Friday Night Blues

February 13, 2022

Howdy all,

Another week has come and gone, again, just like they always do. Sitting here on Sunday night thinking back over the week, I really can't even remember much of what went on this week. Nothing much comes to mind, for yet another week I didn't make it off of the ranch(bummer!) and things were heading towards a smooth Friday night that would only require feeding the horses. That is, everything was going fine until I checked the water trough on the way out to the feeders. It was getting dark, as I spent an hour or so working on firewood after work, and as I approached the trough in the buggy, I could see that the ground was really dark all around it and then heading downhill from there. Immediately, I suspected that somehow we had a water leak. At first, I was hoping that the horses had just been really messy and were playing in the trough, but I very quickly saw that one of them had managed to yank the power cord for the de-icer straight out of the side of it, breaking the stem off, ripping the cord out of the buried extension cord and smashing the de-icer itself up against the side of the tank. So, what to do? What to do? As it was pretty much dark at this point, I hooked the hose up to a smaller tank that we have without a de-icer that I keep as backup for just these occasions and headed out to the feeders. The horses mobbed me and seemed pretty wound up and I immediately asked them, "Which one of you jerks yanked the de-icer out of the tank?" Needless to say, they all looked away from me, looked at the ground and just busied themselves with eating their three-ingredient super salad that I make them every day...I didn't get as much as a whinny out of them! Then, I headed back to the tanks, turned off the water to the smaller one and ran back to the house to let Erin know what I was up to and to grab a couple of beers and a few snacks, as I figured that this would take a couple of hours to fix. Luckily, we had an extra de-icer in the depot, so I grabbed that, headed back out to the pasture and set the buggy up so that I could see by its headlights. I removed all the pieces of the now ruined de-icer from the ground and tank, flipped the trough over onto its side to drain it and then proceeded to stand it up on its side so that I could use the good, old finger-over-the-end-of-the-hose trick to power wash the inside of the tank(luckily it hit 60F on Friday and was slowly working its way back down to about 25F) before I flipped it back down on its bottom and installed the new de-icer. Then, it was just a matter of allowing about 45 minutes for the tank to be filled up again, and I ran the buggy back to the barn to load it up for the morning, finished my snacks and beers and finally by about 8pm had the whole thing done.

So, that was pretty much all the excitement this week, packed into one night. Otherwise, we've spent the weekend catching up on the dozen or so newspapers and magazines that we get. Erin reads the four regional papers every day: the Las Vegas Optic; the Taos News; the Santa Fe New Mexican; and the Albuquerque Journal. Her day truly doesn't start until she's gotten a chance to at least scroll through as much of those four as she can, and then usually reads one of the big East Coast papers, too. Truly, the best part of her day is from the moment I walk out the door until she has to go over to the boss's around lunchtime, when she gets a chance to drink her tea and read her papers in absolute silence! As for me, I'm more hooked on national and international news, so I read a couple of the big East Coast papers every day, plus another half dozen or so from around Europe. While I say every day, that is truly my intention and my sincerest attempt, but I usually need the weekend to mop up all the articles that I've bookmarked throughout the week that I never get a chance to get around to. While we are in no way destitute right now, we're also not swimming in money, so this also shapes our weekends. While it would be nice to hop in the car, grab a bite to eat and head out to explore the state, too much of that would endanger the nice balance that we've finally settled into from our deal here at the ranch and the construction work that I do. And, honestly, we're both so tired by the weekend that we truly need the rest and quite often call an audible from any existing plans that we have and just stay home. Erin puts in 4-5 hours every day working for the boss here on the ranch, mainly cleaning, and then spends the rest of the day cooking, cleaning, doing dishes and washing clothes at our house. I put in a solid 8 hours working on the house, with another 1-2 hours every day spent tending to the horses and doing some other small chores around the ranch. Just the other morning, I had to quickly change out the fuel filter on the buggy before work, after it finally plugged up completely after gelling in the zero degree weather last week, and there is always firewood to work on, just to name a few of the chores that fall under my purview. Still, with 300 acres to roam around on right here, a huge library of books and classic films on DVD, and tons of streaming options with some of the fastest internet in the state, it's really not too much of a hardship to hang around the wood fire and let the day run itself, without our guidance. And, with a cook like Erin in the house, I have absolutely no motivation to go eat much of anywhere else!

And, now, once again, another batch of pictures for your enjoyment. First up, three shots of the dogs out on a hike that we took today: first, all three on the trail of something; then, a shot of Willow soaking up the view; and then Erin doing the same with Willow right in front of her. Then, a series of six shots from my emergency water trough fix the other night, that I'm calling Friday Night Blues: first, the problem, as discovered; then, the tank stood up between two rocks so that I could hose it out; next, the new de-icer finally in place; then, the hose clamped to the side and the water finally flowing; next, a view of the scene from the cab of the buggy; and, finally, a shot of the tank through a big, nearby cholla, in its cold, wintery purple. Next up, a shot of one of the windows that I just boxed out in preparation for sheet rock...I've been doing lots of little carpentry projects like this around the site, now that my skills are slowly improving and everybody else is busy doing more involved things. Then, the patio that my buddy, Valentin, has been working on in its finished state. Well, actually, the stones are done, but we still need to lift up each stone, apply cement underneath it and then set it back down while still keeping the gaps in between them all equidistant. Then it will be finished. Next, four more shots from our hike this morning: first, a glimpse of the distant, snow-capped Santa Fe peaks from a rocky outcropping; then, a selfie of the two of us; and, then, two more shots of me posing with the dogs running around...this is pretty much my daily outfit out here: boots; jeans; German army sweater; and ragged, old Carhartt vest. And, finally, a great shot of the colors that we see most nights at sunset out here from a few nights ago...I caught it just in time, as the sky and clouds all returned to a grayish-blue within ten minutes of taking this picture.

So, that's all for this week. Take care.