KAREN LAND

Mushing, Running, and the Great Outdoors!

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The Island

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As a child, I loved watching reruns of the 60’s television comedy, “Gilligan’s Island.” The idea of becoming one of seven castaways on an uncharted, previously uninhabited island was oddly romantic to me. Of course, it was easy for me to relate to Gilligan, the bumbling and accident-prone crewman of the S.S. Minnow. But it wasn’t just one character that did it for me, it was the hodge-podge of pasts, personalities, interests and hang-ups of all the ill-fated passengers – the Skipper, Thurston Howell III, Lovey Howell, Ginger Grant, the Professor, and Mary Ann – that made the Island seem like a home.

A person can still feel alone living in a bustling city surrounded by millions of other people; when you live on an island, you don’t take your neighbors for granted, even if they are downright strange.

And then in the 90’s along came “Northern Exposure” – now, there was an addiction of mine. Residing in a tiny town in backcountry Alaska is pretty much the same as squatting on a spot of dry land amidst the immense Pacific Ocean – give or take a few or 6 feet of snow.

I was not only intrigued by a diverse handful of people gathered in a remote location just for the purpose of living, but I adored the vast space between these humans… and the next town… and the town after that.


( 4 Votes )
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Prego-Testing 101

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So far this season, cows are helping to temper my longing for sled dogs.
 
Since I moved to Martinsdale, I've had the opportunity to help out on the Cameron Ranch. My friends, PJ and Spunky, work as cowhands on Gil's family spread just at the bottom of the Little Belts.
 
I have the best of both worlds. I get to go play cowgirl on a beautiful ranch whenever the whim arises, and I can pass on those days when thirsty, snow encrusted cattle stand and stare at the water troughs - ice frozen hard as concrete.
 
A few weeks ago, I helped Gil and the girls pregnancy test cows. I was nominated the official record keeper and all around go-get-it girl.
 
I was also given the very important role of wiping the thick, greasy orange wax off the insides of the ears of cows that were missing tags. The wax needed to be cleared away in order to read their tattoo.
 
After an entire day of ear wax removal, I was amazed to find that my usually rough fingers and hands were now silky smooth. The girls and I decided that we should start scraping and bottling that wax to make hand cream out of it.
 
Unfortunately, this hand cream would be quite expensive because most cows don't stand still while I am trying to decipher their faded number hidden under a gooey layer of ear gum; no, they insist on thrashing their 300-lb. head this way and that way, snorting and spewing spittle in my face. "Karen's Bovine Blend" would be pricey stuff.
 
At the end of the second day of prego-testing, Gil asked if I wanted to give it a try. For those of you who don't know exactly how this process works, I'll give you a quick lowdown.
 
( 1 Vote )
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Tiny Terrorist

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Recently, Jigs (my German Jagd Terrier) discovered a fresh, hot passion.

In my new home, I have a small, antique woodstove that once was used on a train caboose. The stove body is tall and slender, standing several inches off the ground on four graceful legs.

Jigs took to the stove like Pooh to a honey hive. At first, he was reasonable and reclined on the rug just a few feet away. Over time though, Jigs inched closer and closer until finally he designated the hottest spot in the house – between the stove and the wall – as his and only his.

When the stove is roaring, Jigs refuses to budge from his oven-like corner. He remains sprawled out on the scorching ceramic tile, panting hard like he’d just sprinted several miles in the dead of summer. His watery, red eyes bug out of his head, his pulsing pink tongue hangs to the floor.

Jigs is purely miserable sitting that close to the fire, yet he snubs my pleas to come to the cool kitchen or go out into the snow and play.

Unfortunately, the woodstove isn’t my terrier’s first addiction.


( 2 Votes )
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A Montana Christmas

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No matter where Harriet S. Dusenberry roamed across the globe, she always called Montana home.

 

Harriet, born on a ranch in Lavina on July 24, 1911, cherished the stories from a simpler time growing up on the Trask Ranch along the Musselshell River.

 

She wanted her 3-year old granddaughter, Dru, to know what a frontier Christmas was like for her as a child, but she couldn’t just sit Dru down on her knee and share her experiences - granddaughter lived in Bozeman, and grandmother lived thousands of miles away in Nepal.

 

In 1952, Harriet and her husband, Harold, moved to Kathmandu on a two-year assignment with the U.S. Agency for International Development. This was the first time the couple had ever left the state of Montana.

 

“So my Grandma decided to write me a story,” Dru Dusenberry Robidou explained.

 

She found a Nepalese artist, named Chaitanya Muni Bajracharya, to create illustrations, showing him an American Christmas magazine and the work of Norman Rockwell so he could visualize the style.

 

Harriet asked the artist to design a rough draft of painted pictures, but instead, he returned with a gorgeous, finished product. The book cost Harriet several hundred rupees, much more than she could afford at the time, but still she was pleased. The book was perfectly done just as her mind had imagined it.


( 2 Votes )
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That'll Do

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When I realized this column would be published on Thanksgiving Day, I knew it was time to write about Pig.

 

Some feelings and memories are so easy to pour into words; others stick inside the head and the heart like honey at the bottom of a jar taking its own slow, sweet time to finally make its way to the lip.

 

I still can’t speak of my beloved Iditarod lead dog without tears, but when I think of Pig and her life and all of the places we explored together and the people I met with her - because of her - I am filled with thanks.

 

I might not be able to find the exact words just yet, but I need to start somewhere.

 

Pig, my great girl, passed away on July 23, 2009 at the age of 12 years old. At the time, she was retired and living in Ellettsville, Indiana with Sue and Larry DeMoss, two amazing friends who offered to care for her in her final years. I will always be thankful to them for providing the secure, loving and peaceful home that Pig deserved. She was in the perfect place when she left this world, surrounded by people who love her just as much as I do.


( 3 Votes )
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Houseplants: A burden or a blessing?

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HouseplantUntil recently, I had never owned an indoor plant. I was never in one place long enough to commit myself to a cactus even.

My new home came complete with 30 houseplants. At first, this was exciting to me. I always enjoyed stepping into my friends’ homes filled with foliage. There’s nothing like bringing a little of the green outdoors indoors, especially during the cold and gray winter months in Montana.

Even when my new house was empty and I was just moving in my belongings, greenery already graced every kitchen and living room window, adding an abundance of life to a hollow space and immediately making my new house feel like a home. Many of these plants have lived in this tiny abode for over 10 years. I thought it was best to let them remain in the exact spot where they are happy - in the sills and on the shelves where they’ve been thriving for so long.

I saw these mature plants as roommates; afterall, they were here first. I’d do the watering and feeding and cleaning up and they’d just sit there, provide oxygen, purify the air, look pretty. Plants are supposed to have a calming effect and, in the beginning of our relationship, I felt this was true.

But after a few weeks, some of my plants began to wither, turn yellow, shed their leaves. I panicked and doused each of my potted pals with a tall glass of water. I had no idea when they’d last had a drink.


( 2 Votes )
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Home Sweet Home

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Karen and Borage HomeI once had a boyfriend who would say, “Now, there’s a house for you…” every time we’d drive past an old, abandoned farmhouse, half-sunken into the sagebrush and missing every pane of glass from its warped window-frames.

I didn’t dare ask if this oblique remark was a commentary on my bank account, my fondness for junky antiques, or my desire to live among many animals and spend a good portion of the day outside. Maybe his observation was a poke at my preference for solitude or my refusal to be tied to anything too sound or stationary.

Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

Either way, the people who know me well understand that I am a romantic. I wasn’t putting off purchasing a house because of a lack ability to commit (as one crazy ex insinuated). I was waiting until a place swept me off my feet. I was holding out until I fell in love with a house – the right one.

Guess what? I’m in love.


( 3 Votes )
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A Once-Wild Winnie

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Shelly and WinnieStanding at just under 13 hands, Winnie is a little mustang with a big history and an even bigger heart.

“She seemed grateful,” Shelly Henss, a longtime friend, explained. “After all she’s been through, she really appreciated the attention.”

For almost 20 years now, I’ve enjoyed watching Shelly professionally groom, train, and show dogs. When I heard about her most recent four-legged project, I was curious to see what she’d done with a 4-year old wild horse from Utah.

“I just treated her like a dog,” Shelly said.

And it shows. When I first met Winnie at a small backyard boarding stable in Martinsville, Indiana, the portly bay pony with an unruly mane carefully poked at my pockets with her rigid muzzle. The government wild horse freeze mark on her neck was the only indication that I was feeding stale marshmallows to a mustang who had once freely roamed the mountains of Utah.

( 1 Vote )
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My Flying Tent

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My Flying TentI was exhausted when I arrived at the Chief Joseph Campground in Harlowton, MT, last Saturday just after dark. I’d been driving since 7 am; it was time to stop and sleep. A pleasant breeze whistled through the cottonwoods as I staked down all four corners of my tent, snapped the poles together, popped up the body, threw the fly over the top and anchored it all down. I tossed a sleeping pad and bag, pillow, book, headlight, gallon jug of water, and a can of Pringles through the door.

My little dogs opted to sleep on their plush beds in the truck. Borage, my husky, decided to start out the night with me – eventually, he gets too hot and scratches lightly on the screen, wanting back outside to sleep in the cool grass.

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

An hour later I woke up in a disoriented stupor, pushing up in a panic on whatever was now plastered to my face.

“What the…” I said wrestling with the thin fabric like I was a fly caught in a web.

And then my foggy brain put it together – my tent was shrink-wrapped to my face, my entire body, by a fierce, roaring wind.


( 1 Vote )
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Revisiting Wounded Knee

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Recently, my mom and I were given an astonishing and generous gift - three thick, stale-smelling binders bulging with yellowed paper, torn newspaper clippings, and old photographs.

“You can take them home and read them and copy whatever you want,” Rita Maxfield, my newly discovered, distant relative offered. “Nobody else in my family is interested in this stuff.”

Two summers ago, I wrote a column about visiting the Wounded Knee massacre site and burial ground in South Dakota. I made a pilgrimage there, hoping to learn more about my great, great grandfather, Colonel Hugh Daniel Gallagher.

Col. Gallagher was the Pine Ridge Indian agent, appointed by President Cleveland, from Sept. 29, 1886 to the fall of 1890.

This branch of my family tree has always intrigued me. Col. Gallagher and his wife, Mary Ellen, moved their five children westward in search of adventure. During his service on the reservation, Col. Gallagher became friends with Chief Red Cloud and many Oglala Sioux.

According to the Red Cloud Indian School website, “The local Indian agent, a well-loved man named Colonel Gallagher, permitted children of the government schools in the area to attend the Mission school instead if they chose.”

All of Gallagher’s children - Charles, Bernard, Adele, Albert, and Anna Agnes - went to the Red Cloud School with the Lakota.


( 2 Votes )
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Pain in My Heel

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The first night I tried to fall asleep with a plantar fasciitis night splint strapped around my left foot and calf, I felt like I was wearing a downhill ski boot to bed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought as I reclined flat on my back and looked down at my painted pink toenails jutting out from their plastic prison.

Plantar fasciitis is pain and inflammation of the plantar fascia, a thick band of tissue which runs across the bottom of your foot and connects your heel bone to your toes.

My mom suffered for years from plantar fasciitis; she stopped taking walks because of it. I have friends that can’t play tennis, backpack, and hunt because of unbearable heel pain. When I went to purchase my night splint at the local pharmacy, I met a construction worker who said he had to crawl to the bathroom in the morning because his heel “hurt like hell.”


( 2 Votes )
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Into the Walmart Wild

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Every time I drive by a Walmart, I glance towards the back of the lot to see who might be parked there. Like many other giant box stores, truck stops, and restaurants, Walmart - loved by some and despised by others - allows weary travelers to use their extra blacktop as a place to camp overnight.

Usually I see at least a few massive, half million-dollar RV’s, towing cars and boats and motorcycles, taking up at least a dozen of the seldom-used spots along the far edge of the lot.

Other times I’m delighted to catch a hippie bus or VW van tucked away under one of the few small trees that dot the expansive pavement with a lick of cool shade.

Traveling alone like I do, I realize car camping can be dangerous. A single woman sleeping in a tent or vehicle along a public road can be a target for troublemakers. If I don’t plan to hike into the backcountry so far out of reach that lazy thugs lose their ambition to mess with me, I chose to camp in designated or pay campgrounds with other (fairly normal-looking) people nearby. My dogs, a honking can of bear spray, and a firearm (where legal) never hurt either.


( 1 Vote )
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