When I Die

My simple little blog provides me the opportunity to express my wishes on how I want my friends and family to deal with my death. What a powerful thing this is! I have a lot of folks that read this, and it’s now date-stamped and real.

I have developed some interesting philosophy’s during my time alive. I don’t believe in cremation or organ donation, it’s a wrong way to enter the other side. My grandfather was buried in a simple box in a Sacramento, CA cemetery and I believe he could very well be my guardian angel. He didn’t have his organs cut out because he was a donor, and his physical body was not destroyed by fire and converted to a jar of ashes.

Please, set me up with a small little burial plot here in the valley with a view of the Tetons. A pauper’s coffin is fine and since I’m not religious, I don’t want any church involvement at all. If folks want to gather later at our house and tell my son Riley what a good guy I was, that’s ok.

There you go, these are my end of life wishes…

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Categorized as Family

Hill Creek Burn

The Hill Creek area prescribed burn is underway. They’re black lining the perimeter today, getting ready to blow it up on Friday and Saturday by hand and aerial ignition.

The Forest Service says these burns are: intended to meet the primary objectives for reducing conifer encroachment within aspen stands, promoting aspen regeneration, reducing dead and down fuel accumulations, and rejuvenate mountain brush which will improve wildlife habitat.

Photo taken from my base around 11:00:

… coming back to base at 15:30:

So, they mess up the air quality and drive bears into our backyard, but hey, they must know what they’re doing, they are a government agency after all…

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Categorized as The Valley

On The Road

Sometimes you need to just get out there on the road. I just checked and with all the travelling I’ve done over the last few years I can’t believe I don’t have a post with this title. So, here you go, me on the road today, literally, on my knees…

On the other side of that little blip at the end of the road is the Wyoming state line.

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Categorized as The Bus

Roots Is Shut

Darn, and I needed a haircut bad! Perhaps folks became nauseous from the buildings color combination and had to turn away. Or maybe Alta just split town with her mom when they sold the North End Bar & Grill in Tetonia?

Steph worked with Alta at the local newspaper in our early days here and she’s partied at our house. Root’s was her most recent business adventure, but I guess it didn’t pan out. r.i.p roots…

Update: Steph said she’s still in the Valley, renting out a spot at another hair place.

…and, I was feeling a bit creative tonight, so I painted this:

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Rigby Road

I drove to town this morning for some Flanagan Krrrrisp Kruat to go with our Johnsonville Irish O’ Garlic Sausage‘s for dinner tonight and I spotted a garage sale sign on the way home. With refrigerated kraut in the bag I decided to check it out.

The signs were really crappy, I saw Alta and Multi Family but I had to pull over to read the rest. No address, just Rigby Road off North Alta. My GPS came to the rescue and I determined I had finally arrived, way out in the sticks, by the small balloons hanging off the side of a Voorhee’s trash container.

The sale turned out to be as lame as the directions, but I did encounter some scenery I had never seen before. Alta North runs parallel to Stateline, just further towards the Tetons, and it was quite pretty out there.

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Categorized as The Valley

Mortgage Lifter

The Driggs Farmers Market is winding down, one more Friday left next week. Whenever I can give our local organic farmers my business over Broulims imported produce, I do with pleasure. Today I picked up some fresh spinach (we make our salads with it now, over lettuce), some green onion things (she called them something else) and a greenhouse tomato.

When I stopped at the liquor store across the street, Larry had a box by the door full of excess tomatoes from his greenhouse, that he was giving away. I snagged the biggest one and he told me it’s called a Mortgage Lifter because of the size and saleability. It’s the one on the left. I’ll slice them both up this weekend and determine which one I like.

While on the subject of organic, Steph wants to rake up leaves again, before the snow.

I present this:

Earth, among other things, is fantastic at recycling. Whether through the water cycle, or the slow process of decomposing plants and trees back in to rich soil, the Earth wastes very little.

When leaves fall to the ground, they begin to break down and eventually create a rich humus on the forest floor that absorbs dew and rainfall. This nutrient rich ‘sponge’ acts as a continual source of nutrients and water for trees and plants, helping to promote life and plant health in the next spring season.

It is not difficult to conclude that while the falling of the leaves protects the trees through winter, it’s likely that trees would not survive as well without the rich layer of dead leaves through the warm spring and summer months. In this way, trees natural cycle provides health and sustainability for itself year after year.

Saturday update: I just sampled both tomatoes and the market tomato won. Larry’s was delicious, but the market tomato was amazing! The lady that sold it to me said it was grown down by Swan Valley with Miracle Grow, so it wasn’t organic. Who cares!

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Categorized as Various

Hay Yellow

I was driving in East Tetonia hay country again, picking up Stateline Lady, and I was struck by the vibrant color of the hay. This should be a named color if it’s not already.

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Categorized as The Valley

Hot Tub Poser

Piper likes hanging out on the hot tub cover. It gives her an elevated view over her domain where she can flow between sleepy and laid back, to alert and watchful. These shots were taken within about thirty seconds… (click the photo to view them)

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Categorized as Piper

Big Tank

One very big local business decided to change propane providers today and have their big tank removed. This is what an 18,000-gallon propane tank looks like!

Our tank out back is only 500 gallons, maybe we should get this one…

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Categorized as The Valley

Cemetery Hill

I took my break today amongst a bunch of dead folks, mostly named Kunz. It was quiet and amazingly clear across the valley. A perfect day! Click the tombstone for more…

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Categorized as The Valley

Interior Shots

As 2200 rolled around last night I decided to extend my normal bedtime, make myself a couple more cocktails, and dance around the dining room rocking out to my Echo. Steph rolled her eyes as I staggered around taking pictures of household things, and went to bed. This was my first full week being back to work and I deserved a little relax. Click below to see more…

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Categorized as House

East Tetonia

I picked up the little old Stateline lady today. I drove directly to her place this time and again had a moment to reflect on the beauty of our landscape before heading over the small hill off 6000N, to the Wyoming border.

Cayenne pepper travels the depth and length of thousands of miles of vessels, going as far as the heart can reach, with every beat. It feeds the heart and cleanses the blood. It heals wounds and kills infections. It rebuilds tissue and destroys wastes. Cayenne rocks!

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Categorized as The Bus

Six Six Solution

After yesterday’s over-crowded bus issue, my employer was considering bringing 801 back to the Valley. This sweet old 16 passenger bus was my main ride for a few years up here, but I don’t know what kind of shape she’s in now.

Hopefully, I’ve come up with a solution that works for both the Victor Elementary School and the Teton Valley Community School, which doesn’t require old 801.

I call it the Six Six Solution. Each school gets six seats on my 12 passenger bus in the afternoon, to fill as they wish. My dispatch accepts the first six Elementary School ride requests on a first come, first serve basis, daily, and the Community School accepts their own six kids in the same manner. At 1500 I stop at Victor Elementary and then at 1505 the Community School and then drop off whatever kids I’ve managed to accumulate, at the Driggs Community Center.

I think this is a great workable solution, and we’ll see what happens…

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Categorized as The Bus

Full Bus

I knew I was in trouble this morning when I looked at my onboard computer and saw a whole bunch of kids booked for the afternoon from Victor Elementary. This is part of my on demand service at 1500 prior to the long time established pickup at the Victor Community school right down the street at 1505. I always run the risk that too many kids get on at the Elem, and I have no seats at the Com. They all go to Driggs to either gymnastics at the Community Center or a general drop off at Barrels and Bins.

Today I was overwhelmed. I felt like one of those yellow buses as kids rushed from the front steps of Victor Elementry armed with baggies of quarters and TRPTA punch cards and came flooding onto my bus. Most of the kids had booked rides, some did not, and during the chaos I could not discern the difference and how could I deny them rides?

This started out a couple of years ago as a convenience stop for parents needing to get their kids to Driggs along with the Community School kids. It has now become a ride all it’s own. I have a twelve passenger bus and after strapping two sets of small kids into one belt I headed down the road to the Community School with 14 kids on board, two of which were getting off there for after school activities.

When I pulled up, the two kids get off, and a teacher came walking my way with a passel of more kids in tow. It was an awkward moment that I’ve long dreaded as I said I only had two seats to accommodate her seven kids on an already over capacitated bus.

Fortunately, my co-worker Karen had her Driggs Elementary run cancel, and she came to my rescue, otherwise I would have had to leave 5 kids behind…

There was also a funny moment when I called dispatch and declared to my dispatcher, with English as a second language, that I had a full bus, and she asked what I meant…

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Categorized as The Bus

Big Meeting

Some kind of big meeting was going down in Driggs today. I could see the large corporate jets lined up on the airport tarmac from the highway so I drove into the airport a bit to grab a shot between hangers. There were also a couple of good sized passenger props around the corner.

Driggs has a sweet new runway that can handle these planes easily, pretty impressive for a small town and indicative of the plans that Huntsman has for the area. One or two corporate jets fly in every week, but I’ve never seen this many at one time.

I spotted a group of about a dozen well-dressed women making the rounds around town and I assume they’re the wives of the people in the big meeting. I also noticed a no vacancy sign at the Best Western, with not a single car in the parking lot. It’s pretty sad this is the best we can offer the big shots, we need a fancy new five-star hotel here. Oh wait, I’ll bet that’s why they’re here!

I just tried to find the links for the new proposed hotel, that I’ve posted before, and it appears they’ve been taken down. I sure hope Driggs isn’t blowing this one, we need it.

The sight of those rich women walking around today could be magnified by a hundred.

Steph asked where’s the other planes? On the other side of the one on the left…

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Categorized as The Valley