It’s true – Hubby and I have had another hot and steamy date night at the ranch and I know you just can’t hardly wait to hear what wildly romantic things we did.
Picture it… Sunday… late afternoon. I had been working in the tree strip – trimming out dead branches, pulling weeds and generally trying to get things cleaned up like I do every spring. Yes, I realize it is nearly the end of summer but I figure instead of looking at is as being 4 months behind I will look at it as being 9 months ahead of schedule. That sounds so much better – doesn’t it? Anyway I had been working outside most of the day. I was hot and sweaty and smelled almost as bad as I looked when Hubby asked me to go for a ride with him. My buddy Kathy once told me that her Mama had given her a small piece of advice on how to keep your marriage together if you ever decide to marry a farmer or rancher. Her advice was simple but good:
“Every time he asks you to go somewhere, drop whatever you’re doing and go.”
So with that in mind I jumped into the pickup and was ready for adventure. I was pretty sure we weren’t going off the ranch because he didn’t seem to mind how bad I looked or smelled for that matter. I soon realized none of that would matter.
We pulled up beside a flat-bed trailer loaded to overflowing with a mixture of pickup parts (such as a very large engine – complete with transmission and drive line attached and 3 axles – complete with wheels and tires). Heck – with a load like that we could have gone down to the scrap pile and found enough old parts to build a complete pickup and still have an axle to spare.
On top of the trailer full of ‘parts’ was a very large and very heavy stock tank which we needed to load onto the back of the pickup and haul to the School Section pasture. Now, I don’t know about you but I’m not exactly the type of gal who spends her days in the gym lifting weights or doing chin ups so I’m not really sure what could have possibly given Hubby the impression I could actually lift my half of this tank but after much straining, groaning and cussing we did manage to get it worked off the trailer and onto the back of the pickup where it stuck out about 2 feet on either side and another 3 feet beyond the tailgate. Of course Hubby left me there holding the back-end of the tank in place as he found an old weathered landscape timber that was just barely long enough to lay across the back of the pickup for the tank sides to rest on. One tie down strap, 3 bungee cords and a rope later it was tied down sufficiently to make it the 2 miles to the pasture.
We took off, moving slowly so we didn’t lose our load because I, for one, didn’t want to have to reload it. We only passed one car on the drive. It was our neighbor, Ellen who thought nothing of our unusual and over-width load. She just smiled, waved, dodged off the road and bounced down the ditch to avoid the tank and never even slowed down to call the cops. From her lack of concern I would venture a guess that stuff like this has happened to her too – being married to John I have no doubt…
I am glad to say we made it to the pasture just fine with only having to stop once to readjust the tank.
As soon as Hubby mentioned the School Section I knew that we would be setting this tank down in the bottom of a ravine – after all – that’s where the spring is that runs water most of the time and really, what good is a tank if you don’t have water? One thing I didn’t know was that the road down into the ravine had washed out so we would be lowering the tank down the rocky side from above. Here’s a photo from the top looking down on the full tank that was already there. You can also see the remains of two other tanks to the upper right of the full one. The bottoms of both of those tanks are gone and only the sides remain.
I’m not sure how deep this ravine is but I would guess about 20 to 25 feet. Thankfully, it’s not straight down even though it looks it from here so I was able to slowly play out rope around the ball hitch on the back of the pickup while Hubby shoved the tank over the side.
Here’s the tank about half way to the bottom after it got hung up on some of the rocks and shrubs.
Time to load up and drive around to what’s left of the road but first I would like to point out the old cedar post against the back tire of the pickup. Hubby almost got choked up when he saw it because before his father passed away Bud would sometimes have to haul water over to the cattle if it got dry and the spring stopped running. He would load a huge water tank (several thousand gallons) onto the back of the old stock truck and fill it with water. Now the stock truck was new (back in 1964) so as you can imagine things have gotten a little worn out and the old girl has gotten a little ‘loose in her joints’ – so to speak. But Bud had nerves of steel and he would back that big old truck loaded with a couple of tons of water down to the edge of the ledge where this old post laid. When his dual tires would bump against that post he knew it was time to set the brake and park it so he could hook up the water line that ran down into the tank. Now that wouldn’t be so bad if the ground was level but scroll back up to check out that first photo I posted to see what kind of slope there is at the top. I was holding the camera level when I took that picture.
Scary, isn’t it. And that was in a pickup with good brakes!
Anyway we drove around to the other side of the tank and hiked down along what used to be the road.
There’s the new tank – stuck half-way down the wall. From this angle it almost looks like it’s perched on top of that post – but it’s not. As our boys would say – we had to ‘get Western’ with it and pulled it down of the rocks and out of the bushes.
Then we slid it next to the full tank and joined them together with a hose.
Wha-Laa, we had water.
I asked Hubby if he wanted to go skinny dipping in our new Cowboy Hot Tub but he just looked at me like:
“What are you, crazy? There ain’t no water. Well shame on you!”
Quick – name that movie…
It was filmed in Australia and stars Tom Selleck and Laura San Giacomo (of Pretty Woman) who played Crazy Cora and stole the show because she is a wonderful actress and she also got all the really good lines…
Yep – Quigley Down Under – my all-time favorite movie and when he rides off into the sunset and stops to look back at her I just melt into my cowboy boots every time… Ahhhhh
But back to the tank.
Hubby wouldn’t go skinny dipping with me (probably because I had a camera clutched in my grubby little paws) but he did take a few minutes to sit and enjoy the peace and quiet while I kicked off my boots and soaked my feet in the cold spring water.
Then it was back to the tree strip after another adventure-packed, gut-grueling date with my Honey.
RanchDaze 