Bigger problems…

I don’t even know what happened when this week, but it wasn’t any better than the last week.  I ran out of water again, and after fighting with the pump trying to coax it to give me the water that I needed I gave up, and called the well people again. My biggest fear is that the well is going dry, and sure enough they confirmed that that is exactly what is going on. They were able to drop the pump another ten feet, but I know that’s not going to be enough. So much for a 750’ well, try 400’. There isn’t even enough to sustain a 3,000 gallon water tank so that idea’s out. I simply can’t afford a new well. I did run into my neighbor, and she has a 300+ gallon water tank I can borrow, and plenty of water. They are strictly on solar so they have a tank system, and turn the pump on only when needed. We cart the water up her hill (good thing we have 4-wheel drive), and fill the tanks for everyone. I move the three mares in the arena pasture to the big pasture, and so far the water is holding. I have the main water line to the barn on again, and it seems to be able to support the automatic wateriers. If I only have to fill the pasture tank, that will make life a lot easier. When Rudy comes home he can rebuild the faucet in the pasture (it leaks naturally), and I can put a float on that tank as well. I think (I hope), the well will support the tanks if they all have floats, and I am very conservative with my water usage. The weather has cooled, and that has helped as well. The horses aren’t drinking near as much as they were.

We did get one gully washer, finally. It’s nearly the end of the rainy season, and at long last we got some real rain. Albuquerque normally has about 7” of rain by now, and they don’t even have 2”. The entire state is suffering, some areas more than others. La Nina is not a very nice little girl.  I like her brother (El Nino) a lot better. It is also driving hay prices up. My friend is having a hard time finding hay to sell at a reasonable price. They are a small supplier, and struggling. They did turn someone on to us who wants a place in Capitan for her two horses. She’s five years older than I am, and makes me feel like the old lady. I’m going to rent her the arena pasture for her horses. She’s quite the character, and will be good for me. She said she’d bring her horses over in two weeks. What the hey it’s company for me, a horsey girlfriend for her, someone to trail ride with, and a little money I can most certainly use. Add to that that she can train in both English, and Western, and she may be able to give me some tips with working with the youngsters.

April (my neighbor) is also going to be coming over to help with the horses, and the ranch. She is another of my offbeat friends. Why surround yourself with normal sane people? Life is much more interesting when you are surrounded by characters out of a novel. April is shall we say a bit rough around the edges. She has had a very difficult life, and can put people off, but she has a heart of gold. I hadn’t heard from her for a long time, but I knew when she was ready she would come around again. She did, and just in the nick of time. She’s the one providing me with water, and the big tank. She plans on coming over about three times a week working with the horses, and helping around the ranch. I may be poor, but I am rich with friends. If we survive this recession, it will be because of people like April, and Katie (boarder), and Mark, and Penny who have helped us along the way. I may also have found a home for Lizzie, and Jeri with April. She doesn’t know about Jeri yet, but I know it would mean the world to her if I gave him to her. Her mother now has a boyfriend who doesn’t really know about horses, but wants to learn. They have a TB, and Lizzie might be a good horse for George (two George’s right next to each other is a bit much, don’t you think?). Lizzie is older but still has some spunk. She will be good for Shudabee, as they are about the same age. I have no idea how she is under saddle, but we’ll find out. If she’s calm enough for a beginner then it might be a good fit for George. April’s mother promised to get April a horse as well only she wants something with a little more spunk. I need to find a home for Jeri, and he’s the right size for April, a sweet boy, and definitely still has spunk. He’s sterile so he can safely be pastured with the two girls. Besides he won’t be able to reach either one of them. He’s barely 14.3 if that, Shoudabee is 16+ hands, and Lizzie is at least 15.2. Even on his tippy toes, I can’t see him getting it in there no matter how hard he tries. He’s used to being pastured with girls, and Lizzie is used to being pastured with a stallion so there’s no problem there. If he does manage to conceive I’ll take the baby as payment for the two horses. The only problem might be Shoudabee. I don’t know how she will take being pastured with a stallion. It’s just a thought right now but it could turn out to be a good thing. We’ll work on that.

Last but not least is my ongoing saga with the automatic wateriers. I decide that I may as well fix the other waterier as it leaks sometimes too. I take it all apart, and come up with the idea of converting them to the same float that I put on the arena water tank. I talk to the guy at the Mercantile, and he said it would work. I get all the fixtures, and put it to the side. What with having to haul water, our one (and only) rainy day, and going to Roswell to visit my mother, I didn’t get to it until today. It’s been an up, and down week, but if I can finish this one task at the very least it will improve my mood considerably. I feed everyone, and talk to Rudy then I set about gathering all my supplies to finally put this project to an end. I start putting the floats together, and discover that there really isn’t enough height to put the float where I want it, but that’s ok. It will be high enough to keep the water level where the horses can reach the water with their noses. Having learned from past experience, I start to connect everything before I actually start to glue the pieces together. Simple enough, only the one connector doesn’t fit. It states that it is a 1” to a ¾” fitting only the ¾” pipe doesn’t fit inside the fitting. Don’t ask me the real names for these things, because I don’t know. Everything else fits except for this one piece. This is two weeks now (or has it been longer) that I have been trying to fix this one simple little float. I could just scream. This is the last straw, and I wallow in despair all day. April doesn’t come over so I can’t even get a video of Storm, and Star, which I also wanted to get done this past week, and didn’t. Can you get do overs on an entire week? Despondent I waste the entire day watching old movies instead of cleaning stalls, which would have at least got out some of my frustrations. I will go to the Mercantile tomorrow, go to town (Ruidoso), and hopefully put this project to rest. Enough is enough, and I have had enough of trying to fix this stupid waterier. If I can’t get this fixed tomorrow, I’ll just leave the faucets on. There won’t be anything automatic about it, but it will work. I hate cowboy repairs. It just looks tacky!

Another wonderful week…

I don’t even remember what Sunday was like it must have been uneventful. That’s right I went to Roswell. I wish the rest of the week followed suit, but oh well here’s how it all played out.

Monday (I think) I had water issues again, only this time I couldn’t even get the water to turn on. I played with the power box, and finally pulled out the fuses I insisted were fine (Rudy thought otherwise), and replaced them. That didn’t work so I looked at the points, and sure enough one wasn’t firing even with the new fuse. Back up to the house because of course I didn’t have any sandpaper in the gator. I’m getting too much like Rudy. I go to clean the point, and it falls out in my hand. Yes they were dirty, but falling out was a bit much. There is a little tiny pin that holds the points in, and it was gone. So was another part, which is why I couldn’t get the silly thing to fire.

Rudy calls a neighbor while I try to get our 65-gallon tank in the truck. I search around for some tie downs, and find one in the box Rudy said they would be in, and another under the seat of the truck. Down the hill I go. Well George’s water is even worse than ours, and he can only give me the one tank full. I am grateful for anything I can get. While we are waiting for the tank to fill, we sit and talk a bit about this, and that. Mostly we talk about water, we are in a drought after all. I started the conversation about our new neighbor. He is fencing his property, sad but predictable. Our property is fenced because of the livestock, but a lot of our neighbors have done the same. It’s the ATV’ers that cause people to fence their land in, and I understand them wanting to keep unwanted guests out. Rick (the neighbor) also said he wanted to get some animals, namely donkeys so that’s ok too. What I didn’t like was all the cut trees, and limbs he left along the roadside. He told me it was to keep the water erosion down, but if I wanted them cleared just because I thought it was a fire hazard fine. He was quite perturbed at me (I’m being nice). George asked me if I knew he (the neighbor) was putting in a pond, and I said yes. Then he tells me how big it is, and I just about pop a gasket. It’s at least as big as his parking lot (George has a studio), and he’s putting it in because he likes to watch the deer drink at the pond, and then he’s going to put in some goldfish I guess, which will freeze come winter. We are in a drought, people are having to drill their wells deeper, and his comment to George when he asked him about the well going dry was, well I’ll just drill another one, or as many as it takes to keep the pond filled. I couldn’t believe my ears, then I got angry. George’s comment was he’s from the city, and he doesn’t understand. He has money so he doesn’t care how many wells he has to drill. I said, what about the people below him that will have their wells go dry? George told me he was already expecting to have his go dry. I was livid.

Ok that was Monday. I should have known that I would not like the rest of the week either. Tuesday I was off to Roswell to pick up my parents. They were having a mattress delivered between 1:00 and 2:00 in the afternoon, which was fine since I had to do what I could to get things squared around at the ranch. I had tried calling the well guy the night before, but no luck. I called him, and he was booked solid until next week. I tried the other well guy, and he never answered. I called the last well guy, and left a message while on my way to Roswell. He called me back, I told him what the problem was, and he said that he would go by, and fix the box. At least he knew what I was talking about. No one else understands my layman’s terminology. Hey I’m an accountant, what do you want. I only became a full time rancher a year, and a half ago. I was on the way back to Capitan when he calls me, and tells me it wasn’t just the box. I need a new pressure tank too. Moan, and groan, that’s a cool $1,000 just for the tank. Like I told him what can I do, I have to have water. I don’t know where God thinks I’m going to get the money to pay for all this, but He’s in charge so I’ll let him worry about that.

By the time I get back to Capitan the guys were at the pump house putting in the new pressure tank. Then things got dicey. At first they thought there was a leak so we looked everywhere. The kid even went under the house to see if he could find a leak there, but there were no leaks. Then Chad (the owner) came over and tested the pump. He told me that the pump was fine (so they would not have to pull the pump), but he thought there must be a leak somewhere since I was getting air in the pipes. He also told me that he didn’t think the pump was all the way down because the wiring showed him that we only had a ½ hp motor on the pump, and that could never pull from 750’. Personally I think that the water table is too low, and the reason I get air in the pipes is because when I pull 150 – 200 gallons of water to fill the big water tanks I deplete the water, and all it can do is suck air. The good news is that if I do have to go down deeper at least I won’t have to drill deeper, just get a bigger motor, and drop the pump to the bottom of the well. Of course that is assuming that they can pull the pump out. The last guy that looked at the well said he wasn’t sure that it could even be pulled the way they put it in with too small a pipe. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

Oh is it only Tuesday? Wednesday, ah yes I had to get up at 2:45 am so that Father can be at the hospital at 6:30 am. I get up, take a shower, get dressed, and get Mother, and Father up. We manage to get out of the house close to 3:30. It’s a long drive to Albuquerque but we get there not too late. It takes a couple of hours, and many cups of coffee before the doctor comes in. He closes the door, and says we need to have a discussion. Mind you we were just there two weeks ago. The long, and the short of it is that again they did nothing only this time we talked about it, and he gave Father some new medication to help with the symptoms he has been having. If he gets worse we can have another discussion, and perhaps then he will put in the stints. He showed us where the blockages are, and they are in really nasty places. It would not be an easy surgery, two surgeries actually. So we will wait. Not quite a wasted trip since we understood better what was going on.

Back to Capitan, and yes I’m exhausted. I lay down for a little bit (didn’t quite sleep), and then fed the horses. I left the water at the barn on so I could see if I needed to fix Sierra’s waterier the next morning. Father needed to get some prescriptions filled, and I needed to get some money in Rudy’s account. This was the plan, go to the post office (to see if there was a check in the mail), go to Wells Fargo, go to Walgreen’s, and then go eat. Well after the post office Father informed me that he was going to get his prescriptions filled in Roswell. Well we go to the bank anyway, then to Farley’s for dinner. I love Farley’s. It’s about the only restaurant in Ruidoso that I like that doesn’t cost an arm, and a leg to eat at, and trust me I ate plenty.

Next morning I check Sierra’s water, and yes it is leaking badly now that we have good pressure. I take Mother, and Father back to Roswell, hurry back, and miss the meeting I was supposed to be at. Needless to say, I go to bed early not having recovered from the previous days of constant driving. Next day (I think we’re up to Friday now) I go to the Mercantile, and get the parts for the water tank, and a float for the arena pasture tank. The arena pasture tank was actually easy to put in, but I’ll have to take it out during the winter when it freezes unless I can figure out a way to keep the float, hose, and pipe from freezing. I’m working on that. Then I go back to the house, and die for a while. Tomorrow I will fix Sierra’s tank. It’s an easy fix (having done one already) or so I think.

It is Saturday, hay day. First stop is the Mercantile for grass hay only I discover there is no grass hay, and there won’t be until maybe Monday. Wonderful, I get beet pulp, and go to Mark, and Penny’s. Penny has had just as bad a week. Their hay supplier said he was going to charge them winter rates, and she wasn’t sure they would be able to stay open. They were frantically trying to find some stripped alfalfa at a reasonable price. I got 24 bales of stripe, and 5 bales of green alfalfa. I’ve never carried that much hay in the truck, but I had the straps in the truck from carrying the water tank so a very nice gentleman from Arabella strapped the hay in for me. I don’t know what we would have done if he hadn’t been there since I couldn’t have done it myself. He had a time of it since one of the straps was shorter, and it took all his strength to get it tied down. Yes, thank you Lord for that, you did good.

I get the hay unloaded, and get everything together to fix the waterier.  I was uncertain as to whether or not I could get the top off, but that turned out to be the easiest thing I did that day. I take the float off only to discover that this tank has a ¾ inch valve. Of course they couldn’t be the same size. Back to the Mercantile for the third time, I had to go back earlier to get plumbers tape since I forgot that I used the last of it. I got a male ½”, and a female ¾” piece which was cheaper than buying the ¾” valve. I have to take the ball apart to attach it to the new float mechanism, and it breaks. I call Rudy, and he tells me where his tool, and die kit is, and I proceed to try to re-thread the end of the rod. After I don’t know how long, I finally get the broken end attached to the ball, and the good end to the fitting. I put everything together, and of course it doesn’t work. The converter I built not only leaks, but the ball can’t come up because there simply isn’t enough room. Quickly I call the Mercantile, and thankfully they are open until 5:30. Yes it’s now 5:00. A fifteen minute job has taken all day, ok not all day, I did get hay unload it, and put in new pallets. It took all afternoon. I make it to the Mercantile by 5:25, and of course they all say I thought you weren’t coming in again, I scowl at them. They don’t have a rod I can replace the old rod with so I settle for exchanging the ½” float for the ¾” float mechanism. It’s 6:00 by the time I get home, and the horses are all screaming for food. I get everyone fed (except me of course), and call Rudy. He called when I hadn’t quite finished feeding the dogs.

I tell Rudy all my woes, and he comments that he wants to see what I come up with since I seem to have shall we say creative ways of fixing things. We talk for about an hour and a half and then I sit down to eat some food of my own. It has been a very tiring, and expensive week. I’ll fix the float tomorrow provided that something else doesn’t go wrong. I have two other tanks I want to replace the floats on, but they will wait for another day when I’m not so tired, and frustrated. Well not exactly frustrated, just frazzled I guess. If the tank only takes a little while to fix, I’ll move Sere into the big pasture with Sadie, and Lizzie, and I may even play with the horses a bit. They have been sadly neglected this week. Who knows, I may even take that ride I keep saying I’m going to take. That would really be a nice treat. We’ll see what tomorrow brings, it might be nice things for a change, after all that very nice man was in the right place at the right time to help out with loading the hay. That was very thoughtful, thank you Lord for that. Now can you work on the bigger problems, please?

My how time flies…

I swear I don’t know where the time goes. It’s September already, and time to order more propane. We only get it once a year, but it’s a big chunk of money of which we are in short supply. We continue to have water issues, and part of the problem is we need an on off switch which will turn the pump off if it doesn’t have water to pump, another chunk of money we don’t have. The drought has made life pretty miserable, and I have some hard choices to make.

The lady who was interested in either Stormy or Star had her well go completely dry, so as she says “there goes my horse money”. It’s money we won’t get to possibly fix our water issues, and another mouth to continually feed. I have someone else interested in Stormy but I have to get some video of him first. Since I’m not sure how this week will play out I can’t really ask Sherry to come help take videos.

I went to Roswell Sunday, as Saturday was hay day. Mother was very disappointed that I didn’t bring her rocker, but it won’t fit in the Fiero, and as we all know the Jeep is too sick for such a long journey. Tomorrow I go to Roswell to bring both parents here so we can leave at 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday (ugh!) to go to Albuquerque. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and father will be able to come home on Thursday so I can take them back to Roswell on Friday. That shoots this week out of the water.

I did get something accomplished today though. I finally tackled that former hay stall. It’s a wonder the horses didn’t all get sick there was so much mold under the pallets. I took three count them three gator loads of old hay, and dirt out of the stall. I got my monster duck tape and taped all the cut pipe edges, and contrived a way to keep a horse from hurting themselves on the cut pole sticking up out of the ground. Once everything dries out it will make a nice stall for someone if needed. I really need to clean out Marina’s stall and re-dig the channel for the water runoff from the barn roof. That’s why there was so much moisture in the stall. It just seeped through. I still need at least one or perhaps two new pallets for the other stall. I will also have to be careful when dumping buckets, or washing down a horse not to let water from the causeway to runoff into the stall where the hay is now.  I just have to be careful.

We really need to reduce our herd. The well we have obviously won’t support all our horses in a drought. Jeri I believe is sterile since he tried, and tried, but Sadie still isn’t pregnant.  I can’t afford to feed him if he’s no longer producing, at least not as things are now. I’ve started looking for rescue places to see if they will help me find a good retirement home for him, and Lizzie. I hate letting him go just because he can’t re-produce, but to save the rest some have to go. I’m also thinking of selling Lightning. I really hate letting her go. She’s a good mare, but as long as I have Sierra I can go forward with our half-Arabian breeding program. She’s going to be such an awesome mare, I just know it, she’s so striking, athletic, and sweet, what a combination, and color too. I had such big hopes for her. I’ll have to sell her for next to nothing since she’s not broke, but if I can get her home I can finish her training, I hope.

Ser-Haat I won’t put up for sale until I can get him over his issues. A friend told me of a trainer in Tule she has used. Next year Ser-Haat will be three, and old enough to put under saddle. It’s not just the body that has to mature, but the mind as well. He has come a long way, but he still has a long way to go. I also want to try to find a home for Sere where she will be bred. That’s going to be a hard one. Because of her bone cist, I can’t let her go to just anyone. I have to be sure that she will be taken care of appropriately. Because of her bone cist, I probably won’t be able to find anyone to take her. I just have to trust that someone up there has everything all planned out, and everyone will find their respective new homes, either that or we win the lottery.

Ser-Haat actually did pretty well today. I’m going to take a new approach. He wouldn’t let me put his halter on right away so we did the round the merry go round routine.  He finally let me put on his halter, and instead of just doing the walking etc., I got out the fly spray, sprayed him down, and the “Mane and tail”, and we had a nice grooming session. Then I took the halter off. He still doesn’t do that well. I’m hoping that if he connects grooming, which he loves with the halter, maybe it will become a fun thing instead of a lesson thing. I have at least six months to work with him before I send him to school.  Maybe by then I can lead him out of his stall even.

Ser-Haat wasn’t the only one who got attentions. After I finished with the stall, I cleaned up the barn a bit. Marina was stomping up a storm, so I finally went in to spray her with fly spray. Well I couldn’t stop there so Cupid, Star, Ser-Haat, and Aulina all got groomed. The rest need it as well especially Espree, but I ran out of “Mane and Tail” spray. It’s lousy stuff anyway. I need to order some “Cowboy Magic”. They don’t carry it at the Mercantile, and I don’t want to go all the way over to Harvey’s for it. It’s the best stuff I have ever used. I also like that it’s a gel. It doesn’t spray on, and evaporate. Of course the spray is a good lesson tool, but I’d still rather have the gel. It works much better.

After I finished with everyone, I had about an hour before it was time to feed so I laid down, and watched something on SciFy. It was so memorable I can’t remember what movie it was. All I wanted was to rest up a bit before I started my nightly routine. I fed, and everyone was happy to get their dindin. As long as their happy, I’m happy, then I discovered I had little to no water left. And it was such a nice day, oh well such is life. Now it's time to close all the windows, Bear got another skunk. Why can't he get it through his little brain that I don't like it when he kills a skunk. I can barely breath, I don't understand why he doesn't choke from the fumes. That also means that he'll stink for another two to three weeks depending on how badly he got sprayed. Oh how I hate skunks!

Such fun…

I know I would get bored if I didn’t have things go wrong all the time, but sometimes I really think it would be nice to be bored. Sunday morning there was all kinds of commotion down at the barn so Rudy went down to see who was causing it. I guess the kids were bored during the night so Storm, Cupid, and Star all decided to go visiting. Star, and Cupid worked the corral panels apart, and went to see what they could find in the barn. They had the lids off of the feed bins, and helped themselves to some early morning goodies. Storm wanted some of that fresh green grass so he went visiting Sadie, and Lizzie. Rudy shushed the girls back into their stalls, but Storm didn’t fancy going back into his. Of course they don’t have halters on so that made it a little more challenging. He called me down to the barn, and we basically cornered Stormy. I convinced him that the better part of valor was to go back into his stall.  He now has a lock on his paddock gate like the others. Why do all our horses have such nimble little noses that can undo just about everything?

Since Star, and Cupid made a mess of the panels we went ahead, and put them back the way they were making two stalls instead of just one big one. I wanted to separate the girls anyway I just hadn’t planned on doing it before breakfast. Needless to say the girls didn’t get goodies that morning. I went ahead, and fed everyone since I was all dressed, and everything. Rudy went back to the house, and started putzing on the big truck. I had watering to do so after I fed the rest of the animals (dogs, cats, birds, and chickens) I went back to the barn to turn off the pasture water. What the hay I thought, I’ll fiddle with the waterier in Ser-Haat’s stall that he shares with Ibn. The float needed to be adjusted as it was overflowing again.  With all the water issues I don’t need to be wasting any water, besides it’s a drain on the well. I fiddled it ok I fiddled it right off, just what I needed, something else to break.

Up to the house I went telling Rudy I broke the waterier. He groaned (as you can imagine), and said ok he’d go down there, and look.  I piddled around, and he still didn’t move so I went down to the pump house, as we had no water. Of course we had no water, I spewed it all over the place after I took most of it to fill the pasture tank. Now you just know my favorite thing is to sit at the pump house turning the power on, and off waiting until the pump can build enough pressure to keep the water running again. Once the pressure stabilized I went back to the house only to discover that Rudy had gone down to the barn, so down I went. He had most of the waterier torn apart except the lid. There’s a little cover you can take off to fiddle with the float, but to get the guts out you really need to take the top part off. Well the iron railing was put in after the waterier, and there wasn’t quite enough room to get the lid out easily. Finally between the both of us pulling at it we got it off. He unscrewed the float mechanism, and said he would probably have to get a bathroom float since the Mercantile was closed.

Rudy went to Ruidoso while I stayed home. Of course I just had to clean the whole thing, and see how it worked. I have this knack for tearing things apart. Luckily, I can generally put everything back the way it belongs as well. There was a part missing so I went to the barn to find it. It was the part that was causing all the problems. This particular float is plastic, and they use a little rubber plug to stop the flow of water. The rubber was ok, just worn which is why water continually trickled through. I could have probably put everything back together, and it might have worked again, but Rudy insisted that it wouldn’t. Ace didn’t have a float that would work so Rudy simply got some new fuses, a faucet (so I could turn the water back on), and came home. I would have to go to the Mercantile on Monday to buy a float from them, and put it all back together myself. He had a dentist’s appointment first thing in the morning, and then he was off again.

Being a very good girl after I fed I went to the Mercantile first thing with all parts in hand. I wasn’t going to buy a new float, and get it home only to find out that it wouldn’t work, yeah right. Well all the stock tank float mechanisms they had wouldn’t work for one reason or another. I asked what else have you got, and we looked at the good old-fashioned brass ones. I connected my ball, and decided that this just might do the job. I got it home only to discover that the ¾” was too big. Then I remembered there was another part I took off which come to find out was a converter from ¾” to ½”. Try as I might I couldn’t find that one little piece. I looked everywhere even in the barn to no avail. Most likely some little furry four legged critters I know thought it would be fun to play with, and it is under something where I can’t find it. Back to the Mercantile I go. Well as it turns out they have a ½” fixture that is $10 cheaper. That I can deal with. I get back home, put everything together, and then try to adjust the float ball. Well the tank is full so I have no idea whether I have it adjusted right or not, but I figure that having the float turn off too soon is better than having it turn off too late. I won’t know till morning whether or not it’s good enough, and hope for the best.

Tuesday comes, and well the tank doesn’t quite fill as much as it should, but as far as I’m concerned it’s good enough. Now I have to go to Ruidoso to get the injectors for my jeep Rudy ordered. Some time ago my heater hoses broke on my way home from town. I replaced all the hoses but the jeep was missing so Rudy ordered two injectors. He was sure that it was the front injectors, so Chuck (Chuck’s Tire Service) replaced them for me. The Jeep was a little better, but still missing. With my parents now in Roswell I will be making lots of trips to Roswell, and I need the Jeep to be working correctly so we went ahead, and got two more injectors hoping that would solve the problem. Whenever I have to go to Ruidoso the day is mostly wasted, and this was no exception. The good news was that nothing bad happened, and my water problems seemed to have been solved again. That in my book is a good day.

Wednesday came, and first shot out of the bag there were problems. I was supposed to go to Roswell to pick up my parents, bring them here, and then take them to Albuquerque the next day so Father could have the procedure he was supposed to have done on his heart when I first brought them down here done. Well guess what, Father did manage to have the blood work done, but he forgot to stop taking one of his medications the night before. Needless to say I spent the morning, and part of the afternoon on the phone. They wanted me to take him to Albuquerque (a three hour drive) test his blood, and if his levels were too high, then bring him home, and take him back another day. Now my mother is on oxygen 24/7, and can barely walk, and I’m supposed to traipse her back, and forth worrying all the time that Father is going to have surgery, and die of a heart attack at any time, I think not. Anyway, I manage to convince them that it would be much better to simply re-schedule his surgery now rather than make multiple trips back, and forth. The only problem is we have to be in Albuquerque at 6:30 am. This means that I have to feed at 3:00 am. I’m going to try to find someone to feed the horses for me. Poor things will get all confused being fed in the middle of the night, and then not getting fed till late that night. This does give me time to get the injectors in the Jeep however, and get some work done at the ranch so I’m not too disappointed.

Yesterday stormed all day so nothing got done, but I did get the injectors in today, unfortunately that didn’t fix the problem. The choices I’m left with are 1) a blown gasket, 2) bad rings, 3) bad valves, or 4) cracked head. I don’t think the Jeep’s getting fixed anytime soon. Rudy said it would just be better to buy a whole new engine, and he’d replace it himself. The only problem with that is yes it would be cheaper since he doesn’t charge himself  $60/hour to work on the car, but then again he wouldn’t be working so whatever we save we loose by his not working. Not a good option. I’d rather pay the $600 for a valve job.

All in all it has been a pretty raunchy good/bad week. I did get some mowing done today, but I have to get the weed eater out to finish up at the house. It was beginning to look like a jungle out there. I mowed some patches around the barns, and I got the big weeds in the arena so the place looks at least half way decent. The grasses are skimpy at best. It rains all around us but we only seem to get a few sprinkles. There’s thunder, and lightning a plenty, and I pray no lightning strikes start a fire. Yes we have had some rain, but not near enough. So life goes on, and my boring days never seem to outweigh my exciting days, but that’s what I get for wanting a ranch, and I love every minute of it.