I will expand on one of my comment replies of a few days ago. The question was whether the mesa directly behind us offered any protection. I considered the matter and realized that it offers little protection. According to the top dwellers, the canyon bottom does offer some break from the incessant winds which often bring a biting dust with them. Unfortunately, our settlement of two lies against a north mesa face and in the direct path of the common westerly winds. The season of the winds is just coming upon us again after a fairly calm spring, summer and fall. The vanguard of this new wind time, of course, fell upon us just as we started our rat trailer skin project. The arrival of the first cold nights snapped us out of our pleasantly lolling summer stupor and then ensnared us between its chill and these rising winds. We will do what we can to finish the remantling of the entire trailer but realize that we might have to concede defeat and retreat to the interior for the winter. If that happens, we might rekindle these efforts with the first returning warm days of spring. But then again, we might not, still enjoying our newfound sense of irresponsibility. The insulation and tight new siding will definitely help deter the summer sun's long, hot fingers from reaching too far into the Rat's soul.
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The windows which I had to uncaulk and remove today to release the last of the aluminum siding are now whistling with the night's furious winds. I must remember to climb the ladder tomorrow and salve their gaping seams. If the overcast skies aid the winds in their marrow-frosting mission again tomorrow, we will have to have a pot of continually warm herbal tea on hand. We even dipped into my apothecary of sliced ginger root marinating in vodka. A small shot glass of this will drive away the deepest felt chills. It may also put the most saloon-hardened of cowboys to flight and one whiff sends the cats and dog into retreat but it works as intended! Try it!
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After writing off any meaningful protection from the mesa, I thought about the possible detriments. Geologically, these mesas are the children of unending erosion and, given enough time, will join the canyons below in a homogeneous plain. According to stories we've heard and from what we have seen, there are times when the process involves a more violent action than mere grains of sand sloughing away. Although rare, sometimes a large mass will crack and fall or sometimes an entire face will simply slump into the valley below. In our case, there is one rock directly above the trailer which looks like it could consider a gravity-driven career move. It wasn't something that we noticed when we had to do a hurried survey of suitable places for the Rat. On the other hand, now that we have noticed it, it's not like we stay up all night waiting for the other big rock shoe to drop either. Let's face it, if we were safety-obsessed, we would be holed up in some flat corn field subdivision, well away from haz-mat zones, high tension lines, fault lines, driving ranges or whatever else folks enjoy agonizing over. One of my favorite stories was by Brautigan wherein he describes their family moving to a house with natural gas. It was a new and sublime source of dread for his mother and he describes the effects of her infectious misery as they all sat around in anguish, waiting for the house to blow up at any minute. For me, it nailed life with our mother right on the head. None of us are immortal so why devote too much time to such things. We both feel more fully alive each day now than we have for years and, for us, that quality is everything.
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Next post: ... if the big rock don't fall ....
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