Before and After
We had a pond. How many people can say they have a pond in their yard? It was so much fun.
Now when we drive by there is no water, no ducks, no Blue Heron, no chance to go fishing, no kayaks, none of it.
The pond is being dug out, then it will be treated with a sealant, and then refilled. It will be done after we move.
We miss it already!
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I like the photo on the left so much more than the one on the right! It's so hard hard hard to believe that we'll never see the little ranch again. We have so many happy memories from our monthly trips. Here are some:
Hitting tennis balls with S.A.M. and Mademoiselle, but mostly with M. with the little old bunkhouse as backstop, nudging puppies out of the way to pick up the balls, getting lots of exercise chasing them down in the far corners of the yard...
Catching chickens to move them from the shed to the barn as the sun set, hoping they would wake up the next day and think of that new place as home. Which they didn't. And having the joy of wedging a chicken under each of M's arms to carry, and helping S grasp one tight so he could run with it down the hill to the barn. How competent they were, how engaged, how eager to get the job done! And running down there with two under my arms, too, trying the foothold technique that's supposed to calm them because all the blood rushes to their head of something (we're still talking about chickens here) and giving up and hugging them until throwing them into the barn all the while not letting the other escape.
And realizing that the banty rooster had already taken charge, standing up on the tallest shelf in that barn and doodledooing out his little cockiness.
I remember walks, edging past Rattlesnake Hill and in the cooling twilight keeping an eye out for where cougars might be lying in wait for small prancing morsel-sized animals, in this case M and S. Realizing over and over the peace of the place, where no human habitation but home, off in the distance, could be seen and almost never a plane or a contrail. In fact, not enough walks.
The goats who were shy, the pig who was bossy and opinionated, the ducks who didn't match, watering them and pulling out some fresh hay while S sat high on the fence and M collected the eggs.
And eggs. Speaking of eggs, so many eggs! Delicious eggs! So very very many eggs...
And kittens. More kittens, fewer kittens, more kittens...
Inside the house, the memory of sleeping on the living room floor on the mattress, waking up to roosters. Multitudes of roosters. And a puppy nose on the window. And the shy good-morning of sleepyheads who might have forgotten we'd be there when they woke up.
And to get there, the long drive that we never minded, figuring out strategies for the Phoenix traffic, potty-stopping at the Burger King in Wickenburg, then the treat of driving through the joshua-tree forest and finally, our favorite, doing the dirt-road cutoff for the last 20 or 30 miles - almost there, it's 10 pm and we said we'd be there at 9...having left after D's last class on Friday, leaving again on Monday morning early to miss Sunday night Phoenix traffic, and getting him to his Monday class just in time...
No more of it! It was wonderful. No more chickens, no more classes, no more special time of ranch and visits and pond. No more visits to the little branch.
But an abundance of happy memories. Thank you, pond, and thank you chickens, and thank you M and B for playing tennis across the bumpy ground. Thank you B for all your cuteness, and thank you Daddy for great times playing, and watching you get ready with your scary uniform and vest and gun. And thank you Mommy for all of it.
Love, G of All
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