Just Plain Nuts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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Roll Out The Barrel

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Within a week, the sun had dried out the new driveway and Mark fired up the skid steer to move the fallen gas tank to a temporary stand in the corral. The trick was to keep the vent above the gas level at all times.
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The other trick was to see where he was going once the large barrel was in place on the forks.
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In the meantime, I had found another little friend. Since Dilly was the most appreciative reader of my earlier lizard story, I decided to call this little fellow Dilly the Second (or D2 for short). He hung around, nipped at a few passing flies and eventually fell asleep on the back of my hand for a time.
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As you can see above, he was definitely in the Brou Zone and in danger of the classic 'flying coyote pounce' so it was a good thing that he decided to stay with me. Luckily, Brou was completely distracted by the crows flying over the mesa at that point. Rather than put D2 back down on the porch, it seemed wiser to bring him along to the corral where Mark was heading blindly with the fuel tank.
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By now, D2 seemed quite content to ride along on my upraised arm and seemed particularly impressed with what looked like a HUGE green bug headed his way through the corral gates.
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He seemed even more fascinated with the gigantic yellow cricket which was holding that big green bug in its mandibles. "Wow!"
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Finally Mark yelled out over the Deere noise "Would you PLEASE put your arm down, stop talking to yourself and tell me just where the hell I'm supposed to be going now?" It seemed a reasonable request and D2 disappeared as I lowered my arm. I checked my shoulders and pullover hood - no sign of D2. Great, now I was afraid to move lest I trample him as he lay well-disguised in the brown grass stubble at my feet. Finally I caught a glimpse of him scrambling off towards the Rat and I was able to walk towards the Deere without worry.
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The tricky part of the barrel roll off would be aligning the valve as close to 6 o'clock as possible since it was unlikely that we would be able to rotate the half-full barrel manually once it had dropped into position. Although Mark has developed a profound deafness to most of what I say on a good day, we have managed to contrive a series of hand gestures which work incredibly well when he has absolutely no other choice but to rely on my guidance. Accordingly, he was able to adjust the angle of the forks, drop down, come forward, forward a speck more, raise back up a little and hold it as we untethered the tank. We rolled the tank forward off the forks and TA-DAH! - a perfect landing position in the stand! Yee-haw! Times like this help make up for our other little communication disasters. I hope Dilly2 enjoyed his big adventure as much.
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Rippin' It Up Part 3

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The three of us stood chatting by the moving trailer when I started to feel the tug of a few playful pixie winds. I looked up and noticed some dark knots forming in the light clouds which had been passing over. My nostrils picked up a faint scent of rain which had been poised on top of the mesa, waiting to spring down on us at any moment. Blip - one drop on my arm, blip - another drop on my cheek. I began to consider the prophetic nature of Mark's last comment.

A few moments later found us all sheltered within the Rat and Mark put our coffeepot back on the stove. Quig was an affable man of broad interests so the time and conversation flitted by pleasantly as we waited out the now heavily splatting rains, heavy enough rains that we could see the chocolate torrents spewing off the mesa benches as furiously as we had ever seen them. "Ya got your 'turd-washer', Mark, ya happy now?" Good Heavens, this was certainly a supreme acid test in progress.

After a few of cups of Mark's fine, stout caffeine, we were all getting a little restless so a saunter back to the new porch was in order to assess the new run-off plan. We could see the odd low spot but we were all pleased at the new lay-out forged within a few hours time. Pleasure is never guaranteed to last long though, is it? It was about that time that Quig noticed the new and unusual stance of our two fuel tanks. "Uhm, they didn't install them that way, did they?" Three "Ohhhh crap!" bulbs lit up simultaneously.

I threw on my rubber boots and followed on Quig's heels out to the tanks. A quick look told us that I had not addressed the potential navy effect; that steel boats DO float on water. What we had here were two water-tight 'containment' tanks adrift in the mesa run-off that was now locked behind a new 3' tall berm, their own personal ocean of sorts. The good ship Diesel rode low at the stern, the 'regular' sat precariously low at the bow. Oh joy, the prospects of more water quietly haunted each of us with possibilities, all of them unpleasant. For some reason, I got the odd and uncomfortable image of a counter-intuitive bucking effect when I looked at the 'regular' tank.

Before I could voice those vague theories, Quig planted his arms (which were the size of my legs from years of arm-wrestling big Cats) and jammed the high-side of the 'regular' tank back downward into the swill. We both stood frozen for the long second following the tank's solo leap into the new road. Then we simultaneously issued the very same rude word at volume. Then another silent second elapsed before we both started to laugh.
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Mark broke the giggling stupor when he arrived with "Holy ----, the gas is gushing out the top vent!" The three of us were able to wrestle and rotate the tank quickly into a 'vent-up' position that stopped the torrent. We lucked out in that the fall had snapped off the fuel hose and filter but NOT the main valve at the tank. As it was, we lost about 50 gallons of gas but managed to save the rest. Mark was not amused by our guy-type frivolity but at least we made amends by placing 2x4 supports at the rear of the diesel tank to prevent it from also taking a swan dive.

It was late afternoon by now and it was time for Quig to walk the big Cat home for the day. Although I had been very worried about the downpours reaching and engorging the creek below us, Mark and I were ever so relieved to find Quig's Cat parked on the far side come Monday; there was nothing we owned that could have pulled out a D8R in distress, nothing.

As usual, this story has consumed more words than I expected it to so the final segment with Dilly supervising the remediation will happen in a couple or three days.

To be continued!

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Techno note: Our satellite connection has degraded to a mere 1.5 KB/second for the last few days so please bear that in mind before sending us anything over, say, a 10KB text e-mail. Sun spots? Who knows ... for now, I'm just calling it the end of any real life as we knew it. For that same reason, I am also limiting my blog photo uploads until the situation improves.
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Rippin' It Up! Part 2

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I'm sure I must have given Quig the dozer operator plenty of safety-related anxiety as I appeared first here and then there and everywhere else with my camera but I was very thoughtful in my personal placement since I have a deep aversion to being run over by anything heavier than an Australian Shepherd (which is a regular occurrence).


But, as usual, the shot I wanted most was the one which was not in the downloads that night. My digital camera chooses its revenge VERY well in that respect. We had discussed "The Rock Behind the Barn" the week before and Quig had shown us a cell phone image which pictured a gargantuan rock which he had previously done battle with and won. I knew that I would witness a battle of Titans early on that day and set myself up to record the conflict. That vile little beast of a camera chose NOT to record it for posterity ... but at least I got to see the show-down.



The D8R sized up the rock and nipped in from one side, the right edge of its blade catching the monster by surprise at a 45 degree angle. The 40 ton Cat snarled and then screamed as the rock hunkered down vehemently in place and stood its ground. What I thought was a plume of steam was, in reality, smoke curling off the enraged rock as the blade cut in and gouged away mercilessly. The rock had been wounded but remained unmoved by the initial assault. The big Cat was now so locked in purpose and determination that the entire Cat beast started to swing around as if to meet the behemoth face-to-face. I became concerned about the corner of the barn which was about to become part of the battle field at the Cat's rear but Quig predicted the Cat's natural posturing quite casually and pulled back on the reins well before any such disaster could occur. In the end, it was a sturdy chunk of nature which bested us but the bout was worth it, recorded for posterity or not. We would simply alter our plans and work around the monolithic victor.



Below shows the rear ripper teeth in action. When the blade finds the cutting too hard, the ripper teeth do a fine job of loosening the material and our materials were apparently no great challenge for those teeth. Quig said that the tooth tips will survive for a year before having to be replaced under our conditions but that they will wear down within a few days in other locales within the region. You know that this can't be a cheap replacement. What I find amazing is that all usual contact points are so work-polished that they look like a high grade stainless, not a speck of rust to be found. Quig described the process of renewing the blade faces and other high-wear parts and it left me convinced that there are many true Vulcan artisans still out there.



By the time lunch rolled around, I had formulated a million questions from my many perches and Quig kindly had a million answers and then some. He confirmed that this drive configuration was not traditional. And he liked it. He said that the 'grousers' (what we would call the tracks) definitely suffered less wear. It also made the process of disconnecting the transmission from the tracks much easier. Actually, this part of the conversation came up after we asked about the misery suffered by another operator in the area recently. It led to an informative dissertation about the many ways in which a truly pathetic creature could inflict serious damage upon such a venerable beast. I will not post those lessons here for obvious reasons but, for a gearhead, it was truly a fascinating tour. But there are engineers somewhere out there at Cat Peoria HQ that I truly respect for this indirect drive feature. Simon was right, this is one magnificent feature!

Here was the game plan: Since we were settled in along the base of a mesa near the spring where the original homestead had been, we were subject to the ranting torrents of run-off water which had been de rigueur for epochs already. My idea was to level off the effluvial mounds beneath the heaviest drain areas while creating a large circular drive behind the entire barn and trailers area. This would also ameliorate forward drive access to our propane tank and our vehicle/generator fuel tanks. The big Cat would have to cut into the hill behind the barn to the tune of about 6 to 8 feet and also bring some areas up at least 3 feet to form an even drive capable of intercepting the run-off waters and diverting them to either side of the compound.



The last photo below will show you that Quig managed to do just that in a few hours time. Again, I think about an entire lifetime that I would have devoted to this task if armed with nothing but a shovel. Awesome, truly awesome by comparison.



Mark had been unusually absent during this entire process. He emerged at lunch time when the Cat shut down and caught up on the project and subsequent discourse. I cringed when he said "Well, maybe what we need now is one of my infamous 'turd washers' to test your theories." Sigh ... why, why, oh why does he say these things?

To be continued , partly from the prospective of Dilly the Second, the tiniest of dragons.
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Rippin' It Up!

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At this point, I'm not even going to try for a background set-up. Let's just say that we had some dozer time coming to us from a previous agreement with the gas field. A couple of wise souls suggested trying to work from the field level up rather than the corporate office level down. That made perfect sense since the guys who get things done in the real world know their schedule and exactly where they will be on a given day. They can call their bosses who go up the chain until someone flying a desk will hopefully say "That makes sense, do it."

And so it was on our way up top when we found Quig out dozing around in the boonies. Gads, have these operations ever become obnoxiously safety anal; we had to stop at the little cordon and warning sign, Quig had to stop his dozer at an annoyingly safe distance from us, jump down and make us fill out a visitor sign-in sheet before he and Mark could talk mano a mano. Had Mark ventured beyond the cordon, I'm sure Quig would have been policy-obliged to wrestle him to the ground to place a hard hat on him. I guess the days of rough and tough real guys are long gone, like everything else in this society. The old school boys are retiring at first opportunity in droves and I can't say I blame them.

Our idea of working off the remaining time over here at the Rat did fall on receptive ears uphill (most likely since this loose end matter was holding up our next deal). We're just funny like that, I guess, we like to finish up old business before bending over to a new handful of promises.

It was a week later than planned, what with the heavy rains turning the canyonlands into a big mud pie, but eventually Quig 'walked' the big D8R up the road to our place. 'Walking' is the term they use when they just head on down the road by themselves rather than take the time and aggravation to load it onto a trailer. Quig and I had already done a walk around and we both had a pretty good idea of what I had in mind so he pulled off the road and got at it. This beast is HUGE close up!!! It startled the every-loving begeez out of our little Deere when it passed by. I almost expected the skid steer to crawl up the wall of the Rat to yipe itself out of harm's way. See photo below. LOOK at that thing, it's carrying TWO HUGE ripper teeth off the back end like a doubly-armed scorpion! Woo-hoo, I was getting all sorts of weak-kneed already - this was SERIOUS horsepower about to inflict some really serious change without too many objections. That drive train is something that really got my attention. Notice the large drive ... uhm ... sprocket well above the usual track configuration. Quig calls these models 'high tracks'. It puts this beast miles above your garden variety Abrams M1 in my books. I'll get all mushy over that feature later.




Why am I a horsepower junkie?
That question probably needs to be addressed sooner or later. I suppose it's my continual comparison of myself (incapable of lifting X times my weight like the average ant) and those mechanical things that can exceed my capabilities (or the ant's) without even noticing. I constantly compare the work being accomplished against my own ability equipped with, say, a shovel and a strange desire to blister my fingers and ruin my back for the weekend. That's where my awe factor comes in. It's pretty much the same reason why I adore a machine which will propel me along at 120 mph when I couldn't achieve a tenth of that with my own two feet. See below



Mr. Smiley-face has just now returned after several hours of playing with the Deere and I find myself suddenly lost of any desire to write further so I may continue on in a day or so from now. Cooking well or writing at all - I find that I have to be in the right mood, something that my mother had pointed out as a truism many, many years ago.
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Small Cats at Play

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I tried to write a prologue to the big Cat adventures for the last couple of days but it just didn't work. Even Mark thought it was a pretty poor showing. We're both feeling extremely tired in the evening lately by the time the generator comes on but we are generally doing well health-wise. I haven't a clue what is slowing us down but I will post again as soon as we both liven up a little. To give you an idea of the lag here, I forced out a miserable piece and then asked Mark to proofread it. He immediately spilled his very large sticky red drink over my entire work area; desk, floor, monitor screen, post-it notes, magazines and keyboard last night. It was not a pretty sight and I became more than discouraged. Now I am using his keyboard until a new one arrives. He tried to wring out and resurrect the drowned keyboard last night and today but it is not responding well to his triage. He went on-line tonight and found a 'spill-proof keyboard' so, with any luck, he will have his keyboard back in about three weeks time.

In the meantime, I am going to cheat and post a cat video. It's not the big Cat that Bruno is waiting for but the small variety, sent to us by John E. in Phoenix. Sure, it's a tread-water move that I don't like to do but it does let you know that all is still relatively well out here and that we will be showing up shortly with the continuation of the latest news and misadventures.

This is about a 3 meg download. Hope it works!

Privy Counsel - Strangers in the Night

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Retrospect: September 2006

How did that Sinatra tune go?

Strangers in the night,

Two lonely peepers

Staring at the sight ...

...... ... or something like that

Okay, so I left off the potty tales with noises in the bushes around the outdoor throne, followed by the recent story about strange noises in the barn . These events were within a couple of days of each other and both occurred after darkness had settled in. I'm thinking that commenter JennyE came the closest to guessing the identity of the unseen culprit(s) but we may never know for sure one way or the other, quite thankfully.

A day or so after those events occurred, I headed out for a walk and stopped by the little forever puddle about 30 feet east of the moving trailer. I noticed an unusual splat of dark in the grass and took a closer look.



Hmmm ... juniper berries and all sorts of half-digested things that gave some wild diner a real good run for their efforts. I immediately thought of raccoons but this offering had a little more serious volume to it.

I took a careful hop over some open water and came around through the sage to the mesa side of the bog. What's this? Look at that heel! That was certainly no coyote passing through nor was that scat anything passing through a coyote! Fortunately, this was long before Brou and Daisy had come to live with us.



Before the next rain could obliterate the tracks, I brought some plaster of Paris over from the Rat and made castings of the prints. I decided that if I ever get around to casting my own stepping stones someday, I wanted to include those prints in some of them.

Virgil and Earl both stopped by that week and confirmed my thoughts - that we had been visited by a bear. Earl was very concerned that it had made itself at home so close to the Rat. He suspected that it might have been a nuisance bear which had been relocated from a populated area. Fortunately, that was the last time we saw or heard anything of the like again. T-o-u-c-h wood.

If nothing else, it made for great conversation when Slim arrived back that winter with his cattle. And as usual, Slim was up to sharing a good story of his own. Now you gotta know Slim to really appreciate the telling of it. He's got that charming boyish intensity that takes you right along with him. He leaned forward, elbows on knees and looked at each of us intently eye-to-eye as he began:

"Yeah, I had me a run-in with a bear once. Had cattle up in the mountains, noticed something not right and promised myself to check it out first thing in the morning. Well ... I had too much of a good time that night and woke up a little ... you know ... under the weather? So anyway ... I haul my draggin' butt into the pick-up and head back up there. I get out at the gate just about the time a big ol' bear wanders out from the trees, couldn't a been 30 feet away! Well, I'll tell ya, I never lost a hangover so fast in my life as when I realized that I had only one bullet in my pistol and a pocketknife and that was it." We fell into uncontrollable hysterics when he did a quick wide-eyed double take as he concluded "Just then the bear took a couple of steps in my direction and, I ain't kidding ya, I sh-t mehself!!!"

Now here's the strange part; it wasn't until trying to write this down tonight that I realized that we never did hear the end of that story! Last thing I remember about it was me sliding down the wingback unto the floor, holding my aching sides and wiping the tears out of my eyes when suddenly I smelled the lasagna and garlic bread in the oven and realized that supper was probably ready a long half hour before. At my mention of food being well beyond ready, they stampeded past me to the table and the story got trampled along with me in the rush. Remind me to have him finish that story when he shows up for the winter again.

Next story? It'll be back to current events (as in - "there's never a dull moment around here"). This little photo snip below is a hint for Bruno of what's coming up. We're talking SERIOUS guy fun plus ... sigh ... the usual "Whuh, Geez, who woulda thought THAT would happen?"


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The Luddite Ventures Out

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Forgive me for sharing a techno experiment with you here. I have been fascinated with this movie feature ever since Blogger introduced the capability a couple of weeks ago. Mark and I got a laugh out of this one tonight (I think it came from pal John E. in Phoenix). Don't try it if you can't handle a 2 meg download, okay? Here goes:







I will continue our regular journal by very late Friday night. BIG day tomorrow since I am going to make my semi-annual trip into town. Hopefully the doctor will have something encouraging for me to report. Wish me luck, okay?

The temperatures dropped down to 28F during the last couple of nights. We're into Fall, no doubt about it now. Time to get the last of our winterizing projects done!
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Let There Be Light (some at least)

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No, your monitor is working just fine. The first image is what living off-the-grid away from light pollution on a moonless night with no generator looks like. It IS that black, that deeply black and consuming! I kid you not; it is like a black velvet painting without any trace of Elvis to illuminate it. I found this out one night when we got home a little later than expected. I forget the circumstances but we had probably been socializing with the cowboys a few places up the road from here. As much as it only happens maybe once or twice a year, it is still a fine ol' time to be had. I wouldn't say that I had earned any designated driver status by merit that night as much as an ability to hit the driver side door the quickest. Not to worry, that little aside has nothing to do with the story here.

We came home and realized that we needed to fire up the generator before Mark could even find his way around inside the Rat. I parked in front of the barn at such an angle so that he could find the generator. It wasn't long before light sprang up from within the Rat and I could see Mark through the windows. He quickly put up our window shades and the Rat sunk back into darkness from the outside world. I backed up and headed the Dakota into my usual spot in the barn. In one smooth motion, I killed my headlights, turned the beast off and hopped out, locking the door behind me. And found myself immersed in the most intense and drowning darkness I have ever experienced. Other than the keys still in my hand, I had just relinquished any vague connection to the lit world - and I could not even see those keys now, let alone the truck. I put out my left hand and was relieved to find the familiar bed of the truck at least within reach. I knew that if I followed the line of the bed far enough back that I had a chance of making it through the barn door without running into a wall or a pile of potentially lethal junk.

It was about that time, with me being about five foot into groping along the bed, that I heard something. Something loud, something moving, something BIG by the sound of it. In the following seconds, it appeared to me to be something immense and bipedal, all according to the steady beat along the row of old well pipes that we had salvaged and laid out in one area of the barn. Clang, clang, clang, clang, resounding like a church bell death toll - heavily, steadily and quickly it continued towards me. I felt the invisible keys in my hands. I gauged the chances of returning to the truck door and finding the keyhole in just the right way to insert the key and find myself within the locked safety of the cab. My heart started to pound a little when I realized that I wouldn't likely have the time to execute that option - the creature was getting closer by the nanosecond. Clang, clang, clang, clang, ever closer. What to do, what to do next?!

I guess such situations are where major personality traits come into play. With what I thought was little to lose at this point, I stopped, turned on my heels and addressed the advancing unknown. "Knock it off! Get lost or I will kick your butt on the way out! Make my day, bud - I will enjoy it." And despite the still advancing noise, I turned around again and headed back towards where I presumed the door lay. Somehow I managed to clear that door with my dignity intact and found myself out in the larger engulfing darkness but the hairs on the back of my neck told me that I still might be grabbed from behind at any moment by the unseen predator. Sometimes you just have to understand that you may only have two options; that you are either totally screwed or you're not and so I kept walking vaguely in the last known direction of the Rat and hoping for that latter option. After much pawing ahead of myself in the dark and stumbling, the door of the Rat and its light within greeted me. A small eternity passed by in the process.

Didn't seem worth alarming Mark at that point however; some things just don't seem worth the stress of a re-telling at the time.

The second photo? Well, that is my collection of skulls and antlers tacked along the back inside wall of the barn. Do they sometimes come alive at night and stalk hapless victims? Nah ... probably not.
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A Tiny Visitor

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Well, I wanted to do a rant about our sagging 'good neighbor' relation with the oil field but Mark grabbed me by the collar and held my 90 MPH paddling arms and legs in place once again. I may do it yet but now that I am wound up, I need to write about something - writing is definitely my vent therapy when I run into closed doors, cold solid walls and buttocks people.

As always, I found my solace in nature's blunt and honest agendas. So ... the photos show yesterday's tiny visitor. I happened to notice Brou in hunting mode by the back wall of the barn and went to investigate and to intervene if necessary. I am glad I did. Brou was about to administer the now infamous 'flying coyote pounce' to this little guy. These tiny lizards are so delicate that it doesn't take but one pounce to mortally wound them.

I was able to grab the little guy and exit without Brou seeing this happen so he was content to keep pawing and snorting around where he last saw the lizard. I walked back to the Rat to find the camera. What I soon found out was that it was nearly impossible to set-up the camera and take a photo with only one hand. The other hand had a gentle hold on my rescued friend and I had to be careful to not lose focus on him lest I hold him too tightly. I just had to show you the nearly iridescent blue, white and black markings on his belly. Mark also regrets that the photo does not do justice to the brilliance of these colorings that I showed him as he tended the burn barrel. These striking colors were obviously not meant to impress and attract the attention of predators from above since he was a uniform drab mottled gray on the sky side. He also had the finest little pin-point claws which could propel him directly up or across the weathered barn siding without pause.

We sat on the porch for some time and visited before I walked him back over towards the barn. Rather than put him back into the Brou zone again, I placed him on my shoulder and walked over to a boulder taller than myself and which sits 15 feet from the back of the barn. I leaned back against the boulder and about five minutes later he finally chose to scale up the boulder and roost in a sunny niche above my head. He was simply a beautiful, gentle creature and I was ever so glad to be able to rescue him. I could get in a little snark about some humanity here but I will refrain for now.
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News from the Front

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Maybe this won't be such a long siege after all - I hope, I hope, I hope. I always knew that Mark was sharp but when he lights a fire under himself (or someone else does), he kicks butt in ways that leave me astounded. The last twenty-four hours has seen him burn through three fully charged cell phone batteries and connect with more savvy people than we knew were even out there. Knowledge is our best ammo, plain and simple. Sooooo, I may be back to regular journaling in a couple of weeks. Sooner would be better but I don't want to over-stress myself with intense multi-tasking. I miss you guys already. Not to worry, I have upped the ante on those little aspirin jobbies and am carefully pacing myself more than normal.

If PopeT is right (comment on last entry) about the ancient Greek belief that an eagle sighting is a good omen, than we are on a good omen roll. Today I heard my raptors and ran outside. I may be mistaken but it would appear that a combination of four hawks and eagles were occupying the same big tree behind the barn. I didn't think that was even normal or possible. Perhaps a message that opposing forces can intermingle without conflict? I hope so.

One of the hawks came over to visit and circled above my head despite Daisy's ruckus. Again, my results with mid-range digital shots are still marginal but the image shows two photos of my hawk overhead and one of two raptors landing in the big pine.

Thanks for the many well-wishes on this latest endeavor - it seems to be helping! I will be back as soon as I can manage. I am looking forward to finishing the potty tales.
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The Necessary Hiatus

I have decided to title today's photo simply "Vigilance". It's of two good-natured shepherds keeping watch over their home turf.

My eagle and my hawk visitors from yesterday and today were perhaps trying to tell me something. The nearly white eagle had winged across the sage towards me after his drop into the creek. I was chilled by the beauty of his unusual, nearly transparent plumage in the sun as he soared low and lightly overhead and took up a roost in a dead tree at the top of the mesa directly behind the Rat. I called out to him in my best Eaglelese and he watched me intently, uttering the occasional response. The voice of the raptor is one which strikes a chord deep within my soul and echoes back out through my every bone and atom of flesh.

The hawk came by today. I had been looking out a large window of the Rat, enthralled by the aerobatics of a thrush as it tight-looped up and around to catch a grasshopper mid-air and I told Mark to watch. What nearly filled the window almost immediately was a hawk which swerved upwards from the ground at the last moment and landed on the roof overhead. We could see his outline interrupting the roof line as the Rat's shadow played across the ground. I ran out the opposite side of the Rat and the hawk began to repeatedly circle above my head. It was those damnably exuberant Aussie shepherds who caught sight of him and set up a raucous, stampeding melee to end that moment. The hawk swerved wide and took up vigil in a tree on the edge of the first bench up the mesa. I had the field glasses with me and we both stayed put, intently watching each other for half an hour until those dogs distracted me once more with their energetic foolishness. When I looked back, the hawk had departed as quietly and mysteriously as the eagle on the day before. I find something immensely strengthening and energizing in these rare visits which could not be duplicated by another mere human like myself. It's as though they wished to share their untamed, natural strength with me, to refresh me, to remind me that I am still a warrior at heart. Perhaps they were warning and girding me for a conflict ahead.

The complete unaccountability of the potentially fatal hit and run aside, it was today that Mark had been dealt a last straw to shake his ever gentle 'turn-the-other-cheek', 'do unto others' demeanor. We have both run out of fresh cheeks to offer. Mind you, we had been warned repeatedly by everyone who has dealt with the ways of the two ton energy gorillas out here that we were far too kindly for our own good.

This must simply change now, not just for our own good but for the good of many to follow. We have seen our generosity repeatedly abused and find it shamelessly rude. Enough is simply enough after saving and doing without for so many years to realize this dream of ours to find that corporations and collaborating government departments could largely care less about even what few rights a land-owner might have. No, I am not talking about any armed insurrection here ... we just don't conduct ourselves in such a manner (although some already have resorted to this in utter frustration). But we will avail ourselves to any legal recourse available and do what is necessary to reign in the abuses and treading upon rights that we are experiencing.

I am finally wise enough to understand my limitations in battle: those taunting chest pains and the pleasant long distractions of things like blogging. And so I wish to take leave of your very kindly company to concentrate my remaining energies and resources on this particular battle. I still have so many very interesting tales to share with you but this new matter does seem to be a priority, for my own peace of mind and sense of honor, if nothing else. Please don't forget us in the interim and please do check back in November in case we have some good news to share. And in the meantime, don't let any of this dissuade you from your own dreams. You will never regret trying and, like so many things in this interesting life, sometimes you regrettably have to take a stand to defend it. I am not so old that I have completely forgotten how to pull on a set of war gauntlets and flip down the visor before a charge. The spirit is still willing and that is good and maybe all I could hope for.

Privy Counsel: On Restoration of the Throne

REALITY WARNING: More serious potty talk to follow

The previous installment left off with Mark in a state of misery and it was time to do something about it.

I'm not sure where this particular inspiration came from; perhaps something as simple as noticing the forlorn bathroom fixtures among the old cast iron stoves and sundries in the barn. We had since removed the two original bathrooms and replaced their horrendously rotted floors so the old fixtures were consigned to the junk stash. Even though we were pretty much decided on not going through the expense of installing a septic system, the porcelain pots seemed too good to just throw away. And now they were saying something encouraging to me.

"Mark, I know this might sound like a strange idea but how about if we drag out one of the thrones and set it up at the rear of the Rat, maybe line the bowl with several sheets of newspaper and ... " He cut me off as he caught the idea with both hands and ran with it. It was as close as I had seen him to exuberant in months (not that exuberance was ever his strong suit, mind you). I will never forget his almost Monty Python response either, accompanied by eyes wide in a madman's unseen joy; "Oh! Oh! My buttocks are already puckering in anticipation!!" I knew we had a winner here.

It wasn't half an hour later that the throne had been cleaned and set up for business. It wasn't five minutes later that he had installed himself as King Mark, first reigning monarch of the Alfresco Privy of the Rat. And there was much joy in the land among the serfs as the new ruler lost much of his stopped up testiness.

Now I'm not saying that this (photo one) would be considered much of an improvement to the average suburbanite but all things are truly relative. I sent that photo to friend Jim in upstate New York and his response was "Hey ... LOVE what you've done with the place!" Granted but sitting on an icy toilet seat is still hands above squatting and teetering above a hole in the ground. We even set up the bowl with newspapers for the next sitter (Cat, take note of that!) so that someone could take the 20 yard green apple two-step dash and not miss the target. The gift-wrapped poop de jour was then ceremoniously deposited in the burn barrel. Uptown, totally uptown!

As you can see from photo 2, privacy did remain an issue to some degree. Those are Slim's cows come to visit and mooch hay off the back of the moving trailer, hay which I thought had been placed out of their reach. And cows are nosey, curious critters so they were inclined to keep close company with you if the outing was timed poorly. Mark tried to sneak a photo of yours truly 'sitting' among the herd but the camera would not set itself up (funny how those things happen). And planes still flew overhead and trucks still rumbled by at the most inopportune times.

The biggest drawback was still use after dark. Much of the pensive joy that comes with sitting quietly alone had returned to us now but occasionally the reverie would be doused by sudden crashings and thrashings from the trees and sage at the mesa's base. There really is something about being caught with your pants down that makes you feel especially vulnerable. Often times, the noises would fade away but I remember one night when the noise was particularly loud ... and close! I switched on the flashlight and scanned the bushes. The noise stopped as not one but two pairs of large yellow eyes flared back at me. As Slim would attest in a slightly more colorful way, this sort of situation can make for a fine natural laxative. Whatever the glowing eyeballs were attached to and I indulged in a Mexican stand-off for several more minutes and then I switched off the flashlight. WHADDA-MY, NUTS? - but I prefer it over no action at all and had already calculated that I 'might' be able to make it back to the Rat's front door and break some Guinness record for the fastest one-man, one-legged hopping race ever in the process. Either that or qualify for a Darwin Award. Hey, any legacy is better than nothing.

But fate was unusually kind that night and the mystery critters eventually wandered off. Oh sure, you can sit in your cozy arm chair now and probably connect some dots but not so fast ....

To be continued

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Humor of the Day (from Rick the Welder)

A farmer got in his pick-up, drove to a neighboring farm and knocked at the farmhouse door. A young boy about 10 years old came to the door.

"Is your dad home?" the farmer asked.

"No, sir, he ain't." the boy replied "He went into town."

"Well, is your ma home?" said the farmer.

"No, sir, she ain't here neither ... she went into town with Pa."

"How about your brother, Howard, is he here?"

"He went with Ma and Pa."

The farmer stood there for a few minutes, shifting from one foot to the other and mumbling to himself a little.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" the boy asked politely "I know where all the tools are if you need to borrow one. Or, maybe I could take a message for Pa?"

"Well" said the farmer uncomfortably, "I really wanted to talk to your dad ... it's about your brother Howard getting my daughter Pearly Mae pregnant."

The boy considered that for a moment and then said "Hmmm, best you talk to Pa about that ..." and then offered "But, if it helps you any, I know that Pa charges $50 for the bull and $25 for the boar ... but I really don't know how much he gets for Howard."