Well, What a Week That was...

It got so tumbled up not sure which was first. I think it was the battery box...

Was so windy and stormy had to work in bits and spurts trying to get a battery box built so I can expand the battery bank into a more serviceable setup.

It waits now in the back... for enough good weather to get out and install it. In amongst that lil chore the storms kept rolling through, disrupting my labors.



Then as it happens, 'round about here there's a fella that's a free grazer.

All this land about is private ground in small pieces. 99% of which is un-occupied. Over west a bit is a guy with but a few acres. Only, he pushes more cows than that ground can feed out onto where they poach the grass off these hundreds, thousands maybe, of acres of ground that he dont own, and don't rent...

Thing is, in Arizona it's a "fence out" state. If you don't want the cows, it's the victims duty to fence 'em out... only I lack the $1800 or so to string the wire clean around my lil' five acre patch of dust...

Ok, fine.

Right up until they come stompin' through my camp bustin' things up, and mostly wrecking the stone deck I'd built. It was just fine for a 160# man... but wasn't arranged to support 1200 # cows...

 ...A few rocks chunked off their hides moved 'em off... but they come right back... and more deck busted up.

So then Arlo ran out one afternoon to chouse 'em away__ and got tangled up in a small bunch of 400-500# calves...

Somehow he managed to let one fall on him. Thought he'd busted his shoulder for a long while. No way to get him up in the truck. Little peckerwood bit me two holes worth just trying to check him out.

Now four days later he seems improving a lot. Almost starting to use the leg again. Looks like just a real rough sprain, maybe a small tear of some sort. So now two of us are lame... Been just a week or so over a year since I busted up my own shoulder. It continues to heal. Maybe... but it's damned slow about it.

Then along came another set of storms that had me wonderin' was this aluminum trailer sealed up well enough to float! Had to run the generator a couple days for the first time in several weeks. The solar couldn't keep up through the clouds.

The time clustered up inside served well enough. Have made good progress toward completing the next book. Sitting at maybe 7/8 or so. Never really know till the characters tell me that's it and they're finished with their story!

Yesterday when the sun finally came out I set about a change I'd decided on. It's come to me that I've little likelihood of staying here for long. I'm too restless a rover... so I chose to simplify my "developements".

Rather than building a tower for the cistern I filled in that premature footer and rearranged the block to form a plain old simple and low flat pedestal. Only have to pour on some concrete to make a smooth platform.

And with all that time to sit and cogitate I also chose to extend Cora's time with that young buster to a full month. Better she has a solid and secure restart. Some problems got created by whoever it was where she was sent this past summer, and is taking some slow and careful work to erase.

Time spent in that now will benefit me down the road... I've only got to exercise a mite of patience... which has seldom been my strong suit...

Today is Monday... yesterday late, That old shoulder was achin' from movin' stone and block. I'd come to wonderin' if it was near enough to beer thirty to imbibe a nice bottle of Scottish Ale, especially if I sat outside in the sun listening to Brenn Hill on the stereo. Nigh on to the moment that I nearly decided that it was... BuhWHAM!!!!

The whole friggin trailer shook and rattled. The dog yelped and tried to climb into a drawer and hide__I run outside and looked south to see a big Ol' pillar of grey smoke risin' 50 or 60 feet into the afternoon sky several hundred yards away on the other side of the highway... Not something a guy like me needs of a Sunday afternoon...

Some Yahoo set something off to tickle his need for big bangs and smoke... It's happened twice before. I'm thinkin' that mite could be he should ought to have the same experience... maybe, Oh... 'bout 2 a.m. of a coal dark mornin'.

*Moonset behind the Dragoons*

*Arizona Sunrise*

 

*Another Chiricahua Sunrise*

 The sun is shinin' and it's back outside for this pair of lame rovers...
-Brian