A Quiet Fourth of July
I like it so far, this new location for my blog. I feel as if I’ve moved from a small cramped apartment to a spacious loft. Moving a blog from Typepad isn’t easy, either. As you can see if you scroll back to older posts, the formatting is way off, and I'll have to correct it, page by page over time. I understand also that once I officially cancel the Typepad account, the images will disappear and need to be individually reinserted; I have no idea why that would be, but I guess Typepad doesn't want to make it too easy for its customers to leave.
And I use the word “customer” intentionally: I have been paying $5 a month to have them host the blog. I was up and running for more than a year before I found out that everyone else blogs for free, and by that time it seemed like an awful lot of trouble to migrate. Well, it was a lot of trouble, and I’m still working on it – but I’m glad I made the move, and I hope you’ll stick with me. Just remember to change the address because eventually the Typepad site will disappear. (In progress, also, is a combo website-blog that will incorporate interviews and stories from Zacate Canyon. Watch for word on that.)
Meanwhile, back at the Ranch…it’s 4th of July and another one of those cool gray days that make me think the calendar is wrong. Our good friend Steve-from-Utah just left this morning after a short visit and called as he was driving along the 101, not far from here. He thought we would be amused to hear that one of the local rats had hitched a ride out with him. He was cruising along the highway at 65 miles an hour when the rodent scampered up from the hood onto the outside windshield, where it ran back and forth frantically in front of Steve’s face. Even with the glass between them, it was creepy and disconcerting, but before Steve could figure out a safe place to pull over, the wind and motion dislodged the rat and off it tumbled, meeting whatever fate awaited on the 101.
Steve thanked us for this parting gift and informed us that it hadn’t been the first time he left with rodents on board or nuts in the engine, but certainly the most startling. It reminded me of my daughter’s story about the time she was driving on the main Ranch road and saw a mouse running around on her dashboard. She pulled over, parked, and got out of the car, leaving the door open in the hopes that it would exit. One of the Ranch employees came by and asked her if she was having a problem. “It’s a mouse,” she said, hoping for a rescue. “Oh, you’ll be fine,” he responded. “You’re a Ranch girl.”
Yes, it's a fact of living here, not the sort of thing we dwell upon, but mice and rats are certainly part of the deal.In other, more pleasant, news, the apricots have suddenly come into their own, and our little tree is abundant with sweet fruits that seem to have ripened all at the same moment. Before word gets out among the birds, raccoons, and occasional bear, I have gathered as many as I can and I am making my first ever apricot pie. (How hard can it be?) I mixed some butter and flour to form a pie crust dough that is chilling in the refrigerator now, and I sliced the apricots, adding not too much sugar, a dash of nutmeg, and a bit of lemon juice because I add lemon juice to practically everything, and soon enough I will see about putting these components together and into the oven. Whether a successful pie comes out remains to be seen, but won't it be wonderful if it works?
So maybe none of this is as whizz-bang as 4th of July fireworks and picnics, but this is the Ranch, after all, and it’s a quiet gray day and our good friend Steve has left and I am weirdly content to be sitting here formatting pages on my new-old blog.