone came to the window, like I did, and you popped up as a clown?” I said laughing at her wild makeup. “He might have had a heart attack. Or shot you!”

  Lights from the ranch’s tractor glowed in the distance as it slowly advanced toward us. Mike drove with the blade down, slicing through small drifts along the road. As soon as they stopped, Mike jumped from the tractor, carrying a thick nylon rope. He crawled underneath the car’s rear bumper, pushing snow to the side as he moved beneath the trunk. Using a flashlight to see, he attached the towline around the car’s frame. As Mike squiggled backward, Dean stood on the snow-covered road, his suit and jacket collars turned up against the wind. Mike hooked the tow-rope to the tractor blade while Dean staggered through drifts to reach his car. Once inside, he put the gear shift in neutral and waved out the window, his thumb high in the air. Mike tightened the rope and put the tractor in reverse. Once it was taut, the tractor stalled. Then with a burst of energy, the tractor again engaged and pulled the car from the ditch. Yes! We raised our fists and cheered from the warmth inside my car.

  “Call when you get home,” I instructed. “We want to be sure you make it okay. We can get Mike’s jacket later.”

  “Will do. And thanks loads,” Marsha said as she opened the door and ran across the road to her car. She gave a final wave before disappearing inside.

  Dean and Marsha pushed off first. Matt and I stared over the dashboard as they faded into the snowstorm. I followed close behind. Mike plowed the road corner and built a bank of snow in front of the borrow pit. Then he turned the tractor toward the ranch headquarters. When Mike finally returned home almost an hour later, light from our house windows shined over the snow. I had already heard from Marsha and had a large cup of hot chocolate waiting for Mike. Columbo was long gone, and we were soon ready for bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Smoky in a Blizzard

  “Don’t worry. We’ll be able to drive to Twin without any problem,” Mike said as he checked the outside weather.

  “Gosh. It looks terrible to me,” I said as I grabbed my purse and walked Matt to Mike’s pickup.

  Later, during another dismal January afternoon, the sky had darkened to the color of purple plums, and snow began to fall. Soundlessly and steadily. For Mike this was typical of winter storms in Magic Valley. For me, it looked pretty intimidating. We drove through blowing flakes of snow to the Strand’s house for Friday Night Bridge. Their two teenage daughters volunteered to babysit Matt while we played cards with eight other couples. It blew all evening while we drank wine, nibbled on appetizers, and played bridge. We sat cozy and warm in their house as the snow fell in unbelievable swaths, completely covering the outside.

  On our way home a few hours later, ice had covered the landscape and power lines sagged. Then came the wind, a direct hit from Siberia. We forced our way through, what was by then, a fierce winter blizzard. In the hours we had been inside playing cards, a foot of snow had fallen. The wind whipped Mike’s pickup, and streaks of snow blew across the windshield. We passed several stalled vehicles; indiscernible white mounds lined the sides of the road. The storm was much worse than we had expected.

  Finally, we turned off Highway 30 to 4900, and rammed through two-foot drifts. I twisted in my seat to check on Matt in his rear car seat. Out the back window I saw snow billowing behind us like the wake of an ocean liner. From the front window, I glimpsed colorful Christmas lights protruding from snow-covered shrubs bordering the front of our house. When we plowed into our driveway, it was past midnight. Mike pulled into the garage, turned off the truck, and walked into the kitchen. I gathered Matt from his car seat and ushered him upstairs.

  Wanting to check on Smoky, I changed in the garage from dress shoes to rubber irrigating boots, tucked in my blouse, and grabbed a
hooded down jacket from the clothes rack by the back door. Once I opened the door, a strong gust struck my face and a bitter wind whipped the wool scarf from around my collar. I pulled it back to circle my neck and tightened the ends. Shielding my eyes with my right arm and bending into the gale-force wind, I trudged through the blinding snow toward our small barn. The wind howled as I moved away from the protection of our brick house. The halogen bulb high on the barn’s gable had brightened the area near the barn. Snow fell in horizontal sheets, slicing through its yellow glow.

  A large, dark mound lay on the icy ground underneath the diminishing light. As I came closer, I saw it was Smoky. He didn’t move. I thought he was dead. As I stopped near his body, he raised his head a few inches, his nostrils extended. He kept his eyes closed. I reached over and grabbed his frozen forelock and ice-packed mane and tried to get him to stand. He was as heavy as a freight train.

  “Come on, Smoky. Get up,” I shouted over the wind. His rear legs bent backward at an awkward angle. He was on his side, his body stuck to the ice. The blowing snow thundered with such force, I could barely keep my balance on the slick ground. Leaving Smoky, I slowly pushed against the blizzard’s pelting snow and returned to our back door.

  “Mike. Come quick! Smoky’s down. I can’t get him up,” I yelled from the kitchen.

  “Damn. I’d just fallen asleep,” he mumbled from our bed. “Okay. I’ll get dressed.”

  I left the house and hiked back through the bitter cold to retrieve a halter and lead rope from the nearby shed. Mike changed into padded overalls, a heavy jacket, work gloves, and a wool cap. He telephoned Melvin once he was dressed.

  “We need help. Smoky’s down. Can you come?”

  “I’ll be right there,” Melvin responded in a sleepy voice. “Judy’ll make some mash. I’ll bring blankets.”

  Mike pulled down the ear flaps on his wool cap and left the house. When he reached Smoky, I had already put on his nylon halter and attached a lead rope. The snow blew inside my upturned collar and froze around my neck. I shivered as we tried to get Smoky to stand. Looking through the glare of the barn light illuminating the wind-blasting storm, I saw headlights shining into our pasture. Melvin and his wife, Judy, had arrived. They held hands to balance themselves against the wind as they trudged toward us, bundled in heavy winter clothes, carrying horse blankets and hot mash. Just as they stepped on the ice, their feet came out from under them. In a second, they both fell and hit the ground, right on their butts with their feet sticking up in the air. Rolling over and crawling forward on their hands and knees and balancing the hot mash, they regained their footing and stood, inching their way nearer to the barn.

  The blizzard continued unabated as the four of us pushed and pulled, encouraging Smoky to stand. The ground was too slick for him to get any traction. We took piles of straw from the barn and stuffed it under his frame, trying to separate his body from the freezing ground. We made a nest of straw around him so if he did rise, he had something besides ice to stand on. Mike took the lead rope I had attached to his halter and pulled, leaning his body backward against the rope. Judy and I pushed his rib cage, and Melvin used his weight to heave his hind quarters. Smoky seemed to have given up. He lay his head back on the ice and didn’t move.

  “Come on, Smoky. Get up. We can’t do it without you,” I shouted over the brutal wind. Mike let out a shrill whistle while Melvin and Judy made clicking noises, coaching him to stand.

  “One. Two. Three,” Mike hollered, a coat of ice forming on his mustache. We pushed and pulled and Smoky raised his head. He stuck his fore legs out in front and managed to get his hind feet under his hips. He stood in the storm and shook like a wet dog. We had been out in the roaring blizzard for almost an hour. Who knew how long Smoky had been there?

  No way could we have gotten him upright if he had not tried to help himself. Judy and Melvin retrieved more straw and made a path to the barn. Smoky stumbled over the straw-covered ice while I held his halter and patted his shoulder. With his head hanging down, he struggled forward. Judy and I stood on one side of him, with Mike and Melvin securing him on the other. The wind hissed through the snow and continued to batter us. We edged him toward the shelter, holding on to both of his sides, guiding him through the blizzard.

  With streams of breath coming from all of us, we used cotton rags to wipe his trembling body and legs. We covered him in blankets while he stood visibly shaking from the cold. Judy gave him a bowl of gruel: a warm mixture of rice, milk, and oats. With stiff joints and awkward movements, he walked from the barn’s wide opening and into his box stall. I wacked my hands together, beating blood back into my frozen fingers as the storm continued to rage. Melvin and Judy cautiously made it back over the ice and returned to their pickup. Their truck faded in and out of the white swarm of blowing snow while I dug my cold hands deep into my pockets. Mike retraced his steps through the blinding blizzard to our back door, anxious to get inside out of the wind. I stayed to fill Smoky’s stall with two feet of straw, creating a thick, forgiving cushion. As I left the barn, I dropped the heavy canvas tarp covering the front opening and tied it in place. The heat lamp above the water trough would soon warm the area.

  I trudged through the snow, pelted with ice crystals, and finally made it back inside our home. I was shaking as if I had been dunked in freezing water. I had not bothered to change my dress slacks that I had worn to the Strand’s party earlier in the evening. Numbing cold erased all feelings in my legs and toes. I stood in our bedroom, my teeth chattering as I hugged myself and shivered uncontrollably. Peeling off my bitterly cold clothes, I pulled on one of Mike’s flannel shirts and crawled under our thick bed covers. In between rumpled bedsheets, I moved toward Mike, trying to warm up.

  “Christ! You’re freezing,” Mike exclaimed as he pushed away from me and moved to the far edge of the bed. Huddling by myself, I bunched the blankets around me and finally warmed enough to fall asleep.

  The blizzard blew itself out during the night. The next morning, unusually sunny and bright, I called Dr. Monroe. He and his assistant, Ruth Sievers, drove that afternoon to Sky Ranch. Once he turned south on 4900, he saw the road had yet to be plowed. Being a long-time, big-animal veterinarian, he put his truck in four-wheel drive and pushed through the drifts. The back road looked like it had been covered by puffy quilts with streaks of blue ice interspersed between white snow mounds. From inside the barn, I saw out in the field frozen tumbleweeds resembling balls of glass shards sparking in the sun. Then I heard a truck pull up and squinted in the afternoon sun as Bob and Ruth climbed down from the vinyl front seats.

  Inside the warm enclosure, the slight smell of manure permeated the air. Bob listened to Smoky’s heart and ran his hands over his spine and down his legs. After giving him an antibiotic shot and some inflammatory medicine, he suggested I keep a blanket on him for another week.

  “His thick winter coat will soon warm him up,” he stated. “And he looks pretty good. But his back legs splayed on the ice,” he continued. “He’ll be sore for a bit. Thank goodness you checked on him last night. He’s one lucky horse.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  A Guest from Pennsylvania

  “I can’t believe how big they are,” Susan exclaimed as she stood close to two ranch combines. “My gosh, the tops of the tires are over my head.”

  “That’s my favorite machine,” I told her. “At harvest time,” I continued, “Matt and I ride with Mike during cocktail hour. Instead of wine and hors d’oeuvres, I bring cold sodas and cookies . . . enough to hold him ‘til he gets home for dinner.”

  My college roommate, Susan Church, had joined me at Sky Ranch. She had never been on a ranch, and I was eager to show her Idaho’s wide-open spaces and my adopted lifestyle. I drove her around the miles-long boundary of Sky Ranch and stopped at its corporate headquarters, showing the control center and their numerous farm machinery. From the main section, we moved to the parts room.

  “Whenever anyone goes to town, t
hey have to call the ranch to see if any parts are needed,” I said. “After spending all day running my own errands as well as grocery shopping and picking up horse food, I hate calling to see if anything is needed.”

  We sauntered outside and I showed her a huge scale placed in the ground beside the building. Farm trucks drove over the cement slab to calculate the “before and after” weights during harvest. With these figures, the ranch could compute their crop income. Behind the headquarters Susan saw a dozen farm vehicles, red International combines and tractors and pale-yellow trucks. They were lined in rows like Revolutionary soldiers with an elevated gasoline container nearby.

  “The farm has to be as self-contained as possible, including having constant gas for all its equipment,” I explained. “Remember in ’79 when we waited in long lines for gasoline? Well, the ranch never had to worry. The government knew people needed food, so they weren’t going to let farmers go without fuel for their equipment.”

  From there, we tramped across the dusty, dirt road to one of the new potato cellars. I pointed to an older one still standing down the road. The main portion of the 1950 cellar was underground, hence, the name “cellar.” Two-foot strands of grass grew upward from the sod roof, acting as insulation for everything inside. The yellow-tinged grass caught the morning rays in a golden glow, looking postcard perfect.

  “It’s used for only short periods,” I said. “Any potatoes stored in the dirt cellar are sold as soon as possible.”

  The new potato cellar, made of vinyl, aluminum, foam, and concrete was air-conditioned and completely above ground. It stored potatoes for months. Consequently, Sky Ranch could sell its crop when potato prices were high instead of directly after harvest. Susan and I climbed the thirty-foot, metal ladder inside the cavernous building. At the top, we looked at a dark, empty cellar.

  “It looks like a football field,” Susan exclaimed.

  “Not quite, but it is huge,” I said. “In another month, this will be one busy place. A conveyer belt will move the potatoes from dump trucks into the cellars. Harvest time is fabulous with all the heavy equipment, trucks, and farm activity. It’s like an insect colony with everything moving in all directions. I find it to be best time of the year.”