Never a Dull Moment

Dan is away this week on a Carnivale cruise to Mexico, and I am looking forward to a peaceful week in which to catch up on my writing.  But this morning I stepped outside the front door to tell our dog, Rebel Rose, that there is nothing to bark at, just in time to see a lost black heifer (that's a cow) calmly trotting up our driveway.  She trotted right past us, down the road past the syrah, and through the open gate into the zinfandel plot. 

I followed her partway before I reconsidered cattle rustling on a 20-degree morning in my pink robe and Uggs, and retired to the house for a cup of coffee and a change of clothes fresh from the dryer.  After all, the vineyard is dormant, and there's very little damage she could do for now.  I placed a few phone calls enquiring about Bossy the Cow, but could not locate an owner.  I figured if I couldn't find an owner, I would just open the back gate to the vineyard and shoo her onto the neighboring ranch; months from now our neighbor Antillio Busi would be mildly suprised at having mysteriously acquired another side of beef.

Once it had warmed up to a balmy 40 degrees, I went out to find Bossy.  The ATVs were both almost dead--probably the cold had affected the batteries, so I ended up hiking down the grade, and then up the hillside, to the very back of the zin plot.  Bossy had already left, but it's a good thing I checked the vineyard--a pipe in the well housing had burst and water was shooting out like a fire hydrant. 

Miller Drilling Co. is still backlogged from the recent flurry of broken pipes and pressure valves, so it was imperative that I turn off both the well pump and the booster pump near the tank on top of the hill.  The booster pump is easy, but the wellhouse is old--the electrical switches have no identification, and one box was hanging off the wall at a 45 degree angle, suspended only by cables.  Of course, that is the box with a large red lever that looks like it means business.  And I have to wade through water and step through a maze of pipes that look like a demented 3-D game of Twister to reach it.  So I considered my options:  I could either let the well run dry and both pumps burn up and hear about what an idiot I am for the next year, or I could die a quick and dramatic death and everyone would feel sorry for me.  Definitely Door Number Two . . .