OK, Third Time, after two complete disappearances; one near done, gone, so built a second using the pictures [sort of…].  Last night the original mysteriously reappeared, was reworked, posted and…had vanished without a trace by morning. So, YET again;

Monday Willey, having clocked 4500 miles since last sighted, fired up the loader and dove into the worrisome wet of the bottoms to finish

while Mark shuttled back and forth, taking away cat and then loader, the land left without heavy equipment for the first time since Hallowe’en

and quite quiet.

     

 

Early Tuesday morning tire noise amplified by the cold announced the approach of the first of several Dodge diesels

Keith’s crew, as promised, followed by mud from Cedarville, poured by ten

but the second truck never showed. While they finished the first load I drove up 447 past Squaw

and found the second truck, an old Kenworth…uh-oh…the second truck

had fucken ROLLED.

The driver was almost out of the canyon when tightening turns and low brakes caught him by surprise; lost it on the first, rolled into the hill; the second twist would have put him in the gully with consequences more dire. He caught a ride back to Cedarville with the owner’s wife instead of in the ambulance which, this being America, would have wiped out most of a year’s wages.

I headed home

to take a late walk in great light

and later still Keith was back to strew straw and lay tarps against the freeze.

Despite staying up late towing the Wreck of the Kenworth home Bob [owner-operator] drove down through a snowstorm to finish the job,

which, after some ministrations to frozen valves on the watertank,

went fine.

Along with the mud came the welcome news that the driver was ok, just a little bruised and shaken, and hopefully the truck’s motor could be salvaged, the rest being pretty much a ruin.

With the concrete put to bed until Saturday pretty much all the pieces of our long-awaited puzzle, or whatever it’s been, have fallen into place

save for the ponds’ slow fillings…which remain problematic despite

our approaching Season of Greetings.

 

M.