More snow moving in tonight. Yesterday a wood delivery resulted in foot-deep trenches all over the driveway, which is now revealed to be a bottomless pit of gray clay goo. If there were no more precipitation for several months (the usual situation), the stuff might dry out before the 4th of July.
Did I mention that more snow is moving in? And we already had a couple of inches added last week. It all melted quickly, but… you know… and now here comes some more. Looking out my window toward Taos Mountain, I see it’s snowing now downtown, about 12 hours ahead of schedule.
Meanwhile, downstate it’s in the 70s. I don’t want to be that far south come summer — if summer ever comes again — but the cumulative conditions here are murderous, and now I envy places I wouldn’t touch before. This is by far the biggest test yet in John & Kathy’s Great Adventure. If you have a hankering to emigrate to el Norte, mark my words and think again. (I have no regrets, but you might!) I have a friend who’s lived in Alaska and in the Sierras in California, and he says he’s never experienced anything as hard as this. There isn’t that much actual snow left — an aerial view would leave you wondering at my complaints — but the accumulated stress and mess is deadly. We haven’t been able to do a simple thing like open the front door and take a walk for over three months now, and that’s the kind of thing that pounds you into a hole.
I go now to shave and forget. Perhaps by the time I’m able to don shorts again, I’ll be strong and proud. For now, all I want is heavy sedation.
[Coming up!]
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BIG GUM-RUBBER BOOTS!!! Knee-high type with the handles on ‘em! A couple sizes too big so they slide on and off WHEN YOU WANT! Then, it’s kinda like skating over that glorp. That was the fashion statement of the day when I had breffest at the Taos Diner last Sunday. The mesa monkeys know! Get you and your wife each a pair, hose ‘em off before you go in the house. To paraphrase that old detergent commercial, “Ancient Chinese secret my ass!”
PS-Not that I’m a big fan of it, but why isn’t there more asphalt and paving in Taos? That crushed stone that just keeps sinking deeper and deeper doesn’t do a thing, and pavement is probably cheaper, no?
I expect there’s not more paving because nobody wants to pay for it, or maybe it’s just not allowed by the gods that be. Even rich bastards here have long dirt lanes. Those Lexus SUVs will be sucking clay slip up those air intakes, I reckon.
Boots: I have such a pair of boots, the wife does not. But boots aren’t answer enough. What do you do with them when you get to the car? We have a plastic bin to stash muddy shoes in, but you also have to remember to have dry shoes in the vehicle.
As for “hosing off,” your Eastern roots are showing.
A. First, the place where one lives has to have an outside spigot. A great many places don’t. Here in this compound, there’s one outside faucet for two houses.
B. It’s also turned OFF now, because the nighttime lows are in the teens.
C. Needless to say, even though there’s tons of mud, the outside hose is utterly frozen.
So “hosing off” is just a dream.
Egad!