Ranch Journal ~ May 30, 2018

I thought for sure that these young deer? elk? would hop the fence

to eat the yucca blossoms in my front yard. 

Smooch barked and scared them off before they had a chance.

Meanwhile, at her foster home, Alex can only dream of the adventures in store for her.

 A delivery date has been set, and assuming the weather and my road cooperate,

she will arrive at the ranch on Wednesday, June 13.

The official countdown begins.

 

Ranch Journal ~ February 19, 2018

I've started painting the guest room. 

There's no turning back now.  

Smooch thinks I've lost my mind, and she's probably right.

I'm painting the trim first. Google insisted that I had to sand off the existing varnish 

so that the primer and paint will adhere correctly, but it also said 

I could use this liquid sander deglosser to do the work for me. 

The guy in the paint department at Home Depot seconded Google's opinion,

so I went for it.

The primer went on smoothly and stuck. So far, so good.

I'm trying hard to do this right and without mishaps, but in the end,

I am, and probably always will be, a terrible and very cranky painter.

I'm not painting the closet doors or the entry door, for now anway.

If my bent-over body recovers, I'll apply "Palais White" paint over the primer today.

I've yet to decide what color to paint the walls, but I have decided that 

this will be the ONLY room in the house with painted trim.

It's simply too damned much work. I'm counting on all of you 

to remember this declaration if you ever see me considering otherwise.

Ranch Journal ~ February 8, 2018

Waking up without a plan for the day is dangerous for me.

I'm liable to do something rash.

Like move the coffee pot.

I decided it would look better and occupy otherwise wasted space

over there in the corner. Then because the coffee pot moved, the coffee mugs

and the sugar bowl and the coffee filters would have to make the trip as well,

and there went the entire day, heretofore known as the great kitchen purge of 2018.

 For me, the hardest part of any reorganization is deciding what to keep, what to donate

and what to toss. I cannot remember the last time I made a martini. It could have been 1992.

(The glass isn't frosted...that's dust.)

But I cannot bring myself to get rid of my set of martini glasses. 

One never knows when one will crave olives.

I took a more brutal approach in the spice cabinet and finally let go of a few items

long past their expiration date. This container of parsley flakes proved to be the oldest.

Would you care to guess how old and win a prize? Let's have a contest.

Guess the expiration date printed on the top of the parsley flakes and put the mm/dd/yyyy

in the comments. Whomever comes closest will win some goodies for their kitchen.

Be sure to include your name with your guess if you post anonymously.

(The prize is not a box of expired spices. I've been crocheting and that's all I'm saying.)

I'll close the comments Friday evening at 7 p.m. mountain time

and announce the winner on Saturday.

I'll swear I stared at this scene for an hour, paralyzed by the indecision of where to put things.

I finally gave up and just started with the coffee. As long as it ended up next to the coffee pot,

I would be happy.

I also wanted to find a new home for the pots and pans because 

I hate crawling into this stupidly deep and awkward cabinet to find them.

 When the day was done, all was right with the coffee and 

I can spin the pots and pans on the twirly thing to find the right one.

Give me about six months and I might open the right cabinet on the first try.

p.s. They make shelf liners for refrigerators. Who knew?

p.p.s. The novelty of being retired is bound to wear off eventually.

Ranch Journal ~ January 31, 2018

I checked off an item that has been on my to-do list for 12 years. 

No, it was not "do laundry." It was "install a clothesline."

Why it took so long, I have no idea. 

When I think about all the electricity I've wasted...let's just not go there.

Ranch Journal ~ January 24, 2018

I woke up with one goal for the day: purge the refrigerator of items past their prime, then clean it.

But first I had to drink coffee and read the news, and there among the awfulness was an article called "10 things in your home you never clean – but should" and down the rabbithole I went.

I didn't even make it through thing 1 (ceiling fans) when I saw a link for a book called "Get Your House Clean Now: The Home Cleaning Method Anyone Can Master" and veered off into an adjacent rabbithole. Surely the book would tell me the correct way to clean my refrigerator, so I bought the downloadable edition.

I'd barely started on the kitchen chapter when a freelance job came in, which saved me from having to do anything resembling cleaning for the next few hours.

By mid-afternoon, I'd run out of excuses and finally opened the freezer door to start the purge.

How does this even happen? I always intend to give the leftovers to the chickens, but nine bags of stale bread, dating back to January 2017, managed to hide from me. So I stopped to look up recipes for making croutons, and by then it was almost time to feed the boys their dinner, so there was no point in continuing to clean the refrigerator now. Tomorrow's another day.

I expect this pattern of 'going with the flow' is the new normal. I'm liking it, and so are the animals.

Ranch Journal ~ January 8, 2018

Cleaning tack has been on my to-do list since forever.

What a luxury it is to have the time to do the job right...

...where "right" means: 

clearing a comfortable spot to do a project which might take longer than a day,

tying up the light fixture so I wouldn't give myself a concussion,

and fixing the wobbly saddle stand first in order to have a sturdy place to scrub saddles.

The sunroom proved to be a good workshop for the time being – 

I could watch the boys and the birds, and Smooch could hang out on the daybed and watch me.

But then my thoughts wandered to a more permanent solution for a workshop/studio space,

and it's a wonder anything got done while I imagined enclosing the back porch

or building an addition.

I've yet to allow my thoughts to wander down the path of "will I get another equine to ride?"

It's been almost four months, but you'd never know it by the amount of tears shed 

cleaning Lucy's bridle. Lord help me when I get to her saddle.

Ranch Journal ~ January 3, 2018

Three posts in three days...it's a fluke. 

Please don't get used to this level of regularity. 

I suppose I need to prove to myself that I'm not frittering away 

my newfound time. This shall pass.

I spent my first day of retirement washing windows 

and loving every minute of it. Seriously, one of my 

retirement resolutions is to keep my windows clean. 

It was a bit cold to do the outsides, but all the insides are done. 

I feel so much better. Except they still look dirty and I won't know 

how awful a job I've done until I get to the outsides. 

See? I've bored you already. Continue at your own peril.

I've been sitting on the above lamb pelt since I purchased it in 2009,
at the farmer's market in Santa Fe. That would mean it hasn't been washed in...
I'm still counting...almost nine years.

The only time it looked this fluffy and white was the day I brought it home,
when Smooch was just 3 years old.

Smooch has aged better than the pelt.
This picture does not do justice to its filthy, matted condition.

Amazingly, I still had – and found! – the laundering instructions given to me at the market.
Since it would require several washer cycles and significant shepharding,
I thought that washing the pelt would be a good thing to do whilst inside washing windows.
I suppose one might draw a corollary between retirement and this cleaning frenzy,
some deep metaphorical cleansing of workplace memories to make room for new ones.
But it's more like I could barely see out the windows,
and the dirty lamb pelt was an affront to the décor.

Besides, it didn't end well.
The darned thing spun itself in half during the rinse cycle.
Oh, well. It won't go to waste.

The feral beast is back there eyeing it for his room.

Ranch Journal ~ January 2, 2018

We're now at 88 consecutive days without measurable precipitation.

It has to rain eventually, right? Until it does, we'll just have to deal with

the never-ending swarm of birds flying in for a drink of water.

They're leaving behind an epic amount of bird poop

in and around all the tubs, which means more work for me.

I'm ok with that.
"I've got time to deal with it," she said, ever so smugly.