Gettin' Down-n-Dirty

Yep, D-I-R-T-Y!

The spring and summer of 2016 were...well, dirty! With a combination goal of making our new home more "ours," and in preparation for Hallie's wedding reception on our front lawn, I found myself reverting to my childhood. I kept digging in the dirt again and again and again.

It started with our greatest need. Because of the increasing slope of our driveway, there's a 30-inch dropoff on the east side of it. Needless to say, that's a pretty steep step for the grandkids let alone an aging 50+ year old like myself. 

Lori and I responded to a Craigslist ad for free railroad ties. We drove to the house, dug them out of the ground, lugged them to my truck and lifted them into the bed. Once we got home the work began. 

There was already a cement slab in the grass (for some reason) so I dug out a foundation between it and the side of the driveway so the bottom or fifth stair would be the slab itself. Along the way, I came across a lot of stone including one rock the size of a small duffel bag. (It now sits in the front flower bed.) As I started to lay out and design the 8-foot long outdoor staircase I soon realized I needed more railroad ties so I went and bought a few more of them.I used a circular saw to cut the side pieces, drilled 1/2-inch holes and used 18-inch pieces of rebar and a sledge hammer to hold the framing together and secure it all to the ground.

Before...

After stacking and securing all the stairs, the entire framework was in place. Kyler grabbed his shovel and together we scooped dirt back into the framework until it was packed down and filled. Then we jumped into my truck for a drive to the back pasture where there's a big pile of native rock someone had obviously formed years earlier to clear the field. We sorted through the rocks and picked out those of proper size to add to the steps. We added the rock, swept and sprayed away the excess dirt and the outdoor staircase was ready for use. 

...and after

Since I was already coated from head-to-toe in dirt, I decided to build a second such set of stairs off the back deck to replace the six cinder blocks that previously served the same purpose. Though just two steps, this project would be much prettier but just as efficient and effective. The previous homeowner left behind two eight-foot planks which appear to be leftovers from the raised garden. The result was great.

...but much more attractive

Just two steps...

Other down-n-dirty outdoor projects included hauling in dirty to form two rock-lined flower beds. (Boy do the deer LOVE flowers--even those plants the nursery said deer didn't like.) Kyler and I put in a couple of horseshoe pits. Our last project is what we call the "Parowan Pit." I'm guessing the old, rusted metal ring was some sort of feeder back on the family farm in Parowan, Utah. We dug the hole, dropped the ring into place and it now stands ready for use as a fire pit and ultimate smores zone.

Flower bed #1 with an old Parowan plow centerpiece from the family farm

Flower bed #2

Horseshoe pit

Me and my best building buddy Kyler

Welcome to the...

...ultimate Smores Zone!

Our Own Personal Barn (Door) Raising

It was my wife's idea, and a dang good one at that! In order to make our new-to-us home more "ours," and to give it a little more of the farm style flair she desired, we embarked on a throwback project. I call it "throwback" because the last time I'd made furniture with my quasi-dormant woodworking skills was more than three and a half decades earlier in high school. The goal was to remove the sliding doors from the entry way closet and replace them with a barn door, built from scratch, and then hang it on a roller system.

Kelly lending a hand

I relied on a family friend, Kelly Laga, for direction and for the use of his shop in the Bitterroot Valley--thanks Kelly! I decided to go with soft maple--wood that was easy to work with and featuring a nice woodgrain. After purchasing the wood I loaded it up and headed to Kelly's. I cut the boards on a radial arm saw to a raw length of approximately six feed wide by seven feet in height, ripped some of them on a table saw and then ran them all through the jointer to prepare them to be glued. We then butted them up to each other, applied the glue, attached the large clamps and allowed them to dry. Kelly glued the second batch of planks the following evening and then glued both sides together. 

I came up a little shy in width so I made another trip to the lumber yard, repeated the process, applied the glue and then returned following work on another day. We made the final cuts for length and then it was time to sand and sand and sand. I felt like I inhaled a couple of board feet worth of saw dust but then got smart enough to get a mask when I returned to continue the process. 

Once the main door base was good to go I cut the design pieces out of the leftover boards. Lori wanted it done in that fashion so it looked like two doors butted up to each other. I glued and clamped the perimeter pieces in place and then Kelly glued the rest the following day. After another round of sanding, the door was ready to be transported back to my place for staining and hanging. 

We decided to stain the door the same color as the new molding we were in the process of installing on our home's main floor. We had ordered the hardware online and attached the rollers to the door.

The door was so big, heavy (I'm guessing about 160 pounds or so), bulky and awkward to carry that Kenny and I waited until Jace was home to help move it from the garage to the front entry way. A few days later Lori and I worked together to locate the studs and drill the tracking into place. Then, somehow, the two of us raised the barn door by lifting the beast into place. 

Mission accomplished! It was glorious! We rolled it back and forth again and again and again, kinda like a couple of kids who have a new play toy. When the door opens and the entire closet is exposed, it covers up the entry way to the kitchen. 

Now it stands in place as evidence that throwback skills can be brought to life, especially if you have a good idea, some good guidance, good tools and good help. 

Still Puzzled

Topeka, Kansas

I left the broadcast news business more than four years ago. I spent the previous 24 years doing the TV thing--14 years as a sportscaster/reporter and 10 years as a news anchor/reporter. Looking back on that very public career I remain perpetually puzzled. My latest television-related conversation is a perfect indication of what I'm talking about. It went something like this.

"I'm curious. What exactly did you study in college so you could become a TV weatherman?" I was asked.

"I never did the weather," I responded.

"Really?"

"Nope. I was a news anchor my last 10 years in the business and did sports for 14 years before that but I never did the weather."

"Man, I could've sworn you did the weather."

Spokane, Washington

Conversations and comments similar to this didn't happen just a handful of times either. I'd say more than a couple of dozen times. I guess I could maybe understand a teeny bit why they take place in Montana. After all, a meteorologist at the rival station has the same first name as me but that is the only thing we have in common. Viewers would get my last name right but some people, like passersby in Walmart, would say something like,"Hey there's Mark Holyoak, Mark, how 'bout that weather forecast for tonight?"

Spokane, Washington

The thing is I somehow got that same label in Washington and Kansas. In both locations I only reported on sports--NOT the weather.

The funny thing is that even when I was in college at Brigham Young University and taking upper level classes in broadcast communications, I always found a way to wriggle out of my assigned day to do the weather on our live nightly newscast.

Now, it's all kind of evolved into a running joke between my wife and I over the years. I'd tell her about weather-related comments somebody makes to me. She'd then roll her eyes and we both get a chuckle out of it.

So life goes on. And as it does, my TV career gets farther and farther behind me in the rear view mirror but I'm sure the bizarre conversations will continue. There's probably at least a 50 percent chance of that happening anyway.

Missoula, Montana

Topeka, Kansas

Hobbling Across the Finish Line

In my final game of the 2016 softball season I stood on third base with two outs. At the plate, a teammate laced a clutch line drive single to right field. As I jogged down the third base line and then planted my foot on home plate, the umpire raised both hands above his head and yelled, "Ballgame!" Taco Johns run-ruled its opponent to the tune of a 19-7 victory.

It was a good season. Check that, it was a great season with a great group of guys. Unfortunately, we dropped our last two games of the regular season and fell out of first place. But for the first time ever, I felt like I was physically hobbling across the finish line.

During batting practice the final day of the season, I took an innocent-looking ground ball just above my right ankle. It wasn't hit very hard (and yeah, I should've not let it under my glove) but it hit in the exact same bruised spot as a harder ground ball during a game earlier in the week. It hurt like a big dawg! I guess it was a fitting way to end the season. My pains began during our first practice of the year when I lost a stinger-of-a-line-drive in the setting sun. It tattooed me squarely in the right shin. I hobbled around like someone had just shot me. The next day it swelled up to the size of my right knee. It was so tender that I could almost feel it with each beat of my heart. The tenderness of it all knocked me out of my first two games of the season.

As the season continued, other pains both new and old kicked in. My left ankle (from an basketball injury 16 months earlier--see photo on left) was an off-again, on-again gimpy situation. My right groin (which never seems to loosen up from eight years of climbing over the boards while playing hockey) was also an on-again, off-again situation. Luckily, the old right shoulder impingement from softball seasons gone by did not manifest itself but a new pain did--in my right hamstring. On some nights it felt like I had a couple of bricks attached to it as I lumbered around the bases. It also especially worried me after watching a teammate totally blow out his hamstring and crumple to the ground after sprinting to first base.

Weider home gym

So I'm 53 years old and the oldest guy on my team by eight years. I have friends about the same age who say now (or sooner) is the time of our lives when knees, shoulders and other muscles and joints start to give out. So given the past season of aches and pains I really have two main options:

A) Decide that "I'm old," give up the active sporting lifestyle, spend more time in the recliner and look back on my days in the field and on the court.

B) Heal, have a great fall hiking in the mountains during hunting season and then turn my attention to  Mr. Weider in the basement to get stronger and seek to defy my age by being a 54-year-old who performs more like a 44-year-old on the diamond next summer.

I choose B.
#bringit

My Own Piece of Montana

My "driveway"

I still pinch myself! I get up first thing in the morning to take the dog outside only to watch the sun pop up above the mountains and spray down rays of sunshine through the branches of my own personal forest of towering Ponderosa pines. It's truly a glorious thing.

I really never thought I'd have my own 10 acres of Montana, (actually it's soon to be six acres-that's another story for another day) but now that we do I absolutely love it. There's really nothing like the smell of being in the woods in the mountains. A passing rain shower only enhances the senses.

Vegetation in the mountains is vibrant, colorful and brings life to everything--especially in the springtime. My favorites are the mighty Ponderosas. I love watching them sway in the breeze. When I'm hunting I love to take a break by sitting down and leaning against a pine tree on a mountain ridge to scan for animals and to just take in the landscape's beauty. We are fortunate to have hundreds of pine trees on our place which are a perfect compliment to the many wildflowers on the forest floor.

And seeing all the wild critters is a big, big bonus! After all, that is what Montana is all about. Right after we arrived at the new property, a serviceman claimed he saw a mountain lion walking across our place. If true, it's certainly not hard to see why. We had a whitetail doe that raised her three fawns in our neck of the woods. Last year, a big fur ball of a black bear ran across the dirt road right in front of my truck a mere 100 yards from our property. Just this spring, we saw a black bear sow climb down one of our trees some 40-50 yards off to the side of our home. Her cub shimmied down the next tree over. Other wildlife on the property include elk, wild turkey, raccoons, squirrels, and birds of all sorts including bald eagles, turkey buzzards, woodpeckers and an array of song birds. Having the neighbor's horses in our back pasture is a bonus as well.

The bottom line is there's a very calming influence to living out in nature. It's peaceful, relaxing and down-right enjoyable. Living there is a reward in and of itself.

Where we live

Mama bear and her cub

The back pasture

And Then There Were Two

The 2016 softball season feels a little different--not bad at all, just different.

Russ (left) and me

It was back in the summer of 2004 or so that a handful of us got together to form a men's rec league softball team. Russ Thomas, a relatively newly hired co-worker, took the reins as manager. We gathered up some friends and friends-of-friends. The core of the group included Russ, Jay Allen, Travis Munden, Greg "Rabbit" Myers and me. Before long we had a full roster and started a long run of spending our summers together in the same dugout and on the same diamond.

Not long after our inaugural season together, possibly our second go-round, Russ lined up a main sponsor that still faithfully sticks by us. That's why we're known to all we go up against as Taco Johns.

We had a lot of good guys, good players (and I mean a LOT) come and go. The first of Taco Johns' founding fathers to leave the nest was Rabbit. Greg moved away several years ago but was temporarily back in town and for a weekend tournament last summer. (Or was it the summer before last?) Anyway, we established ourselves over the years as one of the better teams in our division with one of the better records. I don't know the exact totals but we advanced to the Montana state softball tournament at least a handful of times and placed among the top 15 most every appearance.

And that brings us back to 2016. We're just five games into the new season (with a not too shabby 4-1 record I may add) but like I said, thing are a little different. Jay and Travis left their Taco Johns playing days behind and are no longer with us. That leaves just Russ and me as the remaining original founding fathers still trying to slug our way out of the batter's box. (Okay, still trying to bloop our way out of the batter's box.) And I find myself as the oldest guy on the team by almost eight years.

Travis, me, Russ & Jay (left to right) in what turned out to be our last game together
(Yeah, Travis has a really, really long left arm)

Still, it's great to be back on the diamond. It's great to be out there with the guys. It's great to play.

2011

2011

2015

2016

The Fantasy Slam

I have always loved sports. I love to play. I love to compete.I love playing alongside good teammates. (I love to win, too.)

Perhaps not so surprisingly, I started my professional career two weeks after college graduation by accepting a job as a television sportscaster in Topeka, Kansas. I spent ten years in Kansas before heading west to accept another sportscaster position in Spokane, Washington. After four years there, I'd covered sports on all levels for 14 consecutive years but it was time to move on. I left my sports days behind to move over one seat on set to accept a newscaster position in Missoula, Montana.  

No longer covering sports on a day-to-day basis as a profession allowed me to become more of a fan again. It was refreshing. And that's when I was introduced to fantasy sports. To me, it was a perfect way to keep up to speed on some of my favorite sports and teams without having to dive in the deep end and track every trend, statistic and happening on a daily basis.

That was 2004. Since then I drafted scores of fantasy teams from the NHL, NFL, MLB and filled out a batch of NCAA basketball tournament brackets. I don't always fare so well but I don't do too badly either thanks to 22 league "championships" from my 80 teams. But it wasn't until earlier this year that I finally racked up my personal version of the fantasy slam--consecutive basketball, hockey, football and baseball fantasy wins.

And it's a good thing I checked that off my bucket list because after checking tonight's latest standings, my 2016 fantasy baseball team just got smoked again and I dropped into 11th place in a 12-team league. Oh well, bring on football season!