News From Ron and Kathy Bird__
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Expert German-English translation available; business and finance our specialty.
Sachverständige Deutsch-Englische Ãbersetzung; Geschäft und Finanz unser Spezialgebiet.
Thursday, September 08, 2005
Later on Sunday, 04 September 05
It is a quiet Sunday on “the ranch”. After drinking coffee around 0700 Kathleen washes up the dirty dishes from the last two days. Cindy cooked pinto beans in a huge pressure cooker before she left. These are to be used as the basis for soups or stews or refried beans, I guess. I make a bean soup by adding onions and garlic and carrots and seasonings; even Simon, who drifts in to eat what’s available or make his own meal, says it’s good. There is some washing up from this as well.
In the meantime, I busy myself with the chores: letting the chickens out; bringing the scraps to the pigs; pegging the goat where it can eat the flowering thistle but not the tomato-plant leaves (deadly nightshade family). Later I also spend more time tidying up in the ranch house and sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. The heavy and prolonged rain of yesterday has left a lot of puddles and dampness around outside. Today began mild but slightly overcast. As the morning progressed the sun came out brightly and the river level, swollen after each rain, has fallen again. Simon goes off on horseback after breakfast to round up some horses and cattle somewhere on the ranch. I see him fording the river in the distance and, around five, returning with the animals. The river levels have indeed fallen, but at the ford a couple of cattle miss their footing where it is deeper near a big boulder and I watch as they are swept downstream some one hundred metres or so before they can scramble back out and get ashore on the other side. The calf leaps and springs through
The soil dries up very quickly here leading me to believe that it is very porous. It’s basically washed-down lava and fine gravel from the rocky mountains that ring our green valley. In the warm sunshine I leave Kathleen surfing the net and strike out back along the road we arrived by. I am accompanied by three of the dogs: Greta, a largish Springer-spaniel type and a good watchdog; Cody, a medium-sized short-haired brown-black-white dog with a docked tail who is also a herd dog; and small, black-brown-patched Phil, a recent arrival on the ranch. Cindy, the ranch-owner who named Phil when he showed up here as a stray, has not been impressed by Phil. “He doesn’t contribute anything to a ranch.” And, it’s true; this smallish dog looks like he ought to have some border collie or something similar in him. He’s very quiet, makes no effort to help in any way and is totally non-plussed by the horses and cattle. Phil drew an attack from Cody yesterday who gave Phil a real bite. He was obviously hurt. He didn’t reply to the attack, however. I think Cody is savaging Phil every once in a while to let him know who’s the boss. Only Tank, the ancient mastiff, stays back at the ranch house. He can hardly see or walk and sleeps most of the time.
But I get a surprise on my walk. Out about half a mile from the house the road curves along the river bluff before it descends. I am standing overlooking the river and back at the house when Phil lets out a sharp bark and takes off back the way we came and out across the distant broad meadow. The other two dogs leap up and follow him, all at high speed, everyone barking to beat the band. I get a glimpse of some mid-sized tawny animal with a longish neck. A deer, an antelope, a big dog? Not, I think a coyote, as it was too big. I saw two such animals across the river yesterday when I just happened to have the binoculars in my hands. But even then I got only a fleeting look at them and could not identify them. I never get another look today either because the live-oak trees block my view. When I get to where I can view across the open plain, I see only the three dogs, running at high speed into the distance until they disappear into the woods nearly a mile away. Ten minutes later Cody returns first, limping slightly; I think he suffers a bit from arthritis. After a while the other two come prancing back as well, totally winded and sopping in sweat. I have never seen Phil move faster than a slow walk and am absolutely astonished at the speed that he was able to muster up and sustain. I am so proud of Phil who has shown at least one outstanding capability. I try to explain the animal I glimpsed to Simon later but my Spanish is too limited and I only get blank looks.
The warm afternoon is spent writing and reading, sometimes indoors and sometimes outdoors. At one point Kathleen walks with me and the dogs to the same spot and we gather meadow flowers and put them in a Mason jar back at the ranch house.
At one point during the warm afternoon, I find a way to take my first bath. There is no bathroom and no shower stall here. Nothing at all. Cindy had said before we came that there is a solar shower and both Kathleen and I envisaged solar-heated hot-water showers like we encountered at the National Park on the Queen Charlotte Islands. These were of log construction and really super. But the solar shower here is exactly like the solar bag we lay out on deck aboard Vilisar and then hang up for a shower on the foredeck or in the cockpit. It works but it is really primitive. After we got here Cindy said she usually just goes down to the river and bathes or takes a 25-minute walk to the warm (not hot) spring that comes out of the side of the cliff.
I am not yet ready to sweat it down to the river and back up on a hot day. So I cast around for another, closer solution. There is a big tin washtub standing near the house for use with the outdoor washing machine. It has partially filled with rainwater over the past few days and is delightfully warm from the sunshine. I strip off, stand on the grass next to the tub and pour the water over me several times and dry off in the sunshine. I feel like a new man. Standing naked in the wilderness while the wind dries me off is, as William after his first skinny dip, very “liberating”. And no bathroom to clean up! No towels hang out to dry! Me, the noble savage. Rousseau would approve. Perhaps I shall add this to my list of honorifics: Ronnie Bird: Boy Spot-Welding King of the World; Captain Epoxy; Nobel Savage.
Late in the afternoon it clouds up and rains hard for an hour. The roof begins to leak even more than yesterday. I want to start dinner but the propane picks this moment to run out. I guess it will be a cold meal tonight. That’s all right; we have plenty of tomatoes for a salad. As I am pondering the situation, the sun comes out again, providing Kathleen and me with a giant, coast-to-coast, double rainbow. At one end it arches right down into the river. Kathleen is in the guest house reading when I first see it; I run calling to her to come quickly to see the nature show. Really incredibly splendiferous! It even beats the one we saw one late winter’s afternoon in Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands.
We decide to do the chores together and walk around in the wet grass and mud to collect up the chickens (we got them all but the guinea hen tonight), feed the pigs (both in their pen tonight), put out feed for the dogs, and bring the nanny-goat back under the eaves of the barn. The dogs follow us around. We stop regularly to gape at the rainbow that last for half an hour at least. Small subsidiary rainbows appear from the river bottom.
Simon spends all day in the saddle rounding up cattle and driving them back across the river. When he brings them up the steep slope his mule looks is working hard, like a bird dog back and forth. He also brings up two other mules and a larger horse. He turns the mule he has been riding out into the pasture. After a quick bite to eat in the kitchen, he saddles the white mule, swings aboard and is gone again. Later I see him way down in the river meadow rounding up cattle again. If he has to change horses, he too must be really tired. I watch him come up again with the cows; the white mule has to dart back and forth and up and down the steep rocky hill to keep the cows moving in the right direction. He has taken Cody with him and the dog is nipping at the cows’ heels. Nevertheless it is Simon and his mule that have been doing the real work. Those working animals must be very, very tough indeed to be able to do what they do all day.
Simon seems a little overwhelmed by the amount of work to be done. But he worked today so I assume he is working seven days a week. He rather implied to Kathleen that he felt he had far too much to do. He did not seem to know how long Cindy and Bob would be away or just what our role here was to be. I guess the best thing for us to do is to keep the house clean, get some meals on the table, look after the barnyard animals and help Simon whenever we can. He was implying yesterday that he could use some help with the round up. I am glad to get involved provided the horse is quiet; it has been quite a while since I have ridden. But, years ago, I was once involved with a week-long horse roundup in Manitoba; I am not sure that I am up to the pure physical exertion of days and days in the saddle at my age. But it would be fun to try it.
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