Arrival in the Tom MIner

No Dorothy, you aren't in Kansas any more.  And no, Steve and Betsy, you are not in Rhode Island anymore. After 2400 miles of winter driving, we landed safely in the Tom Miner Basin again.  But, no, Steve and Betsy, you are not in the one room schoolhouse.   We are staying 1 mile down the road from the Schoolhouse, in the section of the ranch owned by Hannibal Anderson's brother, Sam.  This property includes the old original ranch house where Hannibal and Sam were raised by their mother Ginny and father Andy, with a large cattle and sheep operation.  Sam and his wife, Roseanne, lived in the original ranch house, and added on an amazing wing out back.  Unfortunately, Roseanne died of cancer just before our sabbatical year.  Sam lives back in Virginia now and is in the insurance business, I believe.  Andy died years ago, but Ginny lives in the small ranch hand cabin just about 100 yards below the ranch house. Ginny is 87 now, and fell and broke her hip this fall.  With Hannibal and Julie now living in far northwestern Alaska, where Hannibal is superintendent of schools, and Sam in Virginia, we are hoping to help out some by being a presence for Ginny during the February and March winter days.
I will provide a little description and a few pictures in my next post.
We have been greeted warmly.  Ginny is so enthusiastic and such fun to be with.  She has an old foot pump organ in her cabin, and wants me to play it. She was an organist for many years at a little church about 20 miles up the Paradise Valley from here.  The Doolittles were so kind- they had a wonderful dinner casserole ready, and drove it up to us our first night here!
The cattle operation at the ranch is managed by Matt, who lives down the road a mile or two.  You may remember our adventures with sheep and lambing season during our sabbatical year.  This year it could be the calving season.  First thing this morning , Matt came in to say he had found a new born calf- 3 weeks early.  So Betsy helped out some bringing the calf in, tubing it to feed it , and getting it  in a kind of "calf oven" to dry and warm it. Later we went out as Matt brought the warmer and drier, but perhaps way too premature, calf to its mom in a shed.  The mom paid attention and licked and attended to the calf- as good a sign as can be hoped for, as she was a young and first time mother.  Then we heard little hints of things to come.  In an e-mail from Sam, we learned that both wolves and grizzlies appeared during calving season last year.  Hints of 9 PM, midnight, and 3 AM searches out in the fields to see if calves have been born will be in order during March.
Surely adventures lie ahead.
We hope to see Ginny and granddaughter Mallou for supper tonight.
Early pictures will follow.  Matt has just come up to check the status of the newborn calf, and we'll head out to see if we can help.
Here we go!!