Saturday, August 22, 2009

Sky Mountain Ranch







The first two weeks of August I spent my time up in Victor Idaho as a mentor for the Boy's Ranch that is up there. It is always so good to be there. I feel like it is a spiritual catalyst and it really hehelps me to put my life and other things into perspective.
The boys up there this time were great and I heard so many many funny things from them. I wish I could hang out with those kids more but the two weeks is over and I think their parents would ththink badly of an adult asking if he could come pick up their kids to hang out...and they'd be justified.
Up at the ranch we do many things to help in the process of growing and learning. A lot of that is in the work that the boys do up there. We cook all of the meals ourselves, which is a big job to feed 40 people. Each bunk house takes turns doing the meals and then another bunk house will take their turn cleaning up after the meals. It is great to learn how to cook some too. Then there are animals up there for us to take care of. The Goats need milked, "but what for" you may ask and I have the same question. I guess just to milk them, we throw it to the pigs usually and they love it. Then there are also lots of other jobs on a ranch that need done. My favorite one to do was move the irrigation pipe. I moved pipe for four summers growing up and I love telling those boys war stories of when I used to move pipe. The pipe I moved were bigger, the lines were longer, the flies not only bit us but they kicked us too, the days were hotter, the bike ride to the feild was miles and miles....that sort of thing. I don't think they believe half of what I say, but I don't blame them.
There is a place in the valley that sells huckelberry milk shakes and a big part of being a mentor is constantly being nagged about going down to get a shake and equally denying their requests. The shop is called the emporium, but we call it the Implorium, cause they are forever asking to go down and waste their money. We give in every once in a while and it is fun, but dang those milk shakes are expensive. I don't even like the huckelberry shakes. I always get the banana milk shake and then I go to the front of the store and grab a reese's peanut butter cup and take it back to the milk shake counter and tell them, "smash this bad boy up there, would ya?" And they do, and I love it.
My favorite part of the two weeks is the backpack trip. This time I got to go to the palisades lakes. They are really pretty at sunset and sunrise.
Then at the end of camp all of the bunk house groups built an animal. The animals turned out looking really awesome actually. I was really stoked at how awesome they looked. But they were thrown together super fast, like one night and I am not sure that the moose my group built stood through it's entire first night. Oh well, I got some good pictures while it lasted.
One of the most important things we do up there is the spiritual connections we help the boys make. We look for lessons in nature where we can learn from it's example and the boys teach each other. The boys always have such good insights and thoughts to teach, it is great.


2 comments:

  1. Ay there Matt. Your beat is correct. In this context that means I liked reading your post.

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  2. The Huckleberry Shakes are amazing Matt. That's why we work -- to purchase the 10 minutes of huckleberry heaven.

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