Deere herding - Our New Big Boy Toy Arrives!

A now late associate once told me that a divorce usually meant good news for the auto industry; that people were inclined to reward themselves with a new car after enduring a very ego-deflating process. In our case, I could justify the big splurge on a new toy as a minor salve upon the indignity of surviving the past year without running water, a washing machine, a flush toilet, regular income and many other things which we and most people take for granted as minimum standards of living. The reason we bought new as opposed to used had its very practical side. Since they are pricey new, most people use them until they are thoroughly beaten before replacing them. Neither of us are familiar with working on diesels or hydraulics and we live at least 3 hours from the nearest professional mechanical help. After the used pick-up truck affair, neither of us were going to go there again. We are in a situation in which our isolation forces a very different set of rules and considerations upon us. We have learned the hard way that advice only counts from someone in our same situation since no one is around to help us out of a bind caused by poor judgment, not unless we can snag Virgil on his way by and impose upon his and his company's good will policy. It is a great policy but not one that we care to rely upon.

.

This is really more Mark's announcement than mine since he will be using it to re-contour our terrain, auger out new fence and foundation post holes and, in general, just doing stuff that guys feel compelled to do. Remember all that "Vroom-V-R-O-O-M!!" in the sand box with the sturdy Tonkas? I don't think real guys ever quite get over that primordial drive, they just grow up and bury that drive with more practical concerns. After ordering the beast, we chuckled while Mark read a WSJ article aloud on the appeal of the classic "Bobcat" as a much desired big toy for those grown up guys who just want to play around in the dirt again. When asked what special (read 'pricey') present he would like for his birthday, Harrison Ford said that he had all the road vehicles he had ever wanted but that he could REALLY enjoy a skid steer. I suspect that he speaks for a lot of grown up boys. So I will turn the announcement over to Mark now:

.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

After several delays, the new skid steer was finally delivered on Wednesday. The previous week's delivery was postponed due to a winter storm watch that never quite materialized in our region. Tuesday's delivery was cut short when the delivery truck driver was confronted with the first of two 10-ton limit one lane bridges that lie between civilization and our ranch. This limit was well below the GVWR of the semi that had been selected to make the delivery since the shop had to pick up a much larger piece of agricultural equipment from another farm in the area.

.

On Wednesday, the delivery vehicle was a flat bed pick-up truck with a twenty foot gooseneck trailer ... just the right ticket to haul the diminutive skid steer across the limited access bridges and on to our ranch. The delivery team consisted of the dealership salesman in his private pickup truck and the delivery truck driver. The salesman was an hour ahead of the delivery truck and arrived at our neighbor's ranch after I directed him into the canyon via cellphone. I met him there and he followed behind to our homestead where we went through the paperwork over coffee while awaiting the delivery vehicle. When the delivery truck finally arrived, I suggested that the driver unload the skid steer out in the road but the driver cavalierly chose to back the gooseneck trailer containing the machine onto what vaguely constitutes our driveway. This turned out to be a major mistake as he got his rear left wheels off the road surface and into a snow bank-covered ditch. To add to his error, the driver had failed to bring along any tire chains - again against our very specific recommendations. But not to worry ... there was a brand new skid steer on the trailer which would quickly remedy this problem. So the new skid steer was called upon to prove its mettle. We hooked up a tow chain between the truck's front tow hooks and the skid steer and the salesman fired the little beast up. Nothing doing ... the truck's rear wheels dug themselves through the surface snow onto the underlying sheet of ice. I brought out some tire chains to place in front of the truck's rear wheels to give them something to bite onto but these were unceremoniously and repeatedly expelled to the rear of the truck with little if any forward progress. In a last ditch effort, I grabbed a sheet of plywood out of barn and placed it lengthwise in front of the right rear tires. Between that and the skid steer pulling with all its might, the driver was able to get the rear wheels onto the plywood and the truck freed itself. Now we had to get the truck and trailer turned around and headed back the way he came. Since backing up had proven disastrous, I suggested that the driver go up to a gas well up the road a piece and drive around the well and back out onto the road facing the right direction. Although the well was too far ahead to ascertain exactly what had gone wrong, we could soon hear the unmistakable sound of a high revving engine in the distance that told us the driver was stuck again. The salesman took off on the skid steer with plywood and tire chains in the front bucket on a second rescue mission. Apparently, the delivery truck was not as deeply stuck this time and, in a few minutes, the delivery truck was headed back home. The driver paused briefly at our drive to thank us for our assistance and was quickly on his way. We offered to lend him our tire chains in case he got stuck again but the driver declined. He assured us that he wasn't about to leave the tire tracks of the main road for any reason and would NOT get stuck again. After a few rudimentary operating and safety instructions, the salesman followed after him to make sure he got back to the shop some three hours away. When I had initially talked to the salesman the previous month, I was assured that the dealer would deliver the skid steer at no cost even though our ranch was about 20 miles beyond their normal free delivery radius. We suspect that they won't make that mistake again.

.

I was too tired to practice with the skid steer much during what was left of the delivery day and, after hooking up the pallet forks and moving the pallet with the auger and auger bits into the barn, called it a day. Anxious to get a few hours under my belt, I did hook up the bucket attachment on Friday afternoon and plowed a path from the road to the barn's front and side entrances. The unit definitely had more power than the two lawn tractors we left behind and was more than up to the task at hand. I found the hand controls to be somewhat less than intuitive and managed to dump snow into the cab by tilting the bucket in the wrong direction but was soon making good progress. Learning to use the auger and grapple attachments will have to wait until the spring thaw arrives in a few months.

.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.

So there you have our exciting 'news du jour' from out here in the boonies. To all my guy buddies out there - go ahead, be honest with yourself... eat your heart out. But that's okay; if you come to visit, we'll let you play with this new big boy toy.

.

In the second photo, you will see Brou doing what he does instinctively ... herding. At every opportunity, he herds cows, cats, crows, us (#@%!) and now deer - John Deere, that is.

.

Why I Now Seldom Leave The Canyon ... Part 3

.

Retrospect: May 2006

.

And so we continued to play among the stacks of full dimension lumber, this builder's dream land. The bright, hot weather and our concentration were interrupted by a number of events including a few brief pelting rains, a quick dust storm, a neighbor wanting a stump base for target practice and yet another neighbor wanting to use the phone to report a fire. It was then that Skeeter discovered that they no longer had either phone service or electricity. Under the circumstances, the drone of heavy prop-driven planes became more meaningful. These guppy-bellied planes had been drawn to the ever increasing smoke which I had noticed earlier. Before they flew away, they would circle and finally drop bright red/orange chemicals onto what was now an unmistakable forest fire. After a parching ten year drought, this event was nothing to ignore. Earl fired up the big fork-lift and quickly put our lumber on the trailer before noting that they needed to check on a relative's house right in the fire's path.

.

We pulled the heavy trailer out onto the road and realized that we had no choice but follow the two lane highway right through the heart of the fire frenzy. It was a circus of insanity with emergency vehicles screaming past every minute or two and festive gawkers pulling off to the side of the road every few hundred yards. The town we had to pass through was being evacuated, pronto. A wide and heavy load on an unfamiliar trailer being pulled by a truck we were not 100% confident with, in the midst of complete mayhem - we were a little 'on edge', to say the least. Which one of these idiots would be the next to slam on the brakes to pull into a good viewing spot or pull out in front of us with our recent brake job still not tried to the fullest measure? Sure enough, the truck in front of us pulled off abruptly, causing Mark to swing out around him in avoidance. Just when both of us were on the verge of a stroke, an emergency vehicle siren screamed deafeningly to life behind us. Ratchet up the blood pressure another 50 or 60 points. Apparently, the truck in front of us had noticed the silent cop car behind us; the reason for his sudden pull off. Mark, as unhinged as I at this point, had not been looking in his rear view mirrors around the wide load for silent predators. Rather than pass us by as we found the first spot to pull over without capsizing the load into the deep ditches, the officer pulled in behind us. Realization hit us with a hammer blow. Great, Mark, you just cut off a cop, an undoubtedly angry one at that ... we are screwed, Buddy. The officer jumped out of his car and, with spittle flying, launched into the most impressive exercise using the 'f' word in every possible grammatical situation possible. He had covered nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and more by the time he reached the cab. Mark, now much wiser with age, looked downwards and chose to utter a simple "I am VERY, VERY sorry", despite some arguable points such as the lack of siren use. I don't doubt from the man's beet-red face, language and gesturing that he could have leapt into a violent physical attack and thoroughly enjoyed it. I truly cannot recall seeing anyone, anyone, Barney Fife-ish hyper or not, acting quite that insanely angry. I subconsciously gave him a 10.9 performance score on a scale of 10.

.

Whether it was Mark's complete lack of confrontation or seeing my own eyes-closed, ashen pallor is hard to say but he turned on his heels with another barrage of fluent 'f' words and laid a screaming strip of rubber past us without further official formalities. My, that was certainly the right way to encourage us to keep a calm and level head during an emergency. For the next ten miles, we weren't sure if we were going to have the big one or just plain throw up.

.

It was a relief to finally see the big main highway again ... clear sailing on four lanes. Hallelujah - homeward bound without any stress now! Beyond the smoke, the sun was intently beaming again, the air and the pavement rippling with heat waves. Free from that nightmare at last!

.

About ten minutes later, a small noise and a repetitive light thump crept in. Oh please ... no. We pulled over. Thankfully, it wasn't a flat ... yet. A large piece of one trailer tire tread had left us. No jack on the trailer, none on this truck. The nightmares and despair converged upon us again. Oh, why us and why now? We decided to limp the whole rig slowly to the next stop in hopes of assistance.

.

That next stop turned out to be another zoo. The reservation was hosting a 4WD mud fest complete with rock bands. People and traffic everywhere. We limped the rig into a quiet area and looked around for any flotsam which we could drive the wheel of the first axle up on to in lieu of a jack. Parking lots are amazingly clean when you need to find a certain sized piece of junk and we were getting all the more discouraged now. While I went off in search of likely jack donors, Mark was befriended by a very, VERY inebriated Navajo. This tall and portly native rancher would intersperse genuinely well-intended offers of help with brief removals from the scene for public urination events. His brother-in-law, a young 'gangsta' wannabe, was not so gracious and relieved himself directly on our truck's tire. Rod Serling's theme song grew louder with the quickly lengthening shadows of the late afternoon. Another beautiful orange and gold sunset in the making ... but we could hardly give a damn at that point.

.

After making the rounds of the security people and the maintenance people several times, I was finally pointed to a gentleman helping an old fart from Flagler Beach change his RV tire. The kindly Samaritan pointed out yet another jack in the back of his truck and off I went, treasure in hand. Mark was happy to have his current company diluted by my return and had that tire off and spare installed faster than an Indy pit crew. We returned the jack with intense gratitude and bade a respectful farewell to Mark's new long-lost best pal.

.

Once again, we missed traveling back down the canyon in daylight. Was it now foolhardy to expect anything but? I made yet another heavy mental note about the joys of leaving the canyon.

.

Current news:

.

A heat wave last night of zero after two days of 15 degrees BELOW zero! Not that the well and pump will free up any time soon.

.

The Flu Hits Home

Current News:

.

My apologies for not writing part three of the trip tales yet. Whatever misery found me on Friday has hit a stunning crescendo this evening. I hope to rally and finish the story by Wednesday.

.

The bad news is that the well has frozen up solid again. Not that we ever had running water in the place but it was nice not to have to commute hours to fill water jugs. The good news is that the expected snow storms deposited a mere two inches. The better news is that we now have another 'safe' propane heater installed, just in time to battle the cold air that is moving in. It's late Sunday night and the rat trailer is holding out at 57 degrees inside while the outdoor temperature has already dropped to minus 5F. Like the darkest hour, the coldest temperatures here peak just before dawn so it will be interesting to see how much colder things may be by morning. I feel very sorry for the gas field men who will be up by dawn to spend a day working outdoors in this frozen wilderness. Unfortunately, given the bitter cold settling in, they will also have much more than the usual amount of work awaiting them. We'll keep the coffee pot on, just in case.

.

Why I Now Seldom Leave The Canyon ... Part 2

.

Retrospect: May 2006

.

After that last unpleasant trip out of the canyon, it would be several more months before I would wish to try again. This new outing was a mission for wood, a very practical reason to override the memory of that last adventure. Virgil had since introduced us to Earl, a fellow who seemed interested in buying our big dualie truck. Even though we would be taking a 4 digit hit on it so soon after buying it, I was elated. These roads where single axle utility pick-ups reign with their deeply imprinted ruts was no place for a wide tracking truck. On one earlier occasion, knowing that Mark would be returning to the canyon with the dualie, I stopped repeatedly to clear off the small boulders that the single-axled boys had barely plowed between. Add in the taut suspension that danced and slammed to the cadence of the washboards and I was ready for a change. Earl was looking for a heavy duty hauling truck for his wife's horse trailer but didn't want to lay out that big a sum of cash. On the other hand, he operated a small sawmill ... and we would be needing wood, lots of it down the road.

.

Virgil came to the rescue and lent us his large trailer, a well beaten but solid affair so we followed Earl's directions with a short cut through the reservation. The roads were rough but dry, the new scenery pleasing and, in little over an hour, we found ourselves back on pavement and heading to the small mountains that Earl calls home. Earl and his wife Skeeter came out to greet us with a warmth most people reserve for old friends and then gave us a tour around their idyllic homestead. A beautiful log home milled by his father, big boy toys everywhere, a Noah's Ark of animals at every turn. In the fenced yard, I noticed a whirling lapidary of fur with a bright orange patch emerging every now and then from the auburn and white patches. Unbeknownst to me then, Brou was part of that multi puppy tangle mauling a small orange kitten in playfully benign rough housing. His love of pestering and mouthing cats had already been set in stone.

.

The big boy toy tour was as equally enjoyable. Earl had acquired all the right stuff to make a guy envious; BIG trucks, BIG loaders, BIG generators, BIG saw mill equipment. Then came the fun part of picking out stacks of wood from his collection. Skeeter was equally at home with the mill operation and tallied her tape measure calculations as we proceeded. About half way through this process, I noticed a cloud of slate gray smoke billowing up from the nearby mountain. With some unease, I asked "Uhm, is that normal, is someone burning garbage?". All being engrossed in our wood seeking mission, I was farted off without fanfare. But there are times when my observations should be heeded.

.

To be continued.

.

Why I Now Seldom Leave The Canyon ...

Retrospect: February 2006
.

While Mark's weekly or often bi- and tri-weekly trips out of the canyon seem to go reasonably well, our joint trips have had some miserable results. As one neighbor said, "Sheesh ... it's like someone is trying to tell you to stay home." It has made both of us wonder at times.

.

After we had addressed our priority survival needs, Mark took over the trips into town for supplies by himself and did a yeoman's job of it. In the interim, we had bought a second hand truck despite my long-standing disdain of any vehicle which we did not know the full provenance of. Yes, I regret not voicing those concerns at the time but Mark was quite taken with the beast and we were, after all, helping a kid make a new life by freeing him from a bank payment. I had a grinding sense of discomfort about the arrangement which I chose to override. Sometimes you only learn from experience and, in this case, it was to express a concern before the real rain falls upon everyone's parade. The beast shone less well in the light of day and, even if it had been what we expected, was simply not the right vehicle for our rather unique situation. It was a fairly handsome but generously dinged diesel one ton dualie already well over the 100,000 mark on the odometer. I should have said something but did not.

.

At a neighbor's suggestion that we should take some R&R to ward off cabin fever, we decided to do some minor local stops and head up to Colorado for the remainder of the day ... this would be our big play time outing. The drive out of the canyon to pavement with the heavy duty suspension and dualies had every bump and rut reminding me of how much my back hurt on a good day. I was in severe physical agony by the time we reached pavement, Mark a little behind me in discomfort. But this was our big, exciting 'away time' together and we were both looking forward to it.

.

We had barely been on pavement and considering the first local errands when the clouds began to spit out a little snow, the first of the season in fact. But it was light and non-threatening, hardly a reason to high tail it back to the canyon. What caught my attention in a far more disturbing way was a sound coming from the right front end of the truck. It ate at me for the next couple of traffic lights before I said something. Mark confirmed that he had heard the noise as well. It was a mild but uncomfortable and vague steel-on-steel noise. Given the rare occasion of us both being out of the canyon, we decided to proceed directly up to Colorado but pay attention to the noise.

.

We eventually dropped down into Durango but, by now, we were both listening for the noise with a little more intensity as the roads presented hairpins at alarming inclines and descents. So far, so good - no further disturbing degradation in the mechanical noise - at least that we were willing to acknowledge. We were able to make several of the long anticipated stops but retreated to a motel before dark set in. It was marvelous to take a hot shower, dine on a Pepperoni Lover's pizza and watch a TV.

.

In the morning, Mark went out to pick up more list items. When he returned, he announced "Remember that rasp/squeal from yesterday? Well, it's more of a crunch/grind this morning." The dampening bucket of water then fell on us both and we abandoned the remainder of our big outing stops in search of a repair shop. We spent the next several hours in a shop, only to learn that they didn't have the necessary parts on hand. Their branch back where we had come from would. In the meantime, the first snow storm of the season had moved in on Durango. The shop said that we could make it back but advised caution and judicious use of the brakes in the mountains. With the snow now coming down in blinding sheets, we retraced our route back, climbing up the snow-slick hairpins and fully remembering the precipitous drops just beyond their guard rails. Our first idyllic respite had turned into a teeth clenching anxiety fest.

.

But we made it back to New Mexico and spent the remainder of the day waiting as the brakes were repaired - a sickeningly pricey combination of pads and entire rotor replacements. I had no complaints with their scope of work - the sound had certainly confirmed the worst of mechanical possibilities. And we were grateful that we were able to bumpty-bump our way back home before the snow could cut us off.

.

On the return leg of his next supply run, Mark experienced nearly complete brake failure. The canyon roads are hardly flat-plane coaster roads and his trip was laced with deadly challenges. After some grousing and kneeling in the mud, I noticed that the bleeders on the rear calipers had not been touched in years and I was hopeful that the problem was a matter of trapped air in the system.

.

Now here is a heartening tale of some human goodness still at large. When we told the shop manager of our circumstances and the danger of driving the brake-free truck any further, he took it upon himself to navigate the tricky roads out here after hours to attend to the problem. He checked and confirmed that his mechanics had not bled out the rear of the system but, after correcting that oversight, the system still did not come back up to pressure. We could tell that he dreaded telling us that the problem now likely rested in a failed master cylinder and I found no reason to question his conclusion. Our gas field friend,Virgil, drove back out on his weekend off, loaded the truck onto his personal trailer and brought it into town for us without hesitation. The shop manager gave us the part at nearly his cost and did what he could to make the bill more bearable. He was a very decent soul in every way and hopefully we can repay that rare kindness down the road. There are still good folks out there so take heart.

.

That was Part 1 of the R&R Hades Chronicles (or "Why I seldom leave the canyon any more").

.

--------------------------------------------------

.

Humor of the day (from the Tomato Man)

.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman "Where's the self-help section?" She said that if she told me, it would defeat the whole purpose.

.

Close enough - contest winner declared!

Congratulations to "Ann" - your guess is close enough to win the grand prize in our photo caption contest. I am surprised that anyone got that close - unless they enlisted my brothers' horrifically corny sense of humor.

.

Congratulations to "Anonymous" for grabbing the second grand prize with a cute and unexpected possibility.

.

The ideal correct answer (according to our own warped perspective, that is) is:

.

"Pardon me, Brou, is that the cat who knew your chew shoe?"

.

Close enough for a proper groaner award! (see the Comments section of yesterday's post for the winning guess)

.

Contest winners are welcomed to exchange prizes or select one of our equally fine alternative prizes. Redeeming of the grand prizes is not suggested for another few months - it registered 2 degrees below zero here at bedtime last night. It rose to almost 40 degrees today - enough to turn the roads into mud bogs before freezing over again after sunset. But we have snow!
The alternative prizes can be sent at any time, as long as the creek isn't running - which might be as early as tomorrow if we get another thaw day. I guess Brou decided to celebrate, too - he just handed Mark the chew shoe in two big pieces. Time to unveil Chew Shoe Two.

.

The contest narrows down quickly!

Okay, we got a cute possibility yesterday and one today that is on to something but didn't supply more than a song title. We are looking for an appropriate CAPTION specific to the photo in the previous post. Reread the hints carefully. And remember ... never leave a tern unstoned or a stern untoned - because Opporknockity tunes but once!

.