Habitable

 

Today was our first day on the job at Habitat, and what a view this family is going to have. They are making us dinner on Thursday, so I will wait to describe them until we meet them.

Today we met Rick the supervisor, an adorable music major from Kentucky who now supervises Habitat Taos builds. His description of the day 35 college students hung sheetrock and things kind of got away from him answered my questions about who on earth had hung the sheetrock. Oh well. I'll bet it was fun.

We walked the house, made lists of projects, and then everyone got to pick whatever they wanted to work on. Carl put doorknobs on the exterior doors, Ray cleaned window sills, Steve was doing all sorts of fix things projects, and me? I mudded. There's a zen to putting mud in sheetrock cracks. It was a good day. It seemed over with before I was ready to quit, but about an hour later the bottom fell out of my energy. We are working at 7,500 feet, and it's a real sneaker, that altitude.

Carl, at the end of day, started sanding, and he was so full of dirt that we came to the local RV park for the night so he could have a good shower. This little place costs a whole $13 a night.

Shiner Beer, however, is $8 a six pack. It is a necessity after a day of mudding, no matter how much it costs, and I have a lot of mudding ahead of me.

New Mexico Rocks

 

New Mexico means Rebstocks. It is always such fun to make a stop at the Rebstocks. This stop was no different. We visited and ate until our eyes glazed over, then got up the next morning and did the same. John is retiring next month, and it was my duty to hand out "advice".

Anna had a friend visiting, Oksana, who was born in Belarus. Oksana lives in Santa Fe, so we took her on an RV ride home on Sunday. She came to visit by Railrunner, but the train does not run on Sunday. How strange...

We are now in Questa, 25 miles northwest of Taos at our Habitat Build. So far we've not lifted a finger, but work starts Monday morning at 8:30. Carl has many talents in the handyman category, but we always hire out sheetrock and tape and float because it is such an art. Guess what stage this house is? Tape and float. Oh well....we can't do a worse job than the previous workers on this house. The sheetrock is going to need some serious texture to hide its many faults.

There's just four of us, me, Carl and two single guys with interesting stories. The coordinator Steve is a full time RV'r who lives off his savings and works on Habitat 45 weeks a year. Ray is a retired public service guy who comes every spring to this area to work on Habitat houses.

I was hoping for adobe, but this is a stick frame house, stucco on the outside. Next week we will probably apply the color coat of the stucco. That should be a new experience.

Palo Duro makes me think about the moment

Before leaving today on the scenic route through Caprock, Turkey, and Palo Duro Canyon on our way to Dumas, I read a meditation. It's worth sharing.....

A tiger gave chase to a monk who had been walking peacefully near a cliff and the monk, running as fast as he could, had no choice but to be eaten or leap off the edge of the cliff. He was able as he leaped to grab hold of a vine trailing over the cliff and dangle in midair with the tiger snarling at him overhead and under him a very long fall into a rushing river full of boulders. Then he noticed a mouse gnawing at the vine. He also noticed growing out of a cleft in a rock in front of him a strawberry plant with one ripe berry. He ate it. He said, "This is a very good strawberry."

We are all dangling in mid process between what already happened, which is just a memory, and what might happen, which is just an idea. Now is the only time anything happens. How often do I get caught up in rehearsing for the future which I cannot predict, or ruminating about the past, which I cannot change, all the while not awake to present experience?

It's your life, don't miss it!

Dumas Dancing

Tonight was dance recital rehearsal in Dumas for Allison. What a cutie! It was a sort of family event, the good kind of sort of. I've known Allison's mom for years by way of my brother's family and we are sort of in-laws, but mostly family by choice. We plotted our course through Dumas in order to see them, except technically they no longer live in Dumas, but Sunray. It's 30 miles to Oklahoma and 30 more to Kansas, and Allison had been on field trip to Oz that day. Then there was dance recital rehearsal. It was fun to watch the wee ones. Allison at level one is quite advanced and accomplished. Joining her were mom, dad and brother Sammy. Sammy doesn't dance, but he sure does have other skills. I would be hard pressed to pick my favorite personality, as they are both incredible. They treated us to dinner after and then we shared a Shiner in the RV in the FREE Dumas RV park, right by the train tracks, till no one could stay awake any more. It was a good evening for all, although maybe not quite so restful a night. Lots of trains, lots of winds. We experienced "weather" in the Panhandle. All prime time programming was pre-empted to highlight the wild weather; this is storm chaser country. After all, we are just 60 miles from Oz.

How long does it take to get out of Texas?

We made short work of the 4 hour trip to Fort Worth...it only took 6 hours. While there, we spent the evening with good friend Carol. She drove us through Trinity River Park after dinner where we found ferral cats and raccoons cohabitating.

Overnight there was a rainstorm and I was reminded how loud rain is when lying 6 inches below a metal roof. Just getting used the RV again and working out our routines.

This morning I decided to try out internet and couldn't find it. We ended up at the Geek Squad for diagnostics. As a result, once again we were off at the crack of noon. This is turning out to be a really long road out of Texas.

Carl got out the scenic drive books and chose 199, the Jackboro Highway. Once we left the trailer zone, which cuts a deep swatch northwest of Ft Worth, it actually was scenic, rolling hills, followed by high plains and then into patches of random canyons similar to the Caprock Canyon landscape. The only excepion to scenic was the town of Jackboro, which is "not quaint". Even the courthouse is a square dull box. West of Seymore our map showed a scenic drive that is a rectangle with the northeast corner marked by Gililand. Carl wanted to bike it clockwise while I drove it counterclockwise. The north south roads were quite scenic canyons, while East West sides were pancake flat fields of lonely lonely grain crops.

 

At this point it was 5:30 in the middle of nowhere, so we headed north to Copper Breaks State Park for the night. There's only the park host and us here, and lots of rabbits to drive Daisy nuts. Last night cats, tonight rabbits. According to the sign on the bathrooms, it is also rattlesnake country. I'm going outside to check for stars now. Do rattlesnakes like days or nights?

Leaving Texas

 

Cannot bear the return of the heat, so at the crack of noon we rolled Teregram off the front lawn and headed for elevation. Our first major stopover will be two weeks in Taos on a Habitat build. Actually, the location is Questa, a small town North of Taos. Working off the items on my lifelist....

As you can see from the photo, we expanded Teregram's exterior storage this year....at least double. The experiment was untested before we left town, but luckily we've had no incidences of feeling back heavy or rattles or anything like that.

So, anybody know a scenic way to get out of Texas?

Put down that brush

and step away from the painting, and Nobody gets hurt!

Here they are, my first two watercolors, overworked and tedious, but hey, I am off to Plein Air Painting at Ghost Ranch, there's no stopping me now.