Stump Jumpin ’

December 3, 2023

Howdy folks,

So, after our update about all the cats last week, this week I'm going to focus on what Erin has been doing as we head into December and the Holidays.  The only thing that she 'has to' do every weekday is to clean the boss's house and, then, before and after that she can do as she pleases.  A couple of years ago when she was still exercising with the boss every morning, she would often go back over not too much later and start cleaning right away.  The boss does a lot of business over the phone and talks with clients and employees on the internet with Zoom meetings, so at times Erin's presence would distract from this.  So, it got to be that she would go over to clean after lunch every day and then go from there.  But, before I began to work for the boss directly, it was Erin who had to go and run all the errands for the ranch and sometimes, especially after a trip to Santa Fe, she wouldn't even begin to clean until mid-afternoon.  Now, all this time later, she has stopped exercising with the boss(she played along for quite a while, but never really liked it...the boss is a bit of an exercise nut and can be rather extreme in choosing workouts) and the boss has begun to start working earlier in the morning, before leaving to go in to her office in Santa Fe at lunchtime.  Now, she tends to be home a lot earlier than she had been getting home over the years and Erin sometimes finds herself in a pickle, as she doesn't go over to clean until later in the afternoon and then will suddenly get a text that the boss will be coming home right after 5pm and she doesn't want anyone there...i.e. me, Erin or anyone else.  Erin now cherishes her exercise-free mornings and loves to play possum and stay in bed until I go out to feed the horses, then, immediately, she springs up and makes a pot of tea before decamping to the couch to read the newspapers that we get from Las Vegas, Taos & Santa Fe.  Truly, this is the best part of her day.  The trouble is, she's having a tough time reining herself back in to go up and clean earlier in the day, thus ruining her paper & tea time in the morning.  Eventually, or inevitably, I should say, she soon finds herself doing the dishes and litter boxes and cleaning up some kind of a mess somewhere in the house.  Then comes laundry and keeping up with the floors, as a touch of rain or snow out here turns the clay into the stickiest red sludge that you've ever seen!  Luckily for me, she insists on making me lunch every day and that has become the main divider in her day as to things to get done beforehand and then afterwards.  Even trips to the post office just two miles away can eat up 30 minutes pretty quickly!

On a brighter note, Erin has got to know a group of women in Las Vegas that tends to meet once a week for drinks and snacks.  They're all Vegan, and while Erin is not, she has been a vegetarian in the past and has also helped cook for friends who are Vegan and Macro, so she’s familiar with every style and method.  She's eager to have everyone out here to the ranch someday to show off her chops, but, for now, she's content to bring a loaf of her bread with her to the party and let everyone else make the food.  These meetings can be a little tricky as they always seem to be right in the middle of the afternoon and then she has to decide whether to go over and clean the boss's house in the morning(not always possible) or to race back home after a drink and a little gossip before starting cleaning.  Somehow, though, it all works out, even with living a half-hour outside of Vegas.  Also, whenever she makes a run to town she usually tries to sneak out to the hot springs first to soak for a while before shopping or doing whatever else she needs to do in town.  On days that she makes it there, everything in the world is alright.  On days that she doesn't...well, let's just say that you can tell.  I'm happy that we go every weekend, but Erin has been pretty reliably going at least twice a week, if not three times.  Don't take her hot springs time away from her!  On top of all of that, she's always cooking and doing a million different craft projects, like making soap or she's now interested in dying cloth in a traditional way with little stamps that she's carved herself, almost like blocks used for early printing.  However, as often happens, she tears right into something and then life makes sure that she doesn't have any time to work on it for at least another month or more.   So, that's a little about Erin and what she's up to every day: waking up to a good newspaper read, then tidying up the house, then running off to town to see friends and grab some things before coming back and getting to work!

So, now I've got another batch of pictures ready.  First up, Monkey, who was born with twisted legs(although you'd never know it), posing for the camera and looking absolutely adorable.  Then, the horses checking out a set of table and chairs that I took from one of the boss's patios to repurpose out where we feed them.  Next, a series of five shots from the hot springs on a morning that we were there at dawn and it was only 15 degrees!  Then, three shots of our tool depot and my continuing work on organizing it and getting all of the leftovers from the build in there.  Next, a shot of me texting the boss a photo of a mirror I found in storage to see whether it would it would fit the spot where she needed one.  Then, a huge stump that I moved from down at the old house to up at the new one, to be 'planted' in the ground so as to look natural...Stump Jumping is a big thing around here and it involves a pickup, a chain and a case of beer and you go out in the field and see how big of a stump you can rip out of the ground: this was one of those stumps!  Finally, four shots of me moving all of the beams and vigas around in the Boneyard, trying to hide them out of sight right next to a huge juniper, thereby making the Boneyard, too, disappear.

That's it for this week!