If it ain't one thing... it's another!!

Well, many of you may have seen the picture of the crawler pulling the skid steer down the road. That was just the crowning item in a day FULL of unanticipated happenings.

It all started with the white stuff. Because we got quite a bit of snow on Thursday & Friday, we were pretty well snowed in. Kim (the boss) had left Thursday a.m., to head to town & got out ok in the pickup, but by Thursday afternoon when I went to get mail, it was a different story. I told Jeff that I had made it- barely - with the Suburban which goes REALLY well in the snow (as long as it's in 4WD). So, when Kim called that eve, Jeff passed that on & also told him how hard it had been blowing. ("Blowing so hard it blew my headlights right into the ditch" as my grandpa would say!!) so we were certain it would be bad down at the mailbox where you turn onto our road from the highway. But, because Kim had gotten out ok on Thurs, he figgered it would be ok Fri afternoon. Well, about 12:30 on Friday, we got a call from Kelly (Kim's wife) - they couldn't get in and Kim was stuck. So, Jeff headed down with the tractor & pulled them both through the monster drifts. Then, as Kelly went to pass him in her car, she got stuck AGAIN. So, he pulled her out again & they finally both made it up to the ranch. Jeff came back with the tractor & he & Kim planned to plow on Sat a.m.

Saturday a.m., (after ANOTHER night of snow & blow), Jeff heads out in the crawler down to the mailboxes & Kim followed in the skid steer (ss) with the snow blower on it. They figured that by tag-teaming it, they'd go a lot faster. BUT.. the SS is WAY slower than the crawler & when I went to pick them up to bring them back for lunch, Kim had just gotten down there (it's 5 miles to the highway). So, I brought them to the ranch for lunch. Jeff said that he'd not gotten as much done as he wanted either because FOUR trucks w/ snowmobiles had tried to come through and he'd had to stop & pull each one out of the drift (Snow-mobilers just aren't all there sometimes! Kinda like the hunters we get up here) One guy had gotten stuck, Jeff had pulled him out & then the guy asked if he could just leave his truck parked right there in the middle of the road. Um... NO! How am I going to plow with you in the way? So, just before lunch, he'd plowed the road closed so they couldn't even TRY to get in until he got it cleared.

After lunch we head back. I dropped Kim off at his little SS & he headed back through our little gorge to clear some more, & then took Jeff on down to the crawler Rode it w/ him out to get mail & then jumped in the Sub & headed back to the ranch. But, when I went to pass Kim in the ss (in EXACTLY the same spot Kelly had tried to pass Jeff), I got REALLY stuck. We looked all over the ss & sub for a tow strap, chain, anything - NOTHING (not that the ss could have pulled me out anyway). So, there I sat in the Sub waiting on Kim to get to Jeff so he could come pull me out w/ the crawler. SS goes about 2.5 miles/hr, Crawler does about 8mph. So, the mile to Jeff & then him to come back took almost an hour. In the meantime, I have to explain to every snowmobile rider that comes by why I'm sitting reading catalogs in my stuck Sub. BUT.. at least they stopped & checked on me!!

Jeff gets there w/ crawler & HE doesn't have anything to tow either!! So, he had to plow a furrow in front of me & then push w/ the crawler from behind & finally I'm FREE. I got back to the ranch at 3:30, & head to leave to go pick them BACK up at 4pm. So, off I go... BUT... did I think to put a tow strap in yet... OF COURSE NOT!!! I get to where Kim is & guess who's off the road & almost tipped over into the creek w/ the ss!! He's ok, but I have no tow rope to help. SOOO... continue down to Jeff to tell him to come up w/ the crawler, go back & pickup Kim, come to ranch, get tow rope, go back to where the ss is, just as Jeff gets there. We pull it out & all head back to the ranch (SLOWLY... remember, ss = 2.5/mph) in a convoy. Jeff is a ways behind us as he wants to knock off the highest snowbank on the north side of the road. We get about 2 miles toward home & Kim stops in the ss in the middle of the road. I'm waiting behind him, waiting, waiting, reading catalog... I can see him messing around in there, but no idea why. I figure he'll get out if there's a problem, right? Jeff shows up in the meantime & I say... there must be a problem, we've been here awhile. So, Jeff goes up & talks to Kim. Apparently, the ss had just died as he was going down the road. And, because the bucket/blower was up, he couldn't open the door to get out & I wasn't noticing that he was trying to signal me!! And, since it was totally dead electrically, they couldn't lower the bucket at all. So, after Jeff determined it wasn't going to start back up anytime soon, we try to take door off - no luck. (I asked Kim if he wanted me to get him a beer since it looked like he'd be there all night. He said "NO! I've been thinking about what I'm going to do to go to the bathroom as it is!!). Kim pulled the seal on the back window (like the emergency tab SAYS to do) and it STILL won't pop out. So, Jeff & I get tools & take the bolts out of the piece that holds the back window so that Kim can finally escape.

No luck getting it going, but we can't get the Sub by it either, so they finally hook onto it with the tow chain that we now have, & pull it off the road.

OMG.. what a DAY. Kim was NOT a happy camper. But, the road DID get plowed & it's "mostly" passable now. But, I think Jeff will be on his own in the future when it comes to snow removal!!

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

Ok so here I am with my not-so-regular dose of "Did you know" news. First though: My favorite sign of the month, seen on an Arizona road sign: "Dangerous But Passable"... hmmm...

Thanks to High Country News for that sign, and also for the following tidbits, which I've excerpted unashamedly:

Do you or someone you know live on or near what used to be an orchard? Did you know that the soil in those areas can contain extremely high amounts of hazardous chemicals? Growing veggies, playing / digging in the dirt, or dust stirred up by the wind, can expose you. And, of even more concern, expose unborn fetuses or your children to extreme levels of DDT (and it's breakdown products, DDE & DDD), Arsenic, Lead, & Chlordane. Testing is expensive, but if it's a concern, there are methods to reduce risk - let me know if you want those. The article noted that several states suggest testing by developers, but none REQUIRE it. And so, because it's expensive AND they might actually find something, few do it. It is of course, more complicated than what I've written here, but that's the bottom line.

Also... in a note related to one of my earlier blogs re: our destructive dependence on oil, did you know that we have pretty much exhausted supplies of "light oil" which required roughly 4.5 barrels of water to produce 1 barrel of oil. Now, we have to mine "heavy oil" which was shunned in the early years of oil production. It is "heavy" due to geology (shallow deposits and tectonic movement" and biochemistry (petroleum-consuming bacteria have made the oil the consistency of molasses). It now requires nearly 8 barrels of water per barrel of oil. And that contaminated water, "produced water" has to be disposed of in some fashion (and it is FULL of chemicals such arsenic and nitrates, chloride & boron, and can also have detectable radiation). A small percentage of that water is recycled by the oil companies, but the majority is either a) pumped into evap pits (often unlined) or b) pumped into underground disposal wells (which can have unknown access to underground aquifers & water tables.) In CA, the oil companies have to BUY their water, supposedly encouraging recycling. However, due to the cost of recycling, it is cheaper to just buy everything they need. And, yes, there is some government oversight of the disposal, but the income from oil is so great, that they are often overlooked. In Kern County, CA, in 2008, oil companies pumped 425 million barrels of produced water into underground wells & discarded 200 million barrels into surface evaporation ponds. And, considering the long-running drought in CA, why are we continuing to ignore the fact that oil companies divert & use as much as eighty-five percent of the water in various water districts?

Here's my bottom line question: Isn't it time we a)seriously re-think our dependence on oil; b)at a minimum enforce current regulations and perhaps even beef them up; and c)consider our water a REQUIRED item for our life & protect it accordingly???