War Wagon in the Rain

War Wagon Hitched to Travel (April 2014)

Bus for Workers After the Live Long Day

One of Many From the War Wagon

Fall Colors

Calling in the Workers

Lining Up to End the Day

War Wagon Spread Out

The men have been working on the railroad all the live long day, despite torrents of rain. Elmira, Idaho was once a railroad town where workers lived between the tracks with their families. Many were Italian immigrants.

Today, BNSF hires workers at various hubs with Spokane and Missoula being the closest ones. When the rails need to be repaired or simply maintained, the hubs dispatch the War Wagon. The first photo in today's line up is from April and shows what the War Wagon looks like all hitched up for travel on the rails. Not only does it have the equipment needed, it also trails outhouses.

When the workers come to northern Idaho to work on the tracks, they stay in Sandpoint and bus from there to here. The War wagon stays in Elmira across the road from my house. It's fascinating to watch the equipment and seems how it distracted me on this dark, rainy day, I thought I'd share a look with you.

Elmira Schoolhouse

View of Elmira Schoolhouse From My House

Working on the Railroad in Elmira

A Ghost Town

View of Elmira Schoolhouse From Across the Tracks

Wood Shed in Old Elmira?

Nope! The Original Elmira Schoolhouse!

Tucked on a knoll above my north pasture is a cement block schoolhouse built in 1910. Its south windows face my house, and if its front doors were still open to children I'd have kids scrambling across my place at recess.

The Second Elmira Schoolhouse

The property includes three operational outhouses. Not that I've used them, but I have peeked into the doors. One for boys, one for girls and one for Teacher. Yes, Teacher deserved her own. The student privies are double-seaters. So much for privacy!

Elmira was once a railroad town. While my research is incomplete, two major railroads built through this valley and its mountain passes around the mid-1860s. By 1900, Elmira employed a sizable group of Italian immigrants to maintain the tracks.

This valley is framed by three mountain ranges--the Cabinets, Purcells and Selkirks is called the McArthur Corridor. It is a natural pass and a perfect launching point for railroad crews.

The railroad companies created a stop-over here to house workers, equipment and supplies. To this very day (because I saw a BNSF crew pass earlier this morning) this area remains a hub for railroad crews. No longer do they live here in homes between tracks; crews bus to hotels 15 miles south in Sandpoint.

Elmira is a ghost town, no longer a point on a map. Only a few houses remain--my place was actually a ranch and at one time a rollicking inn that passed out moonshine. A sign marks the establishment of the official town-site as 1909, just one year before the stone schoolhouse was erected. It's across the tracks.

In fact, if you look at the Elmira Schoolhouse from that vantage point across the tracks you will find a collection of abandoned buildings typical to a ghost town. Made of wood, they resemble sheds if anything. Yet, the town housed families before 1909. So there was actually an original school.

After researching local records at the Bonners Ferry Museum, I've been able to identify one of these shed-like structures as the original schoolhouse. Somewhere in this cluster is what remains of the original teacher's house, outhouses, post office and yes, a wood shed.

So next door is the second schoolhouse. Abandoned after WWII, historians say that many of these one-room schoolhouse were often moved or dismantled. To have two originals in a town that no longer exists is unusual.

I must live among well-schooled ghosts!

Mirage in the Snow

Elmira Snow Day

Snowy Pond

Snowy Dog

Fun in the Snow is for Dogs

Snow on the Fence Post

My fingers sting from the blowing snow. Todd said that he encountered a few flurries driving from Elmira to Moses Lake at 3 a.m. It'll pass, he tells me. For now, the blustery conditions linger.

It's another snow day.

Better than a brown day, or a polar vortex day. But I'm longing for open waters on the pond--the day I can announce that the feathered-guests have returned. I'm longing for a merganser day.They'll need the water so for now, I'll endure the snow.

Despite the gusting wind, the snow muffles all sound. If my fingers weren't so cold, I'd stay out longer. I left my gloves so that I could take pictures, but each shot looks the same--filtered in white. Bobo searches for mice and Grendel rolls in the snow. They love a snow day.

Back inside, my fingers fumble to get kindling started. It's so quiet that the only sound is the gravelly crush of the snow plow's blade as it heads north. It'll return, southbound, in about five minutes since we are so close to the county border. The next border beyond is Canada.

Crackling now, my fire consumes birch bark and newspaper until flames engulf split pine logs. I watch the glowing orange and my fingers relax. A strange sound draws my attention to the train tracks. An odd-looking locomotive slowly lumbers northward on the BNSF track. It's yellow, but old and rusty, a design I don't recognize. It's different from the locomotives that pass Elmira.

Then I see flames. Strange cars linked together in a short train of eight or nine, blast the rails beneath with flames. It occurs to me that this contraption is how the railroad clears its tracks, although we've seen plows mounted on engines and heard of air-blowers. This contraption looks old--like rustic-old. It's a steel dragon breathing fire out the belly of each car. Never have I seen such a train. Like the Hellfire Express.

And neither shall you see it! So befuddled, I watch it progress, ending with a tanker car and an old-fashioned yellow caboose. Then it occurs to me that I need a picture. Too late; it vanishes into myth beyond a stand of pines.

Maybe it was simply the mirage of a snow day.

Winter Blues

Fluffy Crystals Cling to Evergreens

Huskies Romp to the Pond

The House Awaits With Warmth

The Rusty Blur of a Freight Train

Silent Sentinals

Busting Mice

Elmira Pond in Winter Blues

Walking into SuperOne grocery store, the hastily penned sign reads: "Happy Lights on Sale." Chuckling, I ask my husband--who wavers between toddler obnoxiousness and old-man crankiness--if we need to buy him Happy Lights. "No," he grumbles.

In case you're curious, Happy Lights are full-spectrum light bulbs that are meant to infuse the human body with full rays of the missing sun. In the north, the sun can go AWOL (absent without leave) for days, abandoning it's blue-sky post for places I've never been before--like Yuma, Arizona or Khardga, Egypt. People must be giddy, living in such full sun year round.

Some people suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), also known as "winter blues." While I get sleepier, crave more coffee and bake chocolate chip cookies, I'm never sad in winter. I love the snow even with its cover of clouds. It's the blue-sky-arctic-front winter days  I'm happy to have left behind in the Midwest.

My friends in Minnesota have declared the state "colder than Mars." My own "happy light" is just knowing that my valley in northern Idaho is protected by three Rocky Mountain ranges that buffer me from arctic blasts that nail Canada and the nation east and south of me. It's been warmer here than in northern Florida the past few days.

Yet today the sun disappeared. While the rest of the nation shivered, the Pacific Ocean crept over the Cascades and trapped Elmira beneath a gray dome spitting snow that was easily ocean water days ago. Thus the winter-scape on Elmira Pond glows white with fresh fallen snow.

Taking huskies and camera to the far south pasture, I begin snapping white, only to end up with blue photos. The missing sun, domed sky and snow-covered everything creates a blue hue. Snapshots capture pixels of the winter blues that infuse me with joy.

White fluffy crystals of snow gather upon poky needles of evergreen. The camera shows falling snow as fairy-like globes of light floating in air and the landscape deepens into blue. The huskies dash from the pond to the pasture, inspecting every possible mouse hideout in between. A train blasts by, a rusty blur in the blue of snow. The house promises warmth, lights and hot nettle tea while the horse barn stands as silent as the Ponderosa guarding its perimeter. Trucks and cars pass by with chains snow-muffled, driving slow and cautious.

Unchained and infused with winter blues, the huskies and I walk back to the house with snow drops kissing my face the entire way.

Trains, Turtles and Treadmills

Pushing Coal

Energy

Turtles on Blue Heron's Turf

Second Story

Forever Home

It's a special day when real-life alliteration happens to a writer. Increased rail traffic, no Blue Heron and a new apparatus makes for a day of trains, turtles and treadmills.

Trains 
Last week, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train hauling wood products and cedar chips sloughed off the tracks along the Clark Fork River east of Sandpoint. Because this section of rail is remote and there remains four cars in the river, the track is temporarily closed. The result is increased traffic on the tracks that pass Elmira, as westbound trains and eastbound trains are re-routed up to Bonners Ferry, ID and through Arlee, MT.

Today a coal train rumbled past Elmira. Brown hopper after brown hopper clacked by with black coal loaded to near-spilling.Then it was gone. The sun warmed my toes and a breeze tickled hair against my nose as I sat on the south porch, drinking coffee. Coal. Sun. Wind. I know which energy sources I'd rather have passing by my pond.

Turtles
Turtles ate Blue Heron! Okay, not really, but that's how I felt looking at the log today. I got excited, this morning, walking dogs to the pasture when I saw something on the log. Too short for Blue Heron and not quite merganser-shaped. Since the rain let up, I had my camera and long lens. Snap. Snap. Zoom in...turtles? Yes, three turtles on the pond log. Blue Heron, I miss you. Was your rainy appearance our good-bye?

Treadmills
In truth, it's singular, but sounds better plural in the title. It such an outstanding piece of equipment--Smooth Fitness 9.65 LC--that it should be plural.

SF 9.65 LC...Ooooh

While some seek ellipticals, others stair-climbers, I always buddied up with treadmills. Even though I live in a beautiful area that beckons me outside daily, I have no place to walk long distance consistently. It's rural wilderness with an International highway, meaning I'd either have to walk the narrow shoulder where cattle trucks careen or venture into moose and wolf territory.

Therefore, I need a treadmill to walk daily.

Random Shot of Roses

Music moves me so I knew it had to be a treadmill with that feature. I anticipate improving my stride and strength so I wanted a treadmill that could carry me to goals. This is not a whim or fad, so I wanted an apparatus that would be a lifetime investment. If you look at models under $1,000 you'll realize that they all fold. While convenient for space, studies show that they don't hold up years of steady use.

Smooth Fitness is a direct source, and their machines rate high in consumer reports. They also provide financing, which is necessary for a writer wanting a $3,000 piece of fitness equipment. Since I've yet to sell my manuscript, my thousands-of-dollars-as-a-novelist are still banked in dream-land.

Ordering direct meant patience. I had to get the financing approved. It's always fun telling finance reps that I write for a living; it's like saying I'm Peter Pan and get paid for flying over London nightly. The reaction is something akin to "Yeah, right and I'm Tinker Bell." Also, I had to wait two months for the factory to ship and then wait almost another month for the shipping company to get their ship together. By the way, don't ever rely upon Urban Express for service.

The treadmill moved down the line and stalled on my first floor. I paid for in-room set up and delivery so that I could have my dream-machine in my dream-office where I dream and write. But when the delivery contractors for Urban Express showed up with my two boxes (one weighing 350 pounds) the team lead said, "This isn't going upstairs." Oh, yes it is. Despite the contractor's refusal, I did get a refund and hired local movers to do the job.


With built-in speakers, ipod connection, heart-rate sensors, programmable inclines and speeds beyond the capacity of my feet, I have one stellar treadmill in my office. It's even a treadmill with a view and its as pretty as my roses. However, the movers recommend that I never move or take the treadmill when I go. So, I guess Elmira Pond is my forever home.

Impressions From the Pond

Maybe it's because I was locked to my desk all day, obligated to peck keys like a one-legged chicken. Or perhaps it was that flavor burst of summer's first raspberry, the one I snitched this evening. Most likely it was the two Elderflower Apple Ciders I swilled by the pond after a reluctant day of working inside. My mind craved creative fun, so I let it wander like a child, arranging words like a bouquet of wildflowers. Here are the results of my impressions from the pond.

Rails hum to smoking sunlight diffusing the flitter-flight of swallows as they pump high above the playground that is Elmira Pond.

Snaggle-branched pines peek over the ridge with roots dug into the sod like living toes.

Day loving birds set with the sun, shadow-roosting from the gaze of a late watcher.

Done-daisies, fading from white to ecru like an old book's pages. Who will read the last chapter?

Train mavericks riding herd over steel trails to market. Get along box-doggies, get along. The seaport will be your new home.

Apple-less apple tree spreads open like a bee-laden beach umbrella over sands of green grass.

Motorcycle maniac attacking pavement on two wheels proclaiming might over logging trucks and motor-homes, engine whining like a speeding mosquito.

Dandelion seed bomb ready to burst into summer days.

Pistol-packing mama mosquitos out for blood and bullets.

Elderflower Apple Cider makes happy the Angry Orchard.

A New View

Todd: Man on a Mission

The New View

Lunch Along Elmira Pond

Pond Guests

Pond Slosher

At Home on the Log

Wing Dance on water

Look Who's Back (With an Itch)

Train

The Watcher is Caught in Another's Gaze

July 3 Pond Report:

Todd is wearing his bandanna with psychedelic smiley-faces; the icon of a man on a mission. I'm on my knees in the garden, pulling micro-weeds from my row of carrots. How is it that my row of seeds have sprouted as if I had been a reckless Johnny Carrot-seed, tossing wildly? My row is hardly straight, although I remember taking care to trench the row. And why do the weeds grow up among the seedling, but not elsewhere?

But I am ready to be done with the weeding, watering and love-talking here. The pond beckons and I have a new view.

Among Todd's work this morning--mowing the lawn, picking cherries and fixing the unhinged driver's seat in the Blue Goose--he has mowed my new viewing station under the canopy of the apple tree. Having realized how good the shade felt yesterday, I am ready to camp out with binoculars, camera and lunch. And for lunch, cherries grace the menu, along with smoked Gouda cheese, tomato-basil crackers, hard-salami, pickles and strawberry short-cake.

After chairs and table are set, I am ready for guests. Todd joins me with both GSPs. He tethers their leashes to rope wrapped around tree. They pant, as if ready to launch after horses or robins. German-engineered is a reference to the breed and their diligence and intelligence, both which can be exhausting. It takes some convincing to simply, "lie down." To them, green pastures are for running.

Pistol splashes through the reeds, revealing the depth of the water as at least four to five inches deep. It looks as if the pond has receded, but really, it's just the marsh plants growing taller than the water is deep. It is deep beyond the reeds, so clear and dark blue, like that crayon I always liked, "Midnight Blue." On Elmira Pond, the horses have everything they need, food water and shelter.

So does Blue Heron. It's evident that he has moved in for the duration. He also seems to be adjusting to me as pond paparazzi. No longer does he flap across the fence to the willows in the pasture beyond, he hangs out and nibbles at his own feathers. Without a wave good-bye, he lifts up off the log and flies to the pasture. I explain to Todd that Blue Heron will be back.

Todd and I argue over the female ducks. Squinting through the binoculars he insists that the one female we can see is a mallard. Okay, I know the females are tougher to discern, but she has a gray bill like the male ring-necked ducks. Besides, why would a mallard hen hang out with ring-necked guys? My final point--she dives. Todd concedes, this time. We watch the males dive then splash their feathers in a summertime display.

I could sit under this tree all day. Finally, the heat has subsided and a stiff wind blows. I imagine having my bed out here, under the tree. Where is Blue Heron's bed? Does he roost in a tree? Snuggle under the willows? Camp-out, stiff legged on the log? Speaking of the bird, he returns. He must have an itch as he is scratching at his head with his foot. The horses swat at flies and Grendel rolls in the grass to escape a buzzing bee. Maybe an outdoor bed wouldn't be the best.

A seagull flies over, intently scoping the pond. I recognize him this time and I'm not fooled (again) into thinking it's an albino osprey. And no osprey today. Just that relaxing breeze and near-perfect temperature. A train rumbles past, carting containers from Seattle to Canada. This new view is a great view.

Finally the horses take interest...they've grazed and watered, even shoved their heads through the fence to eat grass on this side. But suddenly they are curious as to why I am here, ears perked

Spotting the Pond Spotter

forward, heads alert. Maybe they want a cherry, but the bowl is empty.

And suddenly, I feel like the one being watched.