Grouse Hollow Journal for January 5, 2017 by Greg Koelker

Grouse Hollow Journal for January 5, 2017 by Greg Koelker

Ben and Mark were home for a week this Christmas.  I kidded Mark one day after he wore his new Christmas lounge pants all day without even putting on socks.  He said, “I am just soaking it all in.”  I’m glad they both feel that way about home.  Mark flew out for California at early-thirty on December 27 and Ben took off for Colorado at midday on December 29.  I agree with Mark, just soaking it all in, having them both here filled us all with good thoughts, brought up great memories of other good times, and made this ever so fast holiday vaporize even faster.  

On the 28th, Ben and Ellen started trimming dead tree branches from the ancient and immense pines in our yard.  (Mark, our former professional tree trimmer, had wanted to get at them earlier in the week, but the weather made for lousy conditions in trees.  He said in Colorado they would have used a crane to lower the trimmer down on our pines to trim them up.)  I got the chainsaw and tractor going so we could cut up and haul what will make for nice evenings by the firepit this spring.  Ben had the idea that we needed to be able to see the apple orchard meadow.  He ran a trimming saw and Ellen pulled branches into a fire pile, clearing the underbrush so that now we can see the fenced in trees, smashed pumpkins, and food plot greens clearly from the kitchen.  There were fresh deer tracks around the smashed squash, so I placed a trail camera on a tree covering the upper end of the meadow.  More on that later.

On Christmas night we opened presents.  I got a camo hat from a surf shop in California, a book on smoking and preserving meat, and speaking of clearing brush and cutting trees, one on wood prints.  The boys gave us the book, Woodcut by Bryan Nash Gill, a master wook cut printer.  I looked at it at first and wondered “What the heck?”, but the book is full of prints made from cuts of many, many types of trees and boards and such, explaining what one was seeing, the process of printing them, and the history in each of them.  I love it.  I am inspired to try making prints of the old boards and downed trees around here.  The ones in the book could be cut out and framed.    

Anyway, we recently brought home El’s family’s desk and she asked me to clean it up and oil it.  The old finish reacted well, turning a rich reddish color.  It is in our living room with her mom’s Nativity Set on it.  Several years ago, my accomplished photographer wife shot scenes in and around the old shop on her home farm before it was torn down.  She got great images of old sleds, tools, odd hooks, chains, an ancient boat motor, forks and shovels, and mower blades, her brother Mike’s hand saw, and even some impromptu art work by her dad.  Anyway, I Photoshopped those images into high contrast sepia toned prints and mounted them in an old style collage frame for an anniversary present.  After the holidays, Ellen wants to hang her picture frame up over our new/old desk and place one of her dad’s journals on the desk.  It should be pretty cool.         

We could have done something more exciting and romantic on our anniversary, but I am plunked down at the kitchen table tapping this out (with a martini) and El is busy fixing shrimp and scallops for supper.  We are plenty happy with that and having Ben and Mark here even for a short time.  It don’t git no better.

Until next time, get out - our sons have grown into strong mountain men and adventurers with compassionate hearts and many interests and talents and one can’t ask for more than that.  Having them home together was the highlight of 2016 for us.  Enjoy.