The Adirondacks of the High Desert

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Below: Previous seating experiments on the Rat's front porch. Sad at best.
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A) Having been through at least six of them, I can say that this configuration was by far our worst investment. Within a year, their fabric rips, their tubing and connectors break and you might incur bodily damage or possible sterilization depending on where and when they inevitably let loose. Land-fill cloggers. Don't even go there.

B) Unrestored chairs from the moving trailer. Don't wince - almost ALL the furniture in the Rat looked like that at one time. This Renaissance Revival survivor will look very different some day when I get a real shop back into my life. In the meantime, these long neglected relics might have a leg or a seat pan let loose at the most inconvenient moment, especially if you have that unforgivable habit of rocking back on their rear legs - ask any cowboy.

C) Yes, it's the ever versatile dairy crate again, ONLY called into play when more than one visitor showed up. But do note that it has a much better pattern for avoiding waffle-butt than the one shown in The Generation Wars.

D) Another desperate measure in porch seating. It might have surpassed the dairy crate but for one fatal flaw; notice that there is a molded-in hinge in the lid which is well offset to one side. It does not, therefore, match the God-given symmetry of the human buttocks. This will cause an never-ending shifting in hopes of finding a comfortable alignment. Somewhere in that process, you will find yourself radically off its safe center of gravity. At that point, if the container has been used to store the product well-used by felines, you will not only find yourself flat out on the porch but with a goodly amount of cat doodoo and litter covering you. So avoid this one if possible and resort back to option C if necessary. This one is safer being used as an end table.

Our visitors have all been incredibly good sports up to now but we didn't want to push the limits of their endurance so we recently hit the catalogs hard. Catalogs are another invaluable resource which you will rely upon heavily if you move to the middle of nowhere and I mean for far more than classic outhouse use. When a supply run involves half a day of commuting, you no longer have time to stop here or there to browse on the slight chance of finding the occasional non-staple items you desire.
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Tah-dah!!! . .In fear of calling the Southwest Decorum Squad down upon us, we compromised and ordered four chairs like the more mission-styled chair in the middle of the photo above and only two of the Adirondacks. They all showed up unassembled in flat cardboard cartons and the assembly was done easily without referring to the somewhat odd 'Engrish' on the single page instruction sheets.

What's nice about the center chair is that it comes without any finish so you can let it weather or apply stains, embarrassingly gaudy paints and stencils, whatever your heart's desire. We will eventually use them as outdoor dining chairs. While they look great, their one drawback is that, after sitting down, you realize that the arms are strangely low and therefore amazingly useless unless you happen to have the torso of a circus midget. The advantage of the low arms is that they will fit under a table much more easily and therefore save needed space when not in use. We found those on-line at Northern Tool.

It was the surprising comfort of the Adirondacks which blew us away. Before we moved here, I had the templates to make a fixed-position Adirondack chair which was famous for comfort back home. Even if those paper patterns had survived the move, the time and materials would have been more than these cost us; under $60 each on sale from Sportsman's Guide. These were equally well constructed but arrived with a clear finish. When I finished assembling the first one, I plunked myself down in it for a skeptical try out. I had sat in plenty of uncomfortable Adirondacks in the past but this one was immediately downright cozy and relaxing. If it hadn't been sitting out in the scorching noonday sun, I would have dozed off immediately.
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. But wait, there's more! Here is that chair folded down for storage. I was as equally skeptical about the promise of how compact it might be for winter storage but when I pushed back on the lower end of the back rest, the chair easily relaxed into what you see above. And it doesn't appear to be interested in collapsing when you are occupying it (perhaps, if you are behaving like a complete and talented idiot, it could be accomplished though). Now I only regret not having ordered four of these instead of two. Okay, so maybe they look more at home beside Schroon Lake ... but color us pleased and comfy on the Rat's front porch ... finally! .
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The Cowboy Bar and Grill

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This is the continuation of our 'big night out' tale from the previous post.
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Above is a better view of the adobe walls and beams for Mushy and thud. In this photo, you can see how the thick adobe walls support a healthy beam across the large opening to the kitchen. You can also see the hand adzed marks on the central beam holding up the long main beam running from the back of the kitchen to the front of the house. The plaster finish on the walls attests to how solid this building is; almost no cracks in the wall finishes other than in a very low door header for which Slim claims responsibility in the course of a previous 'relaxing' evening. He even lifted his hat and showed me the original contact point on his forehead. Sold.

I was pleasantly surprised that I also captured a glimpse of the brick floor in this shot. Adobe buildings of this age were generally built directly on dirt; walls, floors and all. These dark glazed bricks were stacked together tightly without mortar in the last decade over the original age-hardened dirt floors. They are beautiful!
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. Slim returned from his grill management duties and settled into the dining room with his pile of spuds to peel with his picket knife. Without the young Tyrell here to help out, he surveyed the remaining help and decided that he was best suited to the task. Mark had already found some armaments annual to become engrossed in and clearly placed himself outside of the labor pool for the next hour.

Somewhere in all this, I perked up as I heard planes overhead. Slim looked up and grinned "Yep, that's some of your military birds out there." He knows. I looked disgustedly at their two dogs who did not warn me as Brou would have and then ran outside. Cool! What was taking place overhead was an aerial refueling! I had watched a mid-air refueling from the boom pod before but never got to see one from the ground so I ran back in to get my camera. Sigh, the photo sucked SOOO badly (likely caused by my buck fever moment) so I won't even post it here.

Meanwhile, back in the ranch house, the conflict of the chefs flared continually over when to put Clay's burgers on the grill. I sided with Slim in that rushed and raw potatoes would assail my sensitive stomach in horrid ways, and for several days to follow. With that thought in mind, Slim soon took to munching on raw potatoes, making sure to stand near-by to let their raw crunch ring in my ears as I sliced up his various peppers.

Somewhere in there, an impromptu auction banter was set up by Clay over the contents of the pass-through shelf to the dining room. I knew better than to stand in front of Mark and accidentally up his bids so I played ring man instead, responding to bids and calls for half-price and choice and yelling "Yep, yep!" and pointing to either Mark or Slim. Okay, so now you are getting an idea of why these suppers are not exactly drive-through fast food events. And maybe that is the whole idea - anti-rush.

Probably, oh, an hour later, we sat down at the table and had supper; Clay's burgers and green beans and Slim's canyon-famous grilled potatoes. Awesome good, all of it! Then it was time to head out and up to the bar, up those exterior stairs which I swear will kill one of us eventually. My gimpy knee likes neither the first nor the very last step spacing but, so far, so good (touch wood).

The pool table got a work-out that night. While Slim and Mark had a round of pool, Clay beckoned me over to the round poker table in one corner as he laid out cards and chips. ???! "You talkin' to me, bud?" "Well, of course! Sit down here!" "Uhm, I don't play poker ..." "C'mon .. five card stud?" "Nope". "99?" "Nope." He went through the litany of possibilities without a taker until I feebly offered "I can play solitaire ... ?". I gathered that this was the wrong answer as he let his head hit the poker table with a painful-sounding thud and sighed loudly, the cards sprawling out from his limp hand.

Meanwhile, Slim had donned his bright yellow flannel gloves gained from the kitchen auction. He would hold court at the long side of the pool table for the rest of the evening, holding up a hand in over-sized yellow flannel and offering guidance to the current shooter such as "Ohhh, Big Bird here wouldn't go for that shot, nope, unh-uh." As the evening progressed, he would admit his declining skills by placing his cowboy hat on backwards, putting his dark shades on and singing "Se-e-h-ven Spanish A-a-a-n-gels!" a la Ray Charles before a shot. Clay, on the other hand, and despite some heel teetering which I expected to turn into a backwards collapse at any minute, became more lethal in his shots as the evening wore on. Go figure. This was a vast improvement over his earlier flat-out-on-his-back sprawl after he had scooped up the supper condiments and then tripped over the low step into the kitchen. All four of us were suspended in amazed silence until (you know that someone had to break the shock and decorum here) I broke out in loud hysterics. At least it got everyone moving and abusing again. And poor Clay would wear and bear the abuse of being covered in condiments for the rest of the evening.

Other than that and my own gastric indignities suffered later on (I WARNED you that I had a sensitive stomach, didn't I?) which involved a short but brilliant aria from the second story balcony and some too curious ranch dogs below, the evening went splendidly and memorably. We followed Slim back up the canyon at a fairly safe distance until his turn-off and flicked the generator on back home at the Rat by 3AM. Wow! What a memorable evening out!
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This unimpeded view of the cowboy bar is for Buck. You can now get a better idea of the woodburning finesse of the young lady who sketched in the steer and the bucking bronc. Two of her prints were hanging in weathered window frames around the bar room as well ... VERY talented.

The face of the bar was built with new 1 bys and framed in weathered boards, a well-used rope edged the top, welded half-horse shoe brackets held up the rail at the bottom. You can even see where one brand was held in place a speck longer than necessary and flared a little. All in all, a very unique bit of work. Now I can't wait to start on our own saloon some day!
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An Unexpected Invitation

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What started out last Wednesday as a rare supper get together with the cowboys became just the beginning of four days of separate social occasions. This is unusual not only here in the canyon but probably set a twenty year record of some sort for us. And despite the utter enjoyment of it, I seriously doubt that us two cloistered old farts could survive a steady diet of it.

I also didn't realize that such a full slate would completely trash my normal blogging and e-mail time ... but it sure did. I am hoping to catch up on those lagging activities this week. Both of us have pretty much recovered from that nasty bug but one of my molars decided to give out last Friday and may throw everything off until I find a dentist to relieve this pain and fix the problem. In the interim, I won't be looking forward to meals no matter who cooks them and may have to rely heavily on the aluminum can feeder system while others pig out. ... grin
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Thursday's invitation came after Mark drove out to unlock the far gate for Slim and Clay. They had been out driving around on our isolated mesa to check out the pasture conditions and plan how to best drive some of Slim's cattle over there. These cowboys love driving around and planning almost as much as they love cattle. After checking out the water and grass and adding a little plinking brass to the road substrate here and there, they dropped down off the mesa and stopped by the Rat. "Supper over at Clay's place tonight? You bet, just say when!"

This time I would make sure to get more photos, too, because it is a pretty cool place that you might enjoy seeing. We waited until the appointed time to head over there and I forgot that taking photos so near to dusk would be a challenge. I tried to lighten up the color in some of the photos for you. Same for the interior shots.
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We drove along the main canyon road, taking in the big views ahead and all around us. I enjoyed these fading skies since it brought back memories of a day's end on the ocean where breezes would cool warmed, reddened skin and the salt water had already soaked the tenseness out of every muscle. It was that kind of comfortable and content feeling.
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I had to paste together two photos to show you the ranch. Even at a fair distance, the cameras could not capture this spread in one take. You can see the peach-colored bunkhouse at the left and the peach-tinted lowers with brown second story main house on the far right. The second story is home to the infamous cowboy bar and pool room of our tales. The airstrip and concrete pool lay somewhere in between it all. I wasn't kidding you, it really is a cool place.

So cool, in fact, that when the owner recently considered selling it, he was besieged by offers and backed off to reconsider its place in his holdings (and this wasn't even advertised!) i.e. ain't gonna be a steal if he does sell it off, i.e. Mark and I probably won't end up buying it either...(big long sigh here)...Probably the very best we can hope for now is that someone with a notch or two above rudimentary social skills and looking for a personal year-round home will end up with it. That would be a great blessing to our life out here.

So many really great ranches never hit the open market but remain within the old rancher network and change hands without public fanfare but that will be changing as demand from outsiders (like us) tempt the old boys to not leave any money on the table. Traditional ranchers and farmers are finding themselves priced out of new land due to development pressures. Their own existing land values also put them under pressure - continue a risky but much beloved lifestyle or sell out and retire comfortably. Wall Street's portfolio crowd and trust fund babies have added serious weight to the tipping scales (just to keep the records straight, Mark and I fall into neither of the previous categories). I have no doubts that big government's lucrative subsidies to not grow various commodities have enticed the former group to swallow up ag businesses and their lands by the greedy mouthful. I am inclined to forecast a sub-prime type fiasco in our food supply chain down the road as a result. Expect stunningly higher prices for anything involving meat, grains and vegetables on the grocer's shelves as just the starter. Don't get me going on the great pork barrel bio-fuel farce in contributing to this likely scenario because I try to stay away from touchy issues on this blog. But such frustrations are one of the reasons we get together with 'da cowboys' - to forget about all the pressures of the moment and the near future. So let's get on with the tour.
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Here is one of the original homesteader buildings. I fell in love with it and had to click a photo before darkness set in. Apparently cameras hold a different idea of darkness so I had to lighten this one up considerably as well. Look at the sandstone walls, the original small timber bough roofing, the rough door and window frames. Is that cool or what? And tell you what else; after New Mexico Magazine farted off my Rat entry for their schmancy Home issue, I'm not telling them about this one either. Hmphhhh ... yeah, would you believe they passed up on the Rat without so much as a polite 'get real, get lost' e-mail reply? . Hmphhh ... I have been thrown out of much better places ... so there.
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Here is a photo of the main room in the original adobe ranch house. The doorway on the left confesses to how thick the walls are. Genuine adobe works so well here in the desert. When we were here in the 90+ degree swelter last year, this dwelling was still invitingly cool by day's end.

I also wanted you to see the hand cut beams which support the roof. Slim and I boisterously argued semantics over 'hand hewn' versus 'rough cut'. I am funny about such things and these beams had been laboriously hand worked down to roughly square using an adze. To me, 'rough cut' refers to lumber which rolls off the end of a mechanical saw mill but not mechanically planed afterwards. To call such beams as these 'rough cut' would discount the hours upon hours that someone spent hand whittling down round logs chip by small chip. These particular beams contain the history of much sweat, blisters and ambition. They are simply gorgeous. I will show you a slightly better detailed photo of these in the next post.

At the back end of this view, you can see Clay starting prep on our cowboy supper while Slim is out fussing with the grill. This will be Clay's short 'quiet time' before the other chef and associated help turn the kitchen upside down with teasing banter and horseplay.

To be continued!
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Our Big Night Out - Part 2

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Here is today's view of the sun setting. It appeared as though the sun had nested like a platinum egg inside the lower clouds and was lighting them from within. Just an hour before, the clouds had been unleashing small opaque hail upon us. Just the night before, the clouds had left us a half inch of snow before morning which the new sun soon dappled into a vibrant pinto print of white on the brown soil. We are not done with winter's last little pouts.
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So back to our big night out:
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With the goat path now a super-highway, we were soon crossing the bridge to civilization in record time. The setting sun began to break through the overcast skies as we rumbled over the cattle guard and through the gate to motor up the long drive to the host ranch. No less than eight dogs surged forward to bark, inspect and greet us as we pulled in behind a cattle trailer. One dog shouted guttural warnings from inside the house; a less than friendly and predictable hound that the hosts considerately decided to shut inside. That was good since I have had my fill of Kujo critters and stitches.

Slim met us on the flagstone patio and escorted us up the exterior stairs of a separate two story building. I made a mental note that the stairs were not always at constant and predictable heights, a situation which could be disastrous for those with abilities impaired as the evening wore on.
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We found ourselves in a delightfully dedicated bar room and soon at home with 'da boys' which included our hosts Clay (behind the bar) and his young ranch hand Tyrell (who was prepping food and readying the grill down at ground level when I took these photos).

The rustic bar in the left corner was a recent addition and very nicely done; a combo of new and weathered wood and branches, rope and old horse shoes. Its front panels were decorated with burn-ins from area ranch brands and two well-executed word-burned sketches.

It took all of about 5 minutes before we were comfortable and settled in like this was a second home with nonstop laughter and teasing being the order of the night. I can't imagine a more pleasant way to spend an evening anywhere.

Slim slipped away long enough to prep and grill his famous canyon potatoes after a boisterous competition over who could better peel a potato with his pocket knife. Mark and I restrained giggles at some of the very small surviving spuds. But this is a ritual, you see, part of the entertainment and it doesn't matter if you start with five pounds and end up with two, that's simply not the point at all. The point seemed to be that we were going to hang out like kids without a care in the world, far away from feed and fuel prices and just have fun for the evening. Count us in!

Pure devil as always, Slim took advantage of my concern that he had thrown the steaks on with the potatoes that half hour earlier. He knows we are staunch 'medium rare' fans. "Yep, I threw them on, heck, had to be an hour ago! What ya don't eat, I plan on making some fine bridles with so no big deal."

With a clockless instinct that defies logic some time well into our bar reverie, Slim stood up and announced "Well, it's time to eat!" and led the grateful stampede down the ill-proportioned steps to the main house. We milled around the kitchen until each of us was outfitted with a full plate and found a seat at the big table. Tyrell had cooked up bacon to a crisp and diced it into a big pot of French-cut green beans and let it all simmer long and hard, DEE-licious! Then he fried up mushrooms in butter to top over the steaks. Slim brought in his famous grilled canyon potatoes - ultra thin slices done up with bacon, jalapeno dices, spices and butter, wrapped in double aluminum and set to grill away until soft and browned - heavenly tasty. He returned with a big platter of his own rib-eye steaks and pointed out which Mark and I would like for doneness. Spot on - juicy, tender and so tasty. The only background noise was old Kujo who had been sequestered to a back bedroom before we came down to eat. The banter and laughter continued on through dinner and saw us back up in the bar in due time.
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Slim spinning a classic cowboy yarn
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Mark and Clay interspersed the evening's philosophizing with a game of pool, mostly drawn out by Clay forgetting that it was his turn to shoot between his bartending duties and subjects of conversation that especially sparked his interest. Yep, we solved a lot of the world's problems that night.

I wish I had taken photos of this ranch for you (Mark is ordering a larger memory card for the new camera as I type). The main house is a 100 year old adobe structure with immense, dark hewed beams running here and there atop thick interior support walls. It is even on the grid and has the semblance of genuine limitless running water! I was enjoying every moment of this and even felt compelled to use the porcelain throne ... if only 'just because'. It is simply a gorgeous and comfortable place to call home.

We so regretted how soon time had passed and finally got grown-up enough to head home and let these cowboys get their beauty rest. I stopped by the kitchen to retrieve my left-overs and dishes. I had forgotten about ol' Kujo. He hadn't. What a charming pup, a short-haired muscular and fawn-spotted biting machine; reminding me of some odd and accursed mating of a dingo, a ridgeback and a hyena. And he was now giving me (who was too far in to run) 'the look' and the talk. I thought back briefly to the hound who had ripped up my face twenty years ago. No, that wasn't something I wanted to deal with again. The cowboys were up in the bar, Mark was pulling the truck around. Well, it's just you and me, Kujo, huh? Lovely.

As he closed in on me with menace and malice in mind, I decided to do my best Miss Romper Room personae. "WELL! Aren't you SUCH a GOOD boy?!" He paused, as such dogs often do, to mentally crunch this strange and unexpected input. I wasted no time and turned, my only concern being that he might be a butt-biter as I stooped to grab the leftovers from the fridge. So far, so good - buttocks still intact as I straightened up and spun around towards the door. "Well, yes, oh, you ARE such SUCH a GOOD boy!" I tried to ignore the ample salivation from curled lips revealing serious fangs and took heart in the twitching of his eyebrows from right to left as he crunched this strange input once more. I managed to slip out the latching screen door before he decided that he had been duped. And, honestly, that's all I cared about at that point. I nipped out to Mark's waiting truck to a background of maddened barking and lunging at the screen door. Ya-hoooo! Kind of put a satisfying closing edge on the evening!

As always after our rare social outings, we nattered enthusiastically, playing back all the highlights of the evening as we drove along in the dark. The canyons were now black velvet dark except for what a toe-nail moon offered through the occasional break in the mesa walls. Even the goat path turns and miles were now ticking by without effort. At this late hour, we had the roads to ourselves. Well, not quite. From what seemed like 50 feet away and emerging out of solid rock, headlights suddenly split the darkness just ahead of us on this largely one lane road!

The beacon lights of this new intruder stopped in their advance and we decided to creep around the corner of this rock-curtained hairpin to investigate. The alternative was backing down the narrow road behind us to a wide part which may not have even existed within the last quarter mile. Tall lights staring through the dust blinded us as we made the turn. Oh great, it was a water tanker, one of the bigger gas field vehicles! Wisely, he had stopped at one of the only spots big enough to allow both of us to squeeze by, but barely. Both trucks had to carefully inch into the wider space abdicated by the other.

But it worked out as it most normally does out here and soon we were back on our last miles to home with only a coyote pursuing a cottontail charging out just 15' in front of us. We got home to the frantic fawning of Brou and Daisy and simply had to sit and chat for another hour before the joy of the evening would let us sleep.
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Our Big Night Out!

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We've received an invitation to dinner this week, by way of Slim, down to meet the new crew at the more or less third closest neighbor's place. Who is the closest neighbor really depends on what washes are running and uncrossable on a given day. On Wednesday, these folks were our third closest neighbors.

Given that I hadn't found a practical occasion to leave our immediate canyon since last August, this was truly an event for me - a pleasant adventure to see at least the next ten miles that lay beyond that confine. As Phlegm Fatale recently suggested, it might be a helpful blog post to address the matter of transitioning from formerly complete 'civilization' to nearly complete primitive solitude. It does appear to involve several things on a number of different levels. I will start ruminating on that one.
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While far from perfect, the roads have dried up considerably in the last week or so. The big question was if our creek crossing was navigable. Amazingly, the road conditions seem to be addressed fairly well when a drilling rig is in the area. We got to the crossing and found that someone had arranged to dump several loads of larger rock into it to form a firm crossing base (above). While this side was a little soft, there were no surprises waiting half-way across or on the other side. This is the same crossing which previously inspired, in part, the "Chaos, Rains Supreme" series.
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Other than for the lightly overcast skies as we set out, this trip felt like a good one to my instincts so I was looking forward to it immensely by now and to meeting some new faces in the canyon lands. We were on our way!
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The main wash (shown above) was still channeling off snow melt and remained a complete mire of treacherous mud bog so we took the infamous 'goat path' on our side of it. I was overwhelmed that it had transformed into a near super-highway since our last joint encounter with it. Not to be snarky again, of course, but it would appear that road conditions greatly improve when priority gas development and profit are involved.
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It was largely a lovely and smooth ride, in fact. It still might not accommodate two way traffic well but it was splendid in relative terms. In this photo, you can how the path dips down and disappears to the right into a cut, re-emerges at a climb, drops out of sight to the left and sharply snaps up to the right again. This is pretty much its typical course over the three mile stretch to the bridge.
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Here (above) is the main wash which escorts the goat path but at some 30 to 50 feet below and shown here in a benign and promising state but still completely uncrossable. Its broad sandy bed hints at the full expanse of its realm when the waters run full and wild. It looks as innocuous here as a motionless boa constrictor but therein lies its secret to bringing sudden death upon the gormless ever since man first roamed these lands.
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I will stop here since I have burned up a considerable amount of daylight generator time already and it is now sensibly time to shut down until night falls again. I prefer to compose our stories while it is fully day time and I still have a goodly share of energy about me but wear on the generator and fuel use are a necessary factor in the balance, always.
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