The Hunt

The town defies the laws of physics with it’s street-front porches and barns that lean. It’s country dilapidated; being once a bustling source of gold and lumber in the sixties. Now, due to lack of jobs, it’s a town of biologists mainly studying salmon, or retirees that don’t mind the cold.

In the winter, the roads close, so no one goes in and no one comes out. It’s a hunker down, canned goods, generator operated, hunter and gatherer bitch of a winter, but its the kind of thing that a hearty soul like most that live there can handle. Although some still leave in travel trailers for smoother tides before the everlasting winter rears it’s ugly head.

We went straight through the town and into the mountains. Passing cars on the narrow road is a game of survival of the fittest. One side is a mountain face and the other is a three hundred foot drop to the river below.

There’s three completely different habitats there. In the shadier areas there’s a rain forest, there’s a normal forest where the sun shines, and a desert atop the peaks.

The land is ripe with grapes, blackberries and elderberries, and teeming with game like deer, bear, quail, grouse and dove, or so we thought.

On the left side of the river and across the road from camp, up a mountainside littered with half-burnt pine trees (from a wildfire a few years back), poison oak, loose rock and shale, is the spot I chose from last year. Trudging through is the hardest part because the steepness varies in grades and it only gets worse the higher you climb. Some of the time I had to run on the balls of my feet and catch a pine tree to anchor myself, with my pack and my .270.

Even though its difficult to climb, there’s worn deer trails with week old scat and tracks, and a prominent bear trail with a few days old scat. These trails criss-cross up the whole face of the mountain.

Opening Day at 7:00 AM, I was up and slipping into my Gulch Gear, of which the owner of the company happened to be a friend of Dustin’s dad and was with us on the trip. He gave me the camoflague in the Inceptor style, which has a more desert look to it, but blends well into all terrains, even though it wouldn’t seem that way. It blends into the Oak and Pine habitat surrounding us particularly well.

I went up the mountain, with Dustin, taking four or five steps up and stopping to look around and make sure we weren’t spooking anything.

Halfway up to our spot, I saw something move about a hundred yards ahead of me. It was the brown ass end of something, moving behind the trees. I stopped suddenly and watched a cinnamon colored black bear walk out into the open. There weren’t any cubs trailing it, and it was much bigger than the legal fifty pounds. My heart started pounding adrenaline through my body, and I was excited and terrified at the same time. I dropped to my knees, sliding down the mountain a little, and waited as Dustin raised his rifle, I watched him wait until the bear was in full stride for an open shot at his heart and lungs, with my ears plugged. Then he took it and silence filled the air. The bear dropped and rolled, and almost immediately, Dustin chambered another round that just so happened to jam in his gun.

Our reloads were crimped wrong, since the dies were set for the nickle plated brass ones Dustin’s dad used, and we used the same die on his brass. All of our reloads were crimped wrong, we found that out a few months back when we tested them at a hundred yards. His dad’s gun jammed, and then mine, and Dustin cut his hand opening my bolt to get the round out, and sprayed blood all over my action. We forgot about it of course, and it didn’t get cleaned again until we left for this trip.

While Dustin was struggling to open his bolt, I watched the bear get up and run.

The deal was, if anybody heard a shot they had to turn on their radios to listen to the shooter announce whether it was a miss or not. In a shaky voice, I told Dustin’s dad and brother that he shot a bear.

They came up ten minutes later to begin following the blood trail. We found the initial shot, where there was a spot of dark blood and tissue sprayed across the mountainside, and where the bullet pierced through a leaf. From there we followed the blood drops, down some deer paths, in between pine trees, oak trees, brush and rock. We followed the drops for three hours, losing them for sometimes fifteen minutes, before finding them again and continuing on the path. We followed the blood trail up three hills and down three ravines until we determined that the bear bedded itself down in the last ravine, which was full of chest high blackberry and poison oak. There was no way of getting into it. It was too thick. So we called it a loss.

Dustin’s brother later in the week, shot a bear and lost it in the same kind of situation; in a poison oak infested thicket.

Surprisingly the buck population dropped quite a bit, owing to bear, mountain lion, bobcat and probably genetics. The only buck that was seen was by Dustin was when we were riding around on quads up some back roads. It was a spike, still in velvet.

We captured pictures of doe with fawns, single doe, foxes, squirrels foraging for acorns, decent sized bucks, bobcat, big bear, mama bear with cubs (one had a blond cub), and a rare photo of two mountain lion walking close together on a camera that we’d left up across the river all year, although the camera only took pictures until March. Before leaving, they would wade across and change the SD card and batteries for the next year.

The first few days we were out there it didn’t stop raining.

Cheyenne in her dad’s Gulch Gear camouflage.

One of the most interesting places in the area is the old homestead. It was said by the locals that it burned down, but some say the government burned it down. Nobody said what happened to the grouchy old man that lived there, but its been abandoned for a long time.

Handmade fence
More fencing
Road with a sign
Road with an old shed
Up close of the shed
Where we think the house used to be
Dilapidated fence
Stone foundation of a structure
Ivy covered walls
Old plumbing
We think this might have been an irrigation system or a well
The vineyard

One of the other most interesting spots was what we called the Bullock’s camp. A group of girls made a summer camp spot down by the river with a sign that said Bullock Girls ’94.

The way to the Bullock camp
Foot bridge
A wind chime
Handmade bench
The camp
Weather stones

Lastly there was the mining camp. There were a lot of mining claims up there, but I don’t think anyone has done any digging since the sixties. We got as far as we could, past the camp of a man who’d been living there but was currently vacant, and into blackberry bushes. The blackberry bushes had overgrown the trail so much that we couldn’t get any farther to the actual mines.

The footbridge to the mining camp.
The view off the footbridge.
An old mining cart.
Old work benches.
Memorials.
Dustin leading the way.
The view from the farthest point we could reach, looking across the river.

More random pictures from our adventure:

Butterflies in the street.
Signs from a hiked trail.
A baby scorpion.
A private footbridge.
An interestingly colored leaf.
A geode we found in the creek bed.
Old Olympia can.
Deer Jaw.
Deer spine and other bones.
A river frog.
A memorial.
Ar private footbridge.
Another private footbridge.
The Russian wilderness.
Trout and Salmon.
Something we couldn’t identify.
A handmade fence for a corral.

Ducklings, Jet Skis & Unemployment

Firstly, I’m surprised that I haven’t posted at all in July or August. I had no idea it had been that long. I guess its hard to notice things when you have your head down.

Here’s the second truth.

After my dog passed, it changed me. A big part of me died with him. I needed something to fill the void. My boyfriend would comfort me while I cried and mourned my loss. Even months afterward, I cried. I sobbed into pillows and cried in the face of my boyfriend’s dog, Freddy, terrorizing the poor boy with exclamations of “you’re the only dog I have left”.

Then, my boyfriend decided we needed ducks.

Actually, it was more complicated than that.

I saw a picture on Facebook of baby ducklings for sale, and I said they were cute and I wanted a duck someday.

A week or maybe two weeks later, he took me to a Tractor Supply store to see if they had any ducklings for sale, without telling me until we were almost there. They didn’t have any, and at the time we both decided it was a good idea not to get them, because we lived with his parents which I was sure, wouldn’t approve.

But then we went back after awhile and found that they did have ducklings. I looked at my boyfriend and he looked at me and said “do you want one?” I was excited but I still said we shouldn’t.

But we did.

We got two. One pure black one, one yellow one with a gray bill.

After several months, my little yellow one got kind of chunky so I named it “meatball”.

Around that same time, my boyfriend bought me a vintage sit-down Wave Runner jet ski, because we’d spent most of the summer out on the lake, testing out his 90’s Kawasaki stand-up, and our friend’s stand-up.

The first few times we went out, there were problems. Either it rained too much and the lake was full of debris, or the battery died, or the gas was low. Eventually, I got to ride and even stood up for a little while my first time. The only reassurance I had was that it wouldn’t hurt when you fell off.

Being unemployed, I’ve been depressed looking for another job. I tried to get a job in road construction with a friend of ours, but after some stories, I decided I’d rather not work there. Now I’m trying for a job at the distribution center with my boyfriend, making $18/hour, working 3 – 10 hour days a week with the option of overtime days. I have a few thousand saved up, but we are trying for twenty thousand by this time next year, so we can put a down payment on a house.

I haven’t done a whole lot of cooking lately. But can you blame me?

Quitting a toxic job

I’ve been meaning to write another post for three weeks now, but several events have transpired that left me tumbling down a steep hill, and progressed to what feels like falling into a dark ravine.

So I swear to Tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth So Help Me God.

I quit my job. I wanted to quit it as soon as I started it, actually. My first day wasn’t so bad, but I was being trained by my manager who was leaving to care for her new baby. The next day, I was “trained” by the main boss, who had as much experience with this particular kitchen and the way things were supposed to be done as I did. Then came the only coworker I had who put me on a three day training schedule. Shadow and Teach, Shadow and Help and then Do it Yourself, were my three days.

I didn’t have experience cooking for large groups of people in large quantities, especially sixty people who ate cottage cheese and tuna fish sandwiches every single day. It was like a mix of a high school cafeteria and a sit down restaurant. I would have to make large quantities of food, by myself, and serve the food in a restaurant like style – with tickets.

This particular coworker, when she was training me, was not nice. She decided she didn’t like me. She decided I was an idiot. She decided I was inferior, and would amount to nothing. She decided I was lazy. Those things she also told my new boss, whom had worked there before, with her.

My new boss was skeptical of me. She hadn’t been a manager before (I’m assuming) and had no idea how to do it. She didn’t train me. She didn’t offer solutions when I made mistakes. She didn’t buy the necessary ingredients for the menus. She didn’t print out the recipes we were supposed to follow, for me. When I had questions, I got looks. So I didn’t ask questions if I could avoid it. I didn’t ask for help either. I would rather fail and dig myself into a deeper hole than admit that I made mistakes to people who would judge them to the harshest degree.

In my first month, I burned soup on five different occasions. Each time, I beat myself down, knowing how it would turn out the next day when my coworker would ask with a smirk on her face.

I burned soup because I was cooking two entrees, a pot of soup, and two to three sides at the same time.

Five times, I wasn’t offered a solution, until a manager from a different department told me to stack soup pots with the boiling water underneath like a double boiler. After that, I never burned soup again.

The residents still complained. They complained that I made the Tilapia too spicy with too much Old Bay, they complained that my Beef and Potato Skillet tasted metallic because of the red wine it called for, they complained when there was too much seasoning or not enough, the meat was too tough, they complained about the noodles I was supposed to use, and the menus I didn’t make. Some, if not most of the comments were hurtful.

One woman in particular said she hated my style of cooking. During the waitressing part of my job for lunch, one woman discovered I was the dinner cook and glared at me and threatened to give me a lecture. A man almost completely refused to eat anything I made and instead took sandwiches when he could help it. A couple at one of the back tables, disliked my cooking so much that they made every little comment they could and sent the food back sometimes three times in a night. At one point the man came into the kitchen to look for me to curse at me for not making the bacon on his BLT crispy enough. Then, they both told several managers that I’d severed raw, uncooked food.

Testing my abilities, my boss gave me more and more complicated dishes. I started to settle into a routine.

Most things, like pastas and breaded chicken or fish, I couldn’t taste due to a gluten allergy, so I had the dishwashers or waiters taste the dishes. I explained this to my boss when she told me all of a sudden I needed a doctor’s note for my allergy.

I’d had to go to the walk-in clinic before for a physical and a Tuberculosis vaccine to get this job. I waited at the clinic for three and a half hours that time, I didn’t want to go back and waste a whole morning for them to confirm something I already knew in writing.

The next day I was presented with a write-up. The first one I’d ever gotten in my entire life. For burning soup and not tasting my food.

I’d done worse things at other jobs. I’d intentionally be rude to people who were rude to me in the drive-thru when I worked at a Taco Bell. I broke safety protocols working for the California Conservation Corps. as well as dress code violations. I watched people steal from Jcpenney’s, and just sighed and walked away because I knew the local police would do nothing and because of that my boss almost no longer cared. I did all these things and yet I never received a write-up, I never got so much as a talking to, because the good outweighed the bad.

At Taco Bell I was the most reliable employee they had, when someone called in, they called me and I’d drive twenty minutes for a bigger paycheck. I got moved into the head line cook position, since I hated working the customer service positions. One time I worked nine days in a row.

At the CCC, I started off not doing as well as I could have because I wasn’t used to manual labor, but I pushed, and I became a Sawyer.

At my restaurant job, I got moved from Hostess to Prep Cook, but I was moved back to Hostess due to an unforeseen issue, that had nothing to do with me.

At Jcpenney’s I was moved from Cashier to Pricing & Signing Captain to an Operations Supervisor.

I didn’t have a poor job performance, or so I thought. It was poorer owing to the fact that I would be put down from all directions, so it made trying seem pointless.

After I’d cried in the bathroom (and the walk-in), I decided I wanted to quit. At that time, I was still going to wait to have another job lined up.

Then later that night, at least six plates were sent back (unusually high amount), and one of my disapproving guests came in to curse at me for not making the bacon on his BLT crispy (as I’d mentioned before). Since I was already on the edge, I snapped and wrote my official two week notice on a pad of paper on the desk for my boss and my coworker to find the next day, while I’d be relaxing on my day off.

My last day was the seventeenth, and I lied about having a back-up plan, but I didn’t want more of their looks.

On a day when I had time I complained to HR about everything that bothered me.

The residents never being happy and telling the managers lies about “raw food”, my boss not training me, my boss not helping me fix problems, lack of recipes, lack of ingredients, lack of respect from my coworker, occasional lack of respect from my boss, scheduling me or not scheduling me without letting me know, complaining about taking time off when my dog died, ruthless comments from my coworker about my job performance, lack of respect from other managers, the write-up, how my boss LEFT the write-up at the front desk for the receptionist to see, etc.

When I was done, she nodded and waved all of my problems away with a “that’s just how it is” attitude. Then she told me in a threatening way, if I didn’t stay two weeks I wouldn’t get a good reference.

The job was hell at every turn, but I stayed two weeks, did my job and went home.

I didn’t say good-bye to my boss and my coworker said a lame and what seemed underlyingly sarcastic, “good luck”.

I left, officially and my boyfriend’s mom turned my work shirts into rags.