The…End?

Skill Sets I Have Acquired (And Didn’t Know I Would Ever Need)

1.    How to bank a fire in a wood burning stove to keep a constant house temperature of 70 degrees.

2.    How to maintain control (physical and emotional) while riding a quad sideways as it slides down a muddy road.

3.    How to stack a woodpile to maximize individual pieces while minimizing the space it consumes.

4.    How to pack 24 cubic yards of crap onto a quad that only has 12 cubic yards of space.

5.    How to minimize the number of articles of clothing I have to carry daily to replace the ones I get muddy.

6.    How to reach that impossible place on your back to scratch the one place the mosquitos always know to bite.

7.    How to change out a propane tank and relight the pilot in less than 30 seconds.

8.    How to build a house (and in the process, the foundation of a lasting relationship) from scratch.

9.    Why you should never fall in love with someone else’s property (because it will always be someone else’s property).

Well gang, it’s inevitable that all good stories must come to an end; ours being no exception. We were served eviction papers just a couple weeks before Christmas, and scrambled to figure out where to move our operation. And it’s not like we could just bring a moving van up and take our multitudes of crap away in a single load. Instead, everything left the mountain just like it came up – one carload at a time. I crammed the Jeep full each night after work, and dropped it all off in a storage unit every morning before going to work. This worked great for all the small stuff, but then it was time to get serious about the big stuff.

It was right about then that our wonderfully dry winter turned around and decided to dump more than two inches of rain just a couple days before our departure date. So in the middle of the downpour, we led our mules on foot the two miles down the dirt road and to their new home. There were times that all four of their legs were splayed out as they slid down the road, pulling us along as though we were water skiing behind them. And once, to the credit of Mexico and Sierra, when I fell on my face under one and in front of the other, they both stopped cold and didn’t stomp me into the mud.

The next step was to stage the horse trailer for when the road dried out enough to drive. Thanks to the help of some of our young, strapping, strong-backed friends, all the furniture got loaded without too much mud included. And then we waited, and waited… and waited.

That final afternoon of D-day, we went for it. Dave took the trailer first, and I followed with the cats in a kennel on the back of the quad. He only slipped and slid a little at the top, and the rest of the road was a cake walk. I, on the other hand, had a kennel of bucking, yowling cats that I finally had to sit on to keep from falling off as we bounced down the mountain for the final time. Fitting, I think, in retrospect.

Due to the abruptness of our departure, we weren’t able to make a graceful transition to another ranch… yet. The animals all have a temporary home at a neighboring ranch with a million dollar view of the coast. And we landed in a Motel 6. Hmmm… Somehow I think we got the raw end of that deal.

So, we have become “townies” for the winter while we regroup and figure out our long-term plan. Hopefully this is only semi-retirement for Miss Jane, and we’ll find our way back to Adventureland, where I can put all the crazy, useless-in-town things I have learned to good use in Act II.

In the meantime, thank you all for your amazing support of my literary efforts! I can’t tell you how much fun I have had giving you all a good laugh from time to time.