34 degree's and so wet this morning.
Yesterday I tried to work on the barn without a great deal of success.
From January of 2010 the inside of the barn had been left with huge mountains of soil throughout and the concrete footing have been left open to the elements .. constant flooding, rain, snow. Brand new metal house (storm) doors destroyed and buried under the dirt.
Trying to get inside a 2,000 square foot concrete block barn with interior "dividing" walls to replace the dirt has been almost impossible for me. I physically can't move tons of soil soaked in water.
Jan and Mike Aldridge went to look at the barn a few weeks ago to see if they could get inside with their small tractor. They couldn't, not without tipping the tractor on it's side. So after talking with Bob, Jan, Mike and John it became obvious that if the barn was to be saved from having the footing eroded, and put into use... the dirt HAS to be put back by hand. Pick and shovel time. What an ominous task ahead.
I managed to paint some of the exterior barn walls before the storm clouds started to accumulate overhead, but this is the very first time I have not walked inside that trailer. I just couldn't stand the thought of going inside and seeing so much work needing to be done, and not being allowed to do a thing.
I did walk up to the two new windows in the living room and ran my hand down the half finished wall the state of New Mexico refuses to let us complete. The constant rain is ruining the material, rain water is going onto the brand new floor daily. Behind the brand new door the wood is already coming up.
It simply breaks my heart.
My own health has started to fail again. I can't breath, can't stop coughing and I'm losing my voice. My temperature is soaring, then dropping, then soaring again. I feel simply awful. Getting through the summers has been difficult but the winters are an absolute killer for me, with more health problems than I can function with. So the summers have been geared towards trying to get into a home before winter arrived.
The Ruidoso News newspaper has done front page article after front page article simply begging for help. This is as depressing and disgusting for them as it is for me.
It's been so long since I could walk into a home, make dinner and eat at a table. Take a shower and walk into a bedroom. Know the warmth of a home while watching the snow fall outside. Know the security of being able to relax as the rain pours.
Those things have not been mine for many years. And trying to get back into a home has become an exercise of frustration. This is a nightmare.
On or before the 10th of October Robert Huckins is scheduled to pay me another $450. If there was a way to force the money out of him in a timely manner that amount would buy me HALF of the first of the two utility poles I need to get the electricity turned on and working.
The courts really don't want to inconvenience a convicted felon by making him return the building fund. That would be too cruel.
I work for an old cowboy who has been, to put it mildly, and absolute bugger for most of his 86 years. Everyone knows this, and his wild and woolly stories ( some of which are true) have made him quite a fixture in the ranching world. I have worked for him for a lot of years, shortly after Jim and I moved to Alto.
Last year he sold his arena, but maintained a small corral for his roping horses in the barn/shed I am staying in. I begged him not to sell, but as long as he had horses to ride he seemed quite happy. For a while.
Today he goes back and forth making statements that I listen carefully to. Having people "peep" through his front windows rattled him pretty seriously, moreso when the woman started walking into the house uninvited. Then he got upset because the same people were delving into his personal affairs.
One morning he stood bewildered saying that they phoned his son and told him that the registration on his truck had expired and my boss was simply horrified. How on earth did they know that the registration had expired. The truck is kept 24/7 inside a closed garage. It is a 2006 truck, the same year as my Ford350, with less than 19,000 miles on it. It rarely see's daylight.
Yet they knew that the registration had expired, and I KNEW that they go check country records and find a way to get information because they had done it with my land.
Trying to calm him down I explained, truthfully, that it wasn't "personal" for they researched whether my property taxes had been paid AND requested my medical records. In fact getting her away from demanding my medical records was an absolute nightmare the like I have never before seen. It simply reduced me to tears.
Even trying to make the excuse that they were military medical records didn't slow her down - she was ready to take on the military. I was a nervous wreck, it was the most bizarre thing I had ever heard of, and I was already trying to cope with court trials and a felony case days away that were exhausting me.
My boss claims that he sold the land but maintained a right of way to enter the horse corral from the rear lane. The new owners put logs across the lane preventing anyone from entering.
So in the spring of 2010 he demanded that I move the logs. Insisting that the road was a legal right of way, and his horse shoer needed to get in.
I didn't want to move the logs and we started arguing about the consequences. I begged him to leave them alone so as not to cause problems. But he pay's my paycheck so move the logs I eventually did, grumbling audibly.
Because I know how vindictive these people can be, because I had heard the constant threats, I expected that by sun-up the next day the logs would be back across the lane.
But that didn't happen. Surprise, surprise.
Within TWO HOURS they arrived with a backhoe full of rocks, dirt and boulders and dumped the whole lot across the right of way an 86 yr old claims is his. I just happened to be walking from the house to the horse corral with Print when the backhoe was leaving and I shook my head in dismay and asked him, "Why would anyone do that to an 86 yr old?"
Print just sighed and said, "Some folks are just plain mean."
Print promptly jumped into his 350 and drove right over the top of the pile of rocks, boulders and dirt. I stood with my boss saying, "Well here we go, now Print has taken the truck over it and all hell will break out."
My daughter, grand-children and I were walking through Walmart a few days later. The woman who owned the backhoe approached us and started going on about that load of dirt and boulders and rocks. I stopped her and explained that I am an employee and this has nothing to do with me. She stormed off saying that she would "talk to my boss then."
My daughter laughed saying, "Well who else should she talk to - it's nothing to do with you." I smiled and said, "Some people just want to cause misery and if they can't use you as a punching bag they feel deprived." And the game of slapping at people, then buying cookies or shampoo and offering gifts. Of saying that they care deeply, then coming out with vicious demeaning statements, has worn thin.
Or as the old saying goes, "the gig is up."
A few weeks ago the entire street had a "block" yard sale. As I drove out I noticed a hay barrow sat in one yard and stopped to inquire about the price. For $15 I bought it. The house just happened to be almost, but not quite, directly opposite to the Presbyterian minister/pastor. He was outside, as was the neighbor I was buying the hay barrow from, and the woman with the backhoe was walking towards me. "Oh, I have sold your bosses television" she declared. "But he refuses to answer his door. IS HE DRUNK?"
I have not seen my boss drink alcohol in 12 months or more. Not even a cocktail. Nor has anyone else. I have seen him hide in his bedroom terrified to come out because someone is peeping through his windows, and the woman is well aware that he hides from her.
For myself this entire situation was Lesson 101 in poisoning the minds of everyone around. It was professional level one-up-man-ship.
I was suddenly stuck in a situation where I could have told the truth and said that he was trying to evade her. But it seemed so confrontational in front of another neighbor and the Presbyterian pastor. Or I could slink away embarrassed. Not wanting a confrontation I decided to do the latter but I was so nervous that I couldn't have got that barrow in the back of my truck and got away fast enough. I was visibly shaking, almost on the verge of crying.
I sorely regretted stopping at that yard sale.
And I knew that these degrading demeaning comments, twisting facts, telling untruths, sarcasm at this level took years of practice, and I had certainly been the focus of her wrath during 2010. Yet for the life in me I couldn't understand what would make a person this way.
Yesterday my boss sat reflecting on how mean people have become. He mentioned his tree's that are dying because the same woman decided to pour weed poison around them - without his permission. He planted them outside his bedroom window, specific species to provide food for the indigenous wild birds in this area. She didn't like them so she poured poison on them, and they sit brown and withered.
He sat almost wistfully reminiscing of what life was like when people didn't peep in your windows, or walk in unannounced, or threaten to phone the health department, or housing association, or government offices when you refused to jump when they told you to jump.
Standing at the kitchen window he looked down the lane at the pile of rocks and dirt and said, "You know, they had no right to do that. I had the right of way and they had no right at all. But I have not said anything."
Fact is, he's too old to face a fight or put up with the continual drama those people bring. And I am too. It's easier to accept their cookies and try to placate them, and not have anyone cause waves. So at the end of the reminiscing he sighed and said, "That's just the way they are I guess. I have lived here over 60 years and had some good neighbors and good friends.. never had any trouble. This place has turned positively evil. Good people can't survive here anymore."
I walked outside and looked towards the Sierra Blanca, and I couldn't help but wonder. Could a location be positively evil? When I arrived it was a ranching community with strong ranching value's. Today it's turning into Santa Fe or Taos.
My youngest daughter, who was raised here, say's that it has, "Lost it's soul."
I look at the beauty around me and it's such a shame.
Yesterday John announced that what needed to be done to get me into a home needed to be done fast - because he is leaving New Mexico.
Last week we had scheduled to put the roof over the top of the house, and start to put the roof over the top of the barn. This week John say's that he doesn't have access to the trailer designed to haul and weld the pipe being transported from the oilfields.
We sat talking about the work that could "legally" be done. A mountain of brand new plumbing material was left thrown up alongside the arroyo by "volunteers" but each builder who has looked at it declared it no longer usable. We could gather up all the trash and haul it off. We could put in the gateposts & corner posts and set them in concrete, but we have more rain in the forecast.
There are so many built in cupboards inside the trailer that must be taken out, the stop work order demanded that we stop renovating. It said nothing about ripping out. I suggested that we could start taking out all those rotten cupboards, seeing as nothing is going to be replacing the cupboards.
But, the reality is, we can do nothing but the mere lipstick and rouge. Prayerfully starting with the dirt being replaced onto of the footings in the barn.
Two hours after I left the property hail started to pound down in fury. The hail turned to rain and it rained, and rained, and rained. A dry winter may be a welcome sight after this summer.
