For All You Do, This Mud's For You

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Our invasion took a pleasant turn when Slim showed up last Wednesday. I swear, his company could take the horror out of a nuclear winter. I started one of my long simmer spaghetti sauces that morning and we gorged ourselves silly on that and the French bread he picked up before heading into the canyon. He's very good about calling ahead to see if we might need something. As usual, we kept that dear cowboy up far later than he is used to and he headed out late the next morning to do his pasture planning for the coming winter graze and some needed maintenance around his headquarters 'up top'. He came back the next evening and I had marinated and slow-roasted a big chuck roast from his own private beef supply. His reaction was absolutely worth all that fussing around the oven all day. Again we stayed up way too late but you make the most of good company when it shows up here in the boonies.
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It was probably a good thing that we had mentioned Brou's new profound talent with flatulence since Brou decided to bunk in with him in the guest room. You could have predicted Slim's exclamation in the morning; "Well, you weren't kidding about that fartin' hound, were you? I woke up in the middle of the night thinkin' that a couple of your batteries had blown up or something. I mean the hairs in my nose were burning, know what I'm saying? Gawdamighty, it was THAT bad! I almost booted his butt right out the front door right then and there!" I have to admit that we fell asleep at night chuckling about it and glad that Brou had given us those aromatic evenings off for a change.
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We all woke up to the sound of heavy rains hitting the Rat's steel roof. Mark had the coffee on early and we all lounged around over steaming cups before Slim wisely headed back up to his place. Knowing these roads as we do, we were concerned that he had several options for getting stuck in that slick, thick clay mud. He was very good about letting me know when he was eventually back on pavement (I take after my mother when it comes to pacing and worrying).
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The next day brought even more rain and we saw the roads turn to a clinging, viscous slurry. We didn't have to go anywhere so we just sat back and watched the mud bog show. Semis were still coming in and, towards the end, a few of them slid off the road rink and rode the deep bar ditch at an alarming 45 degree angle with their top-heavy loads until the wheels hunted themselves back out. They must have been butt-puckering themselves senseless during that whole process. The truck above (look to the immediate right of the semi cab exhaust stack) fell prey to those inverse railroad tracks into the muck. It was a while before the rescue came in the form of a 'SKYTRAK' which also fish-tailed precariously down the road. The semi cab just happened to be following along close behind. These 'SKYTRAK' type machines are definitely a very versatile little machine and very much fun to watch under skilled operation. You can also see them at work in the photos below.
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Yesterday's entertainment was some poor sod trying to deliver a replacement SKYTRAK. He got stuck BIG TIME in the site access road. The irony was that the replacement unit on the trailer and the existing unit had to both come to the semi's aid, several times. There was a point when the semi made it all the way down to the intersection of the access road and main road (third segment of photo above) before getting mired again and I will admit that I almost hoped that it would stay there, blocking all further ingress and egress. Shame on me ... well, perhaps, kind of, sort of.

By the time the precipitation had stopped on Sunday, our gauge had registered over an inch of rain and we got to see the ongoing mud drags as the ruts got deeper, the fish-tailing more frantic and the plumes of mud getting higher and higher. It helped our viewing pleasure to know that a couple of trucks worth of rig people had blown by one of our regular field guys while he was mired in the creek crossing that they had messed up. This despite his attempts to wave them down. You don't cross 'our boys', period. The downside? We have to get into town soon for a number of overdue reasons, including bringing our supply of windows and antique doors into the people who are constructing our two new buildings. In the meantime, it sure was great to watch God and Nature administer a little poetic justice.
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I Love a Parade!

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I'm not kidding, this was a parade of the first order and it all took place in one working day. We now have a fair idea of what it would be like to be invaded by an army division when it decides to go visiting, at least as far as tonnage.

Apparently real guys have to have serious 'stuff' around and these fellows knew how to drag it all with them. You will have to click on the photos to see any sort of detail but I have kept each file size under 120K for all you slow downloaders like us.
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First came this Mad Max arrangement in the upper left corner and then a never-ending onslaught of semis with strange cargo. At this point, I was at a loss to figure out what most of it would be used for.
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I did recognize the trailer in the upper left as their command central and the truck in the lower right as the garbage hauler though. Some of these tilted loads were rearranged at the well site immediately to our west and dragged in to the new site at these most curious angles, perhaps due to the cramped nature of the new well pad by that time.

But still no rig. We found ourselves expectantly waiting and ever peeking out the windows as though we might miss the arrival of the Queen if we relaxed our guard. The suspense was killing us but no drilling rig was in sight yet, just more and more STUFF.
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The view of the parade in the upper right hand corner tipped me off that the rig was not far behind. See that flat-bed pick up in the center? It is carrying two portable outhouses. If I have learned anything about the gas field, it is that they are not serious about anything until the two gender-separate johns arrive. I squealed when I saw this one as though it was the advance color guard. "Look, look, the plastic johns are here! The rig can't be far behind!" Sure enough, you will see the rig at the head of the parade in the lower left corner above.

Believe it or not, I have only captured images of maybe 50% of the parade thanks to my ongoing camera and battery wars.

Next up, I will be posting on the rig in place at the end of that long day and report on the most amusing turn of weather out here (hint - ya like mud-sports, do ya?). I will post that installment either late Monday or Tuesday night and then we can get back to our regular off-the-grid tales for the next two weeks.
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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?

.Turkey petroglyph

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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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Just Plain Nuts

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I know, I know, some of our friends and family worry about us being out here on our own and wonder if we have any protection. Well, I have my own ways of doing things which usually preclude intervention on Mark's part when it comes to strangers stopping by. I learn well by observation and anecdote, you see. In this case, it was the experience and advice from a mutual friend of the Katlady's and mine. Bob had bought a small house cheap in a neighborhood which may or may not have been inclined to come back to respectability but the key was CHEAP entry price. I could never fathom living in what his friends called Fort Apache Newstead. I remember working in those neighborhoods on urban housing rehabs and the guys forever lamenting the loss of tools, etc., if they left anything unattended for more than a minute or two. And yet Bob seemed to survive it all with little trouble so I once asked him his secret. He said "People don't like to mess with crazy people. Every once in a while, I'll do a wheelie down the street, maybe aiming for a couple of the belligerent folk in the process, maybe shoot off a couple of rounds for no particular reason. Trust me, crazy just works, that's all." Hmmm, crazy does it, huh?
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So ... when people who are clearly not regular gas field workers stop at the a Rat and wander towards the porch, I am the official greeter. Just me, no overly-friendly dogs to give away anything. Let's face it, they are already a little on edge when they approach something resembling a clandestine meth lab in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I walk out with a very welcoming grin and, before they speak, I say "You are lost, aren't you?" I follow it up with a bit of a head-back quasi-insane chuckle of appreciation, something just short of a genuine "Brou-ha-ha-ha!" Although they have probably never heard of the infamous family of cannibalistic McLeods of Scotland, they now notice the bone collection around the tatty front door. What I learned from realtors is that you only have one chance to make a great first impression and they guilt you into making your front door as homey and hospitible as any door in Colonial Williamsburg at Christmas. Yep, I figured that one out all right (see photo below).
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Might we have them for dinner? Okay, so maybe the collection belongs to Brou and Daisy but the visitors don't know that, right? At that point, the front man will usually look back nervously at the person(s) waiting in the vehicle who usually step out to join him as a back up. I take this moment to carefully appraise the body language and movements of all parties and carefully assess my steps back to the door in comparison to their positions. So far, that hasn't been necessary and the people have been quite pleasant and appreciative of our help. But curiosity gets hold of them once they have established that we aren't about to Hannibal Lector them and someone invariably has to ask "S-o-o-o ... just why do you live out here in the middle of nowhere anyway?" I have to throw in one more nutso chuckle before replying "... because we're just plain nuts." They usually nod in a quiet understanding at that point.
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FALL - it certainly fell

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Rather than the usual homestead tales, this is just going to be a hodge-podge news update for friends and family. If you have stopped by a few times in the past, you're already considered friends so don't wander away unless you want to!
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The above photo was taken at 5:30PM this afternoon, looking West from the Rat. As Virgil said, the sun has changed places with the moon in their trails across the sky and so it is the sun which skips along the mesa on our south, dipping early into hiding now. The shadows and the absence of direct sunlight bring the quick drop in temperatures. Standing on the Rat's front porch at this hour, you can feel the chill beginning to ride up your back. From now until Spring, it will be below freezing before 11:00PM. Our outdoor working times will become shorter and more urgent and disciplined now.

We have already had a night with a low of 10 degrees. By this latest unintentional experiment, we have now established that the water facilities within an addition without doors yet WILL freeze at that temperature. Sometimes we need such pressing conditions to shift into high gear since we are still enjoying a certain degree of intentional irresponsibility.

The 'build your own door from scratch' project is proceeding nicely. We couldn't buy 'off the rack' doors because of the low wall heights of the addition and we had put off the project since the demise of the big Kawasaki generator which had mysteriously come up lame with a stripped spark plug hole after it had been pressed into general service when the Honda generator died.

The solution to my table saw's big amp needs was a cable which links the output of TWO Honda's running simultaneously. Yes, we got fed up and bought a second Honda EU3000. Mark cabled them together and the big saw fired up nicely without stalling out either Honda. I spent the next few hours cutting door pieces which would overlap to make good solid door frames when assembled. Two by four frames with one inch foam insulation, 7/16ths sheathing on both faces, these buggers are going to be SOLID!
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In this photo from the porch looking East, you can see the rising moon above the mesas if you look carefully. If you have been following along for a while, you can also see that a portion of fence has disappeared, along with the chico and sage beyond it. Mark cleaned out this whole area over to Quig's new circular driveway to accommodate a couple of new buildings that we just ordered! Yesh! Yesh! Yesh! NEW buildings on the way! Can you tell that I am, ohhh, just a little excited? They probably won't arrive until New Years given the builder's backlog but the vistas of long suppressed imagination are suddenly opening up once more. The ability to unload the rest of the moving trailer looms, the prospect of having my various work shops re-established, too. I am just short of delirious with the possibilities and that has been a feeling long absent for me. I am one of those people who need those feelings, needs a place of their own to work, repair and create. It is so close now.

Of very recent news: I have perpetually warned Mark not to use his hand as a mallet. It is such a tempting thing to do rather take five minutes to find the proper tool. No ... he's just fine. It was I who broke my own rule and might have broken my hand in the process. Oh, the shame of it all. And it has slowed down our projects accordingly. As I watched Mark from the sidelines today, he would still bash the occasional piece into place with the heel of his hand and I would grimace painfully but empathetically. He is still a very large cat when it comes to subtle torment, methinks.
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Just Daisy and Me Hiking

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I awoke Saturday morning to Daisy's mournful howling and barking. Since she refuses to ride in the truck, Mark had loaded Brou up, put Daisy on the lead and then departed on his mission of the day. Daisy was not in the mood for any sort of consolation so I pulled the Dakota out of the barn and slowly headed East. As always, she fell in behind at a trot. If she starts to overtake the truck, I speed up since I don't want her anywhere near the wheels, just in case I have to take sudden evasive action. She was still game for the hike, even after following along for a mile. These pups aren't suburban couch wimps by any means.

Our mission? I had been looking out the window a few days ago near dusk and saw the sun play on a fascinating rock formation about 3/4 of a mile east of here and on the far side of the creek. The sun and shadows are forever revealing things you had never noticed before. Today was our day to satisfy my curiosity.

I pulled in to our ranch's farthest well site east of here. It is not far from the creek and, as you can see in the above photo, the large cottonwoods along its banks were in the late stages of Fall color. Just two weeks ago, they were a uniform brilliant yellow. If you want to find water out here in the desert, look for the cottonwoods. What you see in the foreground is the usual mix of sage, chico and grass. The practical part of my mission was to survey the grasses. Between the more plentiful rains of last year and this year, they were starting to recover from the decades of year round raiding by the stray cattle from next door. Our program of patiently herding them back and their owner's help in replacing the fences across the washes after the rainy season has made the world of difference in the grass recovery in just two seasons. Grass is cattle feed and our main source of income is cattle grazing. This inspection trip was heartening.


Daisy and I found a way down the banks to the creek and crossed over to the far side. It took a while to find a way up the far bank however. It doesn't matter, the walk is always enjoyable, with or without detours. In this photo, you can see the wide zigzag and erosive path of the creek. In this case, it was stopped from taking further liberties by the hard sandstone base of the mesa. Our concern is the eroding away of our access road which is often built on deep deposits of silts, part clay and part sand.

Without the influence of the bounding Brou, Daisy was actually a very good hiking partner, never more than 50 yards away at any given time. She was there within seconds when I called and often pointed out navigable paths through the boulder outcroppings ahead that I might have missed otherwise.

A delightful find was a piece of petrified wood sitting by itself. Above, you can plainly see the original form of the bark as well as a healed over branch knot. The iron minerals lent it the russet color and the tiny white spots were dazzling crystals flashing in the sunlight. This tree had been laying in state at least 200 feet down in the sedimentary layers before it had been exposed by ancient flowing waters. Now it's sum parts are scattered irretrievably by time like so many artifacts out here.

Pay dirt! We had hiked back towards the Rat about 1/2 a mile when I came across this huge billboard quality rock with a rich iron water patina, a former part of the mesa which had broken away and fallen to the base many hundreds of years ago. What looked like faint scratches became inscriptions as we drew closer. Some were still legible such as "Je M.U.F - o4", "Benino Gonsales - 1911", "Dona Cian" (who was likely Benino's gal back home according to the similar undisciplined etching style). Above Benino's scrawl was a weathered script so flourished and perfectly genteel but I could not decipher it. Some of these inscriptions might have dated back to the first Spanish incursions into the region over 400 years ago. The first two dated to just before New Mexico became part of the U.S. Remember that you can click on any of these photos for an enlarged view. What wonderful finds for one day's hike!
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Erode the High Road

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As much as this is a brutally tough and rugged appearing land, it is also a very delicate and sensitive one. It will bleed profusely when scratched even ever so lightly. As time goes on, I will show you more photos of what even the fairly benign elements of wind and rain can do to this landscape sporting the tough-guy facade.
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Mark decided to go east to start this week's sign posting chores 'up top'. We had not been through the locked gate at the ranch's end since mid-summer and he was back within the half hour, insisting that I come see the summer rain's work on the road beyond for myself. "No, you won't really appreciate what I ran into unless you see it for yourself, I kid you not. C'mon, jump in the truck!" Since Daisy won't jump into the truck but WILL run herself to death following us, we tethered her to the moving trailer and headed down the road with the ever well-behaved Brou in the back seat. Mark did the honors at the gate and began his play-by-play narration; "Okay, so I'm through the gate and mostly thinking about the crossing at the creek itself when I hit the brakes because I am suddenly looking down eight feet, dead in front of the truck ... right about ... here!" Thanks to that impressive re-enactment, my breakfast was now requesting an instant replay. "Yes, thank you, I can see how this might have commanded your full attention, I can, really."
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Then he noticed a new trail blazed through the rough grasses to the west and pointed the Ram's head to follow. It generously skirted the old road (now a committed arroyo) in a rough and bumpy manner and finally met up with the work of a back hoe which had placed a bridge of dirt across the new gap at a narrowing much further up. At this point, we parked on the other side and walked back to the edge of the old road.
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This photo above was taken after we found a less treacherous path down into the wash. I have placed a yellow line in the photo to indicate the original path of the road as recently as July. Although I cannot describe our rains this season as being exceptional or even plentiful, there must have been just the right downpours in this exact area to incise 8 feet of earth away from the road bed here.
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We wandered down the arroyo to find the matching end of this now defunct road (marked with a yellow spot). It was nearly impossible to imagine this much material ripped away by one season's rains. I thought of a ditty occasionally murmured by an eccentric engineer I once worked with in phone plant; "Rooty-toot-toot, Rooty-toot-toot, We are the boys from the institute, We are not rough, We are not tough, But - we - are - determined!" He'd always turn to face me for that last line, one index finger up in the air for accentuation and that madman grin on his face that I so adored. Now, that may seem like a strange recollection to make at this moment but it struck me that this was how our rains operate; not in vicious assaults but by gently overwhelming their surroundings with a doggedly patient determination. No tsunamis, no crashing white waters, just a constant relaxed flow, unebbing and thoroughly resolute.
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We wandered even further down its now dry course to where its path was less incised, to where it was beginning to make concessions to the normal grade of the land at either side. This photo above shows Mark standing in front of a pile of flotsam caught in an exposed gas pipeline. Perhaps that debris pile will someday become a starter bed for new silts and sands to form a new deflecting bank. In our lifetime? It is more likely that the 40 or 50 feet of newly exposed 6 inch pipeline will rupture and fill our canyon with gas at impressive compressor-driven volumes. I followed the fresh tracks of several cows up to and either over or under this line. Since there are far more hazardous cases of exposed pipeline in the region which have gone long unaddressed, we don't expect any miracle of responsible maintenance to occur any time soon. Tell you what; if you hear of our demise by massive inferno, the first one of you to investigate and prove that it was corporate negligence, you get what's left of the ranch, too, okay? There will still be a goodly amount left, I can assure you. I will only hang around to haunt the corporate bean-counters and budget wonks responsible ... promise. I'm sure any one of them would freak if I performed my infamous Daytona hairspray blow torch demonstration in their living room but it's okay for them to do it to us on the Russian Roulette macro scale.
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I did get a consolation hike in the process. Mark was quite willing to hang out by the truck while I scaled a new mesa bench with Brou. I will admit that it took longer than I had planned (AS USUAL) but it was such a joy to wander through the trees, over one odd formation of worn terraces and rocks to another and yet another. Soft, dense area rugs of pine needles under foot, the natural sandstone steps, the smooth open paths of old rains, the strewn gravel of old glaciers, the hidden niches and shelters in the worn rock. Occasionally, I would pass by a shard of ancient pottery which whispered to me that someone else had once loved this place as much as I. It is in these places where I am most free of time's shackles, most fully aware and most joyfully alive. I hope you all can find a place like this in your lifetime.

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