OF RUST AND DUST

Monday (May 12), the lead BLM surveyor returned and brought Neighbor Pete with him. We discussed again the placement of the “old house” at the corner of the yard, right at the top of the lane. We had a party here in 1971 and burned it to the ground, and being a foundationless building, there’s just nothing that marks the spot today. Even the lane has been altered a bit. 

The exact location of the old house seems to be important because the original surveyor James Robb (1897) mentioned in his field notes that Jack and Ina’s cabin (the old house) was a half chain (33 feet) from the north-south line. Eventually our present surveyor realized that he has some aerial photos taken in the 1940s from which he could triangulate off the barn and the farmhouse a good approximation of the location in question.

Then the survey crew went out to the canyon rim due west of the house and Mike accompanied them. With a metal detector they came up with some rusty old artifacts – a wash pan and a frying pan without handle. The next day, Mike went back and got them. I figure they must have been near an old dumpsite. (You gotta wonder about that broken frying pan. Did Ina throw it at Jack?)

Mike put us to work yesterday (Thursday, May 15). It was time to wash windows, he said – inside and out. So we did. He did all of upstairs and the downstairs exterior while I cleaned inside windows downstairs. And one thing led to another. It always does. I vacuumed out a corner or two, put away this and that, washed some knick-knacks.

And then, of course, the big dust-makers came through. Never fails. But I suppose in reality it doesn’t much matter. There’s always more dust.

Unfortunately, I didn't take the camera on yesterday's walk. We saw four Canada geese in the road. I tried to get a picture with my phone, but I'm not sure you can really see the geese.

One last story before I move on for the day. At Christmas, the Mile High Warnocks sent us a game via UPS, and it didn't come before we closed the house for the winter. We knew we were expecting a package, and when we didn't find it on the porch, we asked the neighbors if they knew anything about it. One of the boys said he had seen the UPS truck turn around at the bottom of the road.

Fast forward a couple of months, and we heard our lane had washed. We asked Neighbor Pete to look over the damage, which he did and then reported back. "Weren't you expecting a package via UPS?" he asked. "-- because I found a box in the ditch by the lane. It was in a plastic sack and the sack was full of water." He said he would open it and check it out. If it was all right, we could pick it up in the spring.

Mike rode over to Pete's this morning to retrieve the game. After all that box had been through, it actually survived. It's called "American Trivia" and the board, the cards, and the playing pieces were intact. So, we didn't get to play it with Nick and Hallie at Christmas, but we can play it over Memorial Day weekend in the cute little Tudor. KW