Me-me-me-me

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Okay, okay, fine then ... I will indulge in one of these meme things despite my usual stance, as expressed in the blog preface. But ONLY due to the unlikely planetary alignments which cascaded into place: A) Scully 'tagged' me and I happen to have a soft spot for her. B) Carteach did a titillating and inspiring job of responding to her challenge already. C) They both confessed that it was an effort requiring few deep mental gyrations D) AND the most important aspect of this rare alignment; I belatedly stumbled upon a post from Buck in which he had been tagged and respectfully acknowledged that I was not an option in passing on such a slimy booger. Guilt will get you EVERYWHERE with me; my mother could have told you that without a pause or a quick blink. Just don't think that I have declared open-season now, okay? I AM still a hermit and curmudgeon after all - you must not forget that this is why I am out here writing this journal in the first place.

Soo ... the idea is to answer these questions with only a photo or other graphic, NO words allowed. Here goes then (but I reserve the right to complete and childish asininity):

1. What is your current relationship status?
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2. What is your current mood?
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3. What is your favorite band/singer?
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4. What is your favorite movie?
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5. What kind of pets do you have?
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6. Where do you live?
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7. Where do you work?
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8. Who do you look like?
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9. What do you drive?
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10. What did you do on Saturday?
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11. What did you do on Sunday?.
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12. What is your favourite network TV Show?
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N/A
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13. Describe Yourself.

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14. What is your favorite candy?

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Sooo ... do I dare pass this one on to the other folks regularly supporting my social life with their comments (and haven't already been tagged)? How about Buck, Mushy, Fat Hairy, Cat, Bruno, David, Ginger, Da Moose, Goddess, Alex, putz? It's okay, you can be a curmudgeon just like me. And who did I miss that might actually be game for any of this foolishness? Just let me know!
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Raiders and the Talkative Arc

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Thursday was a great adventure day out here at the ranch. And I almost opted not to go because of the early wake-up involved - this can comfortably become part of your new defiant zen when you quasi-retire. It's a marvelous feeling to say "No!" just because you can. It's worth cutting back on your current lifestyle now to do this a bit earlier than normally expected, trust me on that!

But the prospect of roaming around our lands with someone who could answer my questions about its ancient history was too much for me to pass up. It haunted me throughout my night's sleep and I awoke at dawn, even before Mark and the pups, excited and determined to find answers. An hour or so later after a cup or two of Mark's always excellent stove perked coffee, we piled into his Ram to make the 35 minute trip to 'up top'. Although the sky was unusually overcast and denied us any customary morning solar warmth, we headed off without our jackets, confident that the day would warm up quickly. A bad assumption in the high desert.
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We made the rendezvous right on time with our gas field rep and the archaeologists, just outside the gates of the old gas field camp and headquarters. The mission of the archaeologists today would be to determine the suitability of new well sites and access road locations. The gas developer also very generously allowed them to research our personal choice for a new home site. I have had a love of archeology since elementary school and wasn't about to disturb any significant site for our own purposes so I was very grateful for this opportunity. There was a good chance that my personal choice of a future home site had already been taken by ancient peoples but I was willing to acquiesce to the importance of history. Mind you, my fingers would remain painfully crossed until that arc survey was complete.
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Here is the first meeting of minds. From the left, Mark is hidden behind my most informative arc mentor, Steve. Then our reasonable and pleasant gas field rep. Then another arc who I excitedly greeted with a handshake and a playful but irreverent "Wow, it's Indiana Jones!". Hidden behind him is the head land surveyor, a very tall Navajo who I decided may not like his image being captured any more than I do. To the far right is the head archaeologist and company owner, Doug.

The first order of business for both groups was the gas field matters. In the end, this was a wash for us. We lost more ground than we gained in comparison to their first well site choices but at least they weren't destroying significant archaeological sites in the process.
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Nearly everyone was unprepared for the cold winds that persisted in the sun's ongoing absence. A few shivers, a few sneezes, all hands buried deeply in available pockets when not being used.

Mark, myself and Mike (our gas field rep) eventually snagged Steve the archaeologist away to survey the south end of that mesa. Talking with Steve was a complete joy for me. This was like taking a college field trip for free but in the convenience of my own back yard. And he was one of those broadly knowledgeable people who can keep you fascinated all day long. He was even able to answer a question that a nuclear physicist had recently asked me about the existence of opals in New Mexico. I LOVE answer people!

I had read an article recently on what the established archaeological community thought of the Indiana Jones portrayal of the field. As expected, each person held a conflicting mix of emotions running between disapproval of the relic-snatching raider image and an appreciation for the new generation of students who had been snagged by the Indie romance. So you know that I just had to ask Steve what drew him into the field as we tramped through the sage, me barely able to keep up with his pace. The answer was amusingly surprising.

Steve had gone from a wide range of telephone field work through to FCC radio tech licensing; the guys who are qualified to mess with radio station signals, etc. He smiled broadly when he thought about the defining moment. "Well, I ended up at this keg party ..." At that point, Indy observed "Yeah, they threw some great ones!" and Steve continued, a thumb sideways pointing towards Doug "Anyway, someone introduced me to Doug here and that was that." A chance introduction at a kegger and a life long passion had been ignited. Doug also had the good luck of inviting Steve on his first volunteer survey and they happened to find an old pit house cut through by a meandering arroyo with a fully intact pot resting in the arroyo bed below. Hooked! Doug had been listening in and smiled at that memory. Then he added slyly "Yeah, that rarely happens but it sure got Steve hooked for good."
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How to make an archaeologist smile

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Here is Steve with his first find on the east end of our proposed home site. In his hand are two translucent fragments which most of us would likely walk past. They are small chips left by a man chipping away at an arrow or spear head, meat scrapper or other implement. He painted a fine mental image of a man finding a comfortable spot with a good view from our hillock and patiently creating a tool chip by chip over the course of half an hour. He not only knew the original home of each variety of rock used but pointed out which pieces were the outside cortex (or rough outer shell of the rock chunk) and was able to show me the exact impact point which flicked this piece away from the work, even mimicking the motion and tools needed to so do. At this point, I was starting to resent the occasional intrusion by the rest of the world pointing at watch faces. Notice Steve's ample supply of colored marker flags ready at his waist. He would color-code flag the artifacts in situ according to a specific category as he found them.

Before we were done walking the new site, he had found what only now strikes me as a very obvious site where rocks formed three sides of a rectangle and was used for the stone grinding of grains and then, but a few yards away, the remains of an old Navajo hogan several hundred years old. I was stunned by his abilities to discern such things at a quick pace but he explained that daily familiarity is everything, much the way an experienced bank clerk can tell a counterfeit bill by simply holding it. Doesn't matter, I am still in complete awe of their abilities.

The good news for me was that his exciting finds were so workably to the north and east of my preferred building site. History right outside the back door without destroying it - is that cool or what? The bad news? I quickly caught the flu from someone in that group, probably the guy with the small icicle forming on the end of his nose throughout that entire chilly morning. Hopefully I will kick this new bug and be back by Tuesday with the next update.
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Coming up next ...

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I've been trying to put together an update for you but I am utterly dragging after a very fun and interesting week. We just got back from a highly productive trip 'up top' which has brought us that much closer to moving up there. This meeting involved surveyors, archaeologists, electric company and gas field reps. Somehow the many, many objectives were completed by early afternoon; a good thing considering that there are weighty and bleak clouds rolling in as I am typing this.
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I am hoping to be recharged and back before the weekend. At that point, you will be hopping in the truck with us and then hiking a mile or two through the sage brush behind a very informative archaeologist just for starters.

But, for now, I am going to find a willing bedcat and take a much needed nap before our favorite cowboy shows up for supper in a couple of hours. I will try my absolute darnedest to be back before Saturday so don't wander too far away!
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Yesterday's visitor
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The Manhunt

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Retrospect: September 2006
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Finally! This should be the last tale from September 2006. For whatever reasons, that month proved the most lively of our tenure here to date. There was the Home Cummins parts 1 through 4, Val de Mort, Part 2 , Strangers in the Night and The Junk Pile Surprise. What a month indeed. Don't expect a quiet and boring life just because you move out to the middle of nowhere ... just giving you a helpful heads up.
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I had been sitting out on the Rat's porch and enjoying the cooler Fall air when I heard the unmistakable chopping of helicopter blades. I was surprised when I saw a dusty green locust of a helicopter poking and nosing along low over the creek. I never had a camera handy back then but the photo below at least shows the type of bird. I thought to myself "Well, that was certainly odd." and went back to reading the paper, vaguely perturbed at having lost my page in the process.
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About an hour later, Virgil slid into our parking lot and jumped out on a mission. "Where's Mark?!?" "He headed in to town a few hours ago ... why?" Virgil slapped his thigh in exasperation and asked "Have you got any protection?" "Maybe ... if I dig through the trailer for a half day or so. Why?" Virgil sighed loudly "There is a BIG fugitive manhunt going on; Hondo just talked to some state police and wanted me to warn you." "Any details?" "Yeah, a couple of guys in a stolen car got pulled over on the highway south of here, bailed and headed this way." "South!? That's the route Mark took today. Great timing, he hasn't driven that way in almost a year but he did today!" Virgil and I exchanged concerned looks.

Knowing that the kindly Mark would not hesitate to offer a ride to anyone who looked stranded, I immediately shifted into worry mode. Virgil and I hovered expectantly over his cell phone as he dialed Mark. No answer. We both exchanged the customary "It's okay" looks now even though we both had other mental scenarios forming. Virgil was concerned for both Mark and I now and it obviously killed him to leave either of us out here without his help. "Awww, great timing ... I have this appointment I can't miss back in town at 6:00PM and ..." ..I replied "Pwah, don't worry about it, Virgil, we're pretty big kids and can take care of ourselves." Of course, as he drove out of sight, I thought "Ohhhh man, whaddamy ... nuts?" I did a logical survey of my readily available self-defense options; "Oh yeah, they will quake in their boots when I flash my serrated paring knife ... you bet." This is something you should think out and plan for well head of time, always, because occasionally we might run into people who are simply not nice. It is a good idea to consider how you will address such rudeness. I won't condemn pacifism but I personally don't like the idea of being subject to possible unmentionable abuses to myself or those who I feel protective towards. Sort out your thoughts on this well BEFOREHAND and you will be better able to deal with the consequences. Statistically, it is a long shot but, as the Scouts say, "Be Prepared" - the exercise won't hurt you.

Once I adjusted to this situation, it seemed that my priority was to alert the neighbors after confirming the details with the state police and in between my fruitless calls to Mark. The confounding lesson I learned here was that neighbors in the boonies, counter to your assumptions, might not appreciate your old-fashioned value of looking out for them as you would your own. And it was bitterly enlightening indeed. The least pleasant neighbor at least begrudgingly admitted to locking her doors but I received a VERY insulting e-mail from another a few days later in reply to my phone message. So Tip#2; don't expect a broad and mythical Nirvana of neighbors caring for each other just because they inhabit a remote and harsh land with police, fire and medical help hours away at best. Be prepared to go it alone. I can now handle that revelation but many idealists would find it devastating. Your idea of Nirvana should have ever-mutable boundaries if you wish to find it.

But I have digressed here for your own homestead illumination. The afternoon shadows drew so painfully long over the next three hours before I was able to reach Mark by cell phone. Apparently he had chosen to recharge his cell phone in the 'OFF' position as soon as he had left the Rat. The retreat of my adrenaline overdrive flooded in as I heard his unworried voice at the other end. He was still an hour from home but at least now knew not to pick up strangers on the long road back in. Other than listening for unusual noises in our darkening canyon, I could now worry far less about one most infinitely dear to me.

The manhunt? Well, there never was an official and satisfactory resolution to that incident. In the end, I presume that in this age of cell phones, the fugitives dove into our canyon but called for likewise sleazy accomplices to meet and spirit them away from justice.
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Leaving the Creek Behind

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The idea of leaving our creek behind brings some rueful moments with it, even aside from the name of our journal becoming largely irrelevant at that point.

Although it is dry for most of its life, that one percent when the creek runs fully is a marvel to behold. You can wade through the sage brush and descend to sit on its banks, listening to the rise and fall of the waters as they find new pockets in the sandy banks to tease and roust and to watch any number of curious things being rolled along noisily in the shallow but rowdy currents. And you imagine for a moment what it would be like if this creek was forever so alive. Trout? Silent wading anglers? Being able to launch an inner tube and drift lazily down to its end? Utterly pleasant fantasies for a cool and breezy afternoon with the sun dappling warmly down on your arms through the chattering leaves of the tall cottonwoods. Peaceful. Joyous. So deeply invigorating.

But the creek soon spends its small allotment of rain waters and withers into a silent white sandy ribbon once more.
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I came across this above photo again this morning and smiled. The old storefront architecture had helped inspire my original plan for the new Rat Town facades and the theme echoed my fondness for the totally incongruous and outrageous. Before I found this photo, I had already planned on hanging faux store placards announcing guided fishing tours and water skis for rent in the midst of our dusty desert canyon. Come to think of it, I might still do so when we relocate up top. Maybe I'll even stock a cattle watering trough with a few goldfish and call it a resort. Well? Why not?!
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Movin' On Up!

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Update: I am now on my second day of having to perform the miserable duty of accessing and pulling the spark plug and squirting gas directly into the cylinder to start the generator myself. So far so good.

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I think we can finally announce a certain candidate! But it was a brutal, tiring process of getting there. I finally had to call in Slim, Virgil and Earl to help sway my number one super delegate and CFO.

We had gone through the neverendum meetings with certain gas field companies and that had left Mr. Pragmatic with serious concerns, and they are very real concerns, no doubt about it. The part of our ranch which we hope to relocate to and which I will show you below, has been recently acquired by a new player; a gas company known for ruthlessness and a penchant for picking up under-performing leases. And they will generally tell you anything to get their way i.e. 'lie like a rug'. Our big concern was building on one of the few sites that they haven't already disfigured, only to have them come in a year from now and plant a well right in our faces ... complete with a VERY noisy compressor AND jack pump. Our survey of the field and the feds say that these guys will likely do it, good neighbor policies be damned. In the end, we did meet with one of their people who seemed willing to give us a vague idea of where they may likely drill next and where they might not. Of course, if he is a straight-shooter, he might not last long with this outfit anyway. Verbal and gentlemen hand shake agreements are a thing of the past unless you are a complete fool looking for a guaranteed let-down.

As clarification here; as a land owner with no mineral rights, you basically have no rights if an energy developer wants to take over parts of your land. When we first heard the term 'split estate', we thought "50/50 ... guess we can deal with that". But split estate, in this case, is more like a split between Lord and serf. If they want your virgin daughters or your best treed elk habitat, they can pretty much take it at their whim. The only thing stopping them is some new NM lip-service legislation on surface owners rights and their own 'good neighbor policy', which some clearly do not possess. I normally don't like to mention names but ConocoPhillips has been very good so far despite a few shameful logistics screw-ups but is ever striving to improve and does try to make amends when at fault. This new three-letter player out here, however, remains seriously in doubt by all accounts.

In the meantime, we have decided to take our chances, given the improved overall year-round accessibility of the new location. Yes, it is a daunting move for us with so many things to arrange for and the last disastrous move still clearly too recent to not effect our enthusiasm. That move left us very drained emotionally and didn't help our opinion of mankind when given a chance to take advantage of or not. But we have some time on our side now and some trustworthy allies to help us out.
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What is this thin and curious strip of an image?! Well, this time you are going to have to click on the image to find out. It's under 250K though and you won't regret the view.

It is a roughly 160 degree panorama from the proposed site of Rat Town. I am not kidding when I say that the views are BIG out here. I had to splice together 5 different photos to show you what you would see if you pivoted around on your heels from not even quite North to South. At the very extreme right of this photo, you can almost see the new Rat site. If you could see over that dark ridge of trees for a couple of miles beyond, you would see the Rat's current home in our canyon.

Virgil and his wife came out for a visit a few weekends ago and we headed up there to check out the new site possibilities. They liked! Then Slim weighed in later, noting that it would be a lot easier to find his way home from there after one of our supper evenings. And then Earl cast his vote, noting that grid power for running shop tools was less than a quarter mile away from the new site.
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.Here is the view looking directly north from the second potential site. The first site was sitting a little low to take in the mountains to the north shown here.

Now don't be thinking that my next blog entry will be from 'up top' - just ain't going to happen. In fact, this move may take a few seasons to complete and, since unattended things are ripe for pillaging and scavenging even way out here, we might be trying to inhabit two sites at once for some time to come. Not my idea of a good time but I am not the Rat's grand fuhrer of our resources either. A decision one way or the other is still good news to me even though my original enthusiasm has waned considerably in the process. Guess I'm just one of those 'do it or get off the pot' types.

If you've been following along with us for a while, you are familiar with our current cozy canyon along with its blessings and drawbacks. What is your gut feel?
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The Hummingbirds Have Returned

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This first part of today's post is just for Sharon. She could use some New Mexico good cheer while she wraps up the last frantic days of their big move. Barely two weeks to go, girl, and then these little fellows will be joining you out under the portales for margaritas!
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About a week ago, I heard the distinct sound of a hummingbird diving in and out of the sage brush. A friend describes the sound well; like tiny Volkswagen Beetles.

It wasn't until yesterday that I found our one surviving bird feeder. The other had fallen down late last summer and the UV-beaten plastic shattered, leaving a good quantity of sticky sugar water everywhere.
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So far, this little fellow with just a touch of purple collaring his neck is the main visitor. If he has his way, he will be the only one. He perches up on the cast iron hanger and guards his nectar water intently. But, as you can see in the top photo, the green is returning to our canyon and soon more hummingbirds will join our early bird. You picked the perfect time to migrate, too, Sharon!
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Mark Receives a Big Hand

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I owe our friends and family more details on Mark's broken hand so here it is:

We are finally finishing off part of the bathroom. It took me forever to start feeding and juggling four new electric wires through the ceiling and walls and around the shower and sink. The rework unfortunately required removing the flush mount shower light which we had installed last year since I couldn't access its junction box otherwise.

To reinstall the fixture, I was standing on a crate, trying my best to hold the light up in position and not rip up my arms on the shower's jagged edge screws while Mark replaced the light's mounting screws from within the shower. Easy enough.

Well ... there is bound to be a problem with a six and a half foot tall man working in a shower many inches shorter. It was a good thing that he got the first screw into place, too. The second screw slipped out of his grasp and fell to the drain area. He backed up as he leaned down and startled when his rump hit the shower door. So he lurched forward and nearly lobotomized himself as his head connected with the projecting corner shelf. I almost fell off the dairy crate when I heard (and felt) the sickeningly loud whack.

Having too recently performed a nearly identical move myself in our cozy little waterboard chamber, I empathetically recalled the blinding head pain and screeching of neck vertebrae as they compressed and shifted at horrid, unnatural angles. And I was hardly the one to go "Tsk, tsk" when he hauled off and whacked the offending shelf column in his moment of extreme pain.

So the score now stands at Shower: 2, Big People: zip. It is an amazingly robust and most evilly designed fiberglass torture unit. Although I lived with a mild hand fracture for a week or two after my own bout with it, Mark had obviously broken one or more things of significance since his hand swelled up to impressive proportions. A few days later, I finally found an ace bandage and bound his hand up. If nothing else, the binding reminds him to NOT use that hand. But, ya know, sometimes it feels so good to get in a little revenge at such excruciating moments. Maybe we need to pad the thing with rubber walls next or wear helmets in there next time. Someday I may fantasize about a much bigger shower area but, for now, I just fantasize about a real porcelain throne. Possibly my kingdom for one, in fact. One of these days, I will describe life with a composting toilet and gimpy knees. But first I must finish off that bathroom!
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The Generation Wars

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Update:

Generators: 1.75 / Rat Clan Mechanics: .25

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The gen war score says it all, almost. Somewhere under the dark clouds of obstinate generators, Mark's planned absence for the better part of next week, his broken hand, the killer black pick-up truck conspiracy (grin), the insouciance (being diplomatic here) of certain gas companies and, accordingly, the large gamble of moving 'up top', my normal ease of writing has all but evacuated this week. That ability certainly didn't flee from boredom.
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Here is one of the naughty generators of late. At least it is running, after a fashion. Below it, you can see our version of the mechanic's dolly which lopsidedly straddles the hand-dug rain diversion ditch. After several days of the myopic, ham-fisted horde saying "Let's try this ...", "Okay, let's try this then ...", this blue dairy crate and the generators have bested us. Pre-existing posterior miseries aside (but sorely aggravated), this dairy crate left us each with a serious case of WAFFLE BUTT! This was the ultimate lingering insult to injury after not having corrected the mechanical problems.
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Mark is circumventing the old generator's start-up problem for now by removing the spark plug and priming the cylinder with a few spritzes of gas. While removing the plug for each start-up attempt is a royal pain, it is still far easier than fighting with the air box to squirt gas through the carb throat. The draw-back is in tempting fate blatantly on a cross-threaded head (a la the Kawasaki generator last year).
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After confirming that each unit had spark, we went through the entire fuel system on each; from cleaning out the carb float bowls and jets to cleaning out pre-carb sludge traps and tank filters. Murphy's Law probably also suggests that you will not need to remove the tank filter unless the tank is filled to the brim with gas first. In my ancient and cantankerous state, this whole process was a high blood pressure fest waiting to happen. I had looked for encouraging signs of culprits to keep me going. There were none; no badly clogged filters, only one nozzle jet with two minor holes (of many) plugged, nothing that offered a "Eureka!" moment of satisfaction and encouragement. I am now convinced that trying to establish an off-the-grid homestead goes much better for those without a substantial layer of jade on them. But we're here so no sense in giving up now!
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Once Mark heads off to civilization with the prospects of real flushing toilets and predictable showers, I might just avoid the generator start-up hassles and live by kerosene light until he returns. That means no computer, no on-line access and no further blog activity until he returns. Just warning ya ! I will try to slip in one more post before that happens though.
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Ms. Daisy Finally Shines

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Yes, ditzy Daisy came into her own on Saturday for Mark. And pleased he was. With Slim about to move cattle down into our canyon, they have been working hard to repair fences to keep his cattle from mixing with the somewhat wild stock next door.
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Daisy and Brou alerted us to this stray and I caught her with the new camera's zoom; red-handed with a mouthful of our pasture grass. It was Daisy who chased the stray back down the road at 15mph ahead of Mark in the Ram, a mile and a half back to the fence line. Mark was pleased and surprised at her willingness to help out. She would return to him at intervals and go out to search again at his suggestion. The wily cow had given them the slip at the last moment, doubling back and descending a steep arroyo bank leading to the creek which neither of us would tackle on a good day. These creatures are amazingly agile despite their bulky appearance.

Tired but still not willing to hitch a ride back in the truck, she ran all the way back behind the truck. Brou was quietly waiting on the front porch for them. We had been warned that his nearly fatal bout with parvo-virus would leave him without his original stamina and perhaps he wisely realized that. Normally Mark would put him in the back of the truck but had taken off without him this time. Brou was noticeably bummed out about this oversight, too.

Daisy seemed to fully understand and enjoy what new heights of esteem she had just achieved on her own and was unusually chipper and responsive for the rest of the day. Maybe this will be her Renaissance!

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This is another heads up in case I disappear for a while. It would appear that we are entering into another techno cluster-bung zone. We had not just one but BOTH generators fail on us in the last 24 hours. I am typing on borrowed, limping generator time at the moment. Tomorrow will be taken up with carb, fuel line and filter maintenance. Gee, I can hardly wait. The components are very efficiently squeezed into a space roughly the size of large Coleman coolers and we are a couple of big people with equally big fingers and hands ... and with little patience and finesse left. Wish us luck, please. If it works, I'll be back in no time flat! If I'm not, don't panic yet.
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Harpin' in the Canyon

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Harmonica Joe had given me the heads up by e-mail a few days before that he was leaving California and headed our way. Since the roads are in as good a shape right now as they have been since we first arrived here, Mark gave him the directions to the ranch. Giving directions to the ranch is different than normal directions which would include road numbers and names. For the most part, there are no high-profile road markers and you have to give more of a terrain description instead such as "You will then see a set of huge tanks off in the distance, turn left just after them." "You'll see an old blue horse trailer. Go just beyond it and take that road across the wash." And the big disclaimer is always "Don't try this after dark!" All roads look the same here after dark, period, whether they lead dead-end into any of a thousand gas well pads or not.
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Fortunately, Joe arrived in the early afternoon with plenty of sunlight to spare. And I could stop worrying that his low-riding car would survive the trip. He did say that he had his moment of doubt while crossing the main wash and got a little hooked up in the deep, sandy ruts but his cute little PT Cruiser with its low profile and what I consider nearly drag slicks compared to our mud terrains beat its way over the wash admirably.

It wasn't long before he was digging into the big white boxes jammed in around his amp and harp cases, looking very much like the old horse track itinerant salesmen who used to sell clothing, Redwings, jewelry, ointments - whatever you might need - right out of the trunks of their old '50s jalopies. Joe turned back to us with a wide cat-like grin, holding up a bottle of California's finer wines. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the visit.

He would return to his mobile wine cellar once more and then we would scrounge through our Rat Cellar for another contribution before the evening was over. We caught up on two years worth of news since we last met and then, as was customary, Mark and Joe settled into serious political debate. It's been a long time since Mark has been able to engage in a good debate with a well-informed partner so he was in his glory. And it really is a joy to discuss such things without any of the parties turning red and having veins and tendons leap out from their necks, or to feel like you are preaching to the choir for that matter. They both had a great time and even I threw in the odd observation from the kitchen as I went through the process of making chicken fajitas. We talked long into the night until I sensed the lagging energy in both of them and called for bed time.
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I was so disappointed to hear that Joe had a blues gig in Kentucky and very little time to get there so he would have to leave the next morning. What?! No time to even take him on one of my infamous hikes up mesas and through the cactus?
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Before he left, I insisted on him performing a few numbers from the hydraulic lift-gate of the 45' moving trailer. It wasn't long before the dogs zeroed in on this strange new sound in the canyon with rapt attention and great enthusiasm. Joe had become our Pied Piper of Hamlin and the results were hilarious.
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I'm not sure whether to call his vocalists the Blues Bowsers or the Brou's Brothers but you can see that they were gettin' down. On the right, Brou is belting out "I been down so long ..." and ditzy Daisy is doing a low and steady "Rooooo-ew-eww" while patiently watching Brou for her solo cue.
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And this is my least favored view of visitors out here; that last glimpse as they head back into the chico flats and then disappear from our canyon. At least we were able to send our favorite oenophile down the road with a bottle of New Mexico's very lauded Gruet 'champagne'. Have a safe trip, Joe, and do come back soon, ya hear?
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Oh Rats!

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This post is as much a heads up that I may be out of the picture for a few days longer than normal. Harmonica Joe is coming to visit!

The Rat Pack (2 dogs, 2 cats and I) went on a photo mission last Sunday. The goal: come home with photos of pack rat nests. These critters are elusive unless you find them floating in a tub of water but their nests can normally be found everywhere out here in the desert. Not this Sunday however. The five of us hiked a half mile down the road but found nothing. I had one chance left and that was under the mammoth boulder right behind the barn, the very one which bested the Cat D8R last Fall.
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This is when I discovered that both ditzy Daisy and Brou love to have their photo taken. I squatted down on my haunches to take a photo of the rat nest filling the crevice under the boulder and both dogs immediately filled the view finder. The real target is between their feet.
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Above is what I was really after. You can see a tightly woven collection of twigs and debris to the left of Daisy's tail. This is your basic pack rat home.

As Slim will attest, pack rats do love to abscond with shiny items. He has yet to find the key to his Bobcat after laying it down on a salt block in his tack room. He disassembled the huge twig nest in one corner of the room but never found the key. Must have been a visiting pack rat who took the key home with him.

This is not just an impromptu desert nature tour here. I am going somewhere with all this so hold these thoughts and don't wander off on me, okay?
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I have been receiving some abuse lately for not exercising my truck. No one can accuse me of leaving my little carbon prints all over the place needlessly, that is for sure. Admittedly, the last time I used my truck was probably to chase a renegade cow off our pastures last summer. Now that I think of it, this mission is what prompted Mark to see if the truck still fired up last week - cow chasing!!!

From inside the Rat, I heard that loud tick, tick, tick and then nothing. Dead battery. Not good. But it's funny how some things that appear to be not good at the onset turn out to be blessings.

Mark's first natural inclination was to remove the battery and bring it over for a recharge. The next loud exclamation I heard was "Ohmigawd! Hey, you have to see this!" I got a premonition of what he had found and grabbed the cameras on the way out the door.
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Just as I had suspected! Some pack rat had decided that this long stationary truck would make an ideal home - off the ground and rain-proof. What a mess ... what a rat's nest!

While I am no where near as vehicle fussy as I used to be, I was completely aghast at what this ... this ... little ... creature ... had done to my lovely red Dakota!

Mark and I simultaneously exclaimed that it was a very good thing that the truck hadn't started up, what with all that dry compost to jam belts and ignite.
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While Mark trotted the battery over to the shed, I began grabbing handfuls of sage and chico brush out of the compartment. Who, I mean WHO would have thought that a pack rat would also drag in prickly pear cactus parts?!? I held my stinging hand up to the light to see the fine, hair-like needles which added to the fair-haired fuzz already there. Mark and I have had to deal with this misery before and I wasn't looking forward to myopically tweezing away at these needles, only to have them break off flush with the skin as usual. I cannot understand the nature of such a frail structure which is strong enough to penetrate calloused skin yet has absolutely no side-to-side strength. I suppose it is this quirky survival skill which makes them ever so memorable to anything which dares disturb them. But why a pack rat would be granted immunity to upholster his/her nest with them is even more of a mystery.
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I threw a pair of leather work gloves over to Mark and retreated to find the tweezers and work for the next half hour, using the long, hard rays of the afternoon sun as very necessary back-lighting.

Moral to this story? If you're not going to use a vehicle out here, at least start it up every couple of weeks and park it somewhere else - keeps the pack rats wondering where their perfect condo went. And DON'T leave your keys around!

Now remember, please, I might be gone longer than normal this week, okay?
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The Mysterious Rock Inscription

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Today we ponder the very incongruous etching left in the midst of many indigenous petroglyphs. .
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Above is a photo I downloaded from Red's camera after our big outing late last Fall. As you can see, petroglyphs can hide themselves from discovery very well unless you happen to be close enough and specifically looking for them This wider view shows the curious scribing in the upper left, the ones which I covered in more detail in "Slowing Down for the Curve".
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. Here is the detail from the far left of that panel. The images are heartbreakingly worn away by time but still faintly discernible as you draw to within feet of them. Our odd inscription trails off from the right side of this view.
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Here it is in the long afternoon shadows of the Fall sun, a form intense and boundary disciplined, imposed over the much older rambling expressions of the first humans to pass through or live within these canyons.
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Virgil and his wife stood with us last weekend as we took new photos and still, between us, no one wrested an intelligible message from between those two lines. European in influence ... had to be. But why incise very distinct lines above and below the figures? A lingering school primer mindset overly-enforced by hovering dark-robed proctors brandishing rods? Roman numerals? Surely there are too many strange figures to support the numeral idea. What then?

At least two of the figures appealed to my fancy as nearly Runic in form but this did not help me decipher the puzzle. Now it's your turn!
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In lieu of a comment, Scully has donated an image which might explain some of the motivation behind these petroglyphs. The 'fish story' surely has been around as long as there have been humans capable of hunting and fishing ... and drinking beer.
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The Cowboy Bar and Grill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To be continued!
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Mud to Dust and Back to Snow Again!

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Pre-ramble: I had every intention of posting the curious inscription beneath the petroglyphs of the last post. I went through my files and realized that my photos were poor at best, at least as far as offering any detail for you to study and consider further. Although I had scaled the talus gingerly with my gimpy knee that day, I did not make the last few feet up to take a detailed photo of it. Getting up to a location is not so daunting but, in the wisdom of my later years, I have come to appreciate that gravity and inertia will complicate any return downwards many fold. And so it was my intention to return to that location this week to capture better photos this time. The weather and this lingering illness apparently had ideas of their own. Fine, be that way, next week then!

The bug: Mark succumbed fully to this latest nasty bug on Sunday . Today, he is 95% recovered. I am at about 70% recovered, enough to start this new journal entry. And as Slim would say "Well, that's GOOD!"
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Our inevitable mud of spring has finally cried and dried itself away. Dust has taken its place without apology. What you see above and below is the dust created by the heavy construction traffic to the new well on our land across the creek. The heavy rolling tires only aggravated the already lustful appetite of the young Spring winds and I have no doubt that over a ton of dust was uprooted and offered up to their pleasures.
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The mood of the canyon can change within the hour. The tantrums of the ever-restless skies above can turn your best-laid plans to naught just as quickly. Above, a sudden darkness is elbowing out our normal deep blue sky and voluptuous white clouds. Below, you can see the 'big picture' of that encroaching weather bully. There is something incredibly humbling and inspiring about being able to see the weather around you at this broad a scale.
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I can tell it's a Wednesday night despite the lack of calendars around here ... the cowboys are arriving for supper. If you enlarge this photo, you just might see something in the far background which may alarm you - not to worry however. I will cover that story at a later date.

It's funny how a ritual can be established without any planning at all and Wednesday has lately become our default dining get together. And it is a joyous one, an occasion to laugh and indulge and catch up on the previous week's news. Above, Slim and Clay pile out of Slim's truck. When I questioned Slim's odd parking angle to the porch, he unveiled a nicely premeditated plan to have the tail gate fold down at porch height and thus giving dogs easy access to the world and cowboys easy access to coolers. That boy is always thinking.
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I eventually pulled the thick pork steaks out of the oven. They had been slow and low baking since lunchtime in a thick sweet and sour sauce along with half-fried, half-baked seasoned potato slices and a long pan of cornbread. I replicated Clay's bacon cooked green beans and upped the ante a little with some finely diced pepperoni added in for good measure.

The banter, laughing and conferring never stopped throughout the evening, even when a more dignified version of Blazing Saddles set in after supper. Poor ol' Brou, I suspect, has become the classic scapegoat for errant flatulence; his reputation a curse which will 'dog' him in perpetuity. God bless that pup and his long patience at being conveniently and unjustly accused!
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Before the cowboys left that evening, a much colder wind and heavier gray clouds had over-shadowed us under the cover of darkness. Slim's dogs took shelter under the 45' trailer as snow started to fall. Above is this morning's remaining snow covering. Am I feeling more convinced that winter's last hurrah has come and gone now? Better but no cigar just yet.
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