Humble Beginnings

Hi there. Welcome. Come on in and pull up a chair. Coffee? Tea? Cupcake?

I’ve dilly-dallied on this project for far too long, waiting for the “right time” to begin – waiting for a cosmic collision of free time, perfect photographs, nice weather, and emergency-free days to happen so that I could paint a lovely picture of all the beauty and joy to be found here, on The Ranch, once the moving-in disasters and winter casualties had subsided.

It occurred to me, though, that this is the real story – bats and wasps and frozen pipes and all – and so, here it is, in all its truth and often unceremonious glory. I’ve been here long enough to know, now, that for all the amazing wonders of this slice of earth, there are as many frustrations and inconveniences, but the experience is the sum total of everything we’re doing here, everything we’re learning and juggling and dealing with… the good, the bad, the stunningly beautiful, and yes, even the ugly.

I’ve found a rare peaceful moment, amongst the kids and critters, to start all this. The fog is settling atop the trees, barely visible in the early morning sunless sky, snow-kissed air circling in cloudy whispers. I notice, momentarily free of the usual clatter of my daily life, a musical reverberation. Zoe, our beasty-bulldog, snores raucously, and Charlie Tuna, the feisty cat-who-thinks-he’s-a-dog, purrs and stretches at my feet. A faint ticking sound emerges from the kitchen, the small clock reminding me that it’s really time to start my day – do school work, clean house, be productive.

The truth is, though, that I need some down time. It’s been a helluva week, marked by its delayed beginning, stuck for hours in a stuffy airplane on a tarmac in Los Angeles, where I fidgeted and sighed, eager to get home. Eight days away from my family (far too long, might I add) had me ready for whatever The Ranch had in store for me next.

Or so I thought.

On (eventual) arrival, Husband informed me that the hydroelectric plant was down. Again. For a relatively self-sustaining piece of land in honest-to-goodness-middle-of-nowhere, a downed hydro plant is never good news. There’s a backup generator, affectionately referred to as Plan B around here, but our experience with it has taught us that Plan B is moody and glitchy and functions well only when she wants to and when she does kick in, she siphons our propane supply, sucking up our fuel source hastily, which only amounts to mounting dollar signs in our ever-constant plight to conserve, conserve, conserve (for reasons far more selfish than saving the planet, I’m afraid).

We’re lucky to have someone at our beck-and-call that is far wiser than we are in matters of hydroelectricity (which, as far as I’m concerned, might as well be brain chemistry). Unfortunately, Mr. Fix-It’s visit to repair the plant a few days ago seems to have left something amiss. I really wish we’d have discovered it a tad sooner, to be honest. Awakening to an unpleasant smell has become somewhat of a game around here, and I figured we were simply in for the next round of Who Can Figure Out Where That Smell is Coming From? I woke my kids for school, and my son announced that he was kept awake all night by what sounded like cracking and sparking noises. (Danger! Danger, Will Robinson!)

It turns out that slipping belts on the hydro plant resulted in severe power surges to the house, taking down quite a few of our belongings. The list of casualties includes the family computer, Husband’s Xbox, the coffee maker, toaster, and bedroom heater. Bummer. If not for the back-up coffee maker and personal laptop, I may never have survived. ;)

According to Mr. Fix-It, the good news is that it’s fixable and should only take about 4 days. The bearable news is that we won’t have hydro power during that time, leaving us at the mercy of Plan B, the temperamental generator. The bad news is that, since the function of the hydro plant is to turn water into power, we will also have NO WATER for as many days. Eek. I can wing it for a few days without power, but being waterless is a trickier predicament for a family with three kids and two furballs, especially since our household has recently increased by two more youngins – the neighbor/ranch hands’ kids, whose parents are in Montana (or was it Wyoming?) on some sort of mission involving a hundred head of cattle, the details of which are still unclear to me.

If that last statement hasn’t clued you in, I’m somewhat of a city girl… well, a suburbanite, at least, thrust by serendipity into this ranch-living experience with little preparation and even less notice. In eight days’ time, we went from cluelessly paying a gardener to mow our 3’ x 3’ patch of patio grass (does it count as mowing if he used a weed-wacker on the “lawn”?) to our current digs on The Ranch, 300 or so acres of towering firs and fenced pastures, current home to our family of five and another foursome in a smaller house on the property, the friendly residents that work and live here our partners in surviving the sometimes-maddening and often-hilarious rural happenings. With the adults of their household gone, our normal snafus are doubled, especially in light of the livestock they’re responsible for and that we’re managing in their absence.

A few days ago, I was sipping Chardonnay with well-dressed and well-mannered adults in an upscale Montecito eatery, and today, I’m managing the aftermath of constipated cows (yes, really) and a cranky toddler with an ear infection and a gnarly cough. The Ranch Hands’ dog is due to have puppies any second now, and I’m praying the canine birth can wait until its master’s return, since 1) my experience with animal husbandry is nonexistent and I’d like it to stay that way, thankyouverymuch, and 2) it sounds like a relatively messy ordeal (as most ranch living is), and having no water with which to rinse away the experience is not going down too well with my morning coffee.

Another thing not going down well is the lingering smell of skunk spray, a perfectly-timed gift bestowed upon us by the other family taking up residence here, a rowdy bunch of skunks living beneath our bedroom. They are none-too-thrilled about our presence here, evidenced by the weekly attack on our olfactory sense. If you’ve never smelled a skunk spray close up before, let me enlighten you. It’s nothing like the unpleasant recent roadkill odor or far-off skunk stench you’ll encounter while driving. Close-up skunk stink is an assault of pungent, stank air that chokes and gags you, makes your eyes water, and has you running from the source like saving yourself from a burning building. What’s worse is its tendency to linger, causing the carpet, the walls, the bedding, and the skin of anyone nearby to reek terribly for days... another reason why the no-water-with-which-to-wash dilemma is particularly bad timing.

The duplicity of this current life experience is revealing. Most of our days are like this… bizarrely unlike anything we could have imagined, full of constant interruptions and unexpected disasters, and yet also, simultaneously wrapped in peace and exquisite beauty that somehow makes it all worth it. The Ranch is heaven and hell to me, all at once, an adventure to be sure, and every day here is… for whatever its worth… another day in Paradise.