You Say Caliche ... I Say Hardpan

Welcome back to 95 degrees days.  Summer has decided to return once again.  When I walked outside with Mr. Cooper into the convection oven that was my back yard, I turned around and walked right back in and up to the AC controls.  No, I didn't go crazy and take it down to 70 degrees, but I did turn it down enough to cool off.  After all, I still have $600 to use up before I leave for Arizona ... to the land of cheap electricity.

People ask me all the time ... WHY do you go to the desert in the summer heat?  My answer ... because I can afford the air conditioning! 

On the ranch, it was a different story.  All we had in that 100 year old house was a swamp cooler.  It was so loud you could barely hear anyone call you to wash the dishes.  I remember distinctly looking at the thermometer hanging on the eucalyptus tree by the cattle loading chute.  In the summertime it rarely got below 100, with days hanging around at 113-115.  Now we complain about 95.  

At least we were not planting in the middle of summer, so driving the D3 caterpillar with no overhead cover and nothing but the wind in your face, wasn't TOO terrible.  Nowadays farmers are spoiled with music, air conditioning, magic-ride seats .. all the conveniences.

Until this happens!!  Out in the back 40 we had this horrible white soil we called hardpan.  I guess they call it caliche nowadays.  There were several big areas of it that we avoided like the plague.  In the winter when it got wet from the rain, it would turn into this ... a quicksand like quagmire that would suck a 50 ton tractor down in an instant.

Once the tracks got full of mud, there was no traction to get out.  Hardpan wins again.  To make it even worse ... if you were turning when it happened, there was a good chance you would slip a track, meaning it would come off the rollers and you were dead in the water.  Oh the bad words I heard as a kid!!

You couldn't pull it out until the track was back in place.  The shovels came out .... let the digging begin.  Anyone who could walk had a shovel stuck in their hand to help.  Once we got down far enough, railroad ties would be brought in along with jacks not nearly stout enough.  

The good news was that every so often a neighbor would hear about it and stop by to see if they could help.  Sometimes it would take a week or more to extract.  Once the track was back on, they brought THEIR cats over to help pull her out.  We avoided that spot as best we could, but it would always happen again in another spot.  Those two back fields were a PAIN!!!

Little did I know at the time that it was going to get worse.  The cattle business went downhill so fast we had to sell them all off to make the loan payment and not lose the ranch.  Can you imagine making THAT decision?  Now what do we do?  How do we survive?  I'll get into that life changing moment tomorrow!

Mostly because I didn't get home until really late last night and I'm barely keeping my eyes open.  Since there were no great rodeos on the tube to watch yesterday, I finally spent some time sewing as Cooper slept.  It's getting there .... but wait .... I seem to only have HALF the number of required squares.

I'm out of little pieces, but still need 12 more?  There's that darn math thing again.  I don't know what happened, but luckily I saved all the scraps and had more than enough to cut more pieces.  RATS ... that meant I was only HALF done when I thought I was COMPLETELY done.  

Mr. Cooper is doing well and his appetite is REALLY good.  Maybe some of those teeth were bothering him?  Though he certainly could eat the treats all day long!!  

We went for a long walk yesterday, which he enjoyed immensely.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it bodes well for doggie yoga to begin once again ... in another week ... maybe.