Within a week, the sun had dried out the new driveway and Mark fired up the skid steer to move the fallen gas tank to a temporary stand in the corral. The trick was to keep the vent above the gas level at all times.
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.The other trick was to see where he was going once the large barrel was in place on the forks.
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.In the meantime, I had found another little friend. Since Dilly was the most appreciative reader of my earlier lizard story, I decided to call this little fellow Dilly the Second (or D2 for short). He hung around, nipped at a few passing flies and eventually fell asleep on the back of my hand for a time.
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.As you can see above, he was definitely in the Brou Zone and in danger of the classic 'flying coyote pounce' so it was a good thing that he decided to stay with me. Luckily, Brou was completely distracted by the crows flying over the mesa at that point. Rather than put D2 back down on the porch, it seemed wiser to bring him along to the corral where Mark was heading blindly with the fuel tank.
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.By now, D2 seemed quite content to ride along on my upraised arm and seemed particularly impressed with what looked like a HUGE green bug headed his way through the corral gates.
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.He seemed even more fascinated with the gigantic yellow cricket which was holding that big green bug in its mandibles. "Wow!"
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.Finally Mark yelled out over the Deere noise "Would you PLEASE put your arm down, stop talking to yourself and tell me just where the hell I'm supposed to be going now?" It seemed a reasonable request and D2 disappeared as I lowered my arm. I checked my shoulders and pullover hood - no sign of D2. Great, now I was afraid to move lest I trample him as he lay well-disguised in the brown grass stubble at my feet. Finally I caught a glimpse of him scrambling off towards the Rat and I was able to walk towards the Deere without worry.
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The tricky part of the barrel roll off would be aligning the valve as close to 6 o'clock as possible since it was unlikely that we would be able to rotate the half-full barrel manually once it had dropped into position. Although Mark has developed a profound deafness to most of what I say on a good day, we have managed to contrive a series of hand gestures which work incredibly well when he has absolutely no other choice but to rely on my guidance. Accordingly, he was able to adjust the angle of the forks, drop down, come forward, forward a speck more, raise back up a little and hold it as we untethered the tank. We rolled the tank forward off the forks and TA-DAH! - a perfect landing position in the stand! Yee-haw! Times like this help make up for our other little communication disasters. I hope Dilly2 enjoyed his big adventure as much.
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35 comments:
I've seen a few reptiles out, there should be more today actually its quite warm, they are a little bigger than D2, I think theyd quite arsey if you tried to pick them up
Ohhh ... that's right, you're heading into the warm weather now, PopeT. Some of ours are also quite a bit bigger than D2 - the trick is to know which ones are venomous and which are not. Hmmm ... is it possible that St. Patrick sent all the reptos with a rude attitude off to Oz, much the same way they dispatched the human miscreants? You certainly seem to have your share of rude critters over there.
Brou is almost licking his lips in that shot! (I'd love to see his leap.)
Seems like things are progressing well - shouldn't be too long now, huh? Fingers crossed..
Shrinky, you'd die laughing at 'the pounce'. It is utterly comical unless you happened to be on the receiving end of it, I would suppose.
We are still a LONG way from finishing our plans out here, especially on our budget but any progress is encouraging.
...and TA-DAH! - a perfect landing position in the stand!
Ah, alls well that ends well...
Great photos, with words of the same caliber to go along. You paint such beautiful word pictures, Lin.
Nice lizard. Now go away. Don't mind me. I'm a city gal.
I like it when you take lots of pictures.
Thank you, Buck! It's such a treat to know that some folks are enjoying our tales.
Oh Babzy, you'd love them, honest! They even eat bugs (better than the cats do). And no pet hair and dander to worry about.
It's cool to see that you are game with the critters. I've had a huge amount of fun in my life chasing my mom and sis with rubber snakes and such. Too much fun. It's cool that you're not so easily askeeered.
Well-done to Mark on the tank-wranglin'!
D2 is SOOOO tiny! Incredibly cute! Is that full-grown size, or is it adolescent.
Brou is a handsome thing too - very fine head on that dog.
Mark was sooo not appreciative of your efforts to educate D2:)
Crows? LOL! I was wondering what Brou was fascinated with.
Mark did a great job to keep that tank in position.
I used to know some hand gestures. Don't use them anymore.LOL
FHB, my mom didn't appreciate my critter doings either. Oh wow, you just helped me remember the bullfrogs on the loose incident. They weren't rubber and mom was NOT amused at all, at all.
Phlegmmy, Mark lovzis his atta-boys so I hope he checks the comments and finds yours. If not, I'll have to tell him to go look but that takes some of the fun out of it. He'll be pumped and grinning when he finds it!
I think I need to learn more about these little lizards because I've seen even smaller ones than D2. I wish I knew if they were simply very young or just small adults. It's not like they start to grow chin hair so how DO you tell, I wonder?
Brou has turned out to be remarkable dog in every way - he's incredibly smart, he obeys and minds with very little training, he is born to herd cattle. And he is a sweetheart to boot.
Well what I find disturbing, Goddess, is that he probably DID think that I WAS just walking around talking to myself with my one elbow up in the air for no reason - like he knows something about me that I don't ... yet.
Brou and Daisy are always watching the sky. They go absolutely nuts when the crows circle overhead. It's their number one obsessive passion to charge up the mesa to roust them if they land in the big bristlecone pine.
Moose, we still use some of those 'other' standard hand gestures around here on the rare occasion. Did June break your fingers last time you tried that? Just wondering. (grin)
And Moose ... Mark will really appreciate your "Way ta go" on the tank move. He really is getting comfortable and proficient with that Deere. And driving blind like that? That was a LONG commute around the compound like that. Better than I could ever manage.
LOVE Dilly! I have a shot of a similar lizard that my son and I caught!
Simon, aren't they the most beautiful and innocuous little souls? I'd have a house full of them if it weren't for the cat and dog predators already well ensconced.
Hey, cool blog. Are you baby boomers? I 'collect' baby boomers.
I'm amazed at how hard you make Mark work while you "dilly-dally" with a lizard!
Of course I realize that most of the hard work was done by the "cricket!"
The "tank-landing" calls for a beer and a cigar! Wanna join me???
Fingers got broken a long time ago, along with the elbow. LOL
Hi Rhea - yep, we're boomers all right and doing appropriately foolish boomer things. I really appreciate you stopping by and leaving a hello!
Mushy, after all these years, I'm finally getting smart about delegating work, that's all, really!
I sure wish he's consign more work to that cricket though and less to his back.
Bruno, you really do need to move down here so that we can celebrate things right. When Slim disappears for the Summer and Fall, it gets downright 'too quiet' out here as far as any real social life and celebrations.
Geez, Moose, I hate to see a big bull fall but it sure looks good on you this far down the road!
I was able to unearth some more file boxes this week but still haven't found your original Alphonse graphic - I am bumming!
.... and city slickers reckon they've done it tough when their train is five minutes late.
this post and its dry humour puts life in perspective, Lin.
I also see sense in your theory (expressed separately) that we are siblings !!
My ex-mother-in-law, who I loved dearly, used to keep at least one lizard in her house, to eat bugs and such. Unfortunately, she called them scorpions. Let's just say she scared the turds out of me more than once until I figured out she was talking about lizards. Actually, I like reptiles. I think I even dated a few.
David, you know, our relocation out here has certainly changed our perspectives on inconveniences as well. We still have them but they're seem strangely different in nature.
I do suspect that one of us got the wrong wrist tag in the natal ward.
Deb (JM)! She called them scorpions'? I can certainly see where her comments about ignoring the scorpions around the house would give you cause for severe anxiety. I definitely draw the line at things that inflict damage on one's person myself.
And thanks for giving me my great laugh of the day.
lin, you'd better take good care of Mark. As I understand it, he taught himself how to drive that Cat. Nothing but admiration from me.
I have trouble driving a four wheel bus
Cat, you're right - after 20 minutes of delivery time hints from the salesman, he was on his own.
Then again, if I spoil him, he might go union on me and start demanding tea and scones at fifteen minute break intervals or something. Ya gotta keep them humble on some stuff, dontchya know.
OOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!
Ickol wagon!!!
Owwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!
Cewt!
Dilly like!
Awwww thank Lin for callin wagon Dilly2!!!!!!
MWEAH!
Dilly be GUD nayme for wagon!
MWEAH!
¬"
Ya know, Dilly, I thought Dilly2 was a perfect name for this little guy as well ... an equally handsome little dwagon if I ever saw one. I'm just hoping he'll come back for another arm ride soon, before winter hits us hard.
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