Time for an update again.
After chatting with Tom, it became clear that my #1 priority should be to try to protect my investment in road improvements by investing in managing water runoff during the rainy season.
Thursday:
Earn a living during the day
Spent evening thinking about the property, watching YouTube videos on stone masonry ( I have tons and tons of stones at my disposal), rereading book on managing water runoff, sleep.
Friday:
Earn a living during the day.
Finally gave myself a hair cut and beard trim. It was only a couple months overdue. My God. Looking in the mirror I’m seeing hair going in more and more places on my head where it is not supposed to be… just not the top of my head where it is supposed to be. Rip out those errant hairs.
Managed to get into the club house shower before folks started gathering for the pot luck. Potluck food… Went to cook the asparagus that I bought a week or two before. It was beyond mush… yuck. Ok plan B. What is plan B? Don’t know. Dinner is Mexican themed… How about Mexican rice. I should have everything I need to make that. Google is my friend. Hmm… Time is tight and instant pot pressure cooker isn’t working quite right. Possibly because the trailer once again is off level. Hmm… Not sure how the rice is going to come out and it is not going to be done before the potluck is scheduled to start. Hmmm… Plan C… What is plan C? I don’t know…. What do I have? Green beans. I brought over 24 quarts of canned green beans with me. Not Mexican but oh well. Neither was Plan A (steamed asparagus). Threw the beans in a pan on the stove and threw some red wine with garlic vinagar in with them while the rice continued to cook. Hmmm The pan that I grabbed to cook the beans in in my haste is not conducive to transport and I really don’t have a serving container to transport them in…. Solution: dump into another pan that has a lid. Take beans, drink, and place setting the the potluck. They aren’t ready to eat yet so we chat for a while. Timer for the rice goes of so I head back to the trailer to check on it. Seems that it has cooked enough and other than being burned on the bottom, appears to be good to go. Don’t want to take that pot over with the burned rice on the bottom… What to do? Don’t have another pan with a lid. Grab a big metal bowl and put the unburned rice into it with the intention of saran wrapping the top to keep the blowing dirt from getting into it as I make the walk to the club house…. Note I said intent…. I forgot to cover the top. Oh well. I didn’t notice any sandy crunching when eating it until today when I was eating the left overs. I like to think that the dirt was from my dirty face as opposed to dirt blown in when I was transporting it. 🙂 Anyway. Ironically, IMO, the rice came out better than the green beans. IMO there was too much vinegar in the green beans. Oh well. It was a nice to socialize for a couple of hours. Have I mentioned my love of mexican food? Mexican food potluck… That is like mexican buffet. Did I mention I ate way too much? I did stick to my diet 90%, so that is mostly good. It certainly could have been way worse with all the cheese and sour cream (mmm… cheese and sour cream) that I opted not to put on my food.
After dinner I watched some more videos, this time on building and using water levels that enable you to check level over distance without line of sight. Developed a gameplan for Saturday. Went to sleep.
Saturday:
Woke up before dawn (no alarm), got breakfast, did a few dishes to kill time waiting for stores to open, headed to Douglas to pick up materials to build a water level, yard marking flags for utilities, few food staples, and a ball cap to cover my recently cropped head.
Home by noon. Lunch. Changed into lightweight long sleeve shirt. Built water level while wearing my ball cap. Should have worn my gardening cap because I think I got sunburn on my neck. Headed to property. Donned snake boots and gardening hat. Walked roads on the west and south boundaries of the property reviewing road and land elevations and slopes. Marked locations I wanted earth moved to make diversion swales, earth berms, and some basins all in hopes of minimizing erosion of the recently graded road. Ate dinner while sitting on my tailgate enjoying the view of the mountains on the far side of the valley to the east. Convinced myself that I needed quarters for laundry on Sunday and I should get them at the Tavern. What the heck. How about a couple of Margaritas while I’m there. Home to write the blog and soon work on other tech projects now that the blog update is nearly complete and the night is still young (New Mexico time anyway).
Night all.
Seeking Simplicity 