January 19, 2015: MYSTERY REVEALED!

You can only imagine my surprise upon encountering a PIANO in the woods on a cold January morning. What a delightful, whimsical, and totally improbable sight! Naturally I just had to follow the tracks of the truck that brought it in and begin my search for the story behind the piano – and believe me, it’s a great story!

How did this piano get here? Who brought it? What were they thinking? We need a story. Please give us YOUR story by leaving a comment to this post. Win a Dunrovin Ranch sweatshirt by telling us a story that comes anywhere near the REAL story!

January 12, 2015: THE MYSTERY BEGINS

Every morning my canine crew insists that I take them on a long walk along the Bitterroot River. Jewel is relentless in her demands for me to throw the ball, Kola is ever alert for any creature stirring that he might be able to chase, and I try to do my physical therapy for my shoulder while I am walking. It is a special time for us and it has made me keenly aware of even the slightest changes in the weather or environment. Well, this past week I came upon a man made object along the river that was completely and utterly out of place – and I am not telling right away. It was so mysterious that I just had to take the time to research its story.

Below are the photos that I took in all four directions while I was standing next to the object. Can you guess what it might be? The first person to leave a comment to this post with the right guess wins a Dunrovin Ranch sweatshirt! BUT, I am confident that you will NEVER guess.

The beauty of these three snow laden trees brought me out with my camera. These are special trees for our family. Our good friends, Larry, Colleen, and Kiana came to visit us from Alaska shortly after we moved back to my home state and purchased Dunrovin.

We were very busy planting tress to create an orchard, battling the “old growth nap weed” forest that dominated our fields and turn them into lush green horse pastures, building fences and sheds and barns, and basically settling in to a new way of life centered around horses and dogs and river and fields. We naturally engaged them in our endeavors – and one day they showed up with three small spruce trees to plant. We have thought of them over and over again as we have watched these trees grow and thrive.

Our friends have since moved to Missoula. They are been there for us through my recent years of illness and our trials with Missoula County. She owns a horse of her own and is rapidly becoming an accomplished horsewoman; he has helped us on many occasions with many projects leaving quality, artistic work wherever he goes; and Kiana is a lovely young woman about to graduate from high school with a stellar academic record. These are friends that have long ago melded into family and we are thankful for them every day.  We rejoice in these trees.

Once outside, I couldn’t help myself from wondering around. Somehow just holding a camera brings details of the world into focus. I kept seeing reminders of summer that were piled high with snow – the  picnic tables, the sitting benches, the fit pit with it up turned chairs, the barrels empty of flowers, the garden wagons and wheel barrel. They all sat there so quietly and contentedly in their winter white while they waited for the visitors of summer to return.

 

 

 

Dunrovin Ranch’s world is exactly as it should be to start 2015. Snow covered pastures and mountains, crystal clear blue skies, animals with woolly fur coats to keep them warm, and the Bitterroot River gaining more and more ice with each cold day all signal a real Montana winter. It is truly winter wonderland for the first day of a new year. We Montanans love these winters with cold temperature and heavy snows accumulates in the mountains that will keep our streams full and our forests green and fresh come summer.

There is something very mysterious about watching a river freeze – chunks of ice float by, little ice shelves form along the shore, and the sun raises little whiffs of steam off the water’s surface.

There is magic in watching a river freeze.

Instead of venturing out with Kola and Jewel and our usual morning walk after feeding the barn yard crew, I waited for the warmth of the midday sun. Kola has recently been refusing to come along as his feet would get cold in the sub zero temperatures of the last week. Try as he might, he simply can’t manage to walk without putting at least three feet down in the snow! I am glad that I waited. Kola happily went along and explored; I took my camera to capture some of the beauty of the river freezing; and Jewel was her usual impatient self whenever I would stray from my assignment of chucking the ball for her. It was a glorious way to start the new year. It seems that I will never tire of my little corner of this beautiful planet.

Kola was very interested in the ice as it floated by. He just know that he should be catching it – but THAT would mean getting his feet wet and he avoids that even in summer. He did find a couple of field mice to chase under the snow.

The cattail marsh is a favorite stopping place for all three of us regardless of the season. Winter’s solid ice invited us to explore deeper into its world of water and reeds and bushes and bogs. We found no open water for the ducks that are usually present – but the main river still provided plenty of ice free stretches.

Jewel’s disgust is ever apparent when I stop for photos. “What are you doing? Get that ball in the air!” I live with such a canine task mistress.

Dunrovin woke this Christmas morning to a quiet world blanketed with fresh snow.The total stillness left all the trees and bushes dressed in winter’s white lace. Grey skies highlighted a black and white world, then slowly cleared to reveal the sun and bring winter’s colors back to life. Christmas 2014 was simply beautiful and peaceful – exactly as it should be.

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas

Surviving

Written by Danielle Lattuga

The simple act of running one’s fingers through one’s hair rarely prompts a person to reflect on their purpose in life. It’s not about being an insensitive person, but more about the relatively unconscious acts that accompany us, as we tackle seemingly “larger” and more challenging tasks. Even if we are new to horseback riding, we are less likely to think about how a reign feels in our fingers and more about how we are going to stay on the horse. But, we notice the blue sky and that beauty is reflected in the expression of our faces when we comment on it to our friends, co-workers, or even strangers.

Shigeko Sasamori was 13 years old when she went to work as a student cleaning and “fire-scaping” the streets in Hiroshima City, Japan. She remembers the beautiful blue sky, on her first morning, and the shining silver plane flying overhead. Then there were “white things coming down” and a tremendous pressure that knocked her to the ground.

She came to, in pitch black and silence, “It was just like a dead city,” she has said.

She’d survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, by the sheer luck of the draw. Her mother had given her a new pair of pants to wear for work, and she was wearing them under her old pair, to protect them. The pants ended up protecting her, by providing enough layers to prevent her legs from being severely burned by the heat ray of the bomb. All around her, there were people with no clothing, just skin hanging off, and their hair had been burned to ash.

“I’ve never been to hell, but if there is a hell, (it is) probably like that.”

Slowly, her senses returned to her, and she heard a baby crying, and felt pain and euphoria, intermittently, as her body went through the shock. For five days in the searing hot summer of Japan, she survived with no food and water, speaking her name and address over and over, and asking for  water, whenever someone was near. Finally, someone heard her, went to the vicinity of her home, and helped to reunite her with her parents. They repeatedly rubbed her burned body with cooking oil, and she survived.

Ten years later, she was chosen as one of 25 “Hiroshima Maidens,” who were brought to the United States for reconstructive surgery. Because her legs had not been burned, she had healthy skin to use for skin grafts on her upper body and face.

Shigeko does not show expression in her face the way most people do, and her hands were damaged enough that she has limited mobility in her fingers. Yet, she is able to convey the power of singular moments with great emotion and clarity. She describes the world on very sensual terms and in a vivacious manner, even when she is narrating the tragedy that defined so much of her life and that of others around her.

Shigeko Sasamori visited Montana in August of 2008. She was part of a group of atomic bomb survivors touring the United States with Steven Leeper, the first non-Japanese head of the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation. The foundation administers a museum that explains the consequences and horrors of atomic and nuclear weapons. Leeper also lobbies for an international ban on all nukes called the Hiroshima-Hiroshima Protocol. Sasamori serves as the C.E.O. of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Peace Projects, L.L.C. She gave a talk to a capacity crowd at the University of Montana Student Center.

Then, she went for a horseback ride. Leeper and his wife Elizabeth were staying with his brother and sister-in-law, Sterling and SuzAnne Miller, during the group’s visit to Missoula. When Shigeko got wind of the fact that they were staying at Dunrovin Equestrian Ranch, she told Steve that she had always wanted to ride a horse. She was 78 at the time.

Miller willingly saddled up her pony, Cool Dude, because his size and demeanor would best suit an elderly petite woman, who wouldn’t be able to grasp the reigns very well. Then she gently walked the pony around the ring. Shigeko’s eyes smiled with a brilliance that Miller remembers vividly.

After several trips around the arena, Sasamori exclaimed, “Faster, I want to go faster!”

Miller began to run, with Cool Dude and Shigeko in tow, but still, it wasn’t fast enough. Sasamori repeated herself, “Faster, I want to go faster!”

Miller told her, “My legs can’t keep up. You will have to ride on your own.”

“After a few short instructions, I twined the reins through her deformed hands, and told her to give him a gentle kick. Off she went at a trot, then a soft canter. She was in heaven. We had to pry her off the horse, because we were going to be late for a dinner engagement with city dignitaries. She dismounted and when I showed her our garden, she said to me, “I love to cook vegetables. I am a good Japanese cook. I come cook for you and ride horses.””

Miller was moved by Sasamori’s spiritedness, “I could not help but think about what those eyes had seen in her remarkable life and how she chose to find joy and happiness in life, in spite of all that she had been through. Her experiences did not harden her to the world – but seemed to make everything sweeter for her.”

Sasamori continues to work towards a world free of atomic threats. SuzAnne Miller continues to bring horses into the lives of those who need it most. And perhaps there is one more person in the world, who savors the feeling of soft hair between their fingers and blue sky overhead, with grander passion and greater intent.