Twenty Four Little Hours

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If this computer obliges and limps along with me a little while longer, I will be updating the well construction notes every other day until I catch up. The majority of activity took place in barely 12 hours. If you have ever been amazed by a trail of determined and organized ants on a mission, you will be equally impressed by this process.

I missed the chance to photograph the next step after the bulldozing and grading of the construction site which was the placement of a liner in the very large reserve pit and the construction of a fence around the perimeter. My camera let me down again.
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Then the tanks arrived one by one (first segment above) followed by a steady procession of tankers to fill them up with what is either water or chemicals or perhaps both.
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The next major items to arrive were the rig stairs and the mats aboard a flat bed as seen in the top two segments of the photo above. These mats will provide a more stable base for the rig and work area. Bottom segment of this photo: This is the part I enjoyed. On the far right side, you will see an articulated Volvo loader. He was required to unload the stacked mats and then take them in bundles of three to place down in front of a foot crew of roughly five men waiting to put them into place manually. Even from our distance, it was a joy to watch this operator move his machine so fast, so accurately and so deftly. He would take the mats and shake the dirt and snow off them, jockey into position, set them down and be off for the next set in one fluid motion, his machine bending nearly in half to accommodate his wishes. I was completely captivated and unable to miss a moment of this stunning machine ballet.

Don't feel obliged to comment - I'll be back by late Sunday night with more photos if the computer and camera hold up!
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Paradise Lost

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So the history hunter and I finished our exploration of the canyon inlet and joined the survey team. Their task had not been as fruitful and it became obvious that the proposed site was not practical. In the midst of the proposed new well pad, there was a 20' deep arroyo which became quite violent and unpredictable when the rains come.

A week later, I stepped out to the end of the porch to observe my favorite view across to the far mesa. It was not without great upset that I now saw an expanse of fluttering markers. For me, the impact was as disturbing as the sea of white crosses at Flanders Field, standing so discordantly against nature's backdrop. Their new location was obviously going to be 'in our faces'. Since this is part of the land which we lease for grazing, we would have no input on the matter. All we could do was wait and hope for the least impact possible. I can't say that their activity on our private land is going to be any more magnanimous yet.
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Late last week saw the first activity at their new well site. The big D8R was the first to invade. What amazed me was that it first simply ran rough-shod over the entire area without use of the blade, trampling down anything in its path. It returned later to start leveling out the pad and forming large banks of dirt. It seemed outrageous and offensive that such a large area of history be disturbed but I will show the reasons later.
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In this photo taken from the first mesa bench up, you can see the final area that they claimed. This report is truly a challenge for me in that I love to watch the big toys at work and, at the same time, hate to see it make such a deep and permanent cut into this wilderness. This photo also shows the proximity of our new and uninvited guests for the next month. Given our recent dealings with the big gas player out here, I can only presume that this is their little Christmas present for us.

On the other hand, as I alluded, this is a fascinating process and I will bring you along on the rudimentary aspects of making of a new gas well from our observation deck. LOTS of big toys and guy stuff to follow.
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Hiking with the History Man

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Retrospect: Late Summer 2007

I looked out the large Rat window late morning and saw several pick-up trucks lined up on the road leading out of our canyon. That's an unusual sight and I decided to go investigate. My hunch was right; it was the gas field doing more poking around for potential new gas well sites. Better still, as I had hoped, they brought along a professional archaeologist as part of their team.

I always had a love for archaeology as a very small child and he kindly let me follow along. I promised that I would not interfere in his efficient survey strides and complied, for the most part. In the mean time, the rest of the team had set out with survey equipment to overlay the ideas of some engineer back in the office over the reality of this terrain. Along the way, the history hunter showed me a pit house dating back to the 9th century. I hope my disappointment didn't insult him TOO badly as I looked down and mentally glazed over. "Uhm, right here you say? Really?" I stared down at the ground trying my best to see a vanished people's history. What I saw was just another patch of ground just like any other in this vast wilderness except for a few anomalous rocks and a pottery shard or two. I began to realize that my childhood passions lay in discovering recognizable feats of man, cavernous repositories of megalithic statues and other incredible feats of art and craftsmanship. Somehow, this vague hint of man's presence just didn't fulfill my expectations.
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This is the first area we covered and where I found this very unusual patch of cactus growing in a tight cluster. I am now relying on my cactus-savvy readers to identify this species. This colony of very spiky plants stood quite low, no more than shin-high at best, but so tightly grouped that the surrounding thick grass had no opportunity to invade it. This plant was still rich with unshed yellow fruits, even though this photo was taken much later (just last week). The arms were not spatulate like a prickly pear but rather long and slender and very much restrained to within its low group profile.

Here is a close-up of the cactus cluster.

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He plodded on through the tall sage and I eventually got distracted by my current passion; desert plants. He was likely grateful that he had lost his ersatz student to the colorful blooms beckoning away from his grid. I would occasionally look up and head in his general direction but eventually found myself utterly distracted by the flora and well beyond his survey area. It was a gaggle (or whatever a plural of these is called) of military helicopters tightly hugging the terrain which caught my attention and made me realize that I had wondered too far into the inlet by myself. I back-tracked quickly and rejoined the history man on a roadward leg of his mission. About five minutes later, after we had separated again, I heard the familiar unfettered roar of a military plane and looked up. I ran down the separating hill towards the history hunter, yelling excitedly as I went "Is that a BUF? Oh yes, yes, LOOK, it's a BUF! It's a BUF!! " It then occurred to me that he might not have a clue what a BUF is. He dutifully looked up just as a low flying B52 crossed over his head and climbed up to clear the mesa in front of him. As it turned out, he had grown up in Texas near the development area of the B52 and shared some of his recollections of the plane with me. All in all, it was a rather fabulous way to spend an impromptu romp in the sage.

I only wish that I had brought the camera along. Within one of the shallow caverns created by the immense boulders, we had discovered a slab with the deeply etched inscription "Greer" on it plus an indecipherable date of possibly '08'. I was determined to find it again last week to show you. I looked. And I looked. Nothing. That is the amazing thing about this part of the world; you can see something once and probably never find it again despite your best efforts to remember the locale as you leave it behind. So many of the treasure tales I hear are about people who found something once and meant to return to investigate it further. And some have been trying to do so for over 30 years since.
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I looked though acres of rock formations for that inscription last week with Brou and Daisy's help, all to no avail. The consolation was being able to admire the bizarre rock formations left behind by Mother Nature. The photo above shows some of nature's curious carving work. Erosion had left but one tall column to support this precariously balanced massive rock roof.
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. In this photo is another boulder of harder material left on a pedestal of softer sandstone, all perched atop the massive boulder occupying the majority of the photo. If you enjoy geology, this is a continual trove of awe.

I never did return home with the photos I wanted but I eventually will, even if it takes me a few decades to find the spot again.

This is all leading somewhere, unfortunately.
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First Snow - We Got It All Right

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We had plenty of advanced warning all right. Red e-mailed and asked us what we thought of the snow storm warning - ??? Well, it hit. Prior to this morning, we had one odd afternoon several weeks ago where snowflakes fell lightly in a half-hearted manner and died before hitting the ground.

Last night brought the first of this year's real snow, followed by many low and long murmurs of rolling thunder. We are still not used to snow being chaperoned by thunder but it seems common place out here. I was already in bed and counted patiently to 50 last night before the first long growl of rolling thunder ceased.
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This morning, we awoke to the scene above, well not quite. We awoke to a pristine mantle of snow but by the time I got the camera out fifteen minutes later, Brou and Daisy had already embossed the landscape irrevocably once they remembered that this white stuff was delightful. Daisy was the least inclined to try it and this probably hearkened back to her previous life of solo confinement outside. When Mark tried to get her to join Brou, she politely declined, turned tail immediately and went back to her bed. After some coaxing, she finally discovered the joys of running free in the snow with Brou and cavorting in their usual summer-long manner. It feels wonderful to see her slowly shedding some of her over-shadowing memories.
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The above photo was taken around lunch time. The clouds had become sparse and a generous amount of clear blue sky was reigning above them but the clouds were moving in noticeably fast fashion - you didn't have to find a fixed point and wait patiently to discern which direction they were moving today.
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Barely ten minutes later, I snapped this photo. Any hint of the blue sky had disappeared. The far juts of mesas were rapidly disappearing and the snow began to fall lavishly once more. Nature was not done with her venting by any means. By the time it was all done, we had picked up about four inches of snow.
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About an hour later, I took this photo. Sporadic patches of blue skies had returned and we sensed that the heaviest assault had passed. The temperatures climbed a little, enough for the accumulated snow to start melting and running off the roof of the Rat in a frequent and steady "tap, tap, tap". Not a single vehicle passed by to disturb the wide, white band of snow which had been the road just yesterday. This whiteness without blemish and the silence was a heady elixir of pure peacefulness.

Tonight it's going to be a few tasty chicken club sandwiches on broiler-toasted French bread with real live French fries after my Thanksgiving folly. That's the thing about living out here without the never-ending onslaught of media hype; I thought that TG was still at least a week or more away and didn't put a turkey down on last week's shopping list. We certainly had stuffing out the wazoo though. If you are going to live this far out and have so few supply runs, you need to plan efficiently for them. Well, we are obviously still working on that aspect. Don't want to hear any smug snickering either - try a supply run only twice a month with absolutely NO little cheat stops at the local quick mart - I would dare you to try it in fact. It might tell you things about yourself that you didn't know or care to acknowledge.
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Stove Top Stuffing Doctored Up

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There, you happy now with that title, Google? I got the biggest kick out of Buck over at Exile in Portales taking offense at some of the word searches that had Google directing people to his site. So how boring is my blog that I usually only get hit up to explain what happens when the creek 'do' rise up and for doctored up Stove Top Stuffing anyway? I mean I'm thinking that I should be a little incensed some how, like a flare or two of the nostrils and a good indignant snort might be in order here.

So, with Thanksgiving coming up for the hopelessly culinary inept like myself, by George, I will now share my own hapless approach to turkey stuffing (you never get complaints from the recently dearly departed - remember this always):

Yep, buy a box of Stove Top because it gives you some vague idea of what to start with and how long to cook it. Like everything else, I usually don't read the destructions until something starts to smell like burning cow paddies but I suggest that you do if you are not a seasoned blunderer like myself. Hey, I usually don't have these problems with mechanical situations, okay?

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Anyway, Stove Top Stuffing is pretty much some itty-bitty morsels of dried bread with some herbs, spices, dried veggies and poultry bouillon powder thrown together. So ... I take some leftover pumpernickel and other breads which have been around far too long and let them dry in my gas oven with the pilot light. Forget them for a couple of days; who cares (as long as you don't forget and preheat the oven for something else like a 400 degree pizza). Been there - don't do it. If you don't have an oven with a pilot light, dry these pieces on a VERY low oven setting or place them out of reach of the cats to air dry; maybe on the top of the fridge (if you have gimpy or ancient, arthritic cats). For owner's of young and vigorous cats, take a 35' ladder (readily available by rental if you don't have one) and place the bread pieces on a pan on any sunny part of your roof from where you have never had to rescue your cats. If you have raccoons in the neighborhood, that's a whole other story. I don't.

While eternity is taking its sweet time drying out the bread, take a nice big pot, add some water, maybe a dash of white dry vermouth or whatever else is clear and taking up needed cupboard space, lob in a couple of bouillon cubes, throw in that impossible to open packet of 'seasoning' stuff that comes with the Stove Top and place on a simmer heat setting and cover. If you get the burning possum smell, you have forgotten to add more water as the whole mess steeps and matures divinely because you picked up a magazine or went on-line and got pleasantly side-tracked. Or maybe you just got all too involved with the rest of that white vermouth or whatever else was taking up far too much space in your cupboard.

BEFORE you are distracted by this aroma of something beyond burning carrion, take one onion and dice it up into dainty pieces (none of this crude proletariat chunking, please, it's a holiday after all) . Abuse at least three celery stalks in the same fashion. Now take some walnuts and whack the snot out of them with the same chopping knife. You can substitute some mostly cooked wild rice but the stuff is price-e-e-y! If you can handle the budget abuse, you can add both - being a special event and all, I won't judge you on this shameful lavishness. It's a mystery melange on a good day so go for it if you feel embarrassingly flush. After the bouillon pot has been simmering along for a while, toss in those aforementioned veggies. Throw in several chunks of REAL butter (NO cheap petroleum by-products for this event, please), a little dried parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (and remember me to the one who lives there), maybe some caraway or celery seed, pepper, a speck of garlic powder or whatever else blows your dress up at the moment (as long as you can read the spice labels clearly). I cannot stress the importance of that last disclaimer enough.

Now try to remember where you stashed your dried bread morsels. If you are over 50 or in the Boomer category at all, this step might take a while. If nothing animate has moved in with the dried bread, take the whole works and dump it into the pot of previous ingredients along with the mystery bread from the Stove Top box and bash it around furiously with a spoon before any one particular bit of bread becomes too saturated. There! Are you good or what?! Take this whole indiscernible mess and either stuff it or lay it out in a suitable pan for baking.

As always, let your olfactory senses be your guide. Bon appetit!
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Wish Lists and Daydreams ...

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Okay, I admit it, I am wandering away from the journal for the moment. We found a phone message today from Slim (our favorite cowboy and grazing tenant) that he is heading this way from Colorado tomorrow and will bunk in with us. TWO visitors in the same month?! Yeowee! He'll flip when he sees that he gets a real bed this time instead of an old canvas army cot. In the meantime, the clean-up and food planning thoughts along with some symptoms of a possible cold/flu ailment coming on have thrown me off track with the blog so I am posting some terrible scans of old pen and inks that I had done quite some time ago. I came across them tonight while looking for something else.

I have been looking at these mesas lately with a growing desire to consign them to black on white paper someday. Goddess' comment about her things to do "Before I die" list has stirred up these inclinations. I remember my mother mentioning her wish that I would take up the pen and brush again. This was just a day before she died unexpectedly and so her comment bore a very permanent weight to it.

I had worked from my own photographs propped on my cherry and butternut art table back then since I always felt too conspicuous and too shy to ever sketch and ink on site. Now even that art table is gone for good after this last move. It had survived my many relocations for almost 30 years. I wish I could rant and vent some angst here but I won't.
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You should see FOUR drawings. If you don't, hit "Reload" or "Refresh". It's just the usual Blogger quirks.
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This was a photo taken near the Thames. A group of schoolboys in kilts heading home in the afternoon. What stuck me so deeply was the cheerful man trying very hard to console a young boy about something which had brought him to sobbing tears. What? I will always wonder. c.'77
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Of course I had to capture the defiant Boudica in her chariot below Big Ben. c.'77
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The portrait of an old New England barn for a neighbor's friend. c.'80
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Despite my eyes already starting to fail, I was able to provide another building portrait 20 years later. This was my last pen and ink. c.'97

Will my eyes still allow me to take up the tiny pen again? I don't know but it's high on my "Before I die" wish list. In the meantime, we will have a year or two of work left on this homestead which will eventually include a place for me to work on what I enjoy once more.
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It Sure is Dark in Here

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One thing we all take for granted: a reliable source of light.
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Fortunately, I rarely have to get up in the blackness of night for a nature call. This morning was not one of those fortunate times. I woke up to the call and tried desperately to ignore it, to roll back over and resume my zzzzzs. It was Not to be denied, however, and I knew that any delay could cause dire consequences - something far worse to deal with in half light. I leapt out of bed, grabbed the flashlight off the nightstand on my side and clicked it on. It emitted a meager yellow haze for a second and then dimmed completely out. Lovely ... there was no time left to stumble around for Mark's lantern by now. But that was okay, I would rely on my excellent memory and my cat-like ability to wander around in the dark. I was computing all this on the move in the dark with an increasingly more desperate mission at the forefront. It was about that time that I tripped over a box of burn trash in the hall which I swore was not there when I retired to bed. And it was about that time that I realized in my sleep-groggy state that my cat-like senses had guided me into the storage room and that there was little chance of relief in there.
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On high alert by now, I frantically bashed my way through a maze of pinball flippers which are normally boxes, walls and doors in daylight. Oh God, please let this be the right door and NOT the one to the pantry because I don't have time to back track by now! Yes, yes, these walls all feel familiar in a good way! Now if only I can find the loo (which is the repository for liquids only, really no more than a five gallon plastic bucket with a molded seat-type lid). It wasn't where I expected but I found it accidentally with the back of my heel while I was flailing around blindly in the wrong place with my hands. Close enough! I am now beyond desperate! Luckily I guessed the right position of the loo and was able to flip the lid up, drop my britches and sink down to the seat below creaky knee level. That's how you spell relief - a true disaster diverted. And a great, satisfying sense of victory washed over me there in the dark. Life was not only good but stellar at that moment.
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I'll admit it, I sat there enjoying this sense of victory over darkness for far longer than was necessary to simply finish the initial mission. Out here, you tend to seize upon such moments when they present themselves and savor them fully. But the night's chill began to dissolve my reverie and it was time to move on. As the old British shop manuals were infamously wont to say "Assembly is the reverse of disassembly" and I began the process. It was into about step 2 or 3 when I realized that I had missed part of the disassembly process in my frantic rush. The cold, wet sensation on my backside made me realize that my drawers had not adequately cleared the area of operation. The previous fleeting moments of victory vanished as though they had never existed.
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By now, every other living creature in the Rat was awake and listening to my laments. A sleepy offer from Mark to use his lantern was not exactly a salve at that point. Yours truly, the adrenaline-filled human pinball, made the reverse trek back down the hall to the bedroom. I fumbled around in what was hopefully the right dresser drawers to find a dry replacement for my folly. Mark finally roused enough to fumble around and click on his lantern. In this sudden burst of real light, I saw many pairs of glowing eyes nervously watching my every move and I asked that the stage lights be extinguished to preserve some minor part of my remaining dignity, thank you.
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As I dropped back into bed and the night's misery concluded itself, my eyes snapped open again as I became aware of a cinching tightness around my lower torso. In this last dance in the dark, I had somehow managed to put my underpants on askew with one leg hole now tightly around my waist. S-I-G-H! I then heard one of the cats deftly, merrily and noisily using their litter box in the Rat's pitch black as if to thumb his nose at this irritated mere mortal.
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While you have it, don't ever, EVER cease to appreciate light on demand 24/7, I'm just tellin' ya, okay?
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Humor of the Day (from Ken):
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One day my wife and I were discussing anger management. I asked her, "When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?"

She said, "I clean the toilet bowl."

I asked, "How does that help?"

She said, "I use your toothbrush."
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Brou and the Stink Bug

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One thing I really enjoy about having young animals around is sharing in their insatiable curiosity about everything that moves, unless it is something dangerous like a rattlesnake, of course. Brou came to us as a puppy and I followed him on his new life discoveries with great amusement. This post is really for Goddess who loves dogs and had also asked if we had strange bugs out here . This is a tale about both.
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Say hello to Mr. Stink Bug. He is a common sight around the Rat and pretty benign ... if you don't annoy him. He's a comical soul, bumbling along on whatever mission he has chosen for the day. This stance is his defensive posture which he is willing to assume at the slightest disturbance. He stands on his head and positions the tip of his abdomen upwards, ready to emit a stream of obnoxious scent. Once the threat has passed, he continues on his merry way, usually without any dire measures taken. Add a curious young pup and you have quite another story.
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Here he is from a side view. You can now see how he tripods himself into firing position with his rear legs and head.
.Now add the curious Brou. He was fascinated by the bug's awkward waddling movement and took a flying coyote pounce at him, knocking him over in mid stride. The stink bug uprighted himself immediately and let loose a flatulent burst most vile to a young dog's nose.
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If I have ever seen Brou truly offended, it was at that moment and he learned the consequences of his rough puppy socializing with such bugs forever. But not to be dissuaded, he leaped back to a safe distance to avoid another olfactory blast and to rethink the next attack.
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The stink bug repositioned himself for another round and Brou obliged, still outraged by the initial blast and heading in for revenge, teeth bared.
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He administered another flying coyote stomp which fully buried the stink bug for the moment. "There! How dare you try THAT again, infidel!!!" The bug finally dug himself out of the sand and continued on his way long after the young Brou had lost interest in pursuit of the next new thrill.
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Another geeko test

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Please bear with me again. I want to see if Blogger has improved and will now accommodate animated .gif files. A while back, I had spent quite a fews hours making the animation A Thank You from Brou only to find that, within a few weeks, it would no longer play on the main page and that you had to click on the image for it to play on another screen.

So here is an eye-teaser sent to me by Alphonse Da Moose. I happen to love eye and brain teasers and I think you will enjoy this one as well. I even examined it frame by frame in an animation program to make sure that it was genuine.

Read the instructions and the commentary on what you willing be 'seeing' and then click on the image if it doesn't function on this page.
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If your eyes follow the movement of the rotating pink dot, the dots will remain only one color, pink.

However if you stare at the black " + " in the center, the moving dot turns to green.

Now, concentrate on the black " + " in the center of the picture. After a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear, and you will only see only a single rotating green dot.

It's amazing how our brain works. There really is no green dot, and the pink ones really don't disappear. This is proof that we don't always see what we think we see.
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Hiking Ms. Daisy

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Here is the conclusion to Just Daisy and Me Hiking where I discovered the Spanish rock inscriptions. I figured that you wouldn't mind less talk and more photos for a change. This is as much to let you know that we haven't fallen into a bottomless sinkhole yet. We're just both running tired with the growing 'To Do' list before the REALLY cold weather sets in. We have been enjoying high 60s daytime temps and balmy overnight temps of high 20s and low 30s i.e. no further pipe freeze-ups (touch wood!). Great sleeping weather with just the pilot lights burning on two of the propane wall heaters for the most part. The extra Rat insulation is paying off nicely.

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These cacti are the first of their kind which I have come across here. Don't ask me what they are (Belle - any ideas?) but I have noticed that so many desert plants out here may only grow in one small area. This is why I was so upset with the new well location up top when they failed to give us notice and time to survey and salvage any unique plant specimens per our agreement. I'd rather take a chance on transplanting them than having them dozed under with absolutely no chance of survival.
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Here is another view of the creek. Hard to believe that a creek which spends most of its time sleeping in this deep, dry state can inflict such damage when it awakes.
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At one point, the sandstone wall rises dramatically straight upwards to the first bench. For one exhilarating moment, I thought I had found the eerie of an eagle. Follow the yellow arrow and notice the accumulation of white bird dropping just below a dark hole (you might have to click to enlarge to follow this). The crow who showed up and circled above it quite vocally told me that it was probably his nest though.
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Here is a view of Rat City from our hike. It gives you a better idea of the scale of the mesa behind us. Compare this view to the view in The Rock of Damocles. The rock is resting at the very top of that mesa.
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Above is the last inscription treasure that we found that day. This one had survived the weather better by its location under the shelter of the much larger rock shown in the initial account. There were some fainter, intriguing inscriptions above it to the right but the shadow hides them completely. Wait 'til you see the petroglyphs we discovered yesterday though! Woo-hah!
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