Dear Friends,
The garden froze a few days ago. It was encased with ice from the sprinkler Caryl wisely deployed the night before. Thankfully, the warm water from the sprinkler was enough, so most of our squash and tomatoes were saved. I’m hoping for some warmth through the month of September to propel us to something of a harvest despite our high altitude.
It’s all good, because the light frosts appear to increase palatability of our grasses. I’ve sampled them myself, and I’m picking up a little more sweetness with the onset of cool nights. I know that continued freezing breaks down some of the lignin–that indigestible fiber that makes grass tough. It makes for what I believe to be the very best grass of the year–staging us perfectly for the growing beeves that will return from the range soon.
Those beeves are still up on the range in Hat Creek, although we’ve pulled them off the high forest to our Little Hat Ranch, as the exceptionally dry summer we’ve had cured the wild grasses a little prematurely. Little Hat Ranch, a little diamond-in-the-rough 700 acres we own in the middle of nowhere has extensive sub irrigated meadows that the beeves will continue their graze on. These meadow grasses have better digestibility than the rocky hills the cattle have left, especially as the summer continues to cure the higher ranges. The grasses up there will turn brittle in a few weeks. It also brings the beeves a little closer to home, as we started them off of Iron Mountain last week and traveled a distance about 8 miles toward home to get to the lush green found in Little Hat Ranch.
It wasn’t too bad of a walk down to Little Hat. The beeves moved out early in the morning from Iron Mountain camp–we had 4 on horseback for company and guidance, and it was mostly downhill. My main concern that day was water, as there was only a little on the way down. The trail they chose paralleled Hat Creek for the entire way, but the creek is fenced off from access because of the 3 remote ranches that controlled property along that reach of the stream. None of the landowners ran cattle on their places; the fences were more to keep us and our cattle out rather than theirs in.
The ranches in the bottoms of the Hat Creek used to belong to one family or their direct relatives–the McClarens (names changed to protect the guilty). They were likely the first homesteaders in the remote valley, creating small farms and subsisting off of the abundant game in the surrounding country, around the year 1900, and apparently chose it for freedom from influence and control found in the slightly more populated agrarian valleys that typified the early homesteading landscape of central Idaho.
Much of what the McClarens were about is shrouded in mystery, although stories occasionally leak out in conversations with long-time residents of Custer and Lemhi counties. For awhile, all I knew of their existence was what remained in Hat Creek. Log cabins, or the ruins of them still dot creekside locations. I’d be picking up strays among their former abodes, and peek in the windows to find old furniture or bedframes still in them. A tiny fenced cemetery still stands in the midst of the largest ranch; I became intimately aware of it when I found one of my bulls stuck in its confines one year in early December, looking a little hungry in the foot of snow he was trying to graze through.
Dick McDaniel, an old friend of mine who recently passed away, related to me one story of the McClaren legacy. Dick was recently retired from the Custer County school board when he told me this, and likely this was a truancy story passed down from school board members long gone.
It was around 1925 when the Custer Sheriff and the Truant Officer rode off up the rough wagon trail through Pig Creek Canyon the 16 miles up to the McClaren homesteads. They had heard that there were unschooled kids up there, and felt it their duty to search out the truth about the McClarens and just how many children they had (my guess it was likely a school board bent on acquiring more State money that would come with the newly conscripted students).
It had to be a hot day coming over Pig Creek Canyon in that unrelenting frying pan of a south facing draw. In addition, the riders had to watch for abundant rattlesnakes that even today are common along the trail in the grey cliffs and rock fall that line Pig Creek Canyon. Sheriff and Truant Man likely were pretty fatigued–just plain rode a little raw as they ventured down the trail to the McClaren colony. As they crested the ridge above Hat Creek canyon, the first thing they noticed was the long line of laundry on clotheslines, blowing like prayer flags in the wind. I think their thought process went something like this–maybe even their conversation:
“You reckon we ought to try ridin’ up to the laundry, first, Sheriff? I think I can spy some women folk down there amongst the clotheslines.”
“Might not be a bad idea. Them women are likely more receptive to our message than those men would be–bein’s they’re mothers and all.”
“Just what I was thinkin’, Sheriff. If we can get on their side first, mebbe we can get some traction with the men.”
So on they rode. As they came up to the fluttering linens, several women stepped out to meet them. You might say the welcome mat wasn’t quite rolled out, because each of them were packing gun belts loaded for bear with big barreled six guns over their dresses, and had hands on grips–just in case.
The exact words of the encounter are lost in the volcanic sands of Hat Creek history, but I’ll just venture a guess as to how that went:
Stern faced McClaren woman spokesperson: “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”
“Ma’am, I’m the Sheriff in these parts, and this here’s a representative of the local school board.” Apparently, words dropped dead in the dirt somewhere betwixt the two parties, and guns slowly filled female hands.
McClaren Head Woman: “So?”
Truant Man: “Well, Ma’am, we have it on good report that there are children up here of school age, and according to the laws of the State of Idaho, they are required to attend school.”
The women collectively answered not in words, but likely by the sound of hammers being pulled back on single action Colt revolvers. Silence reigned over the moment, except for the sheets, dresses and pants fluttering in the wind behind, as if nervously anticipating the firestorm creeping in over the horizon. Then, Head Woman speaks: “You comin’ to take away our younguns?”
Sheriff turned to look at Truant Man, who spoke, albeit a little shakily. “No ma’am. We were only coming up here to let you know about the law…requiring school age kids to enroll.”
“Are you about finished?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Then turn around, and go back to where you came from. And don’t come back.”
“Yes ma’am.” The Sheriff quietly pulled his mount’s reins, quite consciously placing his back to drawn and ready latent firepower (the drawn six guns is the only consistent part of the passed down account). He knew, particularly in that day and age in the sunsetting of the old west, that the vigilante code of 3S was still the law of the land in some of the remotest parts of these canyons. It stood for 3 words that defined protocol for self-proclaimed justice: Shoot, shovel and shut-up.
As the duo woodenly rode off and set some distance between the clothesline and them, I can easily imagine 3 or 4 women standing there, silent, stern-faced, with skirts and linens lilting in the wind behind them. After the men ascended the ridge over the canyon, each woman would turn and replace Colt with clothespins to continue the work at hand.
Some local folks gossip that the McClarens were a sort of inbred cloister, semi cultish colony that typified some remote valleys in Idaho and Utah, but there’s evidence that it wasn’t so. Erik, one of the few folks living part time in Hat Creek and the current owner of the majority of the original McClaren estate, related to me a discussion he had as he sat in the waiting room at the Salmon Medical Clinic. It was about 10 years ago, and he struck up a conversation with an elderly woman next to him, who asked where he lived. When Erik said that had a place up Hat Creek, the woman began to relate how she was raised just a few miles from there up Iron Creek. She would never forget when as a teenager, some strangers rode up and knocked at the front door of their ranch house.
Through the window, she could see it was a man around her father’s age, and apparently his son, who looked as if he was about 20. They had a magnificent black mule in tow. Her father answered, and stepped out to visit with them in the barnyard. She could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation from indoors, but the gist of it was that they were the McClarens, and had just rode in from Hat Creek, over the mountains. They had come hoping to trade their black mule for some merchandise from the young girl’s father.
She watched her Pa walk around the mule, looking at it admiringly. The visitor and his son spoke about him proudly as Pa looked it over. The conversation then seemed to shift to the business of trading, as her father stopped looking at mule flesh, and the visitor looked and nodded toward the house. Her Pa shook his head indicating that no deal was to be made that day.
The visitors sadly gathered up their mule, and rode off, going their way, her father returning to the house. He brought in the news that he could not make a deal on the fine black animal, because the merchandise they had in mind for trade was none other than the girl herself—to be exchanged for the mule! Apparently the McClarens were seeking at that time to expand their human bloodlines, as she was to be the traded bride for the visitor’s son.
Unfortunately, the McClarens have long left Hat Creek, although the signs of their life there still remain in an arid landscape that rots and weathers slowly. Horse-drawn implements such as potato diggers and moldboard plows still stand along the edges of old irrigation ditches, as if ready to hitch up to a waiting team of those black mules. Grasses and meadows that they planted carry on, plant species of the flat country brought in by wagon and pack string.
The living things leave the longest mark on a country, as iron rusts and wood decays. Some day, Alderspring’s presence on the land will likely fade from memory as well, probably faster than the McClarens, as the vision of our use on those landscapes is to leave no trace that we had been there; to take only part of the grass, and always leave enough forage for the wild ones we share our country with.
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I was in the local grocery store several weeks ago in the meat department, carefully eyeing tray packed beef (but not buying!). I spend a lot of time in front of meat counters, trying to learn how to do better at what we do. Caryl knows where to find me when we visit any store; I am usually here, picking up tray packs or talking with the meat manager. After all, we do have a meat business.
I nod to some folks that I’ve met in this store before–two young 30-something women wearing jeans, cowboy boots and tank tops. They pack some dirt and dust on their clothes and person, apparently a little trail residue. In spite of that, they are not unattractive women, and the muscle in their arms and the tan of their skin speaks to a life of work outdoors.
As I said, I’ve met them before. They are direct descendants of the McClarens of Hat Creek. Today, they live high in the mountains along the Montana/Idaho border in an extremely remote mountain inholding, and were on their biweekly or monthly restocking mission to town. I admire their grit and family values; they have worked and lived a subsistence life despite the trappings of modern life that would often woo those of less tenacity away from their existence.
They finish their perusal of the meat case, and push their half-full grocery cart past mine. As they go by, I smile as I can’t help but notice their belts as they navigate the rest of the meat department aisle. Both women are loaded for bear with a couple of large caliber six guns and sheath knives on their hips.
McClarens always. Sheriffs and Truant officers, stand wary. And likely anyone else thinking of crossing them.
Happy Trails!
Glenn, Caryl and girls at Alderspring.
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