Vegas On The Drive Loop

I had a boyfriend many years ago who was incapable of driving past a reservation without stopping for a few pulls on the big money slots. If we didn't stop, he got edgy like a smoker on a long flight. But I always thought he had many other better ways to spend all that money, and I think I've found one he might even enjoy.

I was never a gambling man myself. Oh sure, I could understand playing nickel slots for a couple of hours. I could see spending fifty dollars and calling that the price of entertainment. But hundred dollar slots? Thousands of dollars gone over the course of a single evening?

No way, that's not my idea of fun. That's what I call stress. Just the simple knowledge that I could be spending that money doing something useful or more lasting is enough to ruin the fun. But then, add in the pressure. Given the much higher stakes, I am painfully aware of the importance of winning back what I am losing.

Out here we have casinos too, but we have no municipal water source. Instead, we buy our drinking water in town and we rely on surface springs that run all year, water tankers that come up every few weeks, and wells. But year-round springs are rare and the endless parade of tankers can become expensive over time so a well, if you can get a productive one, is a wise investment. Since my spring gets thin each summer and access to it is shared with fiercely competitive neighbors who wish to usurp my water rights, a well seemed imperative.

But well drilling is just like gambling. There might be water a few feet down, but you'll never know unless you drop some cash into the hole and see if it floats back to the top.

We've been drilling a well for weeks now. And we definitely have water on our property. Each time we put the drill down into the soil, we have water bubbling up after a few dozen feet. But oh, the complications.

At the first location there was the dreaded black sand that you can drill through but then collapses and settles into an impermeable concrete layer, ruining the well after you've nearly finished it. The eighty foot shaft filled with water by itself to only fifteen feet from the surface, but we couldn't get the water out. So we moved to a new location.

Then there was the diamond vein that couldn't be drilled through at all. So we moved to a new location.

And then, most recently, we set up the rig on the drive loop. It seemed like a good spot. And sure enough, we drilled to only thirty feet and signs of water started trickling in. But there were problems. The rig was vibrating off its footings, causing the drill stems to flex inside the drill shaft and destabilizing the well as it went.

And then, after correcting the drill's positioning twice, the drill bit and ten feet of drill stem separated from the rest of the machine forty feet down. And as we prepared to give up on the location and abandon the equipment at the bottom of the well shaft, the water level rose four feet in an hour. More water we couldn't have.

So we're going to throw the dice again in a new location. And as we prepare to grind away eighty or one hundred more feet of rock, I cannot help but be reminded that I am no fan of gambling. Especially when the stakes are high.

Four Alarm Fowl

The California wildfires have been astonishing thus far and we haven't even seen them. As a pleasant little gay boy from the wetter side of Oregon I was completely unfamiliar with the horrors of a wildfire. But here in NoCal, we've been socked in smoke for over a week. Women have taken their newborns out of state to spare their lungs, and neighbors wear respirator masks.

I imagine the effect is like taking a little drag off a cigarette with every inhalation. In fact I must admit that although I pride myself on superior health and resilience, I feel as though I am becoming victim to the plague of wildfires. My throat is scratchy, I wake with a cough, and Head Chef and I have both fallen into a sort of inexplicable lethargy. Are we just especially lazy, or is it something more?

Lying around deprived of oxygen has given us plenty of time for contemplation and conversation. Among the many revelations we've had is that guinea fowl is a suitable substitute for pheasant in fine restaurants throughout Europe and North America. Who knew?

Guineas are actually a wonderful multi-purpose bird. Although they look like decorative chicken-vultures and are capable of incredible amounts of noise, they are also effective organic alert systems. Anything out of the norm causes them to raise the alarm. Furthermore, they are ravenous insect eaters. They can consume so many of the ticks that cause Lyme disease that some rural counties give them away in pairs to help people control ticks. All this, and delicious too?

Were it not for their potential delectability, we might not have even considered it. But in all the haze and apocalyptic gloom of the fogs of wildfire smoke, we started picturing a few of ours as roasted, dressed, and presented on a platter a la Bugs Bunny.

It's not that smoky environs make us hungry. No, we had other reasons.

At first, we couldn't quite put it together. Before the smoke was even detectable by mere humans, the guineas were raising a mighty cry. And they did it for all their waking hours. Unceasingly, from 4:30am to when they went to roost in their tree for the night. Then the smoke became visible, and then we could smell it. And still, the guineas called.

They gave themselves dust baths in the drive, screaming the alarm. Not acting frightened. Just screaming. If they had been a baby, we would have shaken them. So we went to town and bought a pellet gun. All the better to silence them.

As we drove, we talked about why this sudden change in behavior might have occurred. Were they reaching maturity and establishing their territory? Were they trying to keep the flock from wandering too far apart? As African prairie birds, we knew their instincts to stay close together would be strong, but this was ridiculous. Frankly, it drew a lot of attention. An animal attempting to avoid predation doesn't do that just for fun.

And so, in between coughs and while trying to peer through the drifting smoke at one another, it occurred to us that perhaps they were staying on high alert because of the smoke. That would be one reason they might not mind making themselves noticeable. If the prairie's on fire, predators are probably a secondary concern.

So we put the gun away, and decided to wait for Cal Fire to put a damper on the flames. Today we have nearly clear skies. We can see each other from across the yard, and can even spot the mountain across our valley.

And the guineas? Well, they have quieted down significantly. They shall live to be eaten another day.