When we next left Phoenix for the land, our car thermometer said 109. It was about 1 p.m. When we got to Yarnell, we had to call friends and gloat. The temperature was 70 degrees! It seemed we had missed the rain, but not by much. And it must have been a real gullywasher, as Gerald put it. The roads were all rutted and the washes were running. There was even quite a bit of water in the stock pond.
We were relaxing on the porch, enjoying our good fortune, when we heard a truck. Traffic noise is pretty unusual, so we looked to see what it was. I had to look twice. "It's a UPS truck!" I said. We cracked up. We were the proverbial "last house on the road." Our nearest neighbor was two miles in the other direction, so he wasn't going to make any deliveries the way he was going. There's no way out except back up the road, so I went down to the end of the driveway with my camera."I just had to take a picture of the UPS truck in the middle of nowhere," I said, and we both laughed. Turns out he was on his lunch hour. He had a delivery to make to Linda, at the first house near the ranch gate and wanted to see what was down the road. He wondered if it connected to Sorrells Ranch.
"Nope," I said. "The only way out is the way you came." He apologized for disturbing us and asked what our address was. "I don't know," I told him. It never occurred to us that we could have anything delivered out here. But it was good to know UPS apparently went everywhere.
There were a couple of things we could do on this trip. Gerald was keen on tiling the shower, but we also had all that wood for the porch, so we ended up working on the porch. After what felt like a lot of work on Saturday, it still seemed like we had a long way to go.
Gerald was pretty red faced by the end of the day, as it got up to 103 right after lunch. We were grateful that we were able to work in the shade, and a nice breeze blew constantly.
We picked up Kathleen and Linda for dinner at Rumors. We had 6:30 reservations, and it was 8:30 by the time we left, but the second time the power went out, we took it as a sign.
It was raining and lightning as we headed back to the ranch. On the way home, our car registered 63 degrees! At 6:30, it had said 97. I was still wearing shorts because I couldn't stand the idea of putting on long pants. Now I wanted a blanket. We were excited by the prospect of listening to the rain fall on the tin roof, but we wanted to get home before it really got going.
But by the time we got back, the rain had passed. There was a good deal of new rain on the ground, so it must have rained pretty hard. We sat for a few minutes watching the lightning that raked the sky every few seconds, then gave in to our tired bodies and went to bed.
We worked on the porch again until lunch. We kept thinking it would get easier and faster, but there was always something. On the corner, we had to splice boards and so had to find ones that were the same width and thickness. Then we still had some of the wood from the Congress sawmill, much of which was bowed.
The wood from the Prescott saw mill was, indeed, better, but far from perfect. We still wrestled with warped boards and boards of different thicknesses that had to be shimmed and boards that didn't want to fit underneath the siding. We were both pretty tired by lunchtime, so we packed up and headed home. Here's how it looked at the end of the day.
There were a couple of things we could do on this trip. Gerald was keen on tiling the shower, but we also had all that wood for the porch, so we ended up working on the porch. After what felt like a lot of work on Saturday, it still seemed like we had a long way to go.
Gerald was pretty red faced by the end of the day, as it got up to 103 right after lunch. We were grateful that we were able to work in the shade, and a nice breeze blew constantly.We picked up Kathleen and Linda for dinner at Rumors. We had 6:30 reservations, and it was 8:30 by the time we left, but the second time the power went out, we took it as a sign.
It was raining and lightning as we headed back to the ranch. On the way home, our car registered 63 degrees! At 6:30, it had said 97. I was still wearing shorts because I couldn't stand the idea of putting on long pants. Now I wanted a blanket. We were excited by the prospect of listening to the rain fall on the tin roof, but we wanted to get home before it really got going.
But by the time we got back, the rain had passed. There was a good deal of new rain on the ground, so it must have rained pretty hard. We sat for a few minutes watching the lightning that raked the sky every few seconds, then gave in to our tired bodies and went to bed.
We worked on the porch again until lunch. We kept thinking it would get easier and faster, but there was always something. On the corner, we had to splice boards and so had to find ones that were the same width and thickness. Then we still had some of the wood from the Congress sawmill, much of which was bowed.The wood from the Prescott saw mill was, indeed, better, but far from perfect. We still wrestled with warped boards and boards of different thicknesses that had to be shimmed and boards that didn't want to fit underneath the siding. We were both pretty tired by lunchtime, so we packed up and headed home. Here's how it looked at the end of the day.
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