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?