El Rancho Gitano Del Desierto

 CONFESSIONS OF A PIPE PILFERER

10-11-2021: I worked pulling mesquite from the arena until dark the evening before. It was ready for panels. Phil and I ran to Tractor Supply for T posts. We laid out the 64 panels I'd brought from Idaho to form my new arena and cross fence for a turn out area.

The wind had picked up considerably with little promise of dying down. We decided to call it a day and take in a movie at the Saguaro Theatre. I will say it again: You don't mess with the laws of physics without expecting some weird shit to happen in the cosmos and you don't kill off 007 and replace him with a her. Period. As stunningly beautiful as the gal is – I have no desire to see her shirtless. Maybe I could have overlooked it had Daniel Craig had more shirtless on-camera scenes. I fear I am turning into one of “those” old ladies. If so – I shall embrace it with gusto.

10-12-2021: Today was a day that will go down in the infamy of days here on El Rancho Gitano Del Desierto. Today my camo shipping container was unloaded from the flatbed. There is a god and today his name is Hoot.

We started out working on the arena and stopped when Hoot arrived with a semi load of hay for Crandall's and myself. Two squeezes for Crandall's and one for me. Until today, I didn't know what a squeeze was in regards to hay delivery. A squeeze is a cool piece of equipment similar to a big forklift. It has two giant arms that literally squeeze a 4 ton load of hay and place it pretty much anywhere you can get the thing maneuvered into.

Getting my shipping container on my flatbed and down to Arizona was stress in itself. I had no idea how to get it off once here and didn't really care. It was on my property with all my worldly junk and that was as far as I'd gotten. Phil got that “I have an idea” look in his eye as we watched Hoot unload hay. “Why don't you ask him if he has or knows of anybody with the equipment to unload your connex.”

Hoot was willing to give it a try if we did it now. It wasn't worth him coming back out with the equipment to do it. That's all the incentive I needed. Hoot had the chains. We needed pipe for rollers to put under the connex. I'd seen some pipe around here someplace. Maybe Crandall's. We buzzed over to Dave and Cindy's for a pipe scavenger hunt. We came up with one piece that by itself would not be enough. I was so close. There had to be more pipe around here somewhere.

Ah ha! Just across the fence at the neighbors - who shall remain nameless – lay three pieces of perfectly sized pipe. Sorry Blair and Cheri – there was no time to ask permission – it was faster to beg forgiveness later. I waved at whatever game cameras may or may not be recording the great pipe caper and squeezed through the fence...tossed three sections of pipe over and dashed back across the border. That was easy. Maybe this Sleepy Joe open border policy isn't all bad.

Hoot fed chains through the holes in the back of the connex and wrapped them around the arms of the squeeze. They slid the pipe between the flatbed and connex and gave me the ok to slowly pull forward. It sounded like Satan killing Satan as the connex scrapped backward off the flatbed. It started to go a little south as the connex began to veer off. Hoot used the arms of the squeeze to nudge it back on. None of us had done this before. We didn't know if it was best to ease it off slowly or go like hell. Hoot asked if there was anything breakable in there. I said nothing more important to me than getting this thing off of here. We opted to go like hell. I gunned it – more Satan killing Satan. I gunned it more until the connex ran out of flatbed and plopped down on the ground with more of a flop than a crash. It was done.

I didn't look in the connex until several days later. I am happy to report there was no major damage. My glass china cabinet survived as well as my grandma's green dishes. They only breakage was two oil lamb globes...easily replaceable at your local Family Dollar near you.

We ended the day at the Aguila Tuesday flea market...because well, it's Tuesday and that's what Aguila-ites do. Pickings are a little slim this time of year so we didn't find any treasures we could not live without. The music, however, is worth the trip alone. I don't understand a word of it but then again, I seldom understand lyrics in the language I actually speak. Learning Spanish is on my bucket list. I might as well. I fit in here more than anyplace I've been – and the more sun I get....the more I fit in.

10-13-2021: We finished the arena today! I could not have done it in near the time without Phil. What I didn't think of, he did and vice versa. Our Measurements came out practically to the inch. We intentionally had to make it 10 feet narrower at one end to avoid falling off a wash. You might not notice unless you are the one who built it and as Phil say's – the kind of people that would notice something like that probably have fancier places to be. 

I spent the evening on top my RV repairing a ripped awning over the slide out. The last big wind took advantage of a small tare and shredded it. Nothing a LOT of duct tape didn't fix and the view from atop my RV was spectacular.

10-15-2021: I had enough panels left over to put in a cross fence for the horse turn out. We only had to put in 9 panels. Due to more uneven ground, those 9 turned out harder to put in than the entire arena.

Then – there were the ants. Giant, mutant ants. Giant, mutant MEAN ants. They warn you about the rattlesnakes – the scorpions – the jumping cholla – the tarantulas and the tarantula hawks...but nobody says a damn thing about the freaking mutant ants! One crawled up the full length of me and bit me on the throat. It's the burn that keeps on giving. Phil's like: “I told you they bite.” His daughter had been bit earlier. I kind of thought he was exaggerating a tad on the effects. I stand corrected! I'm freaking out telling him the location of all my epi pens...you know, just in case! There's one in my truck – one in my saddle bags...one in the medicine cabinet in the RV. Phil...are you listening Phil? Do people die from ant bites? I bet they do!

Friends Cindi and Fred are down for the winter. I will be watching a couple of their horses while they are in Buckeye at the finals rodeo. They invited me for dinner at the Coyote. I am excited they are here. They are good people...and if they noticed the giant freak show ant induced goiter on my neck – they were kind enough not to mention it. Good people.

10-17-2021: I may have a talent after-all:pipe pilfering. I can't sing and I can't dance; a girl's got to accept a talent when she can. I've been looking for a couple short sections of 6' metal pipe to put over the PVC pipe stands to the spigots. Ask and ye shall receive. While checking on Crandall's property during my daily walk – I remembered where I'd seen pipe. Exactly what I was looking for lay nearly buried in one of the washes on their place. I've been tripping over them for two years. I dug them out – dumped the sand out of them and threw them in the back of my truck.

I know what it feels like to have someone steal a beloved hunk of metal off your property. I thought it best to make sure Dave wasn't as attached to his scrap metal as I am. I sent him a text: “Forgive me Dave, for I have sinned. I've pilfered the pipe from your wash. If you would like them back..” Dave: “No worries. Help yourself.” Sweet! I've always admired those hitching posts over yonder....