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Bell Cross Ranch

Bell Cross Ranch is a 10,000 acre ranch near Cascade Montana and is so named for a particular geological formation that looks like a bell. As I understand it, it is owned by a group of investors with whom my Dad is associated. A month or two ago he came up here for an event, and not long after that he sent out an email seeking interest in a family trip. Winters up here, wherever you are when it hits, you  you better hope you have all your provisions in, because you're going to be there a while, so we'd need to go soon in order to beat the brutal winter season.  

So the last Thursday of September I got up in pre-dawn darkness and Steve drove me to the airport to meet twelve other family members to leave on a 6:29AM flight. One more family member joined the party in Denver and we all caught the last leg of travel together, getting into Great Falls about 1:30 or so (local time). About a half-hour drive west, just past Cascade, we left the I-15 highway and drove up a gravel road to a ranch gate, and another good, long, winding way after that, arrived at The Lodge. 

This is a five-star resort class facility, built like a large, comfortable, upscale home, built for comfort and for entertaining.  There are ten suites here at the lodge, all named after wildlife. My cousin Kristen and I are staying in The Whitetail room.

In the cowboy days they used to build "Outposts" which were sort of like temporary settlements or camps. If you found an outpost you could stop there and find shelter without having to start completely from scratch building your own. There's a cabin, for instance. It's in a slightly sheltered area near a stream, a good place for a camp. Bell Cross has constructed some log fence with gates to define the area. 

The cabin is old, not practical for current use, but it is interesting and historic. It has been used within the last one hundred years, which I can tell by a few slightly modern fixtures, such as a circa 50s metal cabinet, installed up high (to keep raccoons and maybe small bear out), and a wood stove constructed from a 55 gallon metal barrel.  The cabin has a dirt floor, though, where plants try their best to sprout and grow, but it's too dark for them to thrive.  The threshold is worn down and broken. I don’t remember seeing a door. The glass has been broken out of the window so long that you can't even find any bits of broken glass on the ground. You can see sky through the roof beams.  

Up the hill, across the stream there's an outhouse, which has been "modernized" and "civilized" with bug screen, glassed windows up high on the gable ends for light, real toilet paper, fresh paneling on the walls, nice contemporary wooden toilet seats, electric Coleman lanterns, in case it's too dark for the window-lights to work, and art on the walls. And it's a two-seater, so all that on both sides. 

The first day we got here we rode ATVs over to the old outpost area where Bell Cross has set up a picnic area with a rock pit for bonfires, surrounded by Montana-version-Adirondack-style chairs and rough-hewn log benches. There are several picnic tables about.

This morning some of our party mounted up and rode horses out to "The Outpost Cabin" for a picnic. Takes a horse and rider a little over an hour to make that ride. The rest of us ATV'd out there (more like a 25 - 30 minute ride on a motorized vehicle).  On the way out there we came across one each rattle snake (now gone to the great snake warming road in the sky) and one bullsnake (who was sensible enough to slither into the brush before being invited to join the rattlesnake) in the road.   The staff put on a very nice picnic for us and then some of us switched rides coming back.

Coming back I rode a pretty auburn horse with black feet, mane and tail, called Hollywood Stearns. Hollywood because that's his name, and Stearns, because that's the name of the guy that bought him and brought him to Bell Cross. Aunt Charlene had ridden Hollywood out to the picnic and she didn't seem to have had too rough a ride, so I thought Hollywood was the horse for me.

When we got ready to mount up to come back I told Carlene I was going to ride Hollywood and she said, "Oh, no!"

"Why? I thought he was a good horse."

"Hollywood kinda likes to be by himself and he wants to eat all the time, and then he gets behind and has to run to catch up with everybody else."

I said, "He sounds just like me!"

That got a chuckle from everyone and Uncle Lanny said, "You ought to get along just fine, then!"

But just to be safe, they had a wrangler go with me to "pony" Hollywood, leading him to keep him on task and also to keep him from running off since I am not a seasoned rider at all, and out of shape besides that.  It was fun, and I can say I did it, I rode a horse.  By golly.

About three quarters of the way back, I got a monster cramp in my upper leg, the sharp charley-horse kind. You know how when you get one of those you can’t work it out without dramatically shifting your position, and we were clopp-clopp-clopping along and I started hollering, “Ow! Ow! I’ve got a cramp! I have to get off! Aah! Cramp! Cramp! I have to get off!” 

My wrangler, Roberto, a good, patient, kind man, helped me off the horse. I knew we had gone more than half way and I knew I could walk the rest of the way if I had to, but I also knew that when he got back to the barn he might send an ATV back for me. It also happened that the staff that had carried the picnic out to the outpost were yet to come back and I might be able to hitch a ride with them, so I told Roberto it was okay to take Hollywood on in to the barn. I started walking on some pretty wobbly legs, looking for a big rock to sit on, but all the sit-worthy rocks were somewhere else. Before you know it, though, the kitchen crew came along and gave me a ride back to the lodge. 

Beat like a bad dog, I got me a nice hot shower, washed the dust out of my hair and eyes and started to download some of the pictures I’ve taken. 

Tonight they have a band in for our entertainment and it sounds like supper will be ready before long. I’m going to go join the party now and will share more later.

Box Turtles and Deer

     Annie the dog found a box turtle yesterday while she was outside with Steve. I'm sure she viewed it as an interactive toy, but then it did what terrapins do - it went inside, slammed the doors and windows shut and refused to come back out. Not to be deterred, Annie nosed it and rolled it and tossed it about until it was locked up tight, not to be budged.
     I distracted Annie for a second, caught her by the collar, and picked up the turtle. Fairly decent sized yard turtle it was, a little smaller than half a cantaloupe. I walked it over to a spot closer to the garden, set it down, and insisted Annie come in with me. Annie, like most dogs, is fairly easy to distract most of the time ("Squirrel!"), but there are other times that, for all her apparent flightiness, she is amazingly focused. Or maybe just obsessive.
      We'd been inside for a little bit when she became restless and made it quite clear that she wanted to go outside. Needed to go out! She was so insistent I thought maybe she had some unfinished business (having been so preoccupied with the turtle maybe she forgot to potty before). I clicked the lead on her collar and out we went. I was headed out to the place where she usually does her personal business, but she ran the line all the way out trying to go over to the garden where I had freed her captive earlier.
     "No, come on over here. Don't you need to potty?"  But it seems her elaborate dance to go outside was for nothing more than to go find her reticent and unwilling new acquaintance.  She honed right in on the exact spot where I had set the turtle earlier. It was gone now, and Annie wanted like anything to go into the garden and find it. She ran this way and that, ears cocked, triangulating in on subtle movement in the underbrush where her terrapin had most likely headed. Annie can be amazingly strong for an under-forty-pound dog, but I was able to wrangle her back into the house.

     I let her out this afternoon for a little while. By and by I heard barking. I asked Steve if that was a TV dog or Annie barking. I went to the front door to look, and it was Annie barking.  Her back was up in a ridge and she was giving holy heck to something I couldn't see.
     "What're you barking at, girl?"
     She glanced back at me when I spoke to her and when she did, I saw the unmistakable white flag tail - two deer  - and as Annie turned and took off after them, both deer ran left into the woods in front of the house.
     Oh, brother, I thought, please don't go onto the woods and she didn't - she ran right past where they turned into the woods, and out into the field. Some strategy I don't understand? I don't know, but maybe the deer circled through the woods because the next thing I saw was one of the deer loping across the field and, just like a slow motion movie scene, flying over the fence like it wasn't even there. Amazing thing to see. And then there was Annie, barreling toward the fence.
     Fortunately Annie seems to have a little bit of sense about where and how to go through the fence. It's a three-strand barbed wire fence in a state of deferred maintenance. It wouldn't hold a determined heifer (which is one reason we don't have one). Not at all impassable, but challenging. Annie ran back and forth until she found a place she could get through without injury and she was off across the big field going after the deer.  There is no catching her when she runs like that, and she becomes determinedly deaf. You can holler yourself hoarse, but she'll come back when she's jolly well good and ready, so just save your voice and your sanity and go find something else to do until then. Which is what I did.
     I went in the house and got the leash. I thought at some point she would come back and come close enough to me to snag her, but I also knew that, Annie being Annie, if she saw the leash, it'd be a big game of "You can't catch me!" Very annoying.  So I tucked the leash into the back of my britches and walked out toward where she'd gone through the fence. Before I got there, she came back through, but she wasn't ready to settle down yet, and took off through our field, away from me and the house, little stinker. I walked out that way, too, trying not to look like I was following her (yeah, good luck with that) and about the time I was almost there, here she came bounding back, tongue hanging down to here. That's usually an indication she'll be agreeable to going in the house, but it has to be her idea.
     She led me back toward the house, and sure enough, before we got there, darned if she didn't take out through the fence and across the big field again. That was a short trip and when she came back she was ready to come in.  Led me to the front door, waited for me to open it, and trotted right in like she was the boss or something. As usual, she went over and crashed on the floor in front of the air conditioning vent, and I didn't hear a peep out of her for a good long while.
     I must say, the Universe was having a good day when it called Central Casting and ordered Annie the Dog for us.