Plugging Away

September 18, 2022

Howdy, howdy, howdy,

Well, it's been two weeks since an update, as we broke our Labor Day weekend escapades into two parts. In the meantime, the kittens that we saved from the rattlesnake slowly died one by one. We kept trying to feed them by bottle, and achieved a little bit of success, but after a few days they slowly expired one by one and quit going to the bathroom and quit eating. That was a huge, giant bummer, but not unexpected in the least. Since we got here at Christmas 2020, we've lost approximately 15 cats on the ranch, mainly day and week-old kittens, but also a few adults and juveniles. Not to display too black of a humor, but we've unofficially named this ranch El Rancho del Gato Muerto(Dead Cat Ranch). On the horizon, though, another of our yearling cats is pregnant and growing wider and wider to the point of bursting. We expect to see kittens from her in the next week or two. My buddy, Valentin, has a little, black kitten on order, and he has another friend nearby that wants two, but we'll see what we end up with. Also, the boss has expressed a desire to have a nice and robust cat colony here, but also doesn't want to be caring for an unduly amount, so some of this batch that's on the way may stay here, too. Otherwise, the temperature keeps slowly changing and has shifted from some late summer upper 80s/upper 50s to a more autumnal range of 70s & 40s. We had our chimneys cleaned for winter, both us and the boss, and were looking forward to a few months spent wrapped around the wood stove. Unfortunately, however, our boss has decided to synch our houses down at the bottom of the hill with the new house at the top of the hill and all will be run off of propane-fueled mini-splits that do both heating and air conditioning. Erin and I never used air conditioning back East, where temperatures and humidity levels always soared half of the year, and we couldn't even imagine using it out here as our little casita is built into a hillside with a concrete floor, so we've never been overheated! As for all of the wood that I've been squirreling away all summer, we definitely need to find ourselves a nice chimenea to be our little wood burner. It's just not New Mexico in the fall and winter if you don't smell wood smoke wafting to and fro, all over the place! I've had to go back into town to work about half of the time in the last two weeks and have been enjoying the commute again. My forty year-old car just loves to slowly glide up from 6200' to 7500' before plunging back down into Glorieta Pass and settling back down into Santa Fe. It's the most amazing ride to work in the world, with 12,000' peaks all over the place!

On other fronts, I've been diving headfirst into making plugs for all of the new wood floor in the house that we're building on the ranch. There are dozens of shades of ash, just to begin with, before I move to the darker sections of walnut. On top of that, the harsh morning sun makes the floor look way different than the mid-day sun does. Just like a photographer would desire, the accumulation of shadows and indirect sunlight makes the floor look an entirely different series of colors than the blazing sun does, definitely better for matching plug with floor board. Then, once I use the pull saw to remove all of the plug that is above the level of the flooring, it oftentimes leaves a completely different color to gaze upon, if not the grain of the wood itself! Erin continues to gig in town(Santa Fe), but the three different clients that she's working for have all started to cut back on how often they want her there. The first one started in June at twice a week, and is now at twice a month. Their neighbors asked for her help for two days to clean up the yard and garden, but have otherwise not needed anything. The newest spot has been wanting her to come once a week, but has been dodging and moving around contractors and projects, just like we have been out here, so it has barely been maintaining the once a week status that it started with. Still, Erin has been grinning ear to ear and is having a blast doing some random, small projects in town, making her feel less pinned down on the ranch and more like the wild and crazy single woman that I met when we were both 29. When we met, Erin was juggling substitute teaching, waitressing, bartending, elder care and also having her own coffee & tea business. She was saying yea & nay every day to people asking her to work and absolutely loved being her own boss, in charge of everything. These little escapades give her hope for the future, of us not only having our own place again some day, but also having our own business again some day...I can only imagine that it will have something to do with food!

Now, here is another batch of pictures. First, a stack of my pre-cut plugs that I manipulated to almost look like some kind of robot head! Then, two shots of this year's spring kittens hanging out in the hay barn: all-black, little Boo-Boo on the ground and one of the two remaining BRJs up on the hay(we had two black kittens and three gray tigers in this batch, but now only Boo-Boo and two BRJs are left). Next, a shot of our indoor cat, Jackie, meeting Bootsie through the kitchen window screen. Then, Boo-Boo and one of the BRJs waiting on top of the stack of new propane units outside of our front door, just watching us and the world go by. Next, Ela running up the path by the garden through all of the nearly waist or even chest-high grasses. Then, three shots of Erin's overgrown flower garden. She's still gotten tons of produce, but the flowers definitely shaded some other things out...she thought it looked so cool, though, that she just left the flowers grow wild! Next, four shots of the painstaking process that I've been going through to fill in all the wood floors with handmade plugs...in the end, all will be sanded down and clear-coated, rendering most of the color discrepancies nearly impossible to tell. Then, the latest shot of Valentin's wall in between the two barns...thicker than a brick shithouse! Next, three shots of our desperate attempt to save Bootsie's last batch of kittens...unfortunatley, to no avail. And, finally, four landscape shots to end the batch: first, one of New Mexico's peculiar skies at dusk; then, the boss's new, old truck, complete with New Mexico sunflowers and newly-built, stone wall; next, the Amtrak train running north out of Las Vegas, with the High Plains as backdrop; and, then, our pet Orbweaver that lives above our side door, with the moon glowing behind him.

Take care and be well!