Those Elusive Elk!
Every year, Casey's boss, John Lambert, gets a couple of elk tags and free range rights on an expansive (we're talking nearly 6,000 acres) private ranch in the Fish Lake National Forest just south of Salina. The land owner, Dan Jorgensen, owns several historic homes that Abstract works on, and so the hunting and lodging at the old homestead ranch house is offered as trade for the masonry work. Casey has been down there several times to hunt. I'd gone once, several years ago, when Sophie was a few months old and was excited to be on the short list this year. No one else from Abstract could go this time, so Casey invited his parents and his brother Sean (along with his wife, Kim) to come down with us. For beautiful five days, we lived in this little piece of paradise: This is the ranch house where we stayed. Although this is the site of the original homestead house, built in the 1860s, that home burned down, and this one was built in the late 180...