Sunday: Rabbits, Orange Paint, and a Meditative Spot with a Mule
What a week it has been.
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It’s cold out there.
Well, chilly if you are from anywhere else, but us desert folks get chilly when the temps slink down below the forties.
I am going to sit on the porch with my cup of decaf. Why are there no choices in decaf coffee? Every brand has a dozen or more varieties; Blueberry Blush, Kona Cocoa, Super Rich, with just a hint of Left Over Pizza. Dozens of flavors.
And then down on the floor, near where the guy who did the last aisle cleanup missed a chunk, sits the lonely bag with an ugly green stripe; DeCaf.
And so I have to add my own flavoring to it.
The reason I drink Decaf, you ask?
I don’t like hospitals, and I hate taking meds. I will have this blood pressure bastard bend to my will, and I will do it naturally. And if that means decaf, so be it.
Every time I move to take a sip, the Ring bells go off, and I am alerted that there is some dude sitting on the porch drinking decaf. Annoying.
In the wash that runs north of my property, there is a group of rabbits devouring some leftover veggies from yesterday.
I cannot negotiate with them not to eat the plants on the porch, but if I give them an alternative snack, maybe that will be more worth it than munching every living thing I water according to schedule.
I glance to the right to see the delicate cactus on the pedestal with the chairs wrapped around it and consider the option.
Some of these flora and cacti have been with me for decades, and I am not ready to surrender them to long-eared rodents of questionable integrity.
To my left, there is a large pad of dirt. Hard-packed and a good 18” above the porch I am sitting on.
This will be my home, someday.
Currently, it is 6 months behind schedule because the veritable army of permitters cannot agree on whether there is or is not a wash running through that part of the land.
I can assure you there is not.
The state says there is no wash.
The city says there is no wash.
The inspector from the EPA says there is no wash.
The county says there is a wash.
You know, the invisible washes that only show up when you turn around three times and speak the secret words into a mirror, bringing a watery cataclysm of destruction down on my Santa Fe Casita.
They say it comes from the west.
To the west is a home with a corral. They have no wash running through their ranch-style abode.
The open land on both sides does have washes, but they both run far away from my little pad of very expensive dirt piled perfectly with a flat top on it.
Hell, we already have the red spraypaint and the little spikes with string on them to prove there will be, someday, a home there.
But for now, we battle with faceless, nameless cubicle inhabitants who can delay my home seemingly indefinitely because… well, because they can.
By the time we start building that little saguaro could be ten feet tall - and they only grow a half inch a year.
We are guests of my daughter whose land butts up against ours, and thank god for that. We were supposed to be moved in by now, and nary a single brick or board has been carefully laid in place by the jovial crew.
All of our stuff, the stuff we apparently do not need to live a good life, is stuffed into a container in the back. Dust storms have filled them with silty, drifty dirt, and I am hoping my collection of vinyl records made it through a scorching summer.
Yeah, we set records that could have fried my records.
I’ll know for sure someday when we unpack them.
Everything has suffered.
My business.
My photography.
My plans for 2024, now shifted to Q2 of 2025.
The sun just came over the top of the little hill to the east and lit up the spikes on the pile of dirt, the ones with the little red strings and orange-sprayed dirt. They are gleaming in anticipation of something being done.
As am I.
I head back to the stalls where my buddy, Gimli, is waiting for his breakfast.
We have morning chats, he and I.
Gimli is a good listener.
A former pack mule for a company in the PNW, he is now living out his retirement on the homestead here. We don’t make him carry stuff, and nobody is here to whip his ass, so he is settling into being a very large, very pampered pet.
My daughter rescues Gimlis, and we make sure they have the best life possible.
Someday - after I get a, you know, place to fucking live, I am planning on getting a horse to ride around the area.
I’ll call him Trigger and get some sparkling boots with matching jackets so that when the sun comes up, we will blind all the drivers along the little dirt road leading out of here to civilization.
It’ll be glorious.
But for now, Gimili and I meditate a bit each morning, looking for answers that cannot come, finding clarity that was already there, and just welcoming the day with positive thoughts.
My thoughts run toward getting some stuff done, making art, and trying to understand the reasons we do so.
His thoughts mainly feature carrots.
Which I have right here in my pocket—and he knows it. He keeps nibbling at my shoulder, so I will take a moment to give him his treat.
The other horses always look disappointed at first, but they know I have a carrot, apple, or slice of melon for them as well.
It is getting warmer in the sun, and I think I am going to saddle up my other horse, the big V-Twin beast, and take a ride down to Oracle to see some art I read about. A sculpture garden should make my day.
Maybe I’ll get a taco in Florence.
Or Oracle.
Tacos are easily sourced in this part of the desert.
One of the perks of living here is that there are amazing tacos nearly everywhere.
I want to take a moment and tell you all how much you mean to me. I write stuff and share it, and I love to hear back from you. But, I also appreciate those of you who take a moment and read what I write.
Or look at a photo I made.
The new studio will be comfortable, and I am planning on having a tiny gallery to show the work off to folks who may want to see it.
Of course they would have to be committed to get all the way out here (although, there is indeed a super Walmart only 4.5 miles away). As the crow, you know…
Later today: gotta fix the printer. The new Adobe Update and iOS updates have wiped all my color printing settings away, and it has been a few years since I tweaked them, so it will be an adventure.
Maybe I will bring a few tacos home to keep me company as I burh through a stack of paper and a lot of ink.
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What an expressive face Gimli has!