It makes for fabulous, starry skies, but there's also something primordial about having a hundred miles of wilderness past your west fence...
Put that together with the almost-total silence...except for an occasional, distant car starting up, or the big Mule in the pasture behind us who "hee-haws" every day at 6 AM and 6 PM. (he's more reliable than a Rooster!) I'm gonna call him "Harvey".
And you get a sense of how big the world is, and how small we all are...
One guy we talked to here in Darby suggested that, because we have a low roof on the garage (about 8 feet high), we should check with a flashlight each time we go out to walk the dogs in the dark, and pack a .357, just in case, because there are so many Mountain Lions nearby!
Not that they have ever attacked anybody around here, but apparently, startled homeowners have seen them on their roofs, as they go outside..
And...they are out there for sure...the neighbors have trail-cams with lots of photos of them....(I gotta get me one of those....!)
As macho as our Dobie thinks he is, he and the Boop would be an appetizer for a big cat. I have no desire to shoot anything out there (except for food!), but I would have to defend my fleabags and myself.
The wolves are supposedly out of control around here, but I have yet to see one for sure...or hear the howls that I'm told we will hear, sooner or later...(really......can't wait for that!!) But the other morning, in the still-gray darkness, I did see 2 "somethings", racing away through the pastures, that sure looked dog-like. Because I can't be sure, they remain unidentified.
I have seen one Black Bear, but that was a few miles away on the West Fork, while trout fishing a while ago. They, and the Grizzlies, (who are extending their range southward from Glacier National Park..)should be holed up in dens by now...
The Elk and Deer are now a daily occurrence...small herds of both are just outside our fence.
But, by the time the winter solstice comes around, we will be looking at 16 hours of darkness, or more. (The flip side is we will have long, long summer days!!) We are living on the very edge of civilization, and its disconcerting...and very cool at the same time...
The sense of knowing that the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness lies almost untouched behind us, gives us a little bit of the pioneer feeling, and explains why neighbors are more willing to help one another up here.
For example, our dirt roads are not maintained by the County, so one of the 6 houses on our "bench", has a guy with a plow, who keeps the 6/10 ths of a mile clear of snow after storms. In exchange, other neighbors offer canned veggies, Elk and Deer meat, or a helping hand for whatever he needs.
His 12-year old son stops by after school to see if there is any work that needs to be done....(He charges $7 an hour....) Imagine that.....a 12-year old kid, without a cell phone...thats LOOKING for work to do......what a concept!!
It's a whole different lifestyle than Vegas for sure...where sometimes you go months without talking to a neighbor.
When you walk the pups at 5 in the morning, all you see is 4 or 5 distant porch lights and the snowy Bitterroots in the moolight.
So, we hunker down now, as the weather slowly descends into the grip of winter...no snow yet, except up on the "Lonesome Bachelor" and his buddies...
Gotta make sure we have lots of wood and propane...some donated Elk sausage....and the camera ready...!!
Ahhhh.....life as a "Darbarian"...
