[FONT="]AND WE'RE BACK....
Well, a bit of a hiatus, there....adjusting the sails to accommodate the ever-changing winds and tides of Life required most of my attention recently...but I am now plying more clement waters and can get back to putting a few stray thoughts down in print.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Since I last visited with you all, I have changed jobs? am still working West Africa, but my patrons finally took pity on me and sprung me from that tropical torment in Liberia, re-assigning me to a nice clean oil rig off the coast of Equatorial Guinea....[/FONT]
[FONT="]Compared to living on the economy out in the Liberian bush, this rig, tho a bit old, is like a 5-star cruise ship in comparison to my last post.... I am still medic-ing for a living... only now I have a well appointed and well stocked clinic to do it out of ...[/FONT]
[FONT="]I am one fellow who really appreciates things like running water clean enough to drink, clean sheets and food without obvious parasites ...[/FONT]
[FONT="]...good things will indeed come to those who wait....especially if you howl, bellow, stamp your feet and kick up all kinds of dust while you do....[/FONT]
[FONT="]The new rotation is 28 days on and 28 days off...my FAVORITE....just about the time you are tired of work or home, you are headed in the other direction....[/FONT]
[FONT="]....and just about the time "Precious Bride" is tired of my crap and starts thinking about sharpening her Kabar, she drops me off at the airport instead...[/FONT]
[FONT="]Perfect timing![/FONT]
[FONT="]The home-front continues to chug along at its usual speed ... the sad note is the continued deterioration of my son Ben's medical issues...he is now on Hospice care and tho this was fully expected, knowing the end is closer than further away takes it's toll of all of us.[/FONT]
[FONT="]Ben has done well under the care of the fine folks from our local Hospice program...it is amazing how the proper management of pain can improve ones outlook...correctly used, opiate narcotics are life-extending miracles...with the pain under control, Ben will continue to defy his physicians by insisting on waking up every day....he is the toughest man I have ever known...[/FONT]
[FONT="]Tho I have been remiss about reporting the progress at The Old Goat Ranch, progress has in fact, continued...[/FONT]
[FONT="]It took a few months of regular paychecks to top up the "Major Projects Account", and while that was going on I attended to a few smaller missions...[/FONT]
[FONT="]We now have cleared right-of-way for all the interior fence lines.... our property is densely wooded...so a few afternoons of surveying and pounding stakes and guideposts was followed by a long day trailing along behind our "Dirt Guru" and his little bulldozer....this took care of most of the heavy work and I cleaned up the rest with my little tractor....[/FONT]
...I am still impressed with how much I can accomplish with that little Green Machine...
[FONT="]The big surprise is, things lined up pretty much the way I wanted them too...a testament to my amateur surveying skills....our fences will converge on a "night pen" where just a few gates will allow us to rotate our pastures the easy way...[/FONT]
[FONT="]A new gate went in between our land and our neighbor as well....and I learned the virtue of being on good terms with our neighbor, Joe, who supplied the posts and gate, while I supplied the holes and labor, AND his livestock, (one mule and one gelding) who bolted thru the new hole in the fence as soon as I cut the wire...[/FONT]
[FONT="]....it was really no problem, our land has a nice tight perimeter fence and my habit of throwing a little corn for the deer and passing out some range cubes now and then to the Boys came in handy...[/FONT]
[FONT="]Now, Joe isn't particularly fond of rang cubes, but Buck and PITA think they are MANNA...so once the gate was hung, a few rattles of the "Snickerdoodle" bag was all it took to coax the escapees back home after they enjoyed a fine afternoon of feasting on the heretofore untouched greenery on our side of the wire...[/FONT]
[FONT="]Buck (mule) then amused himself for a while supervising me while I adjusted the gate and installed the latch...I couldn't turn around without bumping into him, or bend over without him winding up over my shoulder to get a better view....lets not discuss his habit of licking the sweat off your head....[/FONT]
[FONT="]He was like a 900 lb mosquito....and a slobber-y one at that....[/FONT]
[FONT="]Finally I had to catch him up and run his big self up to the stall so I could get finished...I left him there for the rest of the afternoon....he looked quite upset when I left...a little slobber is the downside of making friends with mules I guess....[/FONT]
[FONT="]There have been a few other adventures..."Precious Bride" has been surfing Craigslist regularly and found a fellow tearing down an old bus-barn where we salvaged enough tin and 4x4 poles to eventually finish OUR barn and several other structures besides, at popular prices, and she came up with a nice assortment of small critter cages and such as well....[/FONT]
[FONT="]So..... several months on the new job and the "Major Projects Account" in fine shape ... it was time to start on "The Great Power Line Massacree".[/FONT]
[FONT="]Stay tuned..... here is a photo of PITA and Pancho testing the new gate while "Precious Bride" doles out "Snickerdoodles" ... [/FONT]
[FONT="]Be Safe![/FONT]
[FONT="]Terry
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