News From Joshua Tree, Year 2

Year 1: The 2002 journal

Year 3: The 2004 journal

Table Of Contents, Year 2:

	Day 001:	01/16/03:	Snowed In, In Middletown
	Day 006:	01/21/03:	Creeping Crud, In Nashville
	Day 016:	01/31/03:	Made It!
	Day 029:	02/11/03:	Chinaberries, Trains, Scorpions and Horses
	Day 070:	03/26/03:	Pests, Sink, Plumbing, Fiberglass, Bedrock Patio, The Burn, Free Water, Lawn, Quilt, Post & Beam, A Kodak Lemon
	Day 104:	04/29/03:	Wired??, Sad Goodbye, Mug too, Half A Deck, Lawn, New Neighbors, Roof Repair, Departure, more Kodak, etc.

This is our second year visiting my land in Joshua Tree, Southern California. It is a ten acre hill of rock with soil and vegetation filling in the gaps. I purchased it in 1968, and then an old trailer a month or two later. After renovating the trailer, I began work on a road up into the hill, with pry bar and shovel, with the idea of being able to enjoy the magnificent vistas available from a number of arroyos up in that hill, and perhaps to build a winter home up there.

However, after years of such occasional labor, the road was unable to make it to the first arroyo; its roughed in version turned out to be too steep. This was a source of quiet frustration throughout the 30 something years to follow. Hence, to date, we have been confined to one small area at ground level, about 1/3 acre, with the remaining 9 2/3 acres there to simply look up at and occasionally climb - though that is nice in and of itself.

For various reasons, my final prior visit to this peaceful land was in 1976. When we arrived in 2001 to see how it was doing, we found that it was not doing too well. As a neighbor said, “The only practical solution was to light a match to it”. That too was our initial impression during our one day visit in January of 2001, but by the time we returned in November of that year, I had other thoughts on the matter. My wife Eileen, our neighbor Lauren and anybody else with good sense still harbored the match and/or dump solution.

Last year's “Journal” depicts what occurred over the six month period to follow. If you have not read it, you may wish to do so. Like a book, the chapters (newsletters) of this Journal assume that the reader is aware of what occurred in the past. (Click on the link at the beginning of this paragraph, or “Year 1” above, or go to the main Joshua Tree page and click on the sunset image.)

I hope you enjoy reading this. Any comments by email are welcome - just click on the email link at the bottom of almost any page.

Copyright © 2003, Van Blakeman