Dirty Work

Monday

It's a nasty, windy, blowing-dirt kind of day here on the high plains. Derek and I went out to put a generator in place to pump water up the hill to a storage tank. Simple, right? The first thing we did was spend 20 minutes unplugging a tank overflow. The overflow from the side of the tank has washed dirt away from underneath and that means I've gotta get my skid steer out there ASAP to replace the dirt or I'll lose the tank. The skid steer is still leaking oil, so I'll need to watch that, too.

Fine, so we got the overflow unplugged and I fired the generator up. The black pipe that takes water up the hill immediately blew off its flange, spraying water everywhere. It turns out that the black pipe has, after many years of faithful service, shrunk just enough that it'll no longer make contact with the pipe flange. It is 1" too short now. So, I've got put a splice in there, and I'd do this by "simply" screwing a short piece of pipe and a joiner on and putting the flange on that, except that I can't get the stupid flange free from the pipe, not w/out giving myself another hernia anyway.

Meanwhile, the wind's blowing 30 mph and blowing dirt in my face the whole time. I have to heat the black pipe to get it on the flange and there's no way that's gonna happen in this wind, so I"m just going to have to bag it for awhile.

Oh, yeah, and I woke up with a 2 Ibuprofen headache.

That's Monday, so far. But, hey, it could be much worse. At least I can walk and still have the strength to throw pipe wrenches 43.5 yards in frustration. Not that I did, mind you. I'm just sayin'...

Tuesday

Got my well problem fixed and dirt around the tank but it was not w/out drama. First drama was that the skid steer was way low on hydraulic fluid and I was out of the stuff. So, I sent Georgia on an emergency run to town while Derek and I loaded up and went to fix the too-short pipe. Even with a come-along holding one pipe wrench and a 3' long cheater on the other, I couldn't budge the pipe. I ended up cutting it off and moving the whole contraption to the pipe vise mounted on my truck where it still fought me. At one point, I had the joint in the vise and my cheater on it and it slipped. I gave it a good smack with the cheater and got an honest 24 yards of flight out of it. Eventually, though, I won, as I knew I would, and we got the line all fixed up with only a tiny little drip.

Here's the fixed pipe mess

Georgia showed up about then in the Ranger with the oil ($60/5 gallons) but nothing to put it in the skid steer with (.eg "funnel), so I cut an old water bottle in half and made do. It took approximately 12 10 oz bottles to get the oil up on the sight glass and I was sure we'd be burning through the rest of the new 5 gallon pail, but no... amazing things do still happen and the skid didn't even hardly lose any oil at all. It has a "high speed" button that I use a lot when working around the compound and moving from place to place but almost never when I'm actually working dirt- I wonder if that's sticking?

At one point, I had a full bucket of dirt and was going up a pretty steep little hill with the bucket a little too high. The skid steer did a wheelie and sat back on its butt, front wheel off the ground and bucket pointed into the sky. I dropped the bucket, cranked the controls to back up, set 'er back down, and all was well except that I was covered in dirt from the half bucket of dirt that I lost to the sky. I looked up and G had her hands over her eyes. I yelled "Cool wheelie, huh!?" and she gave me a withering look w/out even the slightest thumb up.

The steep little hill

Dirtin' the tank

Dirt around the tank

The view from the mill tower

Another view from the tower

Several hours later, Derek and I took the Ranger up to check on the water. If you don't, there will be a problem and you'll likely end up blowing up an expensive generator, burning up a more expensive pump, and blasting precious water all over the ground. If you do, everything will be fine and you might see a coyote, or eagle, or prairie dog.  Well... you _will_ see prairie dogs. 

Everything was fine and I shot this video as we rode up the hill. I also took a picture of some locoweed up there. Loco can be bad news if the cattle start eating it as they literally get addicted to it and it can kill them. There is nothing much to do about it except pray for rain and green grass.

Locoweed

On the way back home, we swung by another tank to check it and sure 'nuff... problems. We spent 30 minutes trying to unclog the overflow pipe and finally succeeded. Then home!

See the water out there?  Trouble

Later that day, I was leaving my shop, had my hands full, wasn't paying attention and missed the step. My foot slid into the 2" gap between my step and the concrete blocks next to it that I use as a "side-step". And, of course, I lost my balance and fell like that. So, right now, my foot is swollen and, unlike Monday, I can't walk. I'm not going to go see if I can throw pipe wrenches. I'll probably hurt something else.

At least... no... I think I'll just shut up.

Edit:

The Foot, the day after (click for full-size)

Whew..... it hurts!

Weak in the Knees

Isa 35:3 NKJV  Strengthen the weak hands, And make firm the feeble knees.

Here we are again... first, an update on Georgia.  She has more or less recovered from her two surgeries and we are just awaiting results to find out if she needs chemo or radiation or both.  It’s kind of frustrating- as these things can be- because 2 weeks ago we drove to Amarillo to discuss this only to find out that the doctors couldn't say anything and simply needed her to sign a permission form so they could then get the needed test.  So, 7.5 hours of driving and 4 hours of sitting around just to sign a form.   Oh well, we made the most of the trip and did some needed shopping.  And BTW, just in case you missed it: Georgia's Cancer Treatment Fund. [link removed as this is now an old post]  We've gotten some very generous and very much appreciated help from friends thru this.  

It's been a very windy spring.  The wind is the worst thing about NE New Mexico... it can be just incessant sometimes.   And destructive?  Stuff never rots here- it blows away long before that.  I've heard it said that if the wind doesn't blow, the summer rains don't come.  At this rate, we oughta have a genuine wet year.

A touch o' a breeze

In New Mexico you have to draw for just about every hunting opportunity and this year I was fortunate enough to draw a rifle bull elk and archery deer tag.  I’ll go to the spot where I killed the cow elk a few years ago and with that in mind, Derek and I took our turkey tags out for a little turkey hunting and elk scouting.  We didn’t see a single turkey or any sign, but we did see quite a few elk and picked up a decent shed antler. 

Shed elk antler

We walked- according to Google Earth- about 3.5 miles up and down canyons and my knees just flat-out gave up.  That’s the first time that’s ever happened.  I've gotten muscular tired before, but this time, my knees just quit and going downhill was painful.  I was carrying my new pack- a Horn Hunter Full Curl- with about 20 lbs of stuff in it, but still...  On the upside, now that I know I can’t rely on my inherent conditioning anymore, I have all summer to get my knees strong enough to pack out the big bull elk I’m going to take this fall. [< update!] The next day, I felt pretty good with no lingering stabs of pain, so I guess it’s good that I can still recover.

In the archery world, Derek and I traveled to ABQ in early April to shoot the State Animal Round.  Derek shot very well and, as usual, won.  I shot good at first and then fell apart a little bit- the uphill and downhill shots got me.  I ended up 2nd place, missing 1st by 1 point.  But, we got our scores in from the Vegas Indoor Round back in Feb and got a surprise.  This was a "sectional" shoot, covering CA, AZ, NM, CO, UT, and NV.   Derek took 1st place is now the Sectional Champ!  My score was good enough for 2nd and I'm not complaining about that.  Scores aside, we're having fun shooting.

David’s 13th birthday has come and gone.  In observance, we went to the grave site and placed some solar-powered crosses on the site.  We went back a few days later at night and they were all lit up and looked nice- as nice as a grave site is going to look, I suppose.  That was Weds night.  Thurs, Derek and I went elk-scouting and turkey-hunting.  Saturday, my gout returned and Sunday, it hammered me.  I really need to get a number on this thing.  It’s probably not any particular food I’m eating, but may be a result of general kidney decline.  For now, I’m drinking lemon water and lots of it, and here on Sunday evening, it’s feeling better.

We have cattle on the ground, it’s rained a little, the grass is greenish, and here we go into another cattle season- my 19th.  Hopefully, I’ll be showing pictures of green grass soon.

Early morning visitors

Rolling and Tumbling

Here we are again after a long hiatus from the blog. I guess that last post (Departure) took a lot out of me. It's been a busy, busy time since then. I went to Winfield KS in September for the Walnut Valley Festival and spent nearly a week there camping, picking and catching up with friends. It was a great time and I'm hoping to do it again this year, Lord willing.

Aerial view of Walnut Valley Festival- and we're not even in it!

The view from my abode.

Talking Friends

Jamming Friends

Eating Friends

Cattle shipping went well and there wasn't a lot to report there.  I wrapped things up and hit the guitar repair business full-time and full-tilt.  I suppose I did a lot of work, but at times it seemed like I was trying to run in mud; doing a lot of effort but not getting much done.   Derek and I went to the North American Falconer's Association meet in Alamosa CO during Thanksgiving week and it was COLD there.  Cold and snowy.  So much so, that we bailed out early and came home.    Except for that week and few others, our winter has been pretty mild with just a few snowstorms and days of frigid weather.  Unlike last year when the water heater and furnace both went out within a month of each other, everything held together pretty well.

Stressed out and missing homeschooling Derek, Georgia quit her teaching job in December.  She had to drive 60 mi/day to get to work and by the time we paid gas and etc, her hourly pay was about $7/hr.  It just wasn't worth having her gone from the house for 8-10 hours/day so we made the decision for her to bail.  At the same time, I investigated Subaru's trade-in sales pitch and ended up trading in our 2012 Subaru Outback with 32,000 miles (that teaching job put the miles on!) for a 2014 Outback with 0.0 miles.  It actually worked out to be a good deal and basically cost me about $3,000 to erase those 32,000 miles.  Here's hoping we put a lot less miles on this one!

Subaru Outback #3

I've been working hard at my archery.  I posted on this in an early post "I Bow Down", and taking pictures for that post helped point out some flaws in my technique.  I'm shooting 3 bows now, only 1 of which was in that old post!  I now have a 2011 Hoyt Contender (which I bought last year at this time and immediately used in State competition), a 2010 Hoyt Maxxis 35 (which was in the old post), and a 2010 Hoyt Alphamax 32 (that I got a great price and couldn't pass up).   I made all these moves in order to get adjustable cams which my old Hoyt Vectrix didn't have and I did that so that I could play with my draw length.  I found a sweet spot and my shooting has picked up.  Last year, I finished 3rd in the State and this year, having been moved to a new class ("Senior"!!!), I should win.  Derek, if you didn't know already, is defending State Champion in his class.

Falconry-wise, we had a disaster.  My prairie falcon got tangled up in her telemetry harness and ended up damaging her wing and losing 6 primary feathers and follicles.  She will never fly again.   It was really disappointing as I had high hopes for her, going into her 3rd season.  But, that's the way it goes sometimes.  It looks like I'm going to pass her on to a raptor education group and they'll use for public education.  On the upside, the kestrel we took as a chick in June has been a lot of fun.  Derek took a liking to him and after an episode in which the kestrel was lost for a day, I made the decision to not try to hunt with him.I just felt that after losing his brother, that Derek needed to not lose something, but to have some success.  Instead, we just fly him around the house and work on training techniques.  We move from room to room and the kestrel will "hunt" us down at which time we toss a tidbit for him.   We're planning to release him back into the wild in late summer and get another one, which we will try to hunt sparrows and starlings with.   I'm also hoping to take a tiercel (male) prairie falcon- a bird I've never flown.  Derek's excited about that, too. 

Now for the biggest news.  In January, Georgia was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Fortunately- we hope- it was caught early.  As I type this, she's had 2 surgeries to remove the mass and will be starting radiation or chemo therapy in a few weeks.  That will require daily treatments for about 6 weeks in Amarillo, TX.  We have several sets of friends there and she should be able to stay with them and come home on weekends.  That's been a huge challenge for us, coming not even 2 years after David's passing, but it's certainly not as bad as it could be and we've had tremendous support from friends, family, and people we haven't even met.  One friend setup a donation site and the help we've received from it has been a real and appreciated blessing.   The link:  Georgia's Cancer Fund.   To do my part, I've been paring down as much excess stuff as possible; I've sold 3 guitars and a vintage Fender amp and applied the $$$ to our expenses.  It's kind of nice trimming away the excess, actually.

Georgia's book

Out on the ranch, I've rebuilt the 2002 Yamaha Grizzly again.  I did this back at the beginning of this blog and here we are again.  Last time, 2 valve tappets came loose and I miraculously recovered them from the engine, but I think they damaged a valve seat and smoking on start-up, oil consumption, and hard starting ensued.  Since I wasn't using the bikes during the winter, I decided to go ahead and rebuild the head.  It took pretty much all winter to get 'er done, but there was no rush, and the bike started up immediately and purred like a kitten (okay, a BIG kitten), so maybe it'll be good for another couple of years.

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED:
Engine guts

The tumbleweeds have been unbelievable this spring.  They have filled up the creeks, gullies, and fence corners.  This is going to be tremendous MESS if/when we get a gully-washer rain and all these weeds become flotsam.  Right now, when the wind blows, the weeds pile up and knock down fences.  I'm in constant fence repair mode.  And I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

Tumbleweeds along a fence (dark line running over horizon)

Weeds in a creek- the fence is buried

Weeds, weeds, weeds

Weeds on every corner

I think that more or less catches us up.  I've been spending too much time making short Facebook updates and instead of doing that, I think I'll re-focus on my blog and just link FB to it.  That way I can control my photos a little better, write longer posts, and non-FB friends can still read what's going on.

For now.... off to work on guitars and fix fences.

Blown Away

Sunday wind

We are home, back in the Land of Enchantment, back to the land of blowing dust.  Spring winds usually mean summer rains, though, so we’re not complaining too much.

The last leg of the trip, after David’s illness, went as well as could be expected.  By the time we rolled into Raton (right on time, too), he was able to drink a little and was doing a bit better.  Mom showed up with clean clothes and some Gatorade and after running a few errands, we were headed home.  David spent most of Saturday recovering, with no more upchucks and only a little diarrhea.  By Saturday night, he was doing pretty well.

I have some observations. 

First, the train.  Both David and I really enjoyed the train.  If you want to get from Point A to Point B quickly, forget it.  If you incorporate the train ride as part of your journey, it’s great.  I liked just sitting there watching the country go by w/out worrying about driving or oncoming traffic or any of that.  I think that THIS MOM'S observations echo mine (except that I didn't do a wine tasting..).   It’s true that David got sick, but imagine him getting sick on an airplane.  Or in the car.  On the train, we were able- thankfully- to get an isolated, self-contained room to ride it out.  Outside of the sickness, we could get up and walk around, sit in large comfortable seats w/out seat belts, change positions, change views, and so forth.  I guarantee you that I’m going to try to make at least 1 train trip a year for the rest of my life.

Next- clothing and gear.  I bought a few things especially for this trip.  First up is the ASUS Eee “Seashell” netbook that I purchased.  I have a Dell laptop but I’ve been using it more and more for ranch business (.ie Quickbooks), and my book writing.  As such, it’s gotten more valuable and I’m getting to where I don’t want to travel with it.  All I need when traveling is a way to check e-mail, surf the ‘net, and do some relatively light typing.   The ASUS fits those needs extremely well.  It’s literally ½ the size of my Dell, and ½ the weight (3 lbs vs nearly 7).  Battery life ran well over 8 hours.  I have Kindle for PC loaded on it, making it a secondary reader for when David wanted to use the Kindle.  It has a card reader that I used to upload pictures from my digital video camera.   I was very happy with the ASUS on this trip.  At home, it’s really handy to use around the house for ‘net looking up. 

ASUS sitting on top of Dell laptop

I needed some shoes for the trip that would be comfortable, provide good traction, protect against rain/snow, and still look decent.  I normally wear cowboy boots, but they can take up a lot of room and I don’t like to walk long distances in them.  I researched and ended up getting a pair of Irish Setter Soft Paw Chukkas.  They were fabulous.  Very comfortable, light weight yet supportive, easy to get in and out of, and waterproof.  I can hardly say enough good things about them.

Along with the shoes, I wore Thorlo socks.  I was trying a new style to me- the “Uniform Support” (WGXS).  These kept my feet warm and dry with exceptionally good lower leg support.  They were easy to wash and dried very quickly.  If you’ve never used Thorlo socks, I highly recommend them.  On top, I wore Cabela’s MTP Performance crew shirts.  Like the socks, theses are wicking shirts that kept me dry and warm.  I’d typically drop a lightweight sweatshirt top over them (also from Cabelas) and this combination was very flexible and comfortable.  I’m wearing the shirt in the photo a few blogs back where David and I are at the table.  Along these same lines, I bought 3 pair of ExOfficio “Give ‘n Go” underwear.  Yes, I realize this is getting kind of personal, but if you’ve ever traveled, you know how important running gear is.  Like the socks and shirts, the Ex Officio stuff was comfortable, wicking, easy to wash, and quick drying.  This combination made for an easy wash load on our last day out and I could’ve even washed everything in the sink and dried them in the room if I’d had to.  Shoes, socks, shirts, underwear- it all added up to a comfortable, non-clammy, easy to clean set of adaptable clothing.  Perfect for traveling and traveling light.

That’s the wrap on the trip.  Time now to focus again on the ranch and home duties.  For instance, I’m on KLMX radio tomorrow.  I’m part of the Ministerial Alliance of this area and as part of that, I get a 15 minute chunk of time on the radio every day for a week.  It takes about 10 hours to write, record, and prepare 1.5 hours of talking.   I meant to do my writing while on the trip, but I totally forgot about it.  So, I guess I’ll just recycle an old program and go with that.  I’ve done this for 4 years and have quite a few things to draw from (see “Sermons-Text” here: http://www.fbcdesmoines.org/) .  But, I’d better get busy so for now, “adios!”

Coffee.  'nuff said.