When people hear that I live on a ranch, they imagine rolling hills blanketed in verdant greenery. A pastoral scene with farm animals posing as the ultimate in lawn art – a rustic yet tasteful home, woodsy and inviting. And a stocked with homemade jams and jellies. When I invent the picture I almost wish that I lived in such a place. Then, I am shocked back into reality when an uninvited guest scurries across the floor heading toward my pantry.
My ranch is not what you would think about when you visualize a dreamy pastoral setting. My ranch is more like a dilapidated barn that has to be shored up before you would risk letting your valuable livestock enter. The doorframes have shifted so the doors do not fit and the minute openings are just large enough for a small mouse to squeeze through. We lack common comforts like public water, sewer, or natural gas. Instead, we rely on an unpotable well for irrigation. Our house water comes every two weeks via truck. Instead of natural gas, our heat comes from a propane truck. And the refuse is flushed into a septic tank which has to be pumped periodically and on hot days has been known to emit a very ascertainable scent. The narrow and windy dirt road leads to a narrow and steep dirt driveway that acts as a deterrent to visitors and leaves our cars looking like Pigpen from the Charlie Brown comic strip.
Yet, after nearly 25 years, I am still here. I raised my children here. My memories are here, even the good ones. And where would I go? Even though the endless hills are diahrrea brown from the California drought, they are my security blanket. They are the force field that separate me from the harsh cruel world. And the dry, brittle landscape causes me to lean in – to look for small wonders. When the wild flowers begin to bloom. When the yucca plants suddenly tower over the trails. When the buckwheat turns golden, even if it is only for a few weeks, I immerse myself. And I forget about the dryness that sucks the humanity out of me.
Those uninvited guests make nests in our cars, in our house, our garage, and most recently, one drowned in the water basin of my ring saw. They have figured out how to steal the treats in the traps and escape. Even though they are no-kill traps, they cannot contain mice anxious to escape. Or maybe the mice who visit me are special – really smart, or really quick, or really small so they can escape from the traps.
