Which might seem mysterious but actually just means that “Cave”, one of the drawings Christine H. Sandoval offered to benefit the stand at Standing Rock and the one we managed to acquire, is on its way…kudos to Christine and also Nina Elder, another young artist who put up and sold four drawings for the cause last weekend as well.

Anyway, “Cave” shipped Tuesday and out here it was grey and muddy, too wet to burn.

But not too muddy for Dan from Carson Pump to arrive from Mound House

and video 360′ of encrusted wellpipe in real time, that silver dealie being

$23K of submersible camera

…which goes down the pipe

reporting back from water level

to the well’s well-encrusted bottom

which was fascinating and immediately persuaded me that all good wells need cleanings. We made plans to do that in late winter, weather depending. Dan was gone by lunch,

the weather stayed pretty good and though I still remained a bit underneath it

there was the distraction of a crazy cacophony of coyotes in the night.

In the morning an outburst from another quarter greeted the ignition of Twisto’s cattail pile

which needed quite a bit of guzzoline

and made quite a lot of smoke

but was pretty well over by breakfast.

Wednesday remained fair, and late in it

a machine appeared.

Then, the morning…

…a nice morning, if a little frosty.

Around 9:30  AAA [ aka James , Willey’s equipment wrangler] showed up and we surveyed the work.  He fired up the loader,

dove into the pond for a recon,

promptly sank

and was back by noon with Mark and the dozer, who just as promptly popped him out.

Mark split with the empty semi; I did my usuals as James worked the two machines without  further incident until near dark…

with admirable results.

Friday he came close to finishing but left early to gather cattle.

Above, the waterlilies, hanging in despite the koi pond’s repeated desiccations

and, in the afternoon, weekend traffic tearing up the roads…

Yeah…

M