We are also in the process of purchasing permits for the Forest Service Campsite and  the BLM. This will enable to take our guests up on the Forest and camp as well as the BLM. In order to do this Kent must get his outfitters license, but he needed some proof that he knows this country, that is where our good friends the Marsicos and Arnold Dado came through for us by writing letters to help him with the application. Kent will have to take a test to become an Outfitter. Because the permits also carry 150 use days for hunting that will also be part of our new business venture. We had always planned to rent out the lodge rooms to hunters and have a cook for their meals but now we will also have the hunting camp. It is located on Nylander Creek up North Cottonwood, it is a beautiful area and has a natural spring there. The weekend Cheryl & Vince were here we went to see the camp, there was about 2 feet or maybe 3 feet of snow (heaven knows I wouldn't want to exaggerate). But it was great snow for having a snowball fight and we did.

Dawn is working on our web site and Clint is still reading and collecting books and pushing everyone around so that something gets done. Toni has been doing most of the work on the permits, talking to the Forest Service and the BLM. Ilene we have included a picture below of the view from the kitchen window, to entice you come next summer and cook.

I have begun tanning a deer hide. Kent and Travis built me a beam last week that makes it a lot easier to scrape the hides. Last night I scraped the hair off the hide and took a lot of my own hide off in the process. I used rubber gloves to protect my hands from the lime I had soaked the hides in, but forgot to protect my belly that I was using to hold the hide against the scraping beam. I do not recommend this for a weight reduction method. Today I went down and purchased myself a rain suit to prevent this from happening again, I'm not sure however this is the traditional method the Native Americans used. Right now I am thawing out my brains (which might explain a lot) and tomorrow night I will soak it in the brain solution. We have managed to get two freezer full of hides, you will be glad to know they are not still plugged in and sitting in the back of Clint's Truck.

Remember how George use to mix up his words, well there is no doubt that Clint is his grandson. The other day he said, "we just need to jump into this project and get our teeth wet". Now Clint it's either that we need to "sink our teeth in" or "get our feet wet". If we're jumping in and getting our teeth wet then we are already over our heads in hot water.

It did bring back some of those familiar sayings of George's. He was always going to "cram it up someone's throat". Now I don't know if this was a polite way of putting it, or just that he thought it would hurt worse.  You could never "pull the wool out of his eyes" but you could "drive him off the wall". He was always "pissed up" rather than "pissed off", it seems to me that this would be worse than spitting in the wind. Between not going over someone head or stepping on someone's toes, George came up with not wanting to "step over someone's toes". We will have to include the famous Indian woman that led Lewis & Clark, Jaca su whea in our History Ranch as well.

Clint has a slightly different twist by making up words, like streams irking around the corner and bitches which is a bite that itches. But that okay Clint as George would say "you were always a horse of a different feather".