May, Idaho

We slept well last night but heard the coyotes singing in the distance. Sound travels well in this flat land, so it is difficult for us to tell how far away something is. We had banana bread for breakfast before taking a long walk in the desert through BLM land. The dogs were happy to go out for a walk with us. As we walked we looked for interesting rocks in the desert that might be good for polishing.

Front of Whittington's Idaho home

Steve and Mark worked on Mark’s Kioti tractor, changing the oil and filters. It didn’t take long since Mark had all of the materials and supplies that we needed. Cindy and Mary did laundry, cleaned the house and worked on updating Cindy’s computer.

Mary and Cindy drove to the Ellis post office to mail estimated taxes and postcards. They saw pronghorn antelope further down Hooper Lane near Custer County.

After lunch, Mark and Steve cut down some dead cottonwood trees in a canal that had been previously used for irrigation. Since the canal is long dry, the trees have died. Before we could start cutting, we had to move the tractor implements out of the path of falling trees. Mark keeps the implements along the fence to the chicken yard, so we moved them over near the driveway.

Tractor implements beside chick pen

Mark was able to notch the trees perfectly to get them to fall along the ditch and avoid hitting the chicken house, fence or the irrigation pivot across the ditch. Just to be sure that the trees fell in the right place, we hitched the tractor to the trees to pull them in the right direction.

Mary and Cindy weeded, deadheaded and started a cacti garden near the house. By dinnertime we were all tired and ready to shower and call it a day. We still had a lot of trees to take down, but they were inside the chicken yard, and we would need to take the fence down before we started sawing. We wanted to be fresh another day and be able to get the job finished in one day so the hens wouldn’t have to be confined to the chickenhouse any longer than necessary.

Mark fixed halibut tacos for dinner with some of the fish that his friend, Rich, brought back from Sitka. Afterwards we finished watching the last episodes of Dark Winds, season 2. Season 1 of the series was based on Tony Hillerman’s book, Listening Woman, and season 2 was his People of Darkness book. We enjoyed both seasons and look forward to additional seasons.

Cindy and Mary sat outside stargazing under blankets. They saw 6 satellites and 1 asteroid as well as clear views of the Milky Way and many stars that we never see in the East. Mark went to the hot tub to relax and stargaze.