El Rancho Gitano del Desierto

 

I've found it hard to find the time to blog the last few months. I've found it hard to do a lot of things in my life since starting on this new adventure. Riding my horses everyday. Working on projects around my place. Hanging with my friends. Reading a book. Sitting in silence with a cup of hot tea in my hands. Silence...period. There is a lot I miss, but I know this stage of the game is temporary. It will pass.

Soon enough and I will be drinking margarita's with the girls, riding the fat off Jack, exposing Drifter to life as one of my critters, sipping hot tea in the quiet of the morning and reading myself to sleep at night. Silence. It cannot come soon enough.

In the meantime – I have been busy. I have to stay busy. The alternative is not pretty: Insanity. Stay busy or lose my ever-loving mind. So, busy it is.

Halfway, like most of the country – has been experiencing record breaking heat. I get up by 5:00AM to beat the heat and start my day. The jeep is loaded with whatever tools and gear the project of the day requires. Most mornings the gear is comprised of a ratchet driver, a chain saw, shovel, post hole digger, gloves and diesel for the backhoe.

I am now an expert backhoe operator. More so than I EVER wanted to be. Much more. Don't get me wrong – I enjoy it. It's more fun than a barrel of puppies (because a barrel of monkeys would just be creepy). However, after digging over 100 post holes ...the novelty begins to wear off. Digging them isn't so bad – it's the filling them in after fighting for every inch of that 32” hole that well...sort of pisses you off. It might take you an hour of digging out boulders the size of beach balls and cutting through roots big around as your thigh before the hole is deep enough to set a post.

Once you set your post – it's time to go about filling the hole back in. A task that would be simple enough on normal ground. The ground in this part of Eastern Oregon is not normal...particularly that which makes up my 5 acres of dirt. Or should I say rock. They don't call this area Boulder Flat for nothing. By the time you dig out all the rock for your post hole, there isn't enough dirt left to fill the hole back in. This forces you to fill the hole with the same rocks and boulders you just spent well over an hour digging out. It's infuriating. I considered inventing some sort of pop up fencing like those yuppie tents you find at REI. Specify the desired perimeter footage and arena height– say 110 x 220 with a four foot, four rail configuration. The whole thing comes magically coiled, collapsed and compressed to the size of a Frisbee. Pack your pop-up arena home in the back of your Prius – no need to back the ¾ ton Dodge Ram out of the garage for this trip. Besides...every good yuppie knows pickup trucks are the devils work. Along with eating red meat and concealed carry.

After determining an acceptable location for your handy dandy new pop-up arena, simply pull a few Velcro tabs and POOF! Instant arena. Just realize you better be happy with the location because, like those pop up, foldaway sun shade things, there is no human on God's earth capable of folding them back to their original form. Some sadistic bastard is surely responsible for that invention...and they were likely really good at solving weird Chinese puzzles.

Lacking the invention of the pop-up arena – digging post holes and picking rocks has been my life for the last 3 months. I can no longer walk through an arena without scanning the interior for rocks. I pick rocks everyday. Some of them by hand. Some of them are big enough they take a tractor to move. Those that are too big for the tractor require manually digging with a digger bar before the Kabota can move them. I dream about rocks. I have decided to call my arena here in Halfway Oregon: Halfway to Hell Rock Arena. Admission is free as long as you take home a 5 gallon bucket of rocks. You pick.

The arena is done for the most part. Although the rock picking is eternally perpetual. It looks pretty good, too. It's a bit dusty (a lot dusty) with this drought. I've had 1 day where it rained enough I could work up the arena and ride without dust. I bought a water truck for dust abatement. Once they find a starter for the old girl...well, that's a story for a different blog. For now, “Big Red” sits parked along the split rail arena perimeter with promise of dust free, perfectly groomed arena dirt. Next year.

I like to do most work myself. Mostly because I'm cheap. Clearing the fence line of 50 plus years of neglect was not a task I could perform myself. I hired an excavator to clear a quarter mile of old fence, thorn brush, cottonwood and various other botanical mayhem. I now have four piles of brush and tangled fence the size of a small butte. It's almost worth flying back from Arizona this winter to watch it burn.

I put in four H braces which required more post holes dug with the backhoe and more boulder removal. The rest of the fence went up fairly easy...or as easy as dealing with barbed wire gets. Where there is barbed wire...there will be blood. That shit has a life of it's own. Another invention by yet another sadistic bastard. I always said that if I were rich – there wouldn't be a strand of wire on my property. I'm not rich. There will be wire. There was blood. Deal with it, buttercup.

The completion of my arena and the fence line contributed greatly to the ending of my relationship with Randy. He could not comprehend why a retired person would want to work that hard. Work? I figure if you enjoy what you're doing, it's not really work. Whatever. We will remain friends. I have always said I might make a terrible girlfriend...but I am an awesome ex-girlfriend.

9-27-202: And so it begins. The next chapter in the life of a Gypsy. I pulled out of Halfway Oregon with my two horses and a dog. My journey as a snowbird came to an end with the acquisition of an Arizona drivers license and truck plate. I suppose this make me a reverse snowbird...if there is such a thing. I will live the majority of the year in AZ. When the heat and the snakes run me out, I'll head North.

If I didn't have such a lousy sense of direction I could drive the route from Oregon to Aquila with my eyes closed. This is the 5^th trip since March of this year. After racing home to Idaho to close on my place there – I dashed back to Arizona to close on my place in Aquila...bringing a load of arena panels strapped haphazardly on a 25' flat bed. That's a trip I hope to block out and never repeat. Then a quick trip to bring Miss Kitty, the bobcat tractor, and her arena groomer down.

My goal for that trip was to drop off the tractor and apply for an Arizona drivers license. I'd heard horror stories involved with such a feat. “Don't go to Wickenburg to do it...but if you do, get the man, not that lady. She's a mean one.” She apparently doesn't like snowbird transplants. I don't know exactly what she does to you – but from the wide eyed terror and trembling voice of the 6'2” grown man serving me the warning...I'd take him at his word. I opted for the MVD in Buckeye. Just in case, I took Phil M. as backup. Phil is also a recent snowbird transplant to AZ along with his daughter and son in law.

Armed with ever piece of ID documentation I could muster up from childhood immunizations to birth certificate, Phil and I drove to Buckeye. The excitement laced with a heavy dose of trepidation in the truck was palpable. Would we come back legal Arizonians or remain in sad little snowbird status? I was skittish as a mouse in the crazy cat lady's house. I formulated a plan B. If Plan A failed – I would drive south into Mexico – wait a few days until I turned a few shades darker...and walk across the boarder. I hear there's a nice camp under a bridge with a whole slew of folks getting to walk right into the good 'ole US. I'd get a free ride anywhere I wanted AND I won't need to get vaccinated! Sweet!

As a disclaimer here: I am not dissing on anyone getting the vaccination. I'm seriously thinking of getting it myself. If I do – I'm doing so under my own will and not because some pin headed moron that can't remember what country he lives in – tries to cram it down our throats. I know of several middle aged, healthy people lately who've legitimately gotten COVID and gotten horribly sick and wished they'd gotten the shot. I'm thinking the risk of getting the VAX outweighs the risk of the virus. I don't know, I'm still up in the air. My neighbor tells me: “Sunshine, get the shot.” He's never steered me wrong. Hopefully I can get the damn thing before I contract it – if I haven't already – and keel over dead. Would that be irony, or dumb luck? Maybe both.

Phil and I stood at separate booths at the Buckeye MVD. I clutched the heavy but portable fireproof safe I store all my legal documents in. I wasn't taking any chances on spontaneous combustion robbing me of my Arizonian status!

We stated our cases before our respective MVD clerks. Phil had a recent passport and vaccination certificate required for his job. I didn't have diddly squat. I began to perspire...I handed over my Idaho drivers license and birth certificate. Fortunately, my legal last name matched my birth certificate. Reason number 946 not to get married. Ever. Never...nope. Not happening. Not even if doing so guaranteed Arizona citizenship!

So far so good – the MVD guy seemed to accept my documentation. Then I saw Phil out of the corner of my eye as the lady asked him to take the eye test. The eye test! Shit! I didn't have my driving glasses on me! Perspiring soon became sweating like a damn pig (which don't actually sweat by the way...I have no idea why people say that.) I'd come too far to let something as minor as not being able to read road signs at a distance keep me from the AZ roadways! I had to think fast. I did what any red blooded American trying to get away with something would do...I started rambling on 900 MPH incoherently. I opened the fireproof safe and began pulling out random documents and shoving them at the clerk behind the glass. I'll confuse him into submission! I sounded like a murder suspect during an interrogation. Rambling on and on in unnecessary and unsolicited detail. A sure sign of guilt...and I was guilty as hell.

And it worked. By the time I was finished – the MVD clerk shoved piles of my paperwork back to me though the glass slot, snapped a quick mug shot that I can only hope resembles me in no way what so ever – printed of a temporary and sent me out the door with both my new Arizona DL AND my current Idaho Drivers license. I'm not sure that was legit or not. I thought you had to surrender your old license. I wasn't sticking around to find out. Phil and I made a dash for the truck and didn't look back. Well, actually I not only looked back – but I went back the next day to get my Arizona plate. I would have done it the same day I got my DL – but I'd lift the registration in my truck and we'd taken Phil's. All of which I proceeded to explain to the same clerk the next day...in very enthusiastic detail. Hey – if it worked the first time....and it did. The guy sort of rolled his eyes...punched the keyboard a few times and assured me my DL and plates would arrive in three weeks. It hasn't...by the way. But I do have my temporary and they will have to pry it from my cold dead hands!

The fourth trip comprised of hauling a 20' shipping container with all my crap inside. It went much better than I expected. I hired the same guy that cleared my fence line to load the container onto my flat bed. We strapped it down with four heavy duty ratchet straps and two logging chains. That puppy didn't move a hair. On the downside – I averaged 7 miles per gallon. It might have been cheaper to toss out all my crap and buy new when I actually have a house to put it in. Regardless...the camo painted connex is now a permanent structure in Aquila AZ and I am a happy camper...and camping is what I'll be doing for the next year until a house is put on my place. I like to camp...ask me again in a year if I still like to camp.

Four days after dropping off the container, I loaded up my critters and headed for my new home. As I type this – I am sitting at the B-M arena in Wells Nevada. Jack and Drifter are settled in their stalls and Hank is curled up in the bathroom...only because there is no room for both of us in this 8' short wall to occupy the same area. We have formed a routine of sorts. When I have to use the bathroom – he gets up – politely backs out of the bathroom and waits between the couch and kitchen sink until I'm finished and he can once again curl up in front of the commode. He's a good dog.