Our Big Night Out!

.
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.
.
.
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.
.
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!
.
.
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.
.
.
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.
.
.
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.
.
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.
.
.
.

That Sinking Feeling

.
Mark got a call from Slim last week. He was in the canyon and ready to do some fence checking and repair down this way before bringing more cattle down. "If you care to come along, I'll help you unload that fancy new freezer when we're done." What a deal! I certainly wasn't looking forward to the prospect of moving the freezer now perched in the back of Mark's truck. So, pretty soon, Slim arrives in his 'scooter' (don't ask me why a cowboy would call an ATV a scooter but cowboys have a strange way of looking at things sometimes). Three dogs, fence posts, wire and tools and ready to roll. Mark hopped in and they disappeared eastwards in no time flat. They were going to check the fencing which spans creek and washes out on a regular basis. Given the sandy nature of the creek bed, there is no fence designed to survive its running, eroding waters so you just have to keep up with the repairs.
. . .
Above: Slim shuts down the ATV and they tackle the freezer move in short order. That story will be covered when I do a post on how we keep things cold off-the-grid.

As soon as they were done and Slim was settled into his customary roost on the chesterfield, he announces loudly "Well, we almost lost Mark today." You know that's a teaser for a new cowboy story. "Awww ... you didn't lurch him out of that infernal 'scooter', did ya?" "Hell no! I'm talking serious here!" I wasn't sure if I wanted to hear exactly what serious was but I knew I was going to anyway. There was a slight hint of a cat's grin on his face and this tale was going to be too good to hold in any longer.

They had found a well-worn cattle and game trail down to the creek bed and headed to the fence line straddling the creek. Sure enough, the fence had been flattened, probably by a big cottonwood limb, so they stopped at one end of the fence and walked out to the flattened spot.

Mark was slightly ahead of Slim on the quest as they made their way across the damp sand bed. All was going well and then, according to Slim, Mark stepped in a spot that looked as firm as any other and sank "... darn near to to his thigh!". Then he stopped to admonish me "Those fancy rubber boots you like so much? Well, if he'd been wearing those, he's STILL be there - I ain't kidding ya!" At that point I glanced over at Mark now slouched comfortably into his wing chair. Without a word of protest or self-defense, Mark sighed ever so lightly and pointed down to the mud and sand still clinging to his shoes and well up past his knees.

Quicksand! Who would have thought? The only time we had encountered quicksand was in old Westerns. Seemed like every other episode involved someone falling into quicksand and fighting for their lives, so much so that you'd think it was everywhere. Eventually you thought "Yeah, another non-existent legend." Well, what a way to find out that quicksand does exist.

So Slim, not done with his story-telling, related the story of going down to another neighbor's ranch that week to round up strays. He said "So we rode the horses down across the big wash and darned if Ruby didn't sink in up to her shoulders in quicksand! I kicked out of the stirrups and dropped to one side of her and she sort of rested on me - which kind of kept her from sinking any deeper." Mark, now consumed by the excitement of the tale, exclaimed "Wow, so you being nearly under her is what saved her?!" Slim, being quite pleased that someone bit at his story bait, then said "Nah, but don't it make for a great cowboy tale?" That's our boy. And thankfully, Ruby did make it out on her own.

But he continued on the serious side, noting that being caught in the stirrups or having a horse get caught up in the reins is a sure way to get yourself killed while they are panicking and struggling to get out of the quicksand. This particular cowboy is not helping any desire on our part to pick up horses for ourselves in the future - and that's a fact.
.
.

*******************************************

.
.
And now to address a flurry of birthday wishes:

To Mark, who you can see in the ATV photos above. He's still looking good as ever and STILL getting carded! I suspect that he is really Dorian Gray and I am his portrait - that's all I can figure.
.
.
To my sister (above). Enjoying retirement now but was a securities desk trader for years and eventually one of the first woman stock traders on the exchange floor. I even kept her magazine interview on the subject - my, how times have changed.
. .
To my nephew (above): the BIG Dallas fan. Just an all-round decent kid and my former carousing buddy when I went home to visit, often to the chagrin of his mother (already shown above).
.
.
To my buddy Sinclair (above): SUPREME gearhead. Retired CEO of Saab NA, has owned just about anything really cool with two or four-wheels and a motor. Even ran the Baja with Malcolm Forbes. Here is a guy with tales to keep you around the campfire all night. Shown here with his Kawa-based Harris from England. He's having some health issues right now that I hope he can kick in the butt. He's been a loyal friend through much adversity and I have a long memory.
.
.

Whimsical Dreams and Schemes

.
Wow! The image below has been circulating like a wild fire in So. California. I saw it over at Goddess's place (she's in my links!) and also received two higher resolution versions from the Katlady and my brother all within hours. I am truly smitten with this image and not in the least offended that I was a 'must copy' on it. It doesn't look like a photo-shop wonder either but a genuine 3D project since it incorporates our beloved shipping containers (I'll do a post just on that some day, too). There was an eccentric structural genius at work here. Better still, the designer has displayed a certain defiance and disdain of decorum acceptable to even middle class society. In other words, I am absolutely in LOVE with it. Given the chance to tour a Guggenheim exhibit or this place, you know what my choice would be. Can't you just see this arrangement creeping up the back wall of our mesa behind the Rat? Don't kid yourself, the Anasazi would have done the same thing at Mesa Verde if they had access to cheap rat trailers, shipping containers, scrap iron, cranes and welding equipment.
.
.
This got me to thinking about our delayed Rat Town project again. The thaw and the muddy state of the roads have postponed the delivery of our two 14'x36' buildings indefinitely and I won't say that the delay has not discouraged me somewhat. My antidote is to dream on, as it always has been. I have forever created complex micro worlds in the process of waiting on promises and prospects, most of which never materialized. It eventually became the creative thought process which mattered most; a realized, completed project became almost anticlimactic after a few decades of dreams lost.
.
.
And so I dredged up a front-on view of the Rat (above) to impose my imagination upon, the two new buildings already in place in my visions. Not two overgrown and glorified potting sheds but two edifices to meld into my eccentric and whimsical 'big picture'. Yes, a very curious outpost in the middle of no man's land, something that will make the rare lost traveler grin and wonder.
.
It took considerable time to browse the Net for inspiration but I finally found some images which I could electronically beat into submission to form my otherwise very loose master plan (above). Since Slim and cowboy company liked the idea of an Old West Saloon, this was the grit around which my outrageous pearl would form.

The new buildings will stack up at a right angle to the Rat's front facade to form one continuous road face. We did not resurface the front face of the Rat and will not until we see where this wild hair of a plan is going. Ideally, the road-facing side of each new building will sport two or more distinct pseudo store fronts . What you see above is strictly a concept, much the way concept cars never meet the road in production numbers but it gives you a very rough idea at least.

It was an idea fermenting well before our arrival and, unfortunately, the many wonderful antique architectural details that I had been scrounging up in the Midwest were left behind thanks to the nature of those people to take advantage of our time and logistics predicament (oh no, no residual animosity, of course, but may they drown and then rot in Hell, the whole bloody lot of them). You just don't mess with my dreams.

What items we were able to salvage will not produce the vignette above but it is a start at least. It will be many, many years before we can find more architectural touches to complete a whimsical Old Western facade to our liking but the quest will keep me invigorated and inclined to venture into civilization more than once a year. The thrill, the lust of the hunt has not been officially abandoned yet.
.
.
.

Home Cummins, Part 4

.
Pre-Ramble, Current News : Touch wood ... I am free of that antlered albatross as of yesterday!!! Now that we have gone through our first drill on processing an elk, next year's plans will include jerky (for Bruno) and a run at smoked sausage, too. This year's very cautious attempt yielded steaks, BBQ slabs, fajita strips, stew cuts and ground meat. We spent some good bucks on a Bass Pro #8 (.35hp, by LEM) meat grinder and have no regrets whatsoever. When was the last time you opened up an appliance package and kept saying "Wow, this thing is WELL made!" as you pulled out each part? Lotsa stainless steel, genuine steel gears and even the castings are works of art. Pure machine lust ... goose bumps and shivers!
.
Retrospect: Mid-September 2006

Apologies for the quick entry yesterday, ma cher La Phlegm, the words just piled up quicker than I thought might be tolerable for on-line reading if I had finished it up. So here is the finale:

The thought of being discovered in such an embarrassing state drove me to hop and waddle all gimpy-kneed to a small boulder for cover where I ducked down and waited. One more motor rev and then ... nothing but the breezy silence of the canyon again. By now, my knee was screeching but I thought "You're just waiting me out, aren't you? You dirty rotters ... eh-heh-heh, I can wait, too!" That lasted for all of two minutes as my knee ramped up the wailing again and I thought of the hordes of snakes and tarantulas who were probably taking advantage of the situation and sneaking up on me now. I minced my way back out to the road and continued on. Rounding the bend an eighth mile up the road, I realized that truck had taken a steep path up the mesa - all that squatus interruptus for nothing! Now I walked on with the priority of getting back into my pants and shoes. The road was still muddy so I guided each step to the driest section in hopes that the mud on my feet would eventually dry and fall away. I learned a lot about interpreting the appearances of a road surface that morning which would help with driving later but I wandered on for another mile before I would attempt donning my clothes again. I knew that any course grit in my socks and shoes would lame me long before I reached home.
.

"The Roller Coaster"

My walk home started at the base of the far, bluish mesa. I would end up walking well beyond the lower left corner of this photo. That swath of road leading off the main road and up to the left is where the mystery truck disappeared. The roller coaster allows for some very enjoyable senior 'Bullitt' moments providing that you stop at the top of the first one to make sure that someone isn't doing the same thing coming the other way and that a road grader has covered over the foot deep run-off keyways at the bottom of each hill.

.

As I began the 'roller coaster' (a tight series of five or six small alluvial hills between the mesa and the creek, see photo), a set of fresh coyote tracks joined me, running in the same direction towards home. My thoughts of Brou's safety loomed heavily as I recalled the communal coyote calls to a fresh kill. I would sigh with relief when the tracks vanished into the sage but worry again when two or more sets would rejoin me a quarter of a mile later. All were heading home towards the lone pup Brou as I was now.
..
Finally, oh finally, I reached a spot where I could stand like a flamingo and slough the mud off my feet against the back of my calves and put the jeans back on without falling over. Another scrub-off against the jeans and I had my socks and shoes back on. Glorious! No more sharp little stones to snap me out of the thoughts I had occasion to get lost in and I could pick up the pace now.
.
As I wondered about the mountain lion sightings of the year before, small game birds rose up and flew ahead of me, always some twenty yards ahead. I was taken by their quick flash of orange wing bottoms as they methodically leap-frogged ahead of me and I was grateful for their distracting company. I now longed for that initial glimpse of the Rat which lay a quarter mile beyond the Roller Coaster. My trek would end only a mile beyond that point.
.
The last mile would begin well before the right side of the photo above. From there, it would be a fairly constant descent into our home piece of canyon, requiring much less huffing and puffing. You can see the wildly meandering broad band of our creek below it.

The coyote tracks now picked up in numbers as I descended into the chico flats at the left of that photo and all were still headed in the direction of home ... and a defenseless Brou. My heart sickened a little further and my pace picked up noticeably. I now hurried towards my last obstacle, the infamous 'Virgil Catcher', a deep bog of run-off which retains its moisture greedily long after the other run-off paths have calmed and dried. I gaged my path and skipped gingerly across the first half. Then my next few steps sunk into the ooze until my right shoe was sucked right off my foot, well behind my inertia. I had made it to the other side but was now pivoting clownishly and precariously on one remaining shoe. I gave in to defeat and returned for the hostage shoe. With both shoes now shrouded in as much mud as my spirit, I removed the muck-laden shoes and proceeded in my stocking feet. I was on a mission to find Brou so who cared if I wore out a pair of cotton socks.
.
At the remaining quarter mile mark, I could see the barn and Rat and began calling out for Brou. With every response of silence, I quickened my steps and began calling louder. Only the silence of the canyon, save for a few shallow echoes, answered my calls. I tried to ignore my growing cringes of gloom.

I was nearly to the barn when a small and cowed auburn form appeared at the barn door and cautiously made its way towards me. "Oh, my Brooouuuu! You made it!"

My surging sheets of adrenaline left me as we trotted the last few yards to the Rat's porch. I collapsed on it's rough 2x4 planks and was smothered by Brou's joyful reunion kisses. Four miles of plodding suddenly became worth every foot, every worry and pang of misery within it.
.
As I lay there immobilized in deep pools of relief and joy, I swore I heard another truck. Sure enough and so goes the story of my life again. Virgil swung into the driveway and endured my "So just where the H--- were you when I was four miles down the road from here anyway?" He grinned that big cat grin and laughed when I told him of my trek back in. Then he left to test the waters for Mark. Knowing he had a captive towing buddy on the other side, he charged across the running creek to Mark's side and said "Okay, I'll turn around and hit it again. Wait 'til I'm on the other side so that I can tow you out if necessary and then you hit it, too." A flawless run by both ensued and Mark was soon greeted by Brou's exuberant slurpy kisses as well, the brand new truck now parked proudly in front of the Rat.

Having a friend like Virgil in these far reaches of the gas field was a blessing beyond all blessings. I should never have expressed that sentiment to the anti-neighbor; it wouldn't be long before she would aid in his removal with her venomous hate-driven hissings. Sometimes you have to eventually learn the hard way to over-ride a long prevailing and abused trait of magnanimity.

It wasn't long before I decided that staying right here at the Rat rather than attempting outside trips was just fine with me. To read about previous adventures out of the canyon, click on the 'seldom leave' label and remember to read from the bottom up. Does make one wonder.

As I type, a new flurry of snow is obliterating our view of the far mesa. We're not done with winter just yet!
.
.
.

Home Cummins, Part 3.

.
You know the drill by now - scroll down and read Part 1 and then Part 2 if you haven't already or you will be completely lost.

Retrospect: Mid-September 2006
.
.

We ignored the first hint of a cold dawn as it back-lit the condensate on the truck windows by burying our heads deeper into our light jackets. Trying to move sent a xylophone riff of pain down our cramped spines and out into our stiff limbs. Aside from letting in a blast of chilling air, a quick roll-down of the window made it clear that the creek was STILL running hard. It would be hours more before the sun warmed the canyon air around us or slowed the creek.

We stirred and felt obliged to be social when we heard two trucks draw near around 9AM. The two drivers stopped well short of us, trudged through the brush to inspect the creek and promptly left, purposefully avoiding any eye contact or acknowledgment. Unlike the well-end workers, we've found the pipeline company workers to be consistently aloof and occasionally a detriment (as noted in an earlier story of getting the Ram stuck in the creek). We suspect that there is no 'good neighbor policy' in place in these pipeline corporations.
.
There was no way we could force a return to napping at this late stage of the morning so we had to make decisions. The kitty boys were safe inside the Rat but my concern for Brou was building furiously. When Mark volunteered to walk across the creek and head home, I declined. Nursing an old phobia about driving other people's vehicles, I declared that it would be me who walked home and that he would ferry the new truck across when the waters subsided.
.
I scraped a good amount of muck off my shoes with a stout sage branch and placed them in a plastic shopping bag along with my socks. Since my straight-cut jeans would not roll up very far, they were placed in the bag on top of newspaper serving as a mud barrier. I marched resolutely down the slope to the creek, bag in hand, turning only once to announce "Okay, now if I fall down in the creek and you laugh ... well, you know ..." By the time I was on the far side and realizing that I was facing this walk alone, he had already returned to the truck and was deeply engrossed in his newspapers. Hmpphhh. Fine! I then looked down at the mud which had oozed up in quantity from between my toes - it would obviously be awhile before I could put my jeans and shoes back on. A great spectacle to behold; me, the great cross country adventurer, pushing on in my bare feet and underwear. "Did Lewis and Clark ever do this?" I wondered to myself.
.
It was about a quarter of a mile into this trek that two things happened. The first was a nature call of the most pressing kind. Oh, surely NOT now - I'm barefooted with this gimpy knee and there is no sign of any suitable seating arrangement to aid in this suddenly urgent mission. Not wanting to tread into the brush in such a vulnerable state of dress, I trudged on for another hundred yards but succumbed to sheer desperation. I planted myself for business in an area barely off the road after surveying for snakes and tarantulas ... and so grateful for that section of newspaper in the plastic bag. The second thing to happen (of course - as you probably could have guessed) was the sudden roar of an approaching truck from up the road ahead. Great; I am unshod, in my underwear and in the middle of addressing a dump. Such would appear to be the story of my life at times.
.
To be continued

This is consuming more words than I had planned so I'm cutting it short here to go back to the elk processing now. I am beginning to truly resent that beast, I really am. I'll be back and visiting as soon as I finish pounding that vile and taunting creature into submission, promise!!!

.
.

Fajita Night!

.Apologies; this is not part 3 of the Home Cummins tale. This thaw has made the processing of that elk an absolute priority now even though Mark cannot pick up the mail order new freezer until the roads improve. We will have to pack everything in the snow at the shady base of the mesa until then. We will have to empty out truck totes to pack it in so that our domestic carnivores or Slim's dogs don't help themselves. At the prospect, I have lost all concentration necessary to finish off the Cummins stories. I know me; it would read like a grocery list if I even attempted it right now. Again, apologies.

So above is what it looks like around here lately just before Mark turns on the generator for the night. Pretty outside but you haven't been able to read anything in the Rat for the last half hour. The idea is to make up for the few daytime hours we have been running lately - every bit helps.
.But it was fajita (fah-hee-tah) night! I had thawed beef strips and let them lounge around for several hours in the fajita seasoning marinade and squeezings from a lime I found hiding in the crisper. Long slices of fresh red and green peppers and onions tossed into the pan towards the end of frying and we were set. This is one of Slim's favorite dinners, too, although the roads kept him 'up top' this time.
.
Dished out on to a tortilla and mine with a few dollops of sour cream and it's a wrap! Easy to make, easy to eat and a great change of pace from the usual.
.
I WILL be back when the elk is taken care of, it just may take a few days.
.
.

Home Cummins, Part 2

.
Retrospect: Mid-September 2006
Continued from Part 1 (for logical reasons) . If you haven't already done so, please read Part 1 posted below or you will miss the flow of the story.
.
.
There is a reason why I believe in unseen benefactors. While this could not be considered one of their most spectacular saves in my experiences so far, it stills deserves noting.
.
When the front wheels broke through the berm as though it wasn't even there, we both closed our eyes, at least on a psychological level. The nanosecond functions of our analytical brains told us that the mass, inertia and lack of friction would make our plummet into the raging wash below a guaranteed result of physics. We were toast.

The front wheels slid completely over the embankment and then the truck simply stopped dead. It took a moment for either of us to acknowledge this strange stay of the inevitable, finally voiced by simultaneous gasps of relief. When both of us returned to normal damage control thinking, I volunteered to get out and apply reverse force to aid any traction the rear wheels might still have.

I stepped out in my 'go to town' shoes and immediately had my feet slip out from under me so that I was at a 45 degree angle to the road, held there only by the grace of a hand clutching the bed of the truck. It was obvious that I had no more traction than the truck did. Despite my new frustration and despair, Mark decided to give reverse a try after I slid myself and my mud-caked shoes back into the cab. How the truck managed to gain traction with the remaining two wheels and free itself on the first attempt still defies all logic but it did.

We made it to the intersection at the second nearest neighbor's house and were tempted to ask them for lodging for the night but remembered that we saw their parking lot full of visitors' cars when we first passed by. So ... we took the turn towards the bridge and what unknowns lay beyond.

There were blessings to be had in that the two washes which lay beyond the bridge had not collected enough rain to run yet. I suppose this could be called a blessing in that this allowed us to commence 'the goat path' run. To imagine this 'road', remember back to the Roadrunner cartoons and the precipitous paths carved into mesa walls where the coyote always met a semi head-on. No, those depicted super-highways in reality. This is a one lane dirt path with climbs, falls and turns so tight that you expect to see the truck's rear-end as you swing back sharply into the skirt of the mesa. The other option is a 30 foot fall into the creek below.

To make the drive more challenging, the rain run-off not only turned the clay into slime but brought down boulders to obstruct the path. There were occasions when I would have sworn that we would leave paint on those boulders as we squeezed by. In this two mile run, the terror of hoping for traction on the steep climbs and again for the steep descents into sharp turns had drained us of all the adrenaline that either of us possessed. Numb floating sensations in the limbs and shallow breathing had become normal now.

I heartily thanked our unseen friends as we finally dropped down into the canyon flats again. We both knew that only one more wash crossing and a few less harrowing rim rides lay between us and home-sweet-home. After a few more fish-tailing blasts through boggy spots in the road, we finally made it to the last wash. We stopped at the top of the approach and rolled down the windows to listen. What we heard sounded like wild applause at Carnegie Hall; the creek was running full and hard. We stepped out long enough to confirm that we were now stranded in place. Despite the seasoned advice that a couple of hours waiting would see the washes slow enough to cross, the creek did not die down that night and so we settled in to our predicament. The black hood of night descended and the temperatures dropped rapidly ... and the rains persisted, everywhere, it seemed.

Eventually we realized that neither of us had eaten that day in the rush to pick up this new truck. I hauled the meager bag of sale groceries into the front seat. "Tonight's menu consists of, uhm, this package of ham, this loaf of pumpernickel and ... these itty bitty pecan tarts!" The prospect of sand dry sandwiches prompted Mark to ask "Anything to drink, I hope?" "Yes! I also bought a case of beer! Mind you, they're 'shelfer' warm. That okay?" As though we had other options. And so we had our cab front supper and talked as though we were comfortably home in the Rat. The warm beer helped lighten the mood but also caused several exits for relief. Each time we did the dreaded potty run, we returned with another pound or two of clay on our already cemented shoes but grateful that we had not lost balance in the ooze and fallen down. The dealer's paper floor mats were soon stuck to our shoes permanently, impeding the comfort factor considerably.

It was around midnight when we abandoned all hope to still make the crossing before morning. The creek had shown no signs of calming at all and the rains kept coming down. We gathered our light jackets over us and pushed the seat backs as far down as possible. And I thought of Brou, the poor young pup who we had left outside since we would be back soon enough. I ached at the thought of him surviving his first night out alone in the company of rains and crashing thunder and, forbid the thought, the coyotes.

With such concerns on my mind and the plummeting temperatures, I would awake shivering and chattering from a cramped and fitful nap every few hours and nudge Mark to start up the truck for more heat. This was going to be a very long and torturous journey to morning, resting in this very place which the native peoples will not venture through after dark.

To be continued
.
.
=====================================
.
Humor of the day: It may seem odd to include humor in this post but you fellas will appreciate it given that Mark had to navigate the goat path with 'the help' of a passenger. (sent in by buddy Jim in upstate NY)
.

A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs when her husband burst into the kitchen.

"Careful"' he said, "CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my GOD! You're cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. Oh my GOD! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They're going to STICK! Careful . CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you're cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you LOST your mind? Don't forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT ! THE SALT!"

The wife stared at him incredulously. "What in the world is wrong with you? You think I don't know how to fry a couple of eggs?"

The husband calmly replied, "I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I'm driving."
.
.
.

Home Cummins, Part 1

.
Pre-Ramble: Current News
.
The roads are still a mess out here, declared an emergency by some estimates. Mark dutifully made the supply run into town even though we were hardly in dire circumstance. The prospects of it deteriorating further made this small window a wise decision. He got out on the freeze but ran into the mud on the way back in. Still, it was great to get fresh supplies and pick up the mail in the process.

In one of the town newspapers, there was an article about volunteers making 4WD supply runs into the boonies, how some people were down to one quart of orange juice in the fridge and their animals already dying of starvation. Is it just me here or have people who have lived out here all their lives lost any common sense about how to be prepared for nature's expected twists in this harsh land? Has every one of us become so nannied that we need to rely on outside help to save us from our own responsibility to think and plan ahead? How prepared are you if your power goes out for almost 70 hours like Bruno's did recently? He had back up plans, do you? Can you keep warm, do you have enough stored food to survive a week while waiting to be bailed out? Please give it some thought.
.
.
Above is one of the few vehicles that made it out here this week. Note the mud covering the headlights and windshield - they had obviously run through some good mud already. I took this photo merely seconds after both occupants stepped outside to relieve themselves well within view of the Rat. Why they couldn't have planned ahead and done so behind the berm of the new well site is an annoying mystery to me. Apparently planning ahead is a vanishing human trait.
.
.

We awoke to another inch or two of snow this morning, a remarkably small accumulation since the storm had disabled our satellite connection last night.

I stepped outside and noticed that Mark's Ram looked great considering the road conditions. Then it occurred to me that this fine beast had endured unusually hard assignments from the get-go and that I was very grateful to have it here. That, in turn, has prompted me to journal the story of its arrival. It experienced a baptism of mud within hours of rolling off the dealer lot. That mid-September of 2006 was loaded with tales and trials, some still untold.

Retrospect: Mid-September 2006

After months of research, Mark found this most suitable truck up in Colorado. We piled into my Dakota and headed up there. Mark hung firmly to the agreed price despite the dealer trying to slip in profitable unannounced add-ons like the $127 piece of chromed plastic they called a bug shield. A quick $80+ profit times a couple of hundred trucks off the lot adds up but we weren't buying into it on principle alone. As they played the 'wait 'em out' game, thick thunder clouds formed and rain started to fall so we set off in a full blown thunderstorm. I will not forget that trip or that dealer for delaying our departure by three hours. Their cheesy profit ploy could have cost us our lives that day. Also, since they wanted to charge us high retail on a set of fully necessary BFG Mud Terrain tires with no credit on the factory installed tires, we still had one more stop to take care of that before heading back in. But without those tires, I probably wouldn't be here now to write this journal.

I followed Mark as we climbed back up the mountain on the steep roads, ever mindful of the sheer drops hidden by the blinding rains and that uncomfortable feeling of greasy pavement beneath the trucks. We raced on to the tire outlet, beating the storm back to New Mexico only temporarily. Now there was no time left to peruse the sale ads and pick up groceries but I was able to dash in and pick-up a few clearance items to salve my thwarted sale-lust while Mark picked up parcels.

The clouds caught up and let loose before we could even run back to the trucks. Mark called down to the nearest neighbor and was told that it was still all clear down there. We might have never attempted the trip back that day otherwise. By the time we began the 35 miles of dirt roads, the rain had already turned the clay into flowing gumbo and my old motorcycle sense threw me into high alert even though I was highly unlikely to hook up and fall down on four wheels. This acute sense of contact with the road and balance is not necessarily a plus in these conditions, at least as far as adrenaline output.

For the next two hours, we gingerly crawled up hills and hugged the inside of off-camber curves to allow for 'side slide' outwards. I didn't start getting antsy until we hit water running down the road at such a rate that Mark later noted that he was almost convinced that he had led us up a running wash in the blinding rains.

With my lower Dakota, the waters rushed beneath and against the body with a deafening roar and I could feel them draining away my connection with terra firma. It is here that our approach to driving departs radically. Mark was slowing down ahead while my urge was to stick a foot in it, fishtails or not, and just get it done. I pounded the dash with a free hand, yelling "Move it, MOVE it!!" like an old drill sergeant as the Dakota started to lose resolve and drift towards the ditches and sage.

Just when I thought I was going to play clam in the undertow, Mark reached the far side of the torrent and booted it. I was now lathered up and hot on his bumper all the way. I had a good twenty minutes to calm down before reaching our mailbox at the neighbor's place. She came out and, without thanks, grabbed the clearance bread I offered and announced that the washes were still not running. That was when I pointed out a very large tree limb that bobbed frantically as it passed by in their normally small wash which stands between us and our main wash crossing. Within another minute, we all witnessed a roiling tawny head of foam vanguarding the brown waters raging down the main wash. We heeded her insouciant command to head back a few miles, take the bridge there and use what we now call 'the goat path'. We hadn't had that pleasure yet. Meanwhile, I made a mental note of how, in her position, I would have treated what she clearly thought and often derisively voiced were a couple of clueless green horns in the neighborhood. I would have been concerned and asked them to stay. Then again, I did not have the poop-chute genes that we later heard have infamously run in that clan for generations. But you eventually learn and that is good.

So we left my Dakota there, unloaded the mail and my small bag of remaining sale groceries into the Ram and started back down the road. By now, the little daylight hinting through the storm was disappearing. While edging down a slick grade, three elk charged out in front of us to add to the already pounding blood rush of adrenalin. We had been rolling on tires now so thickly coated in clay that they no longer had treads to grip, not even ABS brakes would stop us now. The main wash had rushed ahead of us roaring bank to bank, 60 foot across. We had a good view of its fury from this ledge 30 feet above as we approached a sharp right angle in the cliff road. I felt an ice-watery pang when my stomach snapped up against my lungs as I sensed a complete and hopeless loss of traction. We both inhaled the seat covers with our buttocks as the Ram slid helplessly towards the cliff's edge. I vaguely remember saying "Oh, man, we're . . . ." as the truck's front wheels burst through the small grader berm at the edge of the cliff and the murderous waters below came into view front and center.
.
To be continued
.
.
.

Just Plain Funny

.
I'm working on cleaning out my e-mail in-box and these gems are too good not to share with you. Maybe this will make up for forgetting to include humor bits in the last several posts.
.

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

.
For anyone who's ever owned a cat ...

"Instructions for application of oral medicine to domestic feline ... or 'How to give a pill to a cat.'"
(sent in by Connie G in England)

1. Pick up cat and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm, holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of 10.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, holding front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold cat's head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with its head just visible from below spouse's armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, - force cat's mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink glass of water to take taste away. Apply Elastoplast to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbour's shed. Get another pill. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessertspoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put door back on hinges. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Throw bloodied, ripped T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Ring fire brigade to retrieve cat from tree across the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie cat's front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Find heavy-duty pruning gloves from shed. Force cat's mouth open with small spanner. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Hold head vertically and pour a pint of water down throat to wash pill down.

14. Get spouse to drive you to emergency room, sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Stop by furniture shop on way home to order new table.

15. Arrange for RSPCA to collect cat and call local pet shop to see if they have any hamsters.
.
.

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

.
Glimpses of the human side of Britain's royal family:
.

Overwhelmed by her decorations, no doubt

(sent in by Eric U in B.C.)

.
.
Below confirms my theory that flatulence is the great equalizer of the classes. Click to enlarge this one and study the expressions carefully. Did Prince Phillip cut a grand boomer? Severe lip-biting did not restore decorum well. Note QE2's expression in the last clip when she 'gets the drift'.
.

I would have been that kid in the back row
(sent in by Ken)

.
.

Dang Fool - part 1

.
Pre-Ramble: Rat life is pretty darned good at the moment. The plumbing is holding up (both in and out), the propane man made it in last week just before the roads went bad. Saw the first traffic in a week when Hondo stopped by (he deserves a post to himself someday soon). He had been out checking his well run and his truck looked more mud brown than anything.

Later, I glanced out the window yesterday and saw what first looked like a small Willys-type Jeep. The closer it got, the stranger it looked. Then we saw a collection of dogs and a black cowboy hat inside of it. It was Slim, arriving like the Cavalry with a case of beer in the back end. With neighbors like that, could you want for better? He had been running and repairing the fence lines in preparation for his next load of cattle to arrive and thought to make the extra five miles to our place in the process. He stayed for several hours of socializing before heading back. I just wish that he had given me some warning; I could have thawed out a great early supper. I suspect he figures that goods meals only occur well after dark around here and he wasn't about to stay out that late in an open cabbed vehicle and drive home freezing and half in the bag over roads he was so glad he didn't abuse his truck on. We couldn't fault him on that either.

So why didn't I get photos of our visitors? Mark and I talked about that after they all left. It obviously comes from my own dislike of having my photo taken. I just presume that everyone else feels the same way. I will have to force myself to ask them for the privilege some time and see how they feel about it. They are certainly a very important part of our life out here.
.
.

Yesterday's moon over the Rat

.
On to today's post: "Dang fool". This is the first part of a random and happenstance series on what we left behind. This is an important part of the 'leave it all behind' process that we all have to deal with in this circumstance.

Now read this quote from an early sixties program:

Jed Clampett: Pearl, what d'ya think? Think I oughta move?
Cousin Pearl: Jed, how can ya even ask? Look around ya. Yer eight miles from yer nearest neighbor. Yor overrun with skunks, possums, coyotes, bobcats. Ya use kerosene lamps fer light and ya cook on a wood stove summer and winter. Yer drinkin' homemade moonshine and washin' with homemade lye soap. Yor bathroom is fifty feet from the house and you ask "should I move?"
Jed: I reckon yor right. A man'd be a dang fool to leave all this!

"The Beverly Hillbillies" c. early 1960s

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

I was very young when I heard those lines but something about them stayed with me forever after. It was a story about a hillbilly who (unlike us) had mineral rights and subsequent sudden wealth. While Mark and I never had great wealth from being in the right place at the right time, we had persevered and developed a comfortable home while still accruing some savings. What's enjoyably ironic is that we are now pursuing a reverse Jed Clampett scenario. For a decade and a half previously, we had pursued a 'no debt' objective and now it was paying off. My ever-ending rehab of the past few houses had yielded gains and we were on our way ... downwards, in the eyes of many. It was a good thing that we never followed the bleating crowds or we never would have made it. We don't live as primitively as Jed by a long shot but many would think so. The standard perception is that we had something to lose and did so. Did we really? I mean really? Prior to this, we dealt with long commutes, theft and vandalism from scum (those poor little victims of society), municipal restrictions and enforcement, neighbors and acquaintances who most often fell short of returning our assistance and generosity and HIGH taxes to support this 'privilege'.

So, how willing are you to give up your conveniences for a greater degree of autonomy and freedom? Can you still free your hand from the philosophical monkey trap by letting go of your fist-full of immediate comforts? It's harder than you might think. Unless you earned your money the old-fashioned way - by inheriting it from dear mumsy and dadda, you have to plan a long way ahead and remain dedicated to your goal. The prime outlands may be under siege from trust fund slugs but we everyday folks can still get our licks in if we plan ahead with determined and genuine intent. What are you waiting for?

So here begins the 'dang fool' series. If your sitting in relative comfort on the grid, I don't want to hear any accusations of whining; such numb-nutted thought-free sound bites will only anger me immensely. If you are interested in pursuing a similar goal, this series will benefit you in understanding these pressures and dilemmas.
.
.
Here is the place we left behind. It is a rambling 3 level 120+ year old farmhouse which we spent 12 years restoring. It was fun, challenging and an awesome place to call home. It was our pinnacle of residential comfort and achievement.
. .

Tah-dah!!! The Rat!

Take two independent people going from over 3,000 square feet of living space plus a barn with over 4600 square feet of room for work shops, vehicle toys and 'stuff' and jam them into a 910 square foot rat trailer 24/7 for two years. Do the math; you'd both better enjoy each other's company in every way before attempting this. And you both better be able to see and appreciate the benefits from doing so. Still worth it? Put yourself in our shoes and decide.
.
.
.

Sunday Sundries

.
"It's quiet out there ...." .........."Yeah, too quiet."
.
Remember that much quoted old Western movie cliché? Well that's the state of the onion out here right now. The snow has been melting and running off. Our creek and the major wash have been running bank to bank at times. The roads are one big mud bog. The BLM has just circulated the 'if you can't drive and leave less than a 6" rut, don't do it' declaration which effectively silences the gas field for the time being. Yep, we are in full rutting season at the moment. It's been a couple of weeks since our last supply run to town and might be another couple before we're able to do it again. Our food supply is holding out well but beer and fuel might become an issue before then. So if I disappear, you'll know that the generator has finally run dry. I'm giving you that techno heads up now, just in case.

With the weather and road conditions, it really is quiet out here. The two new gas wells in progress have become ghost towns. We haven't heard or seen another vehicle in days. The howling winds have been the only source of noise here. Well, except for the fella below.
.
.
I had been hoping for Moose to send down one of Alberta's famous Chinooks, the warm dry winds that pierce the bitter cold of their winters. Above is what I got instead. It was hidden by the mesa's edge but a brawny whup, whup, whupping had me first conjecturing that it was multiple helicopters. I was only able to capture a marginal photo after it loomed into sight well to the east of us. It was an impressive creature stubbornly defying gravity as it plodded along but not necessarily a handsome one. Both ends looked amusingly like cartoon creatures but it's rear end (on the right above) unfortunately reminded me of Barney the Dinosaur grinning down at me. Only that aspect left me wishing for SAMs. Otherwise, it was a very much appreciated air show to punctuate the silence.
.
.
So Daisy here sums up the current mood at the Rat; seen here grinning and lying with her front paws crossed; "Hey, we can't dance so let's just hang out and goof around."
.
.
Saturday night just insisted on some kind of classic comfort food so I dug a loaf of frozen bread dough out of the freezer. Unburdening the freezer remains a priority and good excuse. Found my coveted 16" pizza pan, primed it generously with olive oil and then worked the softened dough forever to spread it out to the edges and applied the pizza sauce. Then a layer of quartered large pepperoni and the inevitable extra herbs and spices. But I had an urge for something extra gooey and a taste for mushrooms so I got out a can of cream of mushroom soup, hand-whipped it into a lighter texture and carefully applied small dollops of it all over the sauce and pepperoni. Shamelessly applied over a pound of stray mozzarella (found in the freezer as well), a light sprinkling of Parmesan and then tamped it all down very gently to spread and incorporate the mushroom soup into the cheese. Then the final layer of more pepperoni, fresh mushrooms and some ancient frozen green pepper slices (those were 'OK' but obviously not as good as fresh ones).

It presented the answer to everything I had hoped to satisfy. Thick and creamy, rich enough that both of us were happy in leaving the second half for another night's treat. I love those meals that don't leave you looking for 'a little something else' to finish off the hunger and even better if they provide a second sitting on another night.
.
.
So, Saturday morning, I'm looking out a Rat window, up at the mesa top and something registers as unusual. I saw what looked like a mound of snow on a small stump. But the stump just seemed out of place so I got out the field glasses. During one of our supper and social evenings, Slim had mentioned how you just get used to what looks normal and what looks just a little off when spotting game. He was right; the glasses revealed the white rump of a mule deer doe. I took out the new camera with the great 12X zoom lens and fired away. The absolutely worst feature of this Canon S3-IS is the view finder. Unlike my adored old SLR where what you see is what you get, you look into the view finder and see some very vague digital image. It's absolutely ghastly so you point in the general direction, cross your fingers, click and hope for the best.
.
.
Fortunately, the auto focus is reasonably efficient and the views above are similar to what my field glasses had revealed. Remember that you can click on any of these images for a larger view but do so especially for these deer photos directly above.

These two does took their sweet time munching around the base of that pine tree. I'd love to find out just what food source they were so enthralled with; they were there for well over an hour. I have a feeling that these were part of the three doe group I had seen just the day before as they grazed down in our canyon bottom. We had discovered a well-worn trail which ascended the 300 foot face during one of our 'all critters of the Rat' outings last Fall. They could flit up the mesa face in five minutes and not even breathe hard. This is an awesome place to quietly exist and observe.
.
.

Our St. Valentine's Wishes

.
To make up for yesterday's brutal tour of plumbing joys, I will let the photos do most of the talking today.
.
.

An old copper heart in the wild

.
.

A cookie cutter, its shadowy admirer

.
.

Just goes to show that you can find yourself atop a rusty old burn barrel and still find serenity

Happy St. Valentine's wishes and love from all of us out here at the ranch to all our wonderful blog friends and readers!
.
.
.

Why I Despise Plumbing Work

.
The "P" word (that dreaded catch-all category for anything that involves movement of clean or dirty fluids) is a leading cause of insanity. I will explain why. The word 'plumbing' came to us from the Latin word for lead. We know that the Roman civilization existed slightly before the EPA Empire and so they piped all their water around via lead pipe and even made drinking cups from lead. Some have gone so far as to suggest that lead poisoning from their plumbing was a major contributor to the eventual decline of their Empire. I happen to agree that their plumbing was a major factor although I believe that dealing with any aspect of plumbing, be it in lead, copper, iron or plastic, will cause or encourage complete insanity. Please proceed with that premise in mind.

Somewhere in mid-January, Mark chipped away the ice and removed one of the Rat's skirting panels. The reason at the time was to allow the new warm air to infiltrate the underbelly of the Rat and hopefully thaw out the plumbing which had already left us without running water for the last two weeks. A glorious prospect indeed!

I made the fatal mistake of stooping down to survey the creepy-crawly space. I saw ... I heard .... dripping. At that point, I should have discreetly loaded my bags into the Dakota and left for parts yet to be determined. Perhaps the roads were impassible that day, I don't remember now. Perhaps I was simply in denial with a warped pioneer stubbornness and masochism. Whatever that was matters not; I felt compelled to crawl into that void beneath the Rat to find the cause of the dripping. The water piping had held its own against the subzero weather, it was the drain system which chose to let loose.

Since I am the far more compressible into three or for segments to work under the Rat and the only one still marginally able to see in the dark, I choose at that moment to retreat and declare the drains off-limits until further notice. I needed time to think and form some sort resolve, intestinal fortitude ... something, anything. In the meantime; no water in, no water out.

There was a time when I was an erect-walking Homo Sapiens of the full basement clan. No, I was not fond of plumbing duty even back then but I did not have the oppressive dread of it that I possess now. Folding, crawling, crouching and laying in the mud of disconnected drain discharge has somehow let my disdain bloom fully. Fergawdssake, I don't have much of an immune system on a good day.

A week after the discovery, I made one more exploratory, armed with a tube of silicon just in case some quick fix might present itself. I did locate part of the problem (which I optimistically presumed to be the entire problem, of course). After scrunching around into position, I grabbed hold of the culprit drain pipe. It, in turn, launched a splendid counter attack and squarely dumped a cup of filthy gray water directly into my ear which was invitingly sideways at the time. I will not include the dissertation which followed at great volume but it set every creature within 100 yards of the Rat on high alert. I retreated to the upper Rat, flooded my ear canal with hydrogen peroxide and hoped for the best.

Just like Red, I tend to ruminate and consider all the aspects and consequences of a project until just before Hell freezes over. While Mark loves us both dearly, this is not one of the traits which compels him to do so.
.
.

And so we lived like this for several weeks until yesterday, my next big day of resolve. Mark performed the customary 'freeing of the panel' ritual and I laid out a large piece of plastic which I hoped would be my prophylactic shield against the scum of the earth.
.
.
The sodden forest of mold to the outer edge of one central I-beam told me that I needed to remove the glorified cardboard insulator. I dug in a carpet knife and incised the soggy matting away. That, in turn, released putrid streams of standing water down upon me. The empty kitty litter bucket in the bottom of the photo above was able to capture most of the remaining stream. It also served as a good repository for the wet pink insulation and multi-colored slime that I grabbed down by the messy handful. Then I retreated to let everything drain further - by George, it was Miller time already.
.
.
My target? Right beyond that blackened floor stud showing in the middle of this foul incision. This is where the drain took a right angle up into the Rat. I wasn't about to take a photo looking straight up and chance having that crud leak down on me.
.
.
Above is the other end of my mission on the inner side of the I-beam (marked with a yellow arrow). Mark, in the interim, had removed the bathroom sink and performed considerable drain rearrangements which ultimately led to a little more reasonable length of pipe poking through the floor for me to work with down under. I still managed to drive a knee and elbow into the dodgy ooze and dust the cobwebs and other unidentified flotsam off with my hair but was able to avoid a good buzz from the plastic cement. Not that unholy benediction moments did not occur but with some charlie horse spasms and a little luck, the wayward drain found its mating ends and seemed to hold in place.

Close enough for one day! I scrambled out 'from unda' and declared Miller Time Two. So far, so good! (?) My advice is to avoid plumbing issues at all costs - it is a serious detriment to both physical and mental health. This is one case where you do not wish to 'Do as the Romans'.

Now make sure to come back tomorrow for your Valentines greetings from all of us out here at the ranch!
.
.
.