I'll Soon Be Rolln' My "Bedroll" Out in a Fresh Camp...

I'm working on a "change of venue". That's one of those writes euphemisms for; I'm starting up a fresh blog. I came to thinking I needed something that was more fitting to how I'm going these days and what I'm about...

Onliest trouble is__As seldom as I set such things up, getting it done is a piece of work. There's a fancy bit of elektawnic dancing that has to be done... and nobody, especially the ones who created the system have a real working idea of how to go about it.

When you factor in all the eggheads sitting behind the keyboards for the big outfits running this show__(The internet) it gets danged messy. They repeatedly "Improve" things (That is - mostly fix what ain't broke just so they've something to do). The result is, it takes twice as much work and a week of blue smoke, bad names and dirty words to sort through the "Improvement"... and generally the beer brewers sales improve as a consequence... I needed an excuse... Right?

Been trying - and failing - to get a Fresh Blog linked to my RV Website... they've made it so hair pulling convoluted, and I've no hair left to pull... that I'm questioning the value of goin' through their exercise.

The hoops to jump through are way to disjointedly explained, with far too many "mights" and "sometimes" and "Ifs" used in relation to their directions. That gives them an 'Out' when it doesn't work and nobody knows why... (which is from my perusal of the forums where folks are struggling for help with the "new" and "improved" and "Easy" system...

The likelihood is I'll abandon that lil' enterprise and just go a different way with it.

Not a bad thing... it'd fit into the simplification I'm truly trailing just now. Much of the "Internet" has lost a lot of its shine for this old buster.

That said A Fine Horse in New Country will be taking over as my "Main" blog in the very near future... there's little to read there just now... only a paragraph or so and some page headers for pages I have yet to build... all just to give me something to post as an initial test and to lay the foundations for me to tinker with.

Soooo... I'd appreciate it, if you want to keep on trailing along, if you went there and "Followed" me again. The gadget to do that is right there on the right hand side... 'Course as always, you can just bookmark it too.

I've got all sorts of doodles and ideas I want to work on (and write about) in the future so might could be the 'Semi-sabbatical" I've been on for a while is winding down. We shall see.

This blog will remain... I'll write a "Link" post here when I make the final move (and this blog will remain (along with my very first blog) as an "Archive" and a way for people to find where I went!

Many Thanks
Brian

Sunrise on the Desert

I give her first feed before dawn. It's quiet then and the air is crisp.

Cora whickers softly when she hears me scooping her breakfast. It's a good feeling to be met at the gate.

It's a good time of day. Your lungs fill with a long slow breath of pure desert air... you just stand for a few minutes watching the light change. Listening to your mare feed. Feeling the cool breeze on your face...knowing a pot of fresh coffee is perking on the stove, all those small things...

Life slows down enough so you can see how it should be...how it should have been...

-Brian

Let's See... Where Was I?

 Oh yeah... I was preparing to leave Missouri...

It's now been something like two weeks... and I'm 1200 miles or so away from where I was... In fact, I'm back at my winter camp quarters in Cochise county.

I left Missouri bound west for Colorado... stopped in a place called Kiowa for a few minutes along the way to put those side compartments I built up to use...

Yeah... you're right... that's not motorcycle fuel...

Been flip floppin' four times a day for weeks... the last lil' bit in Missouri something clicked and the decision got made.

I took Cora back. CJ had got sold much earlier, and for whatever reason she didn't...

Bottom line... I started back to find that trail again and on that trail I will finish.

So, from Kiowa I kept moving west and started climbing back into my beloved mountains... to bust the truck straight away climbing out of Denver... sort of.

I waxed another fuel filter on the climb... Barely made it over the passes... but still managed to limp into Grand Junction once I got down off the passes. A fresh fuel filter the next morning and I was good again and ready to pick up...

Cora...

*Cora came home with me to Cochise*

 I loaded her in the Lakota just west of Grand Junction on a Tuesday morning and lit out for Flagstaff Arizona... where I had additional plans.

We stopped in Flagstaff for a couple nights on the way down to pick up most of the hardware to do a Solar Power install... I'm weary of the grinding of a generator and the hassles of dealing with the buggers...

Then, Thanksgiving day we rolled the six hours from Flag to my winter camp below Turkey Creek down here in Cochise County.

... and set to work!

I wasn't even sure if the thieving nature of a lot of the human race would have left me anything at all since I pulled out last March... but luck was with me. The round pen I needed was still standing and even its Gate remained hangin' on the posts!

I've been scrambling too many miles just about since we got here. Lined up a good bigger cistern and had to go get it. Was planning on a trailer to haul it with but cogitation set me a different way. Assuming I take off on a summer circle, a water trailer is one more piece of something I've got to deal with to prevent it from growing legs...

The cost of delivery of the lil' bit of water we use actually makes better sense than all the expense and hassle of another trailer... so... that's done and I've water for nearly a month sitting in the tank outside.

Then as I was stumbling around doin' all that... I crossed paths with some furniture... to do a remodel that's been percolating in my head for some little while...

*The Couch - Before*

I decided that "writing shed" in the back is just too much awkward and inconvenience... soooooo... on the weekend after Thanksgiving I did a whiz bang change up of the interior of my Lakota LQ Horse trailer.

*Cowboy Writing Desk and Chair - After*

If thy couch offends thee... Pluck it OUT!

... and replace it with a slick used writing desk and a sweet new chair that is WAY more comfortable than the old hide-a-bed couch!

and when I'm not sitting in the chair reading at night... it spins around to sit at the desk working...

Plus... Arlo's bed swaps with the chair...

*Arlo seems to prefer his bed under the desk*

With this setup, I can get up in the oh damn it's early 3 in the a.m. when sleep refuses to co-operate and sit at the desk with a hot chocolate and work...

... while it was just too cold last winter with the desk out back in the horse compartment...

So with that all done, this week I'm working on the inventing I have to do to wiggle a 270 watt Kyocera solar panel setup into the rig.

I'm having to fabricate a protective box for the controller and small breaker panel up under the gooseneck... since there's no compartments on this rig like a "normal" person's rig.

Cora... well... she was at a trainer in July but she's not been rode since mid September... too long for a green colt and a buster whose confidence s bruised. That busted shoulder of mine still has a ways to go to be 'good'...

So, I'm searching around for a good rider here to put a half dozen maybe ten rides on her to get her warmed up and moving again for me. Then I can swing a leg with much stronger confidence that I won't be a non bouncing projectile.

... soooo... I think that's about all that's been happening... juggling so many irons I'm not truly sure at any partic'lar moment where I'm at or what I'm doin...

Still have to rework that heater duct that ran under the couch... complete the install of the solar... and get that rider locked down ASAP to get Miss Cora under saddle strong. (eating a little pride there will go a long ways these days...)

I'll try to keep things a little more up to date... but between the hustlin' and Microsoft/Verizon stuffing my data plan with never ending HUGE updates every time I turn on the Hotspot... They have me spooked a lil' bit... ate 4 gig in fifteen minutes last week while I was just checking my accounts and email! arrrrrrggggghhhhh!

a 16 gig plan evaporates pretty dang fast at that rate! Crooked as politicians!

*The super moon just before I left Missouri*

Time now for me to move the chair to the sittin' an' thinkn' spot and kick back for a bit before I turn in...

Till next time
Brian

Desert Sunsets to Blue Smoke in the Rockies...

There was an old song... not sure who sang it... "Turn turn turn"... That's pretty much the feeling I'm walking around with... or mite could be "spin spin spin" is a bit more accurate.

With the need to be shed of my camp in Arizona for a while I hauled out as I said a few days ago. Glad I'm away now yet still miss it much... and many thoughts still stumbling around in my head.

 Last sunset for the season in Cochise camp...

Hoping to cool out I stopped up in the Tonto basin only to have the duplicitous ways of the world decide to keep prodding me to move along...

It's getting harder and harder to just be. The ways of this world are confounding, dishonorable and leave a foul taste in my mouth whenever I let it into my camp.

I don't mind even a little bit if people hold nonsensical ideas. It's their right to be foolish. But when they work to impose their foolishness on my as THEIR right, and pretty much make unwillingness to co-operate with their nonsense a criminal act... my shorts get bunched in a real uncomfortable knot.

So I try to go where few people are... it's lonesome... but at least a fella can breathe.

Along a byway in New Mexico I rested in a night camp I've used before... some wouldn't like it... tends to be dirty 'cuz so many people, as they travel across the earth behave like swine... but... there's a back corner that usually is tolerable. With it's back up against the open ground boundary fence - nobody can get behind me...

I've noticed in watching "Travelers"... the "dirty" ones generally hail from cities... those considered crude and "inbred red-neck country boys" by those "Townies" are generally the ones putting their trash in cans and leaving only tracks behind... curious don't you think?

When you spot somebody tearing up the country with ATV's, Bicycles, Motorcycles or chainsaws... and dumping their trash, and worse, everywhere they go__mostly they lead you back to a Town... if you ask 'em or follow 'em... and nod in agreement with the guy complaining about the destruction of the environment... as their cheetohs bag rolls away on the breeze...

Just an observation... and a disconnected tangent...

Got up two mornings later in the lot of a casino I overnighted in... cranked up the diesel, twisted the knobs for the heater and got instant fogged windshield and steam out of the vents... Aw sweet. A blown heater core... that's only a days work and a hundred or so in parts... if I do it myself...

Sitting on my hands one at a time to keep them warm in the morning chill I rolled... Till I got to a section of four lane with a heavy load of traffic.

Being distrustful of the other drivers I am surrounded by on the road I had stayed back to keep a pretty good gap in front of me. But still, up ahead I saw the brake lights popping on and traffic slowing__so I came off the throttle.

Buuuut... traffic went to stopping pretty hard so I dropped a gear and added some brakes... at the very same moment that the two left lanes all chose to dive over into the right two... I was rolling along the far right of the four...

Yep... dive over and fill the safety margin I'd been maintaining... while making an abrupt and complete... STOP!

Brain dead sorry bastards... I think it would be proper if a few physics questions were required to be answered correctly to get a drivers license. Like how fast can 16,000 lbs or so of truck and trailer stop in comparison to your Sentra? or your F'ing Volvo???

I locked on the binders with that sick certainty wigglin' in my belly that there was no way I wasn't going to mangle at least two of the morons suddenly stationary directly in front of me...

buuuut... with 1 1/2 functioning arms I managed to herd that pickup that was so desperately trying to jack knife in front of it's 30 foot gooseneck over onto the wide shoulder.

I Got it threaded between the last of the lane jumping townie morons and the guard rail without tagging either, and eventually fought it to a sliding stop in a cloud of blue smoke...

The sort of smoke you get when you ruin a good tire that WOULD have had several thousand more miles of service in it...

When I looked back in the mirror, the last car of the lane jumpers was beside my trailer tires... with two more in front of him...

and the car that HAD been in front of me was still a couple of car lengths in front... which meant my "safety margin" had been pretty good...

Now who do you suppose would be slapped with the blame and the Financial Responsibility if I'd crushed and killed those three cars of highly educated townie maggots? Wanna Guess???

It's a damn good thing I didn't have any horses in back.

For one, with another few thousand pounds behind me I seriously doubt I'd have been able to make the maneuver to escape... and then... my "behavior" regarding the damned fools now sitting beside me would have been radically changed had one of those horses been hurt...

I vow__You'd have seen it on the evening news...

God I love the human race... What would we do without fertilizer. Sorry if you're offended by my lack of the requisite "sensitivity" in this can't-we-all-get-along Disney warped soh-sigh-uh-tee. I'm fresh out of patience with the growing stupidity of the two legged plague I see spreading across the land.

I swear, a rabid possum has greater value than way too many of the people I see cluttering up the world... can you tell I'm still just a mite angry?

This morning came a colorful sunrise pregnant with its Red Sky warning...

For me the warning carried on the wind is; "Brian... You don't like being alone, and it's a pure fact - you do it poorly... But... You and 'modern' people mix like a bonfire in a match factory! They are willfully blind and make no sense. Get clear of them! Go! Find your way through this latest mess... sort out the remnants... heal up... fight some horses back into your rig and your camp... and RIDE!

... Leave the grasping socialist morons behind to sink into the morass of the wretched cesspool they are all conspiring to build."

I may feel defeated and beat down__but it ain't over. Not Yet.

 I'm broken and whupped up on... but I ain't dead and I ain't beat. It may be a stormy sunrise but it is still rising... so I keep on keepin' on 'till I get where I'm goin'...

When they block one road... find another... or go cross country...

A few days to take care of some VA stuff... and then continue on for Missouri...

There's an old saying__ faster horses, younger women and colder beer! (a small edit as I'm not much of an older whiskey sipper)  ;)

- Brian

The Melancholy of Another Leaving

Cora and CJ were loaded and hauled away yesterday...

*** Cora and CJ... loaded and leaving :( ***

I got all loaded and hitched up this afternoon... and I'll roll away with the coming dawn.

***an empty corral is a lonesome thing***

With my round pen standng melancholy and empty I need to be gone from here.

Maybe I'll come back in the winter... we shall see.

No plans really past the next few weeks.

***The rig is loaded and hitched***

 Felt very off balance and strange last night. I saw the time and jumped up and was outside... heading over to feed before it registered that I didn't have that any more...

Just a few short weeks ago it was all so different... Just two days before I busted my shoulder up... The light after the latest storm was so bright and hopeful on the Chiricahuas... The horses were coming along so good... I was going to climb on Cora in the next couple of days... then WHAM!

***Just a month ago***

Here it is a month past that now... and past the transmission blow up... My Horses are gone and I'm hitched up again and rolling off into whatever comes...

Last nights sunset was so soft and quiet... the tears were running... I need to be away from here right now but I'll miss it... and all the hopes I had for this place.

I'm going up to a camp I use on the Tonto, and cool out a few days... then roll on way far north to Cheyenne. A bad place to be in February. There's a weather window I may just slide through... The VA is pulling me in for another Thing...

Last summer when I let them run their test... I knew... I KNEW it was a bad idea. It's messing with things that are better left alone. If it ain't broke don't fix it...  It's like I jumped out onto a slippery slope. Now I can't seem to get rid of doctors and mechanics... meh...

 I don't hear no fat lady singin'... so I guess it ain't over.

- Brian

Hoof Beats and Disconnected Mental Meanderings

The life of a Cowboy is often a lonesome thing and being plain honest... it's purty much self inflicted. His sense of honor and just what he can tolerate, well, it's pretty impossible for him to negotiate such things. He's not perfect but he is what he is and he just ain't about to change that for anybody.

He figures if you want him to change who he is you don't care 'bout him anyway so... Adios!

Even amongst other folks he's got a way of holding himself apart and alone... or those other folks hold him away... because his way of seeing the world is so foreign to there own it makes them nervous. They just can't accept his unyielding ways and unwillingness to compromise.

He sees compromise as a phony deal with the devil where a lie is used as collateral to wheedle him out of what's right... by some slick talkin' townie.

Cowboys aren't what you might think of as "gentle" souls. They're more closely related to warriors than preachers. A lot of that comes from the rough and tumble world they grew up in. Fighting 1800# bulls or angry horned hereford mommas when all you're tryin' to do is doctor her baby isn't how you incubate sensitivity in a man.

But, they are still a bit of a paradox. That buster you think is a hard nosed prick will stun you with how gentle and tender he is with a calf or a colt; He'll risk hell and frostbite to save 'em and protect em...

Then he'll turn right around and grab the man by the collar who stepped the tiniest bit out of line when it comes to honor or respect... and whup on his hide till his own momma can't recognize him...

The only honesty they see comes from a cow or a horse... their experience with humanity is not something that's nurtured a lot of trust in their minds. 

They say cowboys are a dyin' breed. Might be so... but they been dyin' for a long damn time. My whole life and beyond... but as long as there's one sorry old cow... or one good colt to test his abilities... cowboys will survive. They'll be out there cussin' the wind and the dust. gripin' and grousin'... and softly caressing a fresh colt and trying to coax it to stand up and suck ...

Now understand this... that's not the fellas you see on espn... those are sure enough athletes... and they might wear big hats, and silver buckles...  but that fancy stitchin' on their back pockets... kinda gives 'em away.

A few of those boys might could cowboy...they're sure enough tough... but most are only good for eight seconds. They just don't hold up when the days with out a day off run into the triple digits... the dollars in the bank are... well... dollars in the bank???  and the only reward is to see that calf grow fat on summer grass.

You get the picture.

Most cowboys aren't so wordy as... ahem... some others. So getting to know them and how they see the world around 'em is sometimes a difficult thing to achieve. And even if you do... the onliest one you've learnt is THAT one... cuz each and ever' one of 'em, though they carry the same heritage... they're all so individual that you just can't catch 'em up in a single loop.

Some have even gone and hidden amongst the townies for a while. They put on shirts with lil' alligators on the chest... and I saw a few in plaid shorts one time... but... deep inside... in those places they hold apart and alone... They are cowboy and they curse the day they let themselves be talked away from the only life that ever soothed their souls.

It's been said before by others and said by me, but it still is the gospel truth... there's nothing finer than riding a fine horse into new country.

The only thing that soothes that battered soul of a cowboy barely hangin' on... is the spirit that lives within' horsehide.

*Range cows in the dust at sunset*

*My Ponies with sunset over the Dragoons*

*The look that fills a Cowboy's Soul*

The purest spirit can be seen... in the Eyes of a Horse...

When your heart is sore and you think it'll break... you're chokin' on life... if you walk out to your pens and just quietly gaze into the eyes of your horses... the pain starts to fade. You wrap your arms around a neck and the tears wash the dust away.

- Brian

Boots and Saddles and Buckskin Horses...

Made a big bit of progress for me today...My Buckskin Filly hasn't had a saddle strapped on since way back in April. Long before she came to me... and then she only had maybe five or six rides... So that was fairly forgot by now.

It's one reason I've been coming along so slow... outside of having to wait on the pen to work 'em in. Yup, I've worked 'em just as if those saddles hadn't ever happened. Started pretty much right from scratch.

Buuuut... today, with a bright Arizona sun shining I took a deep breath and not tee total sure just how she was gonna accept the insult, I hung my kak on her.

I was suckin' a bit of wind as I pulled that cinch, half expectin' her to bust in two and turn my day into a rodeo.

I can honestly say I was purty grateful that she took it all in stride like a champ. Not a hump. Not a squeal. Not a buck... She just stepped out quiet and calm. (This video is right directly after I pulled the cinch on her)

Now most likely the good day was due to the quality and willingness of this filly... buuuut... I like to tell myself that part of it came from an old buster having half an idea of what he was about!

CJ... when it's his turn isn't going to be so easy I'm thinkin'. It's gonna take a mite more effort at thinkin' with him... but Miss Cora is tunin' me up right smart for that job!

Takin' my time has been my plan all along with this pair. I'd like to be a lot farther along but, I'm kinda bringin' myself back a mite as I'm bringin' them up... so, small little steps is the best option. That-a-way I don't get them stressed out too far... which might could end up puttin' a fresh dent in my over dented hide.

That's also the way I go about colts. Slow and easy. I'm in no hurry and it most often provides for a "more harmonious outcome."

Most every time you get a colt to buck, it's because you tried to push it too far too fast. Give 'em time to sort things out, especially the foundation bred like these colts and most of the time you can avoid the scraps all together.

... and those that do come along generally don't turn out to be much of a thing.

Kinda like that gettin' my nose drug in the dirt a few weeks back 'cause I tried to push things without having the proper set up... I learnt that lesson quick and proper! I might coulda got around it 35 years or so ago... these days... using the thing between my ears most usually works out better than trying to be a tough rooster...

... I'm thinkin' the crowin' days have passed on by... now's the time to use those quieter tricks the old cowboys taught me.

Yeah... just in time for the four or five days of rain predicted for next week... kurrr-wrap!

Well... at least when that stops I'll have her ready to maybe swing a leg on! and THAT... will be a good thing for the attitude that takes me so much effort to maintain in any sort of a way that could be described as positive!

Between the generator being unwilling to start on these cold mornings... which that GOL DURNED AL Promised were in the past what with the earth turning into an oven and all! ... my pipes all too frequently freezing up at night, the rinky dink batteries on this rig unable to get through a night, and that Bat shit crazy dog maybe breakin' his foot...

... It just might be a good thing for people around... that I stay parked out in the desert by my lonesome... they tend to stay happier that-a-way!

Onliest thing I know is... when I walk out of that pen after a good workout with one of these colts I feel good. I feel right... and I feel stupid for ever leaving them behind... and at least for those few moments when it's just me and that colt... all the shit-storm that seems to keep itself stirred up around me fades away... and all the struggle is worth every scar.

- Brian

From Sunrise to Sunset... Fill the Day

Monte Walsh on the stereo, coffee in the cup... Mr. Heater is warming me...and another flashy sunrise is cracking over the Chiricahuas...

Chiricahua Sunrise

Now that Mr. Heater. Has its pluses and its hassles. The lil thing can be moved to where ever you want heat so that's a plus. The only real hassle is fueling it. Let's face it, $5.67 for a pair of lil' bottles that only last maybe five hours each on low gets pricey quick.

There is a solution for that. You get the lil adapter gizmo to refill the throw-away bottles. That way you're burning the $1.60 propane from the Co-op,

 Only problem there is, and this is the only real hassle...

Refilling actually only partially refills those bottles. They just won't get as much gas as they had when store bought.

So they're only good for maybe two hours. But that's two hours of a lot cheaper gas... I just need to buy some more of the pricey ones, so I have more "refilled".

Two hours in the evening on one bottle and two in the morning on the other just ain't sufficient.


Was walking back to the Lakota after feeding last night. Looked up into the fading pale blue eastern sky... it was just before sunset...There it was hanging over the Chiricahuas.

You know, the camera only wanted to capture a bright white flash... Buuuuut... if you bump those settings to underexpose it a ways... it kills all that glare and you can capture a pretty cool image...  you'd think it was the dark of night with that exposure dropped. Actually the sky was a very soft, almost purple by that time... It lets you catch the detail pretty fine though.

Them ponies are doing me pretty good. Three days now I finally got to work them like I'd planned to be doing back in the early part of November. The tribulations of equipment, horses and finances shot that plan to ribbons. It took till just those few days ago to complete the pen I required to work these horses proper.

Now, with that pen up and the sun mostly smilin' on me... we've had three solid workouts the past three days and three days of solid, seeable gains.

 That feeling, I wish I could shape it into words. When loneliness is weighing heavy on a solo cowboy... and the day seems dark and grey...

It lifts his spirit in ways he can't speak... when his horses come straight to the fence to whicker a hello ever' time he comes around.

They say that Horses don't have, can't have the same emotions as the two legged varmints that plague the earth.

And I hope that's true. This old chunk of rock hasn't benefited that I can see from that infection...

Now, how-some-ever... There is nothing more beautiful and pure... than the spirit of a horse.

Nothing more glorious than a herd of horses racing across the high desert.

Whatever those emotions are that Cora and CJ are giving me, I'll take 'em... and count myself fortunate to have had the lil' bit of wisdom left that it took to bring them back into my world.

I've come close to getting started on some leather books. Working out some "ideas" on things I've never done before. I'm needful of not only bringing the Horses "Home" but... some other things that got left back as well. The horses re-awakened that want too.

It's not about making money... though that is sure needed... It's about... what Gus was talkin' about when he told Call; "You just don't get it! It ain't dyin' I'm talkin' about__It's LIVIN'!"

With whatever time is left... I need to be doing those things that FIRST, grant an inner satisfaction...

Think of the scene in Lonesome Dove where Gus was sitting with a jug, alone on the porch; He looked around and saw Call working with the Hell Bitch. Some of the boys were digging a well... another shoeing a horse. The sun was setting. Gus looked around at it all and with a smile on his face nodded to himself... A bit of that inner satisfaction. He felt like he was where he belonged and it was good.

...and only then, after your soul has been fed, when that inner hunger is satisfied... think about how or if that "thing" you work at can maybe help pay the Mordida that a modern cancerous soh-sigh-uh-tee demands for permission to live.

 ... The changing light of a sunset...

 The sunsets around here... there's a real danger of the repetition of such things becoming "Oh... just another sunset..." I have to deliberately remember Gus's words all the time... "you have to learn to take pleasure in All the little things..."

Like that last one...

Playing with some things... makes it look like a chalk drawing don't it? :)

Find the little things to fill a day with creativity... When you've fed that need...THEN think about making bread...

- Brian

Just Me, My Horses and a Bat Shit Crazy Dog...

I've no sliver of an idea what's gonna happen come the spring or what the hell I'm a gonna be doing, so I just keep working here... I just keep on working like spring is some far off time that will never come.

For now... these are my reasons for being...

*Cody Jack and Cora*

When every time you step outside they call to you... when they watch every time you are moving around... when they follow you around inside a pen... it touches a rider's soul. Those who know not the soul of a horse can't have any idea what I'm talking about... But those that do live with the spirit of a horse touching their own understand that "Thing" that cannot be put into words.

Lately the work has been going such that I'm sore and weary at the end of day...

*Finished Round Pen and relocated the corrals/pens*

The round pen got finished up a few days ago... at least to where it's functional. The ponies were greatly pleased to be able to move around some. They'd been cooped up for too long in their constricted pens...

The pens got moved as soon as the round pen got done. With the ponies being able to move around so much more with the big pen available I figured them to get along better. When I moved their pens I hooked them back together which allowed a bigger pen for Cora... I'd separated the pens so they wouldn't fight through the panels.

I also managed to apply some tweak to the panel CJ had busted up a few weeks back. Got it to where I could actually use it again, which stretches his pen back out a bit... so they've got bigger night pens and with the Round Pen in action they've got work to do each day which TOTALLY changes the atmosphere between my ears! __ and theirs.

The old saying that; There's Nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse is absolute Truth!

That carries over into a lot of other places... You get a lot more done when your vision isn't so dark...

One thing was, that NW corner of the patio I'm currently still working at was discovered to be a mite low... So, I added another course of stones wove in together... The fill to level that up went in today.

Then... the local range cows tore down my hay pen a couple of weeks back. Forced me to load the hay back into the trailer in the dark of night. I was NOT a pleasant cowboy... and it disrupted my "working space" in the back of the trailer... due to the fact that there was more hay so No Room for my work tables.

So... on a sliver thin budget I managed to squeeze out a few wood posts to set deeper and stiffer. Hopefully it'll make a pen good enough to hold those dang cows out... put it over by the new pens location by the round pen as well.

*New 'temporary' hay pen started*

With the hay able to be took out of the trailer again... I got to work at sunset tonight re-establishing my work space in the back of my Lakota LQ...

This time, I did things a lil' different... using the Braiding stand as my writing desk, leaves the bigger table open to allow me to do some leather work and maybe turn out a leather book/journal/album or two...

*Mr. Heater__It Works!*

Sitting there just now in the dark of morning with that lil' heater roastin' me.

Picked up my second try with a Mr. Heater just the other day. The first try ended in a mite of excitement when it kinda literally blew up. Flame was goin' ever'where.

Fairly exciting when it's parked three feet from you!

So now, with this heater I don't hardly run the main furnace at all. I blanket up at night and leave it turned almost off. The batteries in this rig aren't up to the task. They die before the night is done if I leave it turned up.

Come the morning I fire up Mr. Heater... and only start the generator to crank up my Mr. Coffee...

A Bigger Battery bank and a solar system are on the list... but... that's gonna be a bit.

Just had a thought... Why is it always Mr.? How come we can't warm up with a HOT LADY heater? or take a sip from a Sizzling Suzie coffee maker? How come it's always got to be this damned polite MR baloney?

Well, for now, this lil' Mr. Heater has cut my generator run time by 75%. Made no sense to burn propane AND gasoline to keep warm.

A routine around here in the morning is to wander out into the desert with my Mexican Dump truck... and gather rock for the two main projects on my radar.

Those two being that patio that is creeping along, and, some sort of a combination leather studio/writing shed...

I feel like that pile of stone should be a lot bigger. The way my legs were quiverin' pushin' that dumper across the desert filled up with rock the half dozen times it took for that pile...

... it SHOULD be bigger!

... If I can manage it... I've got and idea for maybe a small... as in really small__size of my current living quarters small__ stone cabin. Maybe even a small bathhouse?

Lots of ideas... the problem is... There is Always a problem hangin' somewhere around me; It cranks on me, it really really does, that these damned rats I've been battling can dig their homes out where ever they please. The Hawks flyin' around can build their nests where ever they choose and lord help you if you molest THEM!

The coyotes and cougars bunk where they want... and hunt when they want. The javelina come and go. The quail, the deer... ALL of them without requiring the permission of any others of their kind.

Only MAN requires those around him to PAY for permission to breathe and be alive on this earth.

ONLY MAN requires another man to seek permission to build himself a shelter.

ONLY MAN believes he owns and controls the earth. ONLY MAN.

All the rest just go on about the business of life...

You know what? That's me... I'm just one of those critters.

I don't seek the permissions of human soh-sigh-uh-tee... Humanity has proven that it doesn't deserve the respect I give a rat... I go about my life seeking only a couple of things Gus said;

"There's nuthin' better than riding a fine horse into new country." 

and

"My God you just don't get it!__ It ain't dyin' I'm talkin' about... It's LIVIN!"

Just me, my horses and a bat shit crazy dog... Free on the Earth.

- Brian

Storm clouds, Thieving Cattle and Rat Wars

Been making progress... sort of. Three steps forward, two sometimes four back.

*Arizona - Storm brewing over the Chiricahuas at sunset*

 All a guy like me can do is curse... kick a rock, threaten the Devil... and after a bit, go back to work.

The round pen is progressing Slowly. Too slowly. I Really want to get to work IN it not ON it!

I have but seven more posts to set, as soon as some dinero shows up. Five line posts and the two gate posts. I've been scheming how to finish the "infill" of the sides. Was hoping to do that with barky poles cut on national forest. Their timber guy lead me to believe I'd be able, but then, that was last week and I've not heard a peep. Likely I'll just use some horse fence and call it good.

The Deck/Patio is taking shape. Takes a lot longer when you've got to go haul rock from two hundred yards away and more in a mexican dump truck! ... after you use that Mexican Dump truck to haul in the fill from gopher/rat mounds that lay in the opposite direction.

But, I set some big rocks to be the step down from the patio area to the path that leads out to the fire pit...

Then I started laying natural stone behind that. That'll be what will surface the patio. A lot cheaper than store bought pavers, and it'll look nice I believe. It's just gonna take some little while to gather enough up... hoping to do all that out to and around the fire pit as well.

Making some progress. I just knock 'em in with a rubber mallet to where they're as level as natural stone could be...

*Natural Stone winter camp Patio*

Another thing I've been working on is... The Rat Wars... and till today I've been in a bit of a stand off. Bait blocks, rat bombs... flooding... The rats, or whatever ya'll wanna call 'em persevered.

But then I seen a gizmo in the hardware store. It's a rubber deal that clamps onto your vee-hickle's exhaust pipe and you gas the buggers for a bit. Only problem was it was too small to fit the truck. And then, I had an epiphany!

I been spending too many dollars running the generator to keep the piddly pair of batteries the maker put on this rig juiced up for the cold nights we've been having. I tried a Mr. Heater "Buddy" to supplement - But it blew up... Kinda literally - which is fairly exciting when you're sitting maybe three feet away working on the laptop! ...so I'm working on that problem still.

But, with a few minutes in the plumbing aisle I invented my own connection that clamps onto the GENERATORS pipe!

 Since I have to run that a few hours a day and they say twenty or thirty minutes should turn the trick...

I spent a lil' gas today and played evil cowboy on several rat tunnels!

Soooo... as I juice the batteries I'll reduce the snake bait around here... and the damage the diggin' little chewers do to other things!

Then... I've been battling with the cows round abouts... Arizona is a "Free Range" state so you have to "fence out" what you don't want coming in... and I'm OK with that... I just don't have the dinero to get to that fencing... even just a couple strands of electric... so I built a little "hay yard" to protect my hay and get it out of the trailer - so  I can work back there (If I ever solve the early morning/night heating difficulty)

Well... Arlo has been finding use running the buggers off... I was hoping (but not really expecting) them to learn to just stay away... last night, 'bout ten O'clock I heard something, put the flashlight out the door and three or four of the wannabe Burger Kings were ripping down my hay yard... Pulled the T posts right out of the ground! grrrrrrrrr...

Left me with no choice but to hustle around in the moonless dark and shove what I'd spread out in the back of the Lakota LQ so I could work back into the front stall. Then pile that hay back in the trailer so I could sleep not worryin' 'bout if the hay I can't afford to replace would still be there come dawn... arrrrrggggghhhhh.

Seems like sunset and sunrise is when the light shows this place off the best... Here's some more of those Arizona sunset times...

And a couple views of the Chiricahaus off to the east a little ways...

Like I said, here at 4400 feet or so it's been getting cold at night, down into the mid to high twenties, the last week or so. Supposed to do that for at least another week.

The simple truth is, like what they put in most "RVs" the batteries in this Horse Trailer rig aren't up to the task... considering the furnace they put in is barely up to the task... so... I'll be working on a more efficient, non electric heat source to stretch those batteries... until such time as I can put in the solar power and battery bank I am wishful of... but that'll wait on a few other priorities... and I'll just pile up more blankets at night.

Time to go work a pony...

- Brian