so last Sunday I found out why we hadn’t heard from my brother Kirk since the Friday previous when he and Tom were merrily rolling towards Denio in the Fish Wagon and asking, until his phone cut out, what the drive down the east side of the Black Rock to Sulphur and the Seven Troughs would be like. Turned out Saturday the rest of their trip became a nonstop dash from

Rosebud Canyon [nonstop save for a pause at the Lovelock ER] to El Granada and then almost immediately back over the hill to an ER in Burlingame and appendectomy early Sunday

morning* right about the time my phone flew onto the cruel stones of the front steps to its demise.   Around then cattle were apparently invading Wall Spring as well, but I, phoneless,  knew nothing about that until Tuesday.

Sunday afternoon the family wanted to zoom about appendicitis but as it was just as Sarah Bird arrived from the Springs moments after, to a great cacophony of dogs, Bill Haynes brought John Valdes down to see about mowing around the house that didn’t work out so most of the Kirk news came later.  Chaos, in short…a chaos shortly sorted in time for a bit of a walk after Sara

was settled, then a pleasant Sunday dinner in as weather threatened

…but Failed to Deliver.

Monday was hazy, lazy after a walk up Fossil Hill past more ant lions’ entrapments and then at

the end of the day John mowed, followed by another leisurely dinner including but not

limited to shrimps and watermelon salad with talk of many things [as our Sarah has led many and amazing lives].  The next morning we all took a last walk, now unfortunately smokish,

to visit the little cabin and up the knoll before Ms. Bird departed and,

after Linda sacrificed several frustrating hours trying to locate a replacement phone from Apple [whose confirmation text couldn’t be recognized by the trashed one] and subsequently ATT who adamantly refused to recognize our address and gave up, I briefly visited the studio

[probably a beer can, but maybe a small speckled dog].  Next morning, after the thrill

of Live Mice in the kitchen sink I went up the hill to see Bill’s

newly built painting studio while L. made a last attempt with ATT who kept her on the phone

about the phone for well over two hours, culminating again in their refusal to accept our address.  By now more time had been wasted then it would have taken to drive to Colorado Springs** and back and still nothing.  In the end we ordered one online sans SIM from Apple, who declined my credit card.

Meanwhile Tara was texting increasingly desperately from Gerlach about the cattle inside the fence, her fantastical story about longhorns lifting up gates to allow the beasts to scoot under quite amusing, true or not.  All in all it made for serious unease, like a hole in the floor but worse***.  With no resolution in sight Thursday we were gone, fortuitously

intersecting UPS down the dirt to collect Apple’s overnight on our way,

to town for tamales and other essentials, then La Veta for Nancy’s birthday lunch at “Legends”,

a cafe which two years ago had brought the promise of great New Mexican food up from the  south.  Looking forward to that again I was disappointed to find the menu had been drastically La Veta-vised in the interim but ah well, the shishito pepper appetizer was delicious,

the company sufficiently outstanding to withstand if not entirely ignore the gross ineptitudes of “Miss 20%”, our waitress, and despite the half hour wait for pie at the end [worked for me as just then I heard back from Susie about the dust, smoke and renegade burners descending on Gerlach****] we were home to the dogs not much after three…

Dogs then had their walk and we a dinner reprising Sarah’s wonderful watermelon salad with luscious the-cheaper-the-better late summer corn before Labor Day Weekend

further weakened…

*which Kirk luckily survived just fine and was home from the hospital Wednesday afternoon.

**the nearest Apple Store.

***throw in Afghanistan, an appendectomy, Texas, hurricanes, fires in the west, Deluge in New York and Trumplican shenanigans generally and a few cows or days without a phone seem minor in the extreme.

****though not much help in terms of fencing or renegade cattle as they have plenty of their own to deal with.