After loading the bull, we took off to check the water pipelines. A winter storm is on the way and like your home water systems, water pipelines must be emptied to prevent freezing and bursting.
Not far from these tanks is a curious homestead. I finally asked Vernon to stop and let me explore it. All the other times we’ve been past here, we’ve been on “missions” without time to spare.
On this narrow, rocky spot lay the remains of a house. No water but a tiny spring far below in a steep draw. No easy access especially for a team and wagon. A place that would roast in the summer with the sun beating off the rock.
Why here?
Not far away was an open sagebrush covered flat area. For a homesteader, it would have been “easy” to grub that out. Easy to build a house there and not here! Two stoves rested among the lumber. I didn’t find much for garbage and I wonder how long they stayed. Of all the places along a creek, in a meadow, under a tall cottonwood… why here?
It just makes you wonder.
I wonder if the house had a good view of either sunrise or sunset and they wanted to enjoy that.
If we knew the location on the map we could search the homesteat patent?
What a find!
I would imagine that their heart and soul was put into that house at the time it was built.