Midian Ranch Blog

This is the web log for Midian Ranch, an isolated homestead in rural Nevada. It is owned by Jason and Tina Walters, whom are also its regular posters. This blog is exclusively for the enlightenment and edification of our friends, family, and colleagues.

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Location: Gerlach, Nevada, United States

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

“Is Winter Finally Over?” and random thoughts on being blessed

[Note: It.Was.Hot.Today! Finally! This posting is a little more “stream of consciousness” than I like for things to be, but it’s time I returned to blogging. So there we are.]

It’s been a strange time out in the Blackrock Desert, but I think that it finally FINALLY won’t snow anymore. Really: it was snowing last week (the final week of May), though not particularly hard. In any case, it’s lovely today and I shouldn’t bitch, what the rest of the country being 90-degrees and riddled with man-eating tornadoes.

Though it’s been a hard winter, things are well here at Midian Ranch. Not easy, of course: these are hard times. But physically well, which counts for a lot. Now comes another frightening fire season. Fortunately our firebreak situation is greatly improved, with 30-foot cleared areas around the (now expanded) warehousing area, greenhouse, and generator shed. The burn areas around the homestead have also been improved, though for various reasons you can’t just drive a front-end loader around them, so there’s a lot of “hand” work involved in that process, not all of which is finished. But very soon it will be.

Cass is doing well: healthy, large, and developing well. She’s trying to walk, can stand a little, and is using her arms in the appropriate manner. She points when she wants something. Cass also speaks a little at this point, though she’s sometimes hard to understand due to the unusual shape of her mouth and tongue - though she says a lot words and phrases clearly enough. These include: mom, dad, hi, hi dad, Hi There(!), water, and what is it (?) ( which comes out sounding kind of like “izit,” but you know what she means.) Her sign language vocabulary is now large enough that I don’t always know what she’s trying to tell me: I’m guessing it’s somewhere between 30 and 40 words.

She also knows most of the Wiggles dances. Really.

I have no standard for comparison, but I would say that she’s 90% pretty much just a normal, terrible two year old (almost) - and that remaining 10% isn’t what I expected. It’s more like eccentricity than impairment, though perhaps I’m subconsciously putting a happy face on her disorder. #Shrug# Doesn’t really matter, does it? Nobody out here at Midian but us chickens… literally.

With my dad’s help I managed to buy an excellent 28-foot shipping container from the Bay Area and get it out here. It’s got an unusual ceiling height of almost 10 feet, making it perfect for a shop. I’ve begun the epic task of moving everything car, motorcycle, and small engine over to it, as well as constructing shelves inside. It’s going to be an enormous amount of work getting it just right, but it will free up a tremendous amount of space for work-related storage. Which, if everything goes according to plan, should prove incredibly important as we expand the operation to include two more specialized retail websites.

The money situation is naturally dreadful. But, then again, it usually is, so I’m worried but not particularly impressed. That’s one of the many advantages to living on land you own outright, working on your land, and having a certain amount of your diet come straight from that land: there’s only so much poverty can do to you. And our poverty is intermittently spiked with plenty, due to our own work, the generosity of others, and occasional good fortune so well timed that it can only be providence. So it isn’t all that bad if you have a certain amount of faith.

In conclusion, the various people, dogs, puppies, cats, and chickens at Midian Ranch are getting along passably well in trying times and under difficult circumstances, which is a great blessing.
Possibly it’s the only blessing you need.

3 Comments:

Blogger Joash de Cabin said...

A ranch is a tract of land (including buildings) that is mostly utilised for lifting plantings like maize, wheat, rice, crop, veggies and such. There are furthermore ranches that lift livestock, like dairy ranches or pig ranches or pullet ranches, but ranches generally make the kernels required to feed their livestock. Ranches in Texas, on the other hand, are large tracts of land

11:10 PM  
Blogger Joash de Cabin said...

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7:16 PM  
Anonymous Mom said...

I'll bet it will rain or snow again in late Sept when we are there!

5:50 AM  

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