Dog Days

July 11, 2021

Hello everyone,

We're just wrapping up another great week out on the ranch. We hit 90F again for a few days this week but have otherwise avoided the massive heat dome that is once again parked over the West. And, we keep doing the old trick of letting your windows open all night long and then shutting everything up for the day. Our cement floor in the house is awesome and will cool your bare feet down in a hurry on even the hottest days. We usually all go to sleep uncovered, sometimes even with the ceiling fans on, but til morning rolls around all the dogs are lying on us, next to us or underneath part of us trying to ward off the early morning chill. Even though it is summer we are regularly putting the coats on the dogs because they are literally lying there shivering overnight before, of course, panting like crazy when out and about in the afternoons. We keep getting lots of thunderstorms and they boom and roll off of the mesas and mountains all around us. Even on days when we don't get rainfall or don't have a dry thunderstorm move directly over us, you can hear it pealing all around us, probably even up to 50 miles away. Lord knows at night when it is stormy there is a continuous flashing of lightning, some near and some far, that at times seems like it merges into one continuous minutes-long bolt. This has not been a desirous outcome for our dogs. Ela could care less and is, generally speaking, fearless. Rui is the oldest and has seen the most but still can get pretty nervous and queasy when storms are near. Willow, on the other hand, turns into a complete basketcase and it's all that we can do to keep her calm. Letting her go lay in the car helps sometimes, or at other times just building her pillow forts inside with their dog beds does the trick. Putting her coat on seems to help, oddly enough. And, it's funny, even when it's not stormy she'll really give the horizon a good look-over when we're out running and if she's not entirely sure that it looks like clement weather, she'll park her ass under the nearest juniper and just sit there keeping an eye on the sky without moving an inch!

Erin had some excitement in the garden this week and saw a bull snake. It was at least 3-4' long and was hanging out inside the garden the one day that she went up to check on it. It then made its way out of the garden and she was able to take some shots of it. At first, it's easy to confuse one of these with a rattlesnake but Erin could see right away that there were no rattles and that the tail just dwindled down to a point. The head, on the other hand, was a bit more triangular at first glance than non-poisonous snake heads are usually, but we're confident of our identification of this. The bull snakes are a subspecies of the gopher snake and they feed on rodents, lizards and other snakes and are known to run off and kill rattlesnakes. A bit surprising at first to see a good-sized snake in the garden with you, but a good friend to have to keep all the critters away that are nibbling on her plants. We're not sure her other friend, George, the garden lizard, is alright with all of this, but we have seen an awful lot of lizard-mouth-sized bites in the plants, so...

On another front, I've had my two old cars out here for just about two weeks now and have had a chance to start fiddling around with them. We and/or I have run the blue one into Las Vegas now three different times, keeping it on the frontage road that runs along the interstate, only doing about 45-50mph each time. They've sat for six months now and I need to make sure that nothing has crept up on me, lying in wait to spring up suddenly and make the car lurch...better on the desolate frontage road than on the packed interstate with a speed limit 20mph higher. It gave us a surprise the other day in Vegas when we turned onto the main drag and had Erin suddenly drop down in the front passenger seat and lurch towards the door. Upon further inspection we saw that the outer rail that the seat is on finally burst through the metal panel that it rested on where years of East Coast salt had slowly eaten away at it. A little alarming mid-flight, but then quickly fixed with a cut piece of compressed plywood before I get the guys at the work site to show me how to weld a new piece of metal there. As for the yellow one, I finally got a battery today and just need to put a new alternator/water pump belt on it. However, in order to do that, I need to remove the power steering and A/C belts first, so I'm hoping to have that done in another day or two and then both will be insured, registered and road ready! I'm tickled pink that they're suddenly out here as I thought that it would literally be years until I'd be able to pull this off.

Now, for the last part and the best part of the letter...some new pictures. First, a shot of Rui taking it easy on the back of the couch one morning last week while he still had his coat on but had been out in the quickly-increasing heat already. Next, a shot of Willow and Cheyenne caught in the midst of their usual antics...Harry Potter isn't the only one with a lightning bolt scar! Then, a couple of food shots: first a loaf of Erin's daily bread that she makes for us; then a quickly thrown together meal today including her homemade tortillas and some mixed vegetables, veggie burgers, quinoa, Sriracha sauce and some cheese. Next, three shots of the horses when we ran into them while we were driving out to check on the back corner of the land: first, Blossom poetically posed by a windswept tree; then the horses(mainly the girls) mobbing Erin in the buggy to see if we brought food along; then a close-up of Negrita who, if at all possible, is usually covered head-to-toe in mud! Then, a shot of one of the jack rabbits that we have out here...probably two to three times the size of the cottontails. Next, two shots of the bull snake in the garden, followed by two shots of the garden itself this morning. A view of the sunset tonight as I walked back to the house after working on the cars. And, finally, a few shots of the cars: first, the new hole in the bottom of the blue car; next, a view of Rowe Mesa while cruising back from Las Vegas earlier this afternoon; and, finally, a shot of my ever-helpful volunteer/assistant/helper/cheerleader...Willow!

Have a great week!