And Now… The Rest of the Story

I am quite certain that several of you noticed that parts of my last blog post just didn’t add up. The Keystone Cop routine of rushing in blind and then retreating, the anxiety over our neighbors’ safety, the massive response by law enforcement… all for metal scrappers?

I have to admit to leaving out a key piece of information. In a word – guns.

As you may recall, I am married to a retired hunting guide, who still hunts for pleasure on a regular basis. He has quite a collection of “long guns” – rifles, shotguns, muzzle loaders – all tools of the trade.

Or, I should say, had.

Our primary concern that night was to stop the bad guys before they gained access to the storage container, which is where we store everything that doesn’t fit in the barndominium (basically, everything we own). It is actually an old cell tower site – a reinforced building surrounded by chain link and barbed wire. We are convinced that they expected to find wiring, batteries, and other assorted electronics inside. What they found instead was a completely different story.

And Dave and I are sick about it – on so many levels that I am at a loss on how to verbalize it.

As you know from previous stories, I am still coming to terms with my own comfort level with guns. I recognize the need to protect myself from mountain lions and now, apparently, meth-heads, but I still question my ability to ever raise a gun against any living thing. (Except, of course, rattle snakes.)

But now, with my own sense of security violated, I am feeling incredibly vulnerable. So it was with a desire to feel more empowered that I asked Dave for some more target practice because, while I feel comfortable enough with the .22 pistol and snake shot, I have never really shot a long gun.

And here it becomes necessary for another emotional aside. Starting the morning after the incident, neighbors have been showing up on the doorstep, quietly offering Dave the loan of a “ranch rifle.” The thoughtfulness of it, the matter-of-factness of it, has brought tears to my eyes on not a few occasions.

But we began my training with one of the rifles spared in the heist. It uses the same caliber bullet as the snake shot pistol, so the only thing I had to get used to was contorting my body around the stock to sight in targets.

And, as I polish my fingernails against my shirt collar, I batted 750 when it came to shooting tin cans off the fence.

The thing is, it took me so long to set up and sight in each target that the mountain lion would have had time to completely devour two mules and at least half of one of my own legs before I pulled off a shot. And that would only have served to piss it off even more – feeling more like a bee sting than anything else.

With that in mind, Dave took up an offer from one of the neighbors, and we borrowed a shotgun that they both swore was the perfect size and caliber for petite, little me.

Dave set me up at the pond for this practice session, wanting me to see the “scatter pattern” that the gun produced. He handed me ear plugs, which should have been my first warning, and then showed me how to stand so I wouldn’t get knocked over. He warned me it would have a lot more recoil than the rifle I had first tried, and left me with the admonishment, “So don’t be a sissy and drop the gun after you pull the trigger,” before stepping well out of the line of fire.

I firmly planted myself, locked in on a mud patch in the pond, and… Holy Crap!

To my credit, I didn’t drop the gun, nor fall on my butt.

But, I am still picking pieces of my teeth out of my tongue, and I don’t expect to be able to lift my arm over my head for a week.

As for the scatter pattern – the shells were called “dove shot.” All I can say is never mind the dove, an entire flock of geese would have been completely obliterated. I guess I can rest assured that when the bear comes through the kitchen window for the dinner leftovers, that dove shot will have sent it fleeing into the next county before I can finish picking all my molars up off the floor.

In light of our new arsenal, we needed to pick up some ammunition to go along with it. In an interesting pairing of errands, we made stops at both the gun shop and Victoria’s Secret.

So I can say with confidence that the Badass Tinkerbell is, once again, well-armed and well dressed.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

Our mountain community is quite small, and very spread out. In most cases, if you need to borrow a cup of sugar you’re looking at a two-mile trek at the very least.

So our main connection to one another tends to happen while driving the main road. Our two mile ride to the ranch may take up to an hour as we stop to visit with the neighbors we cross paths with, catching up on the latest news and gossip.

And, let me tell you, you don’t need cell phones, Blackberries, or instant messaging when you have the mountain hotline! News travels faster than lightening, although the accuracy of the information tends to lose a little in the translation. Remember the tin can “telephones” connected by a piece of string from your childhood?

As an example, if I were to greet a neighbor at the top of the mountain and mention in passing that I saw a bear the previous evening, by the time I get to the bottom I’ll be asked by another neighbor about the monster bear that Dave shot last night and the two cubs that I’m now hand-raising.

So as I started encountering neighbors on my commute home one evening who tossed out comments like, “I’m so sorry about the robbery!” and “I heard they got everything!”, I was not overly concerned, recognizing there must be some distortion to the story. I had, after all, just talked to Dave fifteen minutes previously and nothing had sounded amiss.

As it turned out, Dave had discovered earlier in the day that thieves had targeted a storage area on the property. Over dinner, he explained that they had mostly taken things that could be sold as scrap metal: water pumps, shovels, ladders, batteries. They had also tried, but failed, to access our storage container.

He had gone to the local police department to report the crime, but more importantly, to let them know about our remote location and find out about response times, as he was convinced they would be back for what they could get out of the storage container.

Long story short, he was told to contact the County as it was out of their jurisdiction, they were too short-staffed, and we lived too far away.

Message received.

As we finished dinner, we discussed the type of shady character that would pull such a heist and his plan to visit the County the following day, and then he walked outside. Only to come racing back in.

“I can hear them! They’re breaking in right now! Let’s go!”

For the next part of this story, you should be imagining something akin to the Keystone Cops meet the Dukes of Hazzard.

We charged up the hill towards the storage unit, adrenaline pumping, stopping just below to make our presence known.

And this is where the Keystone Cops come into play. We hadn’t thought through any action plan, and suddenly found ourselves in a Mexican standoff. We knew they were there, they knew we knew they were there, but now what?!

Call for backup!

But, Oh crap! No cell service.

Retreat to regroup!

We raced back down to the olive grove where Dave ducked behind a tree near the main road to keep watch while I ran back to the house, where my phone actually works. Then it was a matter of running back and forth through the grove, alternating making calls with updating Dave on who was coming.

Which is where the Dukes of Hazzard come into play. Within ten or fifteen minutes, the neighbors started showing up from all directions, most half-cocked (and a couple of them, half-crocked). As the bad guys saw all the lights converging, they decided to run for it, one on foot uphill, and the other in a truck downhill.

What followed was what you would expect from any great chase scene – high speed pursuits, cars catching air, trucks blasting through locked metal gates. The only thing missing (thank God!) was a gun battle.

Enter the professionals. You should now shift your mental picture to one of the final scenes in the movie The Blues Brothers, where 152 police cars chase Jake and Elwood all over creation.

There were lines of squad cars hitting dead ends on the dirt roads, only to have to wait as, one by one, they reversed out and attempted to turn around without driving off a cliff in the dark. There were broken down vehicles; radiators blown on the steep, rough terrain.

And the climax came as 27 shotguns were whipped out and trained on my husband and a neighbor, who in an unfortunate coincidence drives a truck with a similar description to the suspect’s vehicle.

Okay, maybe it was only 2 or 3 shotguns, but it was enough to send me streaking through the olive grove, shrieking at the 911 dispatcher, “Tell them not to shoot! Tell them not to shoot!”

**********

It’s time for me to put all kidding aside. This was a heavy, emotionally charged night that I’m still really trying to find humor in. Dave and I are still second guessing ourselves about involving the neighbors, especially in light of the 911 response that we actually got. And I agonized over every call I made, knowing that we might be putting each of them directly in harm’s way.

But our neighbors are rock-stars. To a person, they instantly dropped everything and came to our aid without hesitation, which we will never forget and forever appreciate. In fact, a few are genuinely angry with us that they weren’t called. And it was largely through their actions that we ended up with the outcome that we did.

And in all seriousness, the Sheriff’s show of force was swift, impressive, and incredibly professional. They brought in a K-9 unit and helicopter to track the suspect on foot, and a forensics unit was here until 4:30 am processing evidence.

And recognizing the value of local knowledge, within seconds after being caught in the crosshairs of their shotguns, our neighbor was already riding shotgun in a squad car, acting as navigator on the backcountry roads. And Dave was helping them make sense of the chaos at the crime scene.

The final outcome? Armed with the information our neighbors collected before the law arrived, the first suspect was arrested in less than 24 hours. And they nabbed the second within 48 hours. Deputies have been up every day since to build their case, collecting more evidence, witness statements, and lists of stolen property. They should be able to charge each of these rat bastards with at least one, if not two, felony counts.

Let’s hear it for the good guys!

**********

As for all of us involved, we remained on high alert for a few days afterwards. So we all got riled up when, the following day, rumors started filtering in through the mountain grapevine that the suspect on foot had held out until daybreak and then called a buddy, who had the audacity to drive up and pick him up. But, according to the rumor, a neighbor had chased them down and actually caught them!

High fives all around, and score one for mountain justice!

Or, maybe, we need a new tin can on one end of our mountain communication system.

The true story is almost better. As a neighbor left the mountain mid-morning, he came across a car he didn’t recognize, who refused to stop when he flagged them down. So he threw his car in reverse and chased them – backwards – up the mountain, and straight into a Deputy Sheriff who had been up collecting evidence.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid that the elderly couple who was just coming up the mountain to visit their son will be traumatized for life.

Bear Hunting, Revisited

We have noticed a strong correlation between the ripeness of avocados and the amount of bear activity around the ranch. A couple weeks ago, we started seeing lots of traffic around one particular trail, so motivation was high to work a bear hunt into the next fogless evening.

The perfect evening presented itself last night, so we loaded up the Jeep and headed out. I jumped out to open the gate when we got to it, but then stopped for several moments trying to figure out what was wrong with it. I finally pieced together that a bicyclist had punched through one end of it before I unlocked it and we moved on.

We were about 45 seconds down the road before I realized I had a problem. Apparently, I had chosen to stand directly over a red ant nest while I played CSI, and they had just found their way up my boots and into my socks.

As they began biting, I started shrieking, quickly ripping off my boots… and socks… then pants.

After initially being quite startled, Dave was now laughing so hard that he was finding it difficult to drive, all the while cracking jokes at my expense.

By the time we arrived at the trailhead, the drama was over. While I was determined not to waste a perfectly beautiful night, I was also not so keen to put back on my ant-infested clothes. So I gamely shook out my boots and threw them back on, grabbed my binoculars, and walked out onto the ridge to scout the orchards below.

And instantly Dave coined the new phrase “bare hunting.” Of course, he was the only one lucky enough to see anything of interest.

Water Is Highly Overrated

   When the owners bought the ranch back in the 70’s, they trenched in a water system using PVC pipe that traverses a good 100 acres of the property. Over the years, lines were added or capped as projects and buildings appeared and disappeared.

   So we inherited the job of maintaining a maze of 40-year-old plastic pipe with no map of where the pipes actually lay. When we first moved in, the system wasn’t working at all, and our first order of business was to sink a new well pump and repair all the breaks.

   As a newcomer to ranch life, this was obviously not my area of expertise, but Dave was keen to start my education right away, recognizing I’d be on my own a lot.

   Which is, of course, how it’s worked out. EVERY TIME a waterline breaks, Dave’s away at work. And considering the age of the system and the randomness of its placement, it happens more than you’d think.

   When the water tanks are full, a break has the potential for a 10,000 gallon water loss, so the goal is to catch it quickly and get the tank valves shut off. This entails a half-mile run up the mountain. Then it’s a mile run from there down the mountain to the well site to shut off the pump, wait for the pipes to drain, dry, dig up the break site, and repair the pipe.

   Fairly laborious, but straightforward, right?

   Riight…

   The first time it happened, the ground at the break site was so impacted we had to call in a tractor to dig it up, and by then Dave was home to deal with it.

   The second time, it took me three days just to locate the break. I got all the parts together and worked with Dave via phone to make sure I did the repair correctly. I have to admit to being fairly proud of myself when it all held together and we were back on line.

   Until an hour later.

   The break was at an abandoned project site, and was just a capped pipe. The water pressure against the new cap was just too much and it blew right off.

   Quick! Run to the tanks, then to the well, let the pipes drain, dry, and try again.

   Dave’s advice this time was to drive a stake in front of the cap to help work against the water pressure, and wait twice as long for the cement to dry before turning the water back on.

   Okay… seems… to… be… holding… NOOO!

   Run to the tank, now to the well, etc., etc.

   This time he counseled me to go to town and buy industrial strength cement, and wait overnight for it to set. Done!

   Phew!

   So by the time this latest episode rolled around, I felt like a pro. With plenty of experience under my belt, there was no break I couldn’t handle.

   Famous last words.

   This break was the main line to the barn, and it butted right up to a cement footing supporting a six by six beam. Attached to the beam was the electrical box for the whole ranch system, and buried directly over the broken pipe was a buried Edison box.

   Are you kidding me? Who’s brain wave was this?!

   I spent all morning digging out the cement footing, expecting to be electrocuted at any moment. It’s summertime, I’m sweaty, getting devoured by bugs, and you remember the mud, right? Thick, viscous, cement that sticks to everything. Because of all the wires and conduit pipes, I spent a lot of time on my knees or belly, digging cautiously by hand.

   Can you picture how pretty I’m looking about now?

   It was at this point that I started thinking that water is highly overrated.

   But I finally uncovered the pipe, and determined there was about a four inch window in which to make the repair. Now, for the parts.

   Because of another restructuring on the ranch, our tool shed was gone, and despite an hour-long search, I couldn’t find a hacksaw or the pipe cement anywhere.

   Sigh…

   The only thing I had going for me was that this was a slow leak, so I could still turn on the tanks long enough to take a shower before heading to town for parts.

   Just as I was getting ready to leave, the cavalry appeared. I think Dave recognized the desperation in my voice and called a neighbor, who showed up with a power saw and cement to finish the project for me.

   Can’t wait to see what the water gremlins throw at me next…

This Means War…

I came home from a weekend away to discover that mice had moved into the kitchen during my absence. I missed the first significant clue because I had a bag of fly predators on the counter, and thought the droppings were eggs that had fallen out of the bag.

I guess maybe an unrelated sidebar is necessary here… When you live on a ranch in the mountains, with a stagnating pond and several manure-producing mules, flies are a serious issue in warm weather. Every month, a company sends us a bag of fly predator eggs. Once they start to hatch, I release them in the manure piles in an attempt to curb our summer swarms. I leave them on the kitchen counter so I can keep track of their hatch, because if I miss it, they drill out of the bag and create a mess.

Which is what I thought might have happened that morning. There were no holes in the bag, but I still didn’t put two and two together. (Maybe I need to take a course in scatology? I seem to keep misidentifying animals based on their poop!)

When I got home for work, the counter was COVERED. It must have been some party. And sure enough, when I opened the pantry cabinet, there was food and droppings everywhere. And in the cooking utensil drawer, a nest.

SIGH.

My first thought was to bring in Bobcat to take care of it for me. The problem with this is that the cats are not allowed in the house, so when they do come inside, they are nervous. I put her right in the drawer with the nest, but she immediately jumped out and ran to Blue’s pillow. Stupid cat is really smart. She has watched the dog come into the house every night and go straight to the pillow to sleep, so she clearly equated it with an “animal safety zone,” kind of like free-base in a kid’s game of hide-and-seek. She wouldn’t leave it to hunt for me.

Strike one.

It was already 10pm, and the mouse traps were in our storage shed, a quarter mile and three locked gates away. I decided to wait until morning to deal with it, and sat down to watch some news. Only to jump up again less than three minutes later when a mouse popped out of the wood stove next to me and ran across the floor.

I had been wondering how the damn thing got in the house in the first place, and would never have figured on this. My new roommate was channeling Santa Claus, coming in from the barn roof by shimmying down the inside of the stove pipe. From there, full-on Parkour free running style, it tumbled across the floor, somersaulted up the broom handle, and back-flipped onto the countertop.

Okay, maybe some of that was my wine-induced imagination, but still!

There was no avoiding it, so off to storage I went. I armed the traps with peanut butter and went to bed.

The next morning brought no resolution. It had completely ignored my offering, and instead dragged off one of the rattlesnake tails from the windowsill. (If you have already accepted the existence of fly predators on the kitchen counter, you have no right to start judging me now!)

Strike two.

Clearly, the mouse expected hard-core protein to sustain its massive quantities of output on the kitchen counters. So the next night, I added a piece of dog food to the top of the peanut butter.

The next morning, it was more challenging to piece together what had happened. It appears the mouse had catapulted itself into a hanging basket, where it ate into a bag of BLT dip mix (bacon bits all over the counter), and then it lowered itself over the mouse trap like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible and removed the dog food from the peanut butter without disarming the trap.

Strike three.

THIS MEANS WAR…

The Animals Are Winning!

            The ranch we caretake is 320 acres in the middle of a National Forest. You would think that with all that open space, the wildlife would be content to concede our happy little barndominium, plus its yard. Really, it only encompasses maybe 900 square feet total! But, no, our little compound acts as a magnet instead.

Barely three weeks after we moved in, we started discovering bees in the house. A queen had set up quick residence in the bedroom wall, and the drones found their way between the wall and the floorboards, where they would crash against the window until they died. One evening I came home from work to find more than 40 carcasses on the floor in front of the window. Just recently, they came back to roost in the water heater closet, and I am considering harvesting the honey to pay for the damage they are causing.

            This is in addition to the various beetles, crickets, and spiders I constantly chase back outside. Not to mention the ants – there is a constant stream across the kitchen counters. I’ve tried everything to get rid of them, and once even thought I’d succeeded. Until I realized they’d gone “underground” into the cabinets. By finding them floating in the bottom of my bowl of Cheerios…

            Even the posse wreaks havoc. One night, I suddenly smelled the overwhelming musk of a skunk. As I ran to shut the door, the dog came running at me. Thinking to keep her from getting sprayed, I pulled her into the house, only to realize fairly quickly that she had already been hit, and now the skunk oil was in the house too. Everyone recommended a local product for the walls, the dog bed, and the dog. Unfortunately, all it did was make it smell like the skunk had been eating peppermint candies.

            The mules, too, are constantly pushing the boundaries, reaching over the fence to grab roses, raspberries, and as much of the lawn as possible. The other huge frustration I have with them is that, despite having all this acreage in which to choose a litter box, they have decided that just outside the kitchen window is the perfect place to deposit their “road apples.”

            Now I recognize that we have chosen to live in a wilderness, and that good comes with the bad. I accept that in order to see a doe and her two fawns, a bear in the avocados, or a bobcat hunting ducks in the pond, I have to put up with the ants, mosquitoes and flies. And any one of these things is tolerable when it stands alone. But sometimes, enough is too much.

            I came home exhausted from a long day at work, and Blue-dog is dancing for her dinner, Big Max is meowing for non-attention, there is honey pouring out of the hot water heater, but I just need a couple minutes for myself first. I walk in to the smell of peppermint skunk, look out the kitchen window and sure enough there are piles of road apples everywhere, start to clean the line of ants off the counter yet again, and crack! – there goes the fence as the mules rush the lush, green lawn …

           I just lost it, running out of the house shrieking at all of them.

           I can’t take it anymore! The animals are winning!

Bear Hunting

As a kid, I used to hike all over the Santa Monica mountain range without ever thinking about the wildlife I might run into. When Dave and I started going out, I was introduced to all the potential dangers I had never thought of as he regaled me with hunting stories from his years in the backcountry. Needless to say, the first time we went on a pack trip, I was POSITIVE a bear would come crashing into camp at some point during the night, and didn’t sleep a wink the entire time we were there. Between his experiences and every “media-tized” story that had ever been done on bear attacks, I was a pathetic hostage to my over-active imagination.

It took me a while to realize that I had been duped. By the media, that is, not my husband. As a marine biologist, I have learned enough about sharks to recognize the ridiculous misperceptions that plague these beautiful creatures due to movies like Jaws and the media feeding frenzies that follow the rare attack. Without that same experience in land-based ecosystems, I had unwittingly allowed myself to be sucked into the hype and misinformation about bears.

That was quickly remedied. Within a few weeks of our first date, I had already seen my first bear tracks, and soon Dave was taking me “bear hunting.” Not carrying guns and knives like he used to do with clients, but instead armed with cameras and binoculars, and occasionally a cocktail. Several evenings a month, we take off in the Jeep around sunset and find a place to set up and just watch the world go by. It has become one of my favorite activities with him – talking and laughing about whatever, shrugging off the dramas of the day, and enjoying the beauty of wherever we are. Mostly we see beautiful sunsets, and maybe quail. Sometimes a bobcat or coyote. And every one in a while, an actual bear.

 I have seen a mama and her two cubs come down to a creek to catch trout, and then watch her hustle them quickly away when a big male came to poach their fishing hole. I have seen a bear napping in an avocado-induced stupor in the middle of an orchard. I have spooked a bear off the trail while mule-back in the Sierras, and have woken up to one stealing dog food from Blue’s dish. And every time has been awe-inspiring and oh-so-cool! Nothing like “When Bears Attack,” or whatever those ridiculous shows are called.

So by the time the bear moved into the well house, I was well over my fear, and felt like I understood them much better. While we had to evict it from the actual building, we saw it again a few times nearby, and I was really excited to think we might have a resident bear on the property.

We had to work at the well site a few days later, and as we came down the hill on the quad, there was a doe feeding in the same area that the bear had been hanging out. Dave made a comment about how there was no way the bear was around now, so after we finished the work, we decided to walk a little ways down the game trail to see if we could find signs of how recently it had come through. Heads down, looking for tracks and scrapes, we walked towards the edge of the thick brush. I don’t know why I looked up, but when I did, not ten feet away was the bear, circling under an oak tree.

If I may digress for just a moment to tell a joke you have probably heard before: Two guys are walking in the woods when a bear starts chasing them. The first guy begins to run as the second exclaims, “You can’t outrun a bear!” The first guy replies, “I don’t have to outrun the bear. I only have to outrun you.”

I was the first one back to the quad.

Drag Queen

            One of the biggest challenges of living on a dirt road is keeping it passable. In the summer, it turns to dust and blows away, or sticks like a magnet to the vehicles and we drive it away, leaving behind big holes and exposed rocks.

            In the winter, it floats away, the rain creating gulleys and washouts that rival the Grand Canyon. As it dries, the mud turns to a consistency that is half cement and half quicksand. Wheels leave deep grooves, mule feet leave deep pockets, all of which, as they dry, have the capacity to pop tires and stub toes.

            The ranch is over 300 acres in area, so you can imagine the road system it has, all of which is critical to keep open so the Forest Service has fire access. This creates the need for an art form I never knew existed – dragging the road. Think of a zamboni on an ice skating rink for the concept, only much less glamorous.

            The first step is choosing the exact time to do it – after the quicksand phase, but before the toe-stubbing point. Since Dave is often gone, I had to learn the procedure so as not to miss the ever so small window.

            The next step is pulling the drag at just the right distance from the bumper to keep it from bouncing over the lumps (too tight) to having absolutely no control over where it goes (too loose). Many true drags are all metal piping pulled with chain, or fancy tractor attachments. Our system is more primitive – an old steel “I” beam tied with rope to the trailer hitch of the Jeep. Needless to say, it took me quite a while to perfect this step, with growing frustration because as I dragged, the knots would pull tight and bind up occasionally, making re-tying them truly aggravating.

            The third challenge is tying the drag with just enough angle so that the dirt that collects along it slides off to one side, in theory filling in holes as it does. This step is critical, as I found out quickly. If you pull the drag without enough angle, the dirt piles up in front of the drag and flips it. And remember – SOLID STEEL. I wasn’t able to just jump out of the Jeep and flip it back over. Instead, I’d have to untie it, find a way to drive to the other side of it, hook it back up, flip it, drive back to the right side, and re-hook it. Sometimes this meant a good quarter mile detour each way. Can you hear the curse words?

            Now why, you might ask, not just drag it upside down? Because the damn rope frays and suddenly – TOINK! – you and the drag are separated. More curse words.

            Ironically, after my initial failures and frustrations, I found the work quite soothing. My type “A” little mind enjoys creating a neat and tidy surface out of chaos and mayhem. And in the calm after the storms, it is usually clear and beautiful. What a great excuse to throw the dog in the back, crank the radio, and drive three miles an hour through the mountains, enjoying the fresh scent after the rains and the short-lived green season. Even when Dave is home, I still elect to take on this project. Which has earned me the nickname of the “Drag Queen.”

Water, Water, Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink

I grew up on a lake that was hidden in the mountains of Southern California. It was basically like summer camp all year long. After-school activities ranged from bicycles and roller skates to kayaks and sailboats. Idyllic, except during winter, when the rains overran the banks and our house flooded. Sometimes it was only a few inches over the docks and driveway, which was fun because it did little damage, but usually kept us home from school for the day.

But other times, it meant 4 to 6 feet of water in our bedrooms, which wasn’t so much fun. In fact, to this day, I wake up from a dead sleep for anything more than a light drizzle, because for so many years that meant it was time to get up and start moving furniture.

For the most part, it was really hard to move away, but the relief from the winter stress was actually quite surprising. Rain no longer had such a negative connotation.

Until this week. You would think that living on a mountain at an elevation of nearly 2000 feet would make you immune to flooding. But I should have recognized that the same pond full of frogs that first wooed me up here also had the potential to turn wicked.

We had already experienced nearly 30 inches of rain this season, so the pond was at max capacity. Then 10 more inches fell in a 24 hour period. It burst its banks on two sides, blocking both roads that surround it, and then became a river that flowed through the barn, under the barndominium, and down the third road. I wasn’t too worried about water getting in the house because we are posted up about 8 inches and the river was only 4 inches deep, but I was concerned about the posts themselves becoming unstable and sagging in the deluge.

Eventually the rain stopped, and so did the river. The pond was still more than double its former self, but the road was passable with the quad. So I decided it was probably time to check the rest of the ranch for damage.

When I opened up the well house to check on the water pump, I found it fairly well destroyed. Not by nature – the animals had broken in. The walls were chewed up, there were road apples everywhere, and the solar inverter had been ripped off the wall and the wires frayed. The irony was not lost on me. We had Lake Tahoe at our doorstep, but no well water for actual use.

When it rains, it pours.

Hmmm… but how did the damn mules get in?! The door was securely closed...

When I picked Dave up the next day and related all the drama that occurred during his absence, he decided to head immediately down to the well site to check the damage and see about repairs. It was right at dusk, and as he walked up to the front door, a 400 pound black bear came out the back window.

OOPS. Silly me… sorry honey!

The Mosquito Coast

Working around the ranch today, I got my first mosquito bite of the year. It brought to mind my first attempts to curb the problem...

Besides having several troughs for the livestock, the ranch also has a seasonal pond about the size of a football field. Recognizing the inevitable swarms of mosquitoes to come, along with their potential for West Nile Virus, I decided to look into stocking the pond with mosquito fish. (Ravenous little predators of mosquito larvae.)

            Luckily, it turned out that our county Vector Control gives them away for free. All I had to do was tell them the size of the pond and set up an appointment. I warned the gal on the phone about the road to the property, but she indicated it would be no problem.

            So the morning of the appointment, the phone rang about fifteen minutes before I expect her to arrive. “Um, would you mind meeting me at the bottom of the mountain?”

            Apparently, the road was a problem.

            Now, we had only been living on the ranch a couple months, and I still didn’t have a 4-wheel drive vehicle. I had been using Sassy to get up and down the mountain, but didn’t figure she would be amenable to transporting fish back up the road.

            So I called Dave. “Hey, honey, is there enough gas in the Jeep to get down the hill and back?”

            “Uh, yeah, there should be.”

            A little background on the Jeep. It is a 1980 4WD CJ-7. I love this Jeep. We have driven all over the backcountry in it, had tons of adventures, and it has never left us stranded. (Do you hear me knocking wood?) The windshield can even be dropped onto the hood for an African safari-style experience, which is really awesome provided you remember to keep your mouth shut and your personal windshield (sunglasses) in place.

            However, it is over 30 years old. Some things don’t work quite like they used to. Like the gas gauge. Usually, the Jeep stays on the mountain, and we fill it with random gas cans when we think of it. So we never know just how much fuel is in it. I still didn’t have the “feel” for it like Dave did. Or, like I thought he did…

            So, down the mountain I bounced to meet the fish-lady. After explaining how to release them, she handed me two super-sized bags about half full of water and fish. (Imagine a school carnival goldfish bag on steroids.)

            About a mile and a half back up the road, the Jeep gave a couple of chugs, and stopped cold. Uh-oh. So now I faced a choice. Do I hike up the road alone, pick up Sassy, and come back for the fish, or do I take the fish with me now?

            Using a complicated logic formula that included the heat of the day, the issue of refueling the Jeep, the temperament of Sassy, and my own questionable temperament at that moment, I decided to hike with the fish. It was only a half mile, after all.

            Not only did the bags get progressively heavier, they were really tough to hold onto. The tops were rolled, folded over, and then rubber-banded, just like they do in the fish store. Only, the banded nub on these bags was really small and, as I started to sweat, really slippery. So I stopped and set them down to get a better grip. On a sloping road.

            I watched in horror as, in total slow motion, one of the bags tipped over, the rubber band slowly unraveled, and water and fish poured out all over the red dirt road. Noooo!

            I grabbed the bag only after all but about two fish were left, and quickly started scooping up all the little flopping bodies I could find. (And I had been worried about how the heat was going to impact them?!)

            So now I had a bag with 3 inches of muddy water and a bunch of fish gasping for air. Determined to give them a fighting chance, I poured some water from the other bag into the spilled one. On a positive note, now both bags were lighter, and easier to carry without the stubby tops.

            But, I’m hot, I’m still a quarter mile away from the ranch, my arms are starting to ache, and my temperament has deteriorated to catastrophic levels. So as I walk, I’m ranting under my breath like a crazy woman, and my absentee husband is the prime target, “Sure there’s enough gas!... Who’s hare-brained idea?... grumble, mumble… Leave me up here alone… Come home and find me moved back to town!...”

            About now, half of me is hoping that one of the neighbors will drive by and take me out of my misery. The other half is praying that none of them will get the opportunity to see yet more proof that their new neighbor is truly an imbecile.

            It turned out to be the imbecile option. I meekly sat in the passenger seat with my muddy packages as she continued her phone conversation with a fellow board member, organizing a complicated, week-long event they were hosting. See? I told you they walk among us.

            She dropped me off with a quick wave and an apologetic smile, and I slunk off to the pond and set my poor prisoners free.

            And we still got bit all summer.

Meet the Posse

           Dave bought his first horse at age 12, and disappeared into the backcountry fairly regularly after that. The few experiences I had with equines up to the point of our marriage involved the bruised imprint of two horseshoes between my shoulder-blades in one instance, and being clothes-lined by a runaway mule train in another. Needless to say, I was leery of the beasts. One huge benefit to moving to the ranch was that the animals came to live with us. It gave me the opportunity to better understand them, and also gives me plenty of fodder for future blogs. Since they, and the rest of our posse, will probably play prominent roles in subsequent stories, I thought you deserved an introduction to our cast of characters:

            Smoke: he’s one of the old men of the posse – a beautiful, grey, twenty-something Johnny mule. He’s solid, deliberate, and bomb-proof. One day when I was saddling him, the kitten got bored swinging from his tail and decided to climb his front leg. He didn’t move an inch – just shuddered a little bit.

           Mexico: the even older old man of our posse. Based on the number of people I've met who have either owned him or known him, he must be at least 102. Okay, more like 30ish, but still, he's been around! He was the first mule I ever rode (as opposed to a horse), and still has some trail time left in him.


            Rosa: a secretly sweet Molly mule, Rosa throws attitude at the rest of the herd. She’s always got her ears back, spoiling for a tantrum, but she’s the first to let me rub behind those ears too. She’s the one who ate the window out of my captain’s truck when he visited to review our wedding ceremony.

            Fey: She came to us from Texas with a couple of bad habits – she has a strong addiction to cat food, which, combined with her unnatural ability to limbo under any wire we put up, gets her into a lot of trouble.

            Jalama: she’s the “baby” of the herd. She acts just like an overgrown puppy, curious about everything, following you everywhere, and getting underfoot (or at least in the way) constantly. She loves to steal whatever you set down, and gives it a good taste test before she gives it back. (And only then if you ask real nice.) Cell phones, car keys, shoeing tools, she’s tasted it all.


                 Sierra and Nevada: the newest girls to join our menagerie, they are sweet and gentle, and still not very well known to us. Can you guess where they came from?

            Blue: Blue-dog is a retired hunter, bred in New Zealand to work for a company that travels world-wide to eradicate non-native animals from ecologically sensitive areas. She is incredibly smart, amazingly well-disciplined, and happy to be retired. While she no longer hunts, she does still enjoy stealing the catches away from the cats. Blue didn’t know how to be a dog when we first got her. She doesn’t understand “fetch” (unless it’s a live pig), or know how to play. We even had to teach her how to pee on her own terms, as she had been kenneled her whole life. (Don’t ask how.) Her biggest joy in life, besides running alongside a quad, is dinner. She starts her “dinner dance” around 3 o’clock, contorting her body in ways no 11 year old dog should be able to do, the whole effort contrived to lure you closer to her food dish. 

            Big Max: Moving to the ranch, we knew we needed a barn cat to control the rodent population. Upon describing our situation to the women at the animal shelter, they turned to each other and exclaimed, “Big Max!” Imagine the biggest, furriest, housecat you have ever seen. Now double it, and you have Max. They had to loan me a dog kennel to get him home. When he proceeded to never bring us a kill, we recognized we had been duped, and started joking that we had opened a ranch for retired hunters. (Dave used to be a hunting guide as well.) Now, we don’t know what Max’s life was like before us, but he is tormented by his desire for and fear of affection. He has a teeny, tiny meow (pathetic really) that he incessantly follows you around with, but when you stop to pet him, he runs away. He HATES to be touched, but wants so badly to be close. Fortunately, I stumbled on a solution – you just sit quietly about six feet away for awhile and he seems to be satisfied. The ranch has actually been great for him. While he still jumps at the slightest noise, he is a shadow of his former self (okay, maybe a shadow and a half), and we’ve discovered that he does actually hunt as soon as the sun goes down.

            Bobcat: She arrived on the mountain with her two sisters as rejects from a breeder – a pure-bred got knocked up by a barn cat. Her two sisters, Tiger and Cheetah, went to the neighbors, and we kept Bobcat. From day one, she put Big Max to shame, bringing us rats over half the size she was, hummingbirds (think about the logistics of that!), and anything and everything. I wish I could teach her to refine her palate away from songbirds and chipmunks, but I have to admit that we don’t have any mice issues. And she is one serious hunter. I awoke one morning to a loud clatter, and ran out expecting to chase Fey out of the cat food. Instead, I found Bobcat clinging to the side of our "barndominium," just under the eaves, spread-eagle like Spiderman, with not one, but TWO bats in her mouth.

            Now, all of our animals get along well, and tumble around together. Each morning and evening I walk around the pond, and various members of our posse join me. One morning, about halfway through the olive grove, Bobcat came prancing past me with a lizard in her mouth. Blue-dog immediately went in for the steal, and Jalama, noticing the action, wanted in on it and gave chase too. As the three of them went racing around the pond, my laughter changed to bemusement. I fear the adage that humans resemble their pets – does all this chaos mean I’m just as eccentric?

It’s Raining Ranas (Frogs)

           After an onslaught of amphibians during this last storm, it brought to mind a strong pattern that seems to be building... Ever since one of our first few dates, frogs have been a recurring theme in my relationship with Dave, for reasons I won’t go into here.

            Moving to the ranch just added fuel to the fire. Before we moved, I spent a night camped out alone on the property, just to be sure I was whole-heartedly on board with this new adventure. As the sun set on one of the most beautiful views in the world, the frogs began chirping. I grew up on a lake, and the sound immediately transported me back in time. (Unlike many people these days, I actually enjoyed my childhood, so this was a positive thing.) The darker it got, the louder they got, until you literally couldn’t hear yourself think. I was in love. Goodbye, freeway noise! So long, train whistle! Hello, frogs!

            While we were refurbishing the "barndominium," we lived in a trailer on the property. As time, and the remodel, dragged on, and on, and on, our trailer started having some issues. The primary problem was that the plumbing was intended for use once a year, in a campground somewhere, using the trailer’s battery operated, low-volume, water pump. Being plumbed permanently to a common-variety garden hose was apparently too much pressure for the system, and the “pipes” (they were actually hoses themselves) developed leaks at the couplings, particularly under the kitchen sink.

            We were far more worried about dealing with the real pipes in the barn, and so Dave's quick fix was to drill a through-hole under the sink so that the water would drain out under the trailer rather than onto the kitchen floor. We’d only be living in there a few more weeks, and then we could patch it, right? Riiight…

            This was during the spring, when the pond was starting to dry up, and the frogs were desperately seeking any water source they could find. In fact, one evening I went to feed the dog and discovered that a bullfrog had commandeered her water dish. Not only did the frogs find their way to the mud puddle under the trailer, but also up through the hole into the trailer. (Works both ways, doesn’t it?)

            So it happened unexpectedly one night that when I opened the kitchen cabinet to pull out a pan, Schlook!, out came a flying frog, and Bap!, he stuck to my arm like a gecko.

            Needless to say, I’m sure my shriek was heard all the way down in town.

            This went on for a couple weeks, with me always just distracted enough to forget until, Schlook!, Bap!, Shriek!

            Then it became kind of a game. I’d open the cabinet and dodge out of the way to see if they could make it all the way across the room. I’d always release them into Blue’s water dish (the bullfrog had moved on by then), and they would make the journey back into the cabinet. Finally, after a time, they just became part of the daily routine.

            In fact, by now it was summer, and we had been given an old water tank by one of the neighbors. The top had been cut off, so it made the perfect swimming pool. I could just fit a raft in it, and be spun in a circle like a propeller by the wind.

The frogs enjoyed the pool just as much as I did. They immediately colonized the edges, and as I spun in a lazy circle, Bap!, they would leap off the walls and join me on my raft. Que sera, sera.

            Well, the barndominium was finally finished before the following winter, and as much as I missed my companions, it was nice to have clean dishes for a change. As the rain poured down one evening, I sat covered in a quilt, a cozy fire burning in the Franklin stove. Suddenly, Bap!, there was one of my little buddies, plastered to a window pane on the French doors.

            I was almost tempted to let him in.

Almost.

Sassy Bitch

            In order to get to the ranch, we have to drive a two and a half mile dirt road that is fairly unmaintained, and that gains 1800 feet in elevation. Needless to say, four wheel drive is the only way to go. And after anything more than a tenth of an inch of precipitation, your only hope is a quad.

            When we first moved up, we had neither. While we searched for a used 4WD truck for me, the neighbors were kind enough to loan us a quad. Now, while I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and truly appreciate how much they helped us, when we learned they had nicknamed this fine piece of machinery “Sassy Bitch,” we got an inkling of how she was going to respond to our demands of her.

            Sassy had one back tire that was smaller than the others, so she listed to port (left). I learned quickly how to fight to keep her going in a straight line. I also learned how to stop sideways when opening all the gates on the road, as she had no parking brake.

            What I couldn’t seem to get the hang of, though, was predicting rain. Rain events are big on the mountain. Everyone has to stage their cars down on the pavement at the bottom of the road and use their quads on the mountain, or risk getting trapped on one side or the other until the road dries out. The trick is to have the right vehicle in the right place at the right time. It is almost a party atmosphere – everyone watches the news, and then there is a mass migration down the mountain. Some of the neighbors use trailers, others shuttle with family members, but everyone has a system.

            Except me. I was always a day late and a dollar short. The storms seemed to hit whenever Dave was away at work, so I ended up doing the shuttle alone. Which meant hiking one way or the other quite often as part of the shuttle. The hike is beautiful, and great exercise, but in the mud and rain, or in a time crunch for work, it lost its charm quickly. And there always seemed to be a propane tank or a basket of laundry at the wrong end of the road because I had planned poorly.

            When I did actually stage everything correctly, the commute was still a big adventure because Sassy was not a four-wheel drive quad. Her two mismatched back tires slipped and slid all over the slick clay soil, throwing mud in every direction as she went. (But mostly on me, or the clean clothes.)

            The first big rainstorm hit one morning during “rush hour,” when I had no choice but to slide down the mountain to be on time for work. I was only cruising at about five miles per hour, so the first time I hit the brakes for a steep section, Sassy’s slide was in super slow motion – BONK! – into the bank. The second time, I tried to move to the right so a neighbor could pass me, and – BONK! – into the bank again.

            By the time I got towards the bottom, the rain had been falling for quite a while. So when I hit the final steep section, Sassy went into a power slide of her own free will and spun a full 180 degrees before – WHOOPS! – no bank, just off the road completely and into a ditch. Strike three! I’m out! I left her where she lay and hiked the rest of the way.

            The next storm caught me by complete surprise. I woke up at about 4am to rain thundering on the roof. What do I do? Do I make a run for it and sit in a coffee shop until it’s time for work? Do I call in sick? It’s hard to make decisions that early in the morning.

            Because I had just gotten my truck and didn’t trust my 4WD skills yet, I opted to hold off and see how the morning progressed. I ended up finding a co-worker willing to pick me up at the bottom of the mountain, and slogged my way down on foot.

            As I did, I was gratified to pass a neighbor’s car abandoned just past our gate. It was clear from the skid marks that they had tried the 4am gamble and lost. Then I passed another. And another. It was almost eerie, but I did feel vindicated. I’m not a complete idiot; even the veterans got caught offguard on this one.

            That feeling disappeared quickly. When I came home, it was dusk, and Sassy had been at the bottom of the road for a few days. When she sits alone for more than a couple days, she deflates a front tire and refuses to start. I tried and tried, to no avail.

            I thought to jump start her like I’d seen Dave do several times before, but she sat on just enough of an incline that I couldn’t push her on to the main road to give it a go. I pushed and dragged until I felt my back getting ready to go on strike again, and finally admitted defeat. It was now after dark, and there was no way I was going to risk becoming a mountain lion’s main dinner course, so I called a neighbor for help.

            Her quad was back down the main road at another neighbor’s house. So I hiked down to pick it up. By the time I got there, he had it ready to go, and after a quick lesson on how to shift it, I was on my way.

            It was a dream! 4WD, no slip-sliding, no mud clumps pelting me, no constant steering to the right, and I could even park when opening gates. Who knew?!

            Well, we finally found a deal on our own 4WD quad, just in time for my sanity to remain intact. We returned Sassy to her owners with a new battery and seat. (Did I mention that the mules ate half the seat almost immediately after we got her?) And then we waited in anticipation of the La Niña winter forecast for this year. Bring it on! I’m ready!

            Riiight…