02/11/03 Chinaberries, Trains, Scorpions and Horses

Monday:

Things have been a little slow around here lately, so I really have nothing earth shattering to tell you.

Just thought you might like to know about the pictures on the web site.

The day after the last newsletter, it suddenly became winter here. I noticed one night that while the weather report on the Cape Cod area of our web site showed that it was 25 degrees there, it was 29 degrees here. The difference is that where the former says "Feels like 19 degrees", ours feels more like maybe 40 degrees. Then when the sun comes over the horizon, it climbs into the 60s or so. I don't recall it doing that on Cape Cod.

We also noticed the wonderful recuperative powers of weather-stripping. As I applied it to each window, the vents and the door, it became noticeably more comfortable in the trailer, especially after the final window was complete.

That also reduced our consumption of propane which is very nice, since refilling those little tanks is something of an unnerving event. You have to pay very careful attention to what you are doing; things have to be done in the correct order, like turning off the valve on the large tank before unscrewing the little tank. (Propane is frigid, meaning if it gets sprayed on fingers, nose or whatever, those items freeze quickly.) (That is probably why it is against the law to refill the little tanks.) However, it is a great financial boon to one's personal economy and it saves littering the landfill with empty propane bottles.

I went to work today - you know, that social interaction where you spend the day doing something you don't really want to do for somebody else and you get paid for it, which makes it okay for some people. Eileen set this up so she could get rid of me for a day or two. She arranged for me to go down the street and do some work for Jean Davis, but she also arranged for me to get paid. I would usually do this kind of thing for nothing, being a neighbor and a friend. However, we are rather strapped for cash due to the Nashville debacle. I knew Dick and Jean 30 something years ago. Dick passed away about a decade ago. I spent the day moving firewood into her garage, splitting kindling, dumping soil back into the raised garden that the ground squirrels had tunneled and caved in, and pruning clumps of berries from her Chinaberry trees. When those white round solid berries fall, they become like marbles. I guess she took a spill once or twice and now lives in dread of them.

Speaking of Nashville, I've been in discussion with the Mapco Oil company. I, of course, had dropped my collision about 4 months ago, so my insurance company couldn't help me. The Mapco lady, seriously lacking in southern grace, says that they are not liable because I was just passing through their lot to get to another. I told her that it was their **** bolts sticking up out of their **** lot under the snow, with no sign and no cone, and they **** well were liable. She asked me to fax copies of the bills thus far incurred, which I then did, along with a note reminding her that I still need to get an estimate on replacing the bell housing and a muffler. She said she would get back to me.

Meanwhile, not much is getting done here because the funds earmarked for supplies were spent on tires, oil pan, motel, etc. instead.

I guess I'm sounding a little frustrated or something, so I'll drop this one.

Another big change in routine is that Eileen has had me going on these long walks with she and Mo almost every day. You may recall that I was way too busy for that last year. Well, I'm also busy this year, but more on the cerebral level as I sit in my butterfly chair, drink coffee and make plans for the numerous things I will go to work on as soon as I get the above mentioned supplies.

Yesterday, along the way, we visited briefly with Ron & Lauren and were able to enjoy the spectacle of a small train winding its way through their front garden. Shortly after going our way, we came across a scorpion in a side road. He was about 6 inches long and very yellow. He was also slow, perhaps because of the late afternoon cold. We summoned Lauren and she moved him to safer ground. She says that everything we've heard is hype; their sting is about the same as that of a bee and does not kill people. She also said that it is an arachnid, in the same family as lobsters and spiders. Lauren is a school teacher by day.

This was the 2nd one we had seen. The first was on our first day here last year. I noticed a speck of something moving on top of one of our white Rubbermaid tubs. On very close inspection, I saw that it was a newborn scorpion, about the size of a flea with a tail curved upwards. Last summer, I got an email from Nichole and Kyle saying that they were moving out of Tom's house next door, one reason for which was that when she reached into her sewing basket, she got stung by a scorpion. (I failed to mention that to Eileen.) The trailer is tight; not even a flea could find entry as long as the door remains shut and the trailer remains 2 to 3 feet off the ground. (The planned deck will be separated from the trailer by 6 inches.)

Tuesday:

Today it rained. It was a long slow and fairly cold rain, the kind that soaks into the thirsty ground, rather then running off in a torrent down a wash. I stayed in for most of the day, making plans, drinking coffee, and sponging up an inconsistent trickle of water and wringing it into a bucket. It was coming from the edge of the new picture window and collecting on what amounts to the window sill. I could not really tell exactly where it was coming from. It could be from one of the puddles on the tin roof, leaking down inside the wall to the window, or it could be condensation collecting on the cold aluminum window frame which has not yet been caulked and trimmed on the inside. At times, when it is raining, there is a lot of water beaded to the inside of that window and the exposed metal top corners of the trailer. The outside of the window has been thoroughly caulked with silicone and is not the source of the water. Now that the place is reasonably tight, we find that it is a good idea to open a window or two when boiling water, hence loosing much of the heat that we had sought to retain. I thought I had sealed the roof pretty well, but I'll get up there on a dry day, create one puddle at a time, and see what happens.

It was not raining, however, during our obligatory late afternoon walk. This time, we walked downhill to the horse farm and commiserated with the horses which are stabled outdoors in something that is not a stable. It is a large tubular framework of modular stalls with a metal roof over half of each stall. Mo was not quite sure what to make of them. Occasionally he would challenge one with an apprehensive bark, but just got ignored in return. All were curious and watching us as we approached but then went on about their business after figuring us out to be just another set of humans. Two colts were especially friendly though, one of which kept nudging my right pants pocket as though he knew that good things came from right pants pockets. Nobody was about, but I suspect that we were being closely monitored through binoculars inside some window in the area.

I used to ride a lot as a teenager in New Jersey and when visiting relatives in Montana. A good friend of mine, Beaver, ran a stables in NJ, and I used to love taking off on long rides through the hills and fields, just me, the horse and sometimes a dog. While I was away in the Marines, their insurance company put a stop to that when somebody got hurt and saw it as an opportunity to get rich. We visited Beaver a few years ago. He is now retired and content.

My grandparents owned a ranch in Montana, but that burned down long before I was born. You can see links to my relations' ranch sites on my home page, where we used to visit. In fact, my dad did ride rodeo when he was a teen, and a picture of him was captured on a post card. He was ramrod straight way up in the air, but upside down with a bucking horse beneath him. He said it was all show; that the skill was in knowing how to fall. That cowboy later graduated from MIT. The Postcard also ended up in a book about the Big Timber, Montana area by Spike Van Cleve, my father's cousin. His son, Tack, and I occasionally write, but Tack refuses to email so he doesn't hear from me much.

I am also told that my grandmother doubled for some of the actresses of the time, where horse handling was required. I believe Gloria Swanson was one. Apparently she and her horse were forging a raging river in a long white gown in one (silent?) movie. That was actually my grandmother forging the Balboa Canal in Newport Beach during the change of tide. However, she could not handle the horse in that gown, so she had them slice it up to her hips on the side away from the camera.

Wednesday:

Drizzle all day, and cool. This is a good soaking light rain; not the hard driving rain that roars down the washes leaving nothing behind including the occasional camper that can't resist that soft dry clean sand in the wash to pitch their tent. This is the kind of gentle deep penetrating rain that the plants and animals have been waiting for. Already, sprouts are appearing all over the place, and even a few coyotes and jackrabbits have returned. We had also noticed a significant absence of many birds. I believe I am beginning to see and hear more of them now.

We went to the Joshua Tree Saloon tonight so Eileen could get her free tacos and get out of cooking dinner. This was also karaoke night and there were a few really good singers up there tonight (not me). It is strange - they look like common ordinary people when they enter the front door and hang out like any of us, but when you hear and see them sing so well all alone up there on the stage, they suddenly quietly ascend to a higher level of appreciation and respect.

Looked up the MA weather tonight. 16 degrees. Poor suckers.

Thursday:

Overcast and a bit warmer, with the sun breaking through here and there, now and then. Jean Davis told me that on her drive with a friend down the hill to Palm Springs today, it was very foggy. When you think about that, you realize that since we are way up in the sky here, she was driving down through a cloud.

It is interesting to stand here and look up at the overcast. Beyond our brown hills, you can see the black mountain range with its peaks hidden in the cloud layer, and you see that cloud layer flowing across those peaks from south to north. You observe that the humid air mass is hitting the other side of the range, flowing up and over the peaks and shooting across to disappear in the opposite direction, not really having time to drop down into our valley. Of course, we have our own air mass acting as a shield to fend off the one traveling above it. All this makes for a very fascinating show, if you have the patience and the time.

I finished off Jean's Chinaberry pruning today and collected my $20.

 

Fri 2/14/2003 3:41 AM: Good to hear you're gainfully employed! Sounds like the trailer is really coming along. It's been an especially cold winter here, the winter coats keep coming out. Next Saturday (22nd) we will be on a Caribbean cruise to Jamaica and Grand Cayman. Owners of a local restaurant here went on one in January and reported that even the Caribbean was cold. Ginny & Rick

 

Fri 2/14/2003 5:11 AM: Hi Van and Eileen, Glad you made the trip OK. Yes, it has been really cold here, it was 11 degrees this morning. Thank goodness for our new wood stove. We still have about 6 inches of snow on the ground.

 

Those big tan-colored scorpions don't have quite the high voltage that the nasty little brown ones do, Richie got bitten by one of the big ones in Costa Rica (I squished the beast and showed it to the people who owned the place where we were staying, and they said that those were about like a bee sting, but watch out! for the little ones). In Belize, if we looked at the cabin walls at night with a flashlight, you could see the scorpions all over the place! Also if you have a source of UV light, the things fluoresce. The people we stay with in Belize had a night vision scope, and that's really fun. We could see the various felines who hang around Paul's garbage pits and the outhouses at night. Its astounding how many critters and creatures are out there in the quiet night, and we are unaware of most of them. The cabins are way up on stilts, thank goodness! I won't get into the spider situation,,,,,,,, till later,,, Janie and Richie

 

Fri 2/14/2003 1:37 PM: Hello Eileen & Van, I just love hearing about your Joshua Tree adventures. Your walks sound wonderful (Van, they really are so good for you>>>LOL). You are right, it has been really cold here. Many mornings in the single digits and in Chatham we have 16 inches of snow with no melting at all! It is really pretty and we have enjoyed having a good old fashioned winter....no, I am not joking! Marcia

 

Sat 2/15/2003 8:45 AM: Glad you're going after those people because you're absolutely right. Stick to your guns. A lot of companies win just because people give up. They count on that. Sounds good. Enjoy those walks. They're good for you. Hannah

 

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