The Rain Finally Goes Through the Drain

I apologize for not posting anything in such a long time. It's an odd combination of having so much to do, but none of it was worth blogging about.
It's shedding season and the two wolfdogs are shedding big clumps of wool all over the place, inside and out. We never did get around to shaving them this year, because spring came so late. Sometimes we pull the clumps out of them, the ones that are ready to come out on their own. In just a few minutes there is a pile of wolf fur that's bigger than a whole cat. Other clumps come out without any pulling and there's always a trail of wolf fur all over the place. I try to pick it up daily.

It's also monsoon season, when we get rain nearly every afternoon. Sometimes the showers are strong and brief; other times they're slow, steady soaking rains that last for a couple of hours or more.

Any kind of rain wreaked havoc on the rear courtyard, where the dogs spend their time when they're not indoors. They like to gather by the iron gate so they can see out and watch the goings on. So a low spot developed there and any rain would create a deep and large mud puddle. It would stay there for days because there was no drainage under or through the gate. Four dogs (16 paws) plus mud puddles and/or mud plus light-colored carpet equals disaster!

So last Saturday (a week ago today), I started tackling the problem while Ron tackled the problems with his computer (he installed a new motherboard, new hard drive, and new operating system - Vista), but it was much harder than I thought it would be. I dug dirt out from directly underneath the iron gate, to create a place for the water to go, and hauled a couple of wheelbarrows of dirt to the low spot. Then I ran out of steam.

On Sunday, with his computer working properly again, Ron and I worked together and it only took a couple of hours to finish the job. Ron shoveled dirt from the dirt pile into the wheelbarrow and I rolled the wheelbarrow around and dumped the dirt in the low area. That way each of us could rest while the other worked. After 15 or so loads, we took a well-deserved break, and went inside to cool off and drink Gatorade. Then we went back to work. I smoothed out the fill dirt, creating a slightly mounded area while Ron dug a small trench on either side of the mounded area and going underneath the gate and continuing for a few feet on the other side of the gate.

Then we went inside and sat back, waiting for the regular afternoon rainstorm. Except it didn't come!

Finally it rained overnight, nearly half an inch (which doesn't sound like much, but is a lot for around here) and no mud puddle. Success! We've had more rain since then, of course, and the drainage continues to work! The dirt is muddy for a little while, but quickly dries up since there's no puddle of standing water. And no puddle of standing water also means far fewer mosquitoes.

Updates of All Kinds

Yes, I'm still here; I just haven't felt like writing anything lately. But this post will make up for it, I hope. It's going to be very long (and getting longer all the time).

There is a tiny pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel. A few days before Christmas, I applied for a job with the Town of Taos Police Department. The position is Administrative Assistant/Evidence Technician. They want someone with good computer skills, which I definitely have. Duties would include logging in new evidence and destroying old evidence. It sounds a lot more interesting than Algebra! And as Mom said, it would give me good material for my writing. I got a phone call yesterday from the Assistant to the Chief of Police and we've scheduled an interview for next Friday, a week from today. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Another good thing about the job is the location -- right next door to Ron's office. We may be able to carpool sometimes, or at least have lunch together now and then.

As I was writing the rough draft of this post, I got another phone call and have another interview scheduled for next Wednesday evening. This job is with our vet's office. It's another administrative job, but would also include working with animals (or at least cleaning up after them). The great thing about this job is that I already know and like everyone and they know and like me. Dr. Kim, the owner of the practice, is especially happy with the way we've rehabilitated two of our animals, Princess and King (King's story is coming soon, I promise). So keep your fingers crossed for that one, too.

Moving on to another topic entirely, if any of you see Al Gore, tell him to visit Northern New Mexico so I can show him there is no Global Warming here.





Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it snowed every two to four days, several inches at a time. We haven't had any new snow since Christmas (although we're supposed to get several inches this weekend), but we've had bitterly cold temperatures.

Tuesday morning, the low temperature was MINUS 14. Wednesday morning it was MINUS 8. On those days, the high temperature was 22. Yesterday it got up to 34 and that felt positively balmy. We've been keeping warm from the inside out -- hot soup, hot chocolate, and hot tea.

One more story, a long and detailed one, but it has a happy ending.

Last Friday evening, December 28, Ron was driving back to Taos from Angel Fire, a town on the other side of the mountains. He was driving his company truck, a huge 1992 Chevy Suburban. The road is curvy and goes over a high mountain pass and through a canyon. Some stretches of the road were completely covered in ice because the sunlight never reaches there because of the high canyon walls. In a way, the ice was a good thing because it kept him from going very fast. In fact, he was only going 25 mph when....


an elk jumped out in front of him!

He couldn't stop in time and his truck hit the elk with its left front, then came to a stop. The car following Ron also came to a stop and the people got out to make sure he was OK. There's no cell phone reception in the canyon, so they couldn't call the police. Both vehicles were still in the road and in danger of being hit by other cars, so they decided the people in the other car would follow Ron into town. As they discussed this, they saw the elk stand up, shake herself off, and walk away!

Ron was able to drive all the way back to Taos. The front grill area of the truck was smashed in and the left headlight was broken and the radiator was spewing steam and leaking coolant out the bottom.

Once he had a cell phone signal, Ron called me to tell me what had happened. When he got back to his office, he called the State Police and called his supervisor. Then he called me again, asking me to come down to the office to give him moral support. By the time I got there, the State Police Officer was just finishing up his report. He said there would be no citation, as it was obviously an accident. And he found clumps of elk fur stuck in the license plate frame, confirming that the vehicle had, in fact hit an elk.

So the good news is that Ron's OK (the Suburban is a very high vehicle; if it had been a regular car, the elk probably would have come in through the windshield). Miraculously, the elk is OK (too bad in a way; I was hoping for fresh elk steak). The truck should probably be considered totalled, but Qwest, in its infinite wisdom, doesn't want to waste a perfectly good 1992 truck and is going to have it repaired.

Great Visit and New Client

I had a brief but wonderful visit from my sister Marian last week. She arrived Wednesday evening in time for dinner and stayed until Friday afternoon, about lunchtime.

We had a nice relaxing time, mostly sitting around talking, drinking tea, enjoying the views, etc. We both "telecommute" and did some work Thursday for our respective jobs before going for a walk.

The weather was perfect and Marian was very tolerant of our sometimes overly-affectionate animals. All in all, it was a great visit, but too short.

In other news, I have a new client for my proofreading services -- the Horse Fly, the alternative newspaper in Taos. It's published once a month on the 15th, so we did the proofreading over the weekend, three hours each on Saturday and Sunday morning. There's another proofreader, Jane; on Saturday I proofed the first 16 pages and she proofed the other 16 pages. On Sunday we switched.

The Publisher and Editor is Bill Whaley, an interesting character. He always wears a fedora. He's much warmer in person than in print. In his newspaper, he takes a critical look at local politics and the local politicians, which is a good thing (although the politicians don't always agree). The paper is an interesting mix of that and the local cultural scene, especially art. There's plenty of that in Taos, but the Horse Fly puts more emphasis on it than the mainstream paper, The Taos News, a weekly paper.

It feels good to get out in the community -- meet more people and work with people face to face instead of just via email. I think it will inspire me to go to more community events and art galleries, too.

A Country Morning

I love living in the country! Where else can you see the sight I just saw a few minutes ago? A boy, perhaps 12 years old, was riding an ATV on the dirt road in front of our house. He was holding a leash. Attached to the other end of the leash and trotting behind the ATV was a sheep!

I've seen this boy in previous years walking his sheep, on a leash, on the road, but this is the first time I've seen him using an ATV to walk his sheep.

This is the kind of thing you don't see in the city or the suburbs.

Peace and Quiet

There hasn't been much to blog about lately, which can be a good thing. With all the madness going on in England and Scotland, I'm grateful to live here in Taos. It's nice and quiet and definitely not a target for terrorism.

The picture of the cactus is one I took a couple of weeks ago. We have literally hundreds of cactus plants in our yard. We only have an acre, but one day we started to count the cactus plants in our yard and by the time we got to 200 we'd only covered three quarters of the yard and were starting to lose count, so we stopped. Most of them are prickly pear cactus; there are a few barrel cactus and a few small pincushion cactus. Not all of them bloom, of course, and some years are better than others for flowers. We had a very wet spring, so we had a lot of blooms this year. Most are yellow, like this one, but some are magenta. Unfortunately, I didn't catch those in time; they faded away before I could get pictures.