Blowin' in the wind

One of the "features" of living on the high plains is the wind.  Not only do we live in one of the windiest parts of New Mexico, but this spring seems like it's been particularly windy with day after day after day of hard gusty winds.  Here's an example:

We had a peak of 58 mph but I didn't get a picture of that.  And it did this for 2 days solid.  It was nasty.  I have to keep my music room humidified and when the wind's smoking along, it's hard to keep the humidity up.  I ran 2 Bemis console humidifiers and couldn't get the humidity up past 35%. 

Dirt blown in from wind

However, over the years I've noticed something.  If the wind doesn't blow, we don't get rain.  It doesn't rain until the wind stops, but if we have a calm spring, then the rains never come.  And so, while it's nasty now, I think there's hope on the horizon:

Indeed, today's weather report has us up to 40% for "severe thunderstorms".  As I type this, it's cloudy and dark with a mild 10 mph breeze.  We're hoping for rain.

I spent yesterday out on the ranch checking things.  Fixed a broken connector on the pipeline which was letting water spew all over the place.  Fixed a section of broken fence with large dark hairs in the wire.  Dunno what happened there- maybe an elk, maybe a bear, maybe even a steer but it wasn't broken last fall when we shipped cattle and it's along a rocky spot.  I suspect a bear.  I also fixed a gate that my dear wife broke about 10 years ago.  We'd just wired the section up, but yesterday a steer got out into the lane and broke a fence wire in the process, so instead of just fixing the wire, I decided to fix the whole thing.

Here's the interesting part: the old post had broken off at ground level and I wanted to pull it up and put a new post in the hole.  Now, these posts are 6" in diameter and sunk 3-4' down into the ground- they're not easy to pull up.  I dug around it enough to put a chain around it and then hooked my "Post Popper" up to it.  The post didn't budge.  The state is doing some work on that road and, even though the road was completely empty and had been all morning, I thought to myself "Wouldn't it be great if a front-end loader came down the road and we could pull this post out with it?"  As I leaned on the Post Popper again, a state highway pickup pulled over.  He came over, I told him what I was doing (being on a state road, this fence really is the state's responsibility anyway!) and he said "Well, there will be a front end loader coming by here in 15-20 minutes.  If you want to wait until then, I'll have him stop and pull that post."  LOL.... Sometimes prayers are answered.

I went back to the house for a new post and a few minutes after I returned the front-end loader came over the hill, we hooked the chain up, and pulled the old post out of the hole, clean as could be.  I dropped the new post in, packed it down, and commenced to fixin' the brace.

The pulled post

A gate in progress

In the above shot, I have the posts in the ground with the cross-brace in position and I'm wrapping this with wire.  I'll put a piece of rebar thru the wire and twist it tight.  This pulls the two posts against each other to both hold them in the ground better and hold the cross-brace in position.

The finished gate (the next day- note clouds)

I hope to have pictures of rain soon.