Thursday afternoon Willey tried to get out to Wall but failed, so the loader sat silent.

Meanwhile the thing on/in my cheek, once the size of a halved golf ball but now a mere purply-red lump the diameter of a dime tickles and writhes as if alive. Hopefully this is just unshaven fur rubbing against gauze, but it creeps me out.  Shouldn’t the various gut-disrupting poisons have put those creatures to rest by now?

Nonetheless, a good day to doze; Cat against cattails…

resulting in considerable progress

and still time for a trip playa-wards.

Saturday came up brightly cold with the usual tour

and soon after breakfast -aha! – the talented Mr. Courtney,

into the loader and unto the breach;

to dig until noon when,

just as the completed upper pond began filling,

major weather moved in [The black spots below are leaves blowing over the roof, headed for Winnemucca and trailed by rain.]  Uh-oh.

Backup was called for and both machines ran nonstop past dark.

It rained from three a.m. to nine;

the boss was by for a look around seven before leaving for L.A. to collect a used pickup

I stayed; breakfasted on the east porch,

pond filling, rain off and on…

…Mud.

Nonetheless a fine day for finding a 1978 Duferrena  contemporaneous with the couch [still waiting for the one with matching colors from Walsenburg].

Such was Sunday, November 20, 2016; restorative waters…

making Monday, 21 November, too muddy for machinery

though not too wet to walk to Parker Ranch for the backhoe once the sun showed,

returning to find Linda’s concrete being laid out at last.

Clouds on the Granites reminiscent of my first sighting of such on the Rosa Range, driving down from Paradise [Hinkey Summit closed] back when winter could come in September.  The then exotic image indelible though now, and here, it’s not that unusual…rainbows also.

By 3:30 Keith’s ready for mud, the kind you have to pay for, but when that will happen is unclear

I walk to Dave’s to call L, forgetting to collect the groceries left in their refrigerator but

do find, after more than two years, the Chev’s missing mirror

somewhat irreparable.

Still, November.

M