Thursday night (Friday morning) around 12:30, we went out to check on Mae and turn in for the night, but we heard groaning and grunting coming from the barn. So, Erin rushed up to see if she had gone into labor, and indeed she had. I grabbed boots and the camera and headed up. At first, there was just a hoof sticking out from Mae’s behind. Then she laid down and gave a few pushes. Within a half an hour, the whole baby emerged. I spent the next hour or so documenting the the first moments of the baby’s life before calling it quits. Erin stayed out longer, but I had an exam in the morning and was not about to lose sleep. I went back to the barn in the morning just before leaving for school to snap a few photos in the daylight.
Over night, the, baby took its first steps and nursed. It seems that’s all the baby does now. It just follows Mae wherever she goes, falls over in awkwardness regularly, and naps often. Nap times on Saturday and Sunday were bliss with full sunshine and 60-degree weather.
And so it is, we have a baby, another mouth to feed, and another cute, expensive animal to take care of.
I’ve heard of April showers bringing May flowers, but what do April snows bring? On Friday, I awoke to a white world with about an inch of snow covering everything. It was kind of a shock considering only a week before, there were promising signs of Spring. Of course, after the snow, the temperatures are back up and the weekend’s forecast is quite pleasant.
Last weekend, we went to Orofino to check out a riding mower that someone was selling. The drive to Orofino is quite scenic, dropping into a canyon, and then climbing back out before reaching Kendrick, passing a few small mountains, and then descending into the big canyon: the Clearwater River. Orofino is kind of neat in its geographic setting, it sits deep in the intersection of the North Fork of the Clearwater River and the Middle Fork (South Fork? ). It almost reminds me of those towns in Europe that are nested between steep mountains and a river, only not quite as elegant.
There is another way to get to Orofino, and that is by way of the Elk River Scenic Byway, which connects Elk River to Orofino. The scenic byway is pretty neat, and mostly scenic. From Orofino, it travels the high country above the Dworshak Reservoir, a lake created from a dam on the North Fork, one of the largest dams in the northwest. The dam created a lake about 50 miles up stream into some pretty and wild country. The reservoir itself is owned and operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, but beyond that, the land is primarily owned by the timber companies. So, in the course of driving through lush woodland and high country wetlands, you do come to some clearings.
Dent BridgeThe road must cross the reservoir at some point, and does so by way of a very scenic and expensive looking suspension bridge. One only wonders how such a fancy structure was placed in the middle of nowhere, a fine use of federal funds no doubt. Nevertheless, it is a sight to see. Once on the north side of the reservoir, the road becomes unpaved and remains that way until reaching the town of Elk River. Since the land is owned by the logging companies, it is not uncommon to drive through an expansive clear-cut. These openings do provide views of the larger mountains, but with a very ugly foreground. Clear-cutting is probably not the best way to manage a forest for timber, and certainly not the best practice when it comes to impacting water quality, but that’ll be a debate for another day.
Once we hit Elk River, we’re back on familiar ground, skirting the still-frozen reservoir with a glimpse of the freshly snow-covered Elk Butte. From there, it’s back home by route 8. There are so many cool places to see around here, even by scenic drives, but as the price of gasoline continues to to rise, I wonder how many of these joy rides I’ll be able to take. But some of them will get me deep into the backcountry where I hope to escape for a few days at a time.
