Chillin'. Just chillin'

They say it's been a cool summer, but it's still a hot summer. After all, we are in the Mojave Desert, ya'know. In the mountains, but still...

(Speaking of COOL, I hope the video I just shared comes through nicely, and without ads or.. I don't know - I use Firefox + it's excellent ad block, so it's very rare for me to see ANY ads, ever.)

So I'm taking it easy, reading about cool things. Wishing I could be a kid again, and run through the sprinklers... but there are none here, and no lawns. Just large expanses of sand, with some bushes and a few trees here and there. And my own created paradise of grapevines, cottonwood trees, my veggie garden. A paradise I love.

Oh, and yesterday we planted my new little homestead style orchard: Apple, plum, fig, olive, pomegranate, peach; a couple-few of each tree. And blackberry and raspberry bushes. It will be a challenge to keep them all happy. It gets cold here, too. But I can't really remember that today!

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It's been a hot summer. Here's something cool :)

Lettuce

In my perpetual search for fulfillment, nutritional and emotional, I'm sure, I set aside a spot in the garden for growing lettuce. Mixed lettuce, of the "designer" kind that you eat as little baby leaves. The kind that looks just like weeds.  See where I'm going?  My garden is not the weed free sort.  So this morning I was out there, pulling almost randomly at growing little things, putting some in my mouth and trying to figure if they should be eaten by me or the goats, or maybe not at all.  We have jimson weed here. They have some type of hallucinogen in them.  Maybe I'm just dreaming that I'm typing this.  In any case, maybe this New York style fancy garden experiment will come to an abrupt halt, and I'll just add some more squash. There's no mistaking a zucchini for a crab grass.

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Helicopter age!

So, today is my birthday, and yeah, sure, I'm feeling a bit older than last year this time, or even older than yesterday. What I'm really getting at, though, is that my oldest friend called with his congratulations.  He is, as he himself says, ninety-two and a half years old.  After he was done asking me about my health and well-being, I got to ask him how he is and how he's feeling. He told me he'd grown to see the budget age and now is in the helicopter age. My question mark must have been loud.  Well, the budget age is when the doctors don't bother repairing you anymore,  because you're not going to live that much longer anyway. Sigh, yeah. Now, the helicopter age, wow - this is what he said:
"You know how, when flying an airplane, you can let go of the steering and just let it coast, while in a helicopter you have to constantly engage hands and feet to stay on course. Well, when I go down to the mail box in the mornings, it's getting to become somewhat of a mission just to get there and back. I have to focus."

When I grow up I want to be like him.  Learn to fly a helicopter when I'm almost a hundred years old.

Oh, and this man lives alone in a two story house, does his own care and cooking, just gets help with cleaning the house.  On his night stand is a television set, turned on its side, so that he can watch TV in bed without straining his neck.

I really, really want to live my life like that. Flexibility and imagination..

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The occasional me

Skirt. Bright lipstick. Long, flowery head scarf. A bear claw for lunch, with tea. Maybe (later) a bath in the claw-foot tub, glass of wine in hand.  Guess what - I'm alone for the weekend!  Normally I'm sort of understated... you know... jeans and a shirt, ball cap on top and off to the barn I go. Not today, not yesterday. Why is that?  

Well, anyway, the animals don't seem to care, and if they feel neglected, they can tell me at supper time. I mean, I DID feed, and all, but it was brief and professional, and then I was again off to being the other person, the one who is more flamboyant and a bit dreamy and not very practical. But it's fun.  I'd probably hate it if this was how I was supposed to look and act all the time, but for a couple of weekends a year, it's the other me, and I like it, her, me, whatever you call it.

I do wonder.. if anybody drives in here at the ranch... will I panic and run to change?  I hope not.

No picture, though.


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Well, that was unfair...

Echo the Sheep is not... at least... not... well, he is certainly not totally stupid. Using a long rope called a longe line I tied him to a tree, to graze. If not a disaster, I did expect to have to unravel the whole wholly mass of sheep from the cat claw acacia bushes every few minutes. Guess what: Not only does he walk nicely on a leash, but he also ties, using the "end of his rope" jerk as a signal to immediately lower his head to eat some more. He has already chewed a fire break between the barn and the house.  And not only that, but the goats are hanging out with him - strength in numbers, maybe?  Coyotes are plentiful here.

I know there are some real sheep and goat owners out there in the non-desert world, people with fences and guardian dogs and all.  But I'm just me, happily counting my one sheep.

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Echo

That's his name. My sheep. One sheep. He echoes. He's not stupid, but not exactly not stupid, either, compared to the goats. Umm.. maybe limited?  Echo came here because I had not had a sheep since a was about twelve, and I guess I had forgotten what it was like to communicate with sheep. So, he's been here for maybe ten years, making big noises about feeding time, not being terribly interested in walking on a leash, but along with the dogs bravely charging coyotes.

Echo is out today, out of his pen. I am doing a nice thing for him. Spring grass is in. Sheep graze, right? Dragged him out from his pen and let go. Sheep goes running to all the places where feed has been in the past - feed provided by me, or feed being there as in new growth on trees I want to keep. Twenty laps around each tree and a few drags to the back forty with a rope, Echo finally seems to have found the greener pastures out of sight of his past haunts but within earshot of home.   Bliss.  This was so much fun that I think I will spend all day tomorrow doing the same thing.  And the next day.

You get it...

Right?


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