Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders... 

Tim and I got about 2/3 of his new trench dug, and (the best part!) we have finished all the parts where we might hit things like buried gas lines, irrigation pipes, and wires.  It's all clear sailing from here.  If you look carefully in the photo at right, you can see my (orange) tractor in the distance.  The well, which is at the other end of this ditch, is about 15' further than the tractor.  I stood at the point where the ditch takes a short left turn to enter Tim's house.  It's about 130' all together.  The original trench that we dug in the same spot was 48" deep; the new trench is only 18" to 20" deep, which is why it's going so much faster :)  The tractor (a Kubota B26TLB, like the one at left) performed flawlessly all day.

We knocked off at around 2 pm because Tim had to go to an obligatory baseball game that his grandson was playing in.  Debbie and I decided to go have ourselves a lupper out, at Jack's in Logan.   There we each had a bowl of homemade cream of mushroom soup that was just outstanding, and then Debbie had a Cozumel mini-pizza (left), and I had their Teres Major mini-pizza (right).  Both were, as usual, wonderful:

As if that weren't enough, we then traveled (the long way around, because I got turned around) to the Aggie's Creamery to have some ice cream.  We both got the same thing (first time evah, I think) – a two-scoop cone with chocolate almond on the bottom and caramel cashew on top.  The tastiosity was quite high :)

On the way home we reflected about the high quality-to-price ratio of the meal we just had.  The total tab (Jack's and Aggie's) for our meal was $36.05 – that's soup, pizza, drinks, and ice cream for two, including a generous tip.  The food was all outstanding, front-to-back, the portions generous (we took some home), the service full of smiles and good cheer, the atmosphere friendly and even the other patrons were pleasant to be around.  I'd have been perfectly happy paying twice what we did – and in San Diego, I would have.  There's no way the San Diego ice cream would have been as good, though – and most likely not the soup, either.  The pizza would could probably find the equal of.

I love living here, in a postcard...

Paradise ponders...

Paradise ponders...  Checked the news first thing this morning to see if the election cycle was still completely insane.  Yup.  Tuning it out again...

My friend and neighbor Tim D. called yesterday morning.  We had a nice conversation (mostly about our tree-nesting goose!) and then he shyly revealed the real reason for his call: he needs my help digging another ditch.  Unbeknownst to us, on Tuesday he lost all water to his house.  After some troubleshooting with the help of an electrician, he determined that the wires powering the pump (running from his house to his well) were broken somewhere.  Somehow we must have done that when we replaced his water pipes last fall.  At the moment he's got a power line running over the ground so they have water, but we need to get that underground and protected (especially from his horses!).  So this morning I'm headed over there with my tractor, and we'll dig an 18" deep trench from his house to the well.  We're going to do it right in the top of the last (4' deep) trench we dug, to minimize the damage to his yard.

After Tim called, I headed out to my barn to do something I needed to do anyway: ready my tractor for some digging.  This coming Saturday I'm going over to another neighbor's (Alan L.) to help dig out some big shrubs (with my backhoe) that are impinging on his orchard.  I've had the backhoe dismounted all winter, to make snowplowing easier.  So I spent a couple hours putting it back on (pretty easy, actually) and then lubing it.  What a mess it is to lube that thing!  I didn't count them, but there are something like 50 zerk fittings (as at right).  I used my tractor a lot since the last time I lubed it, so every single one of these fittings was caked with greasy dirt.  That means I had to dig out the dirt around each one (with a stick), clean it with a rag, connect my grease gun, fill it with grease, disconnect the grease gun (sometimes a challenge!), and then repeat for the next one.  By the time I got finished with this, I was covered with grease from head to toe.  I had to strip, throw my clothes in the wash, and take a shower myself when I got done :)

Late yesterday we took a drive out to Porcupine Reservoir.  The main reason we went: we had spotted a paddock with a dozen or so very pregnant female goats late last week, and we figured by now they should have hatched.  They had!  I don't know why baby goats are so cute, but they sure are.  Too bad they don't stay that way :)  We didn't see much other wildlife, except for a rare sighting (our second time in two years) of a rabbit.  Yes, a rabbit.  For reasons we cannot fathom, rabbits are quite rare here.  The reservoir was not quite full, but it's level is only about 10' or so below the overflow point.  The irrigation water won't start being drawn until toward the end of April, so we've still got almost a month for it to fill those last few feet – and the snow in the high country has yet to melt...