38th moon: October 21, 2002. As we watched the harvest moon rise over the Chiricahuas last night, we were reminded of that evening three years ago when we had just arrived in the area and saw the moon rise as we drove out toward our bare land.

This month's entry in our moon diary was written by Paul a couple of weeks ago:

I have to write this adventure down while it is still fresh in my mind. Toward sundown I went over to a neighbor's house a couple miles away. We cooperate in ranch animal matters. I raised three ducklings for them and they are raising a slaughter pig for us. The pig, whose name is Binnie, is approaching slaughter weight and I went to say hello to him. When I returned home, the sun was down and light was receding.

I went over to the chicken yard to gather up the day's eggs. I had just placed them on the kitchen counter when I heard two of our three dogs barking furiously. Their barks had a certain tone to them that indicated to me that we had a serious wildlife intruder problem down by the south fence and I should get down there quickly with the gun. I acknowledged that this was a "bring the gun" bark, but I decided it would take too long to get out the gun and the ammo and load the gun up. I rushed out the kitchen / utility room door scanning for a weapon to pick up as I went through the utility room. I chose a 3-tined digging tool that we use for gardening work.

Mali, our third dog, who is the most cautious of the three was running along with me toward the south fence. Before I had gone 50 yards, one of the two barking dogs suddenly went from barking to crying out like it had been attacked and wounded. That stopped me in my tracks. I said to myself, "Dummy! You should have brought the gun like the dogs told you to." Thoughts of dog-killing javelinas ran through my brain.

I turned around and ran back into the house and got the gun out and loaded it as fast as I could. Mali, conservative as always, came back in with me. Making sure the safety was on, I ran back out and again headed for the south fence. Jake, our partially blind German Shepard, was running northbound to see what was taking me so long. He met me when I got about as far as I had gotten on the first foray. This left me with visions of Kayliegh our black lab being shredded by wild animals. I could still hear her barking down by the fence. I told Jake to "go gettum" and he and Mali rushed off to the south though the meadows.

Now I have to explain about the meadows. We did not have meadows when we moved to the land. Cattle had stripped it almost bare. But since we finished the fence, the grass has gotten more lush each year and it is now impossible to travel in a straight line to the south fence. We have broad swaths of grass 2 to 4 feet high, especially right after the Monsoon Season, which ended about September 11 this year. You have to seek out the few remaining bare patches and navigate circuitously along them to avoid wading through the grass, which may contain rattlesnakes.

Jake and Mali arrived at the scene and they both immediately began barking fiercely. As I made my way to within 75 feet of the brawl in the gathering dusk I could make out a bobcat on the far side of a mesquite bush strutting back and forth making faints and short charges at each dog in turn. It looked like our pet grey tabby cat times 20 without a tail.

Now I get to make a confession. At this point I got a real big case of "buck fever", the kind that a teenage boy gets when sees his first big buck on his first deer hunting trip.

Just a couple of weeks ago I had the gun over at a friend's rifle range to sight it in and figure out why I couldn't hit Pepsi cans with it. I had found that it was shooting a couple inches high and 3 inches to the left of the bulls-eye. Once I figured that out, I could hit my friend's targets with each shot just by aiming at the lower right corner of the target. Not having my small screwdriver with me at the time, I had not adjusted the sights, leaving that task to some later time at home.

Well, my buck fevered brain remembered the part about high and to the left and so I aimed high and to the left as I squeezed off a shot at the bobcat through an opening in the mesquite. Of course, the bullet went even further high and to the left, missing the bobcat. I didn't even realize the trick my brain had played with that high and to the left stuff, I just wondered why the bobcat had not bit the dust.

"No problem", my buck fevered brain said. "I'll just bolt another round into the chamber and take another shot." I completely forgot the fact that the gun was a semi-auto and all I had to do was aim and fire again. I grabbed the eject lever, pulled it back and then forward just as I had done a couple of minutes earlier in the house to get the initial bullet into the chamber. This jammed the gun completely. The bullet that was in the chamber did not eject fully from the magazine area and the new bullet coming up from the magazine jammed up against the original bullet and they both sat there in a x-shaped formation blocking access to the chamber.

"OK, I said to myself, let's just relax here and get this thing unjammed." I removed the magazine and began digging around up there with my index finger trying to get the two bullets to fall out. I was doing this while at the same time keeping an eye on the cat. Suddenly it dawned on me that the dogs had disappeared with the sound of the gunshot and I was now alone with a very angry bobcat and a jammed gun.

Fortunately the cat stayed behind the mesquite as I got the two bullets out and re-inserted the magazine and pumped a bullet into the chamber. I took a deep breath and waited for it to move. It took off to the west along the fence and I got off another shot as it cleared the mesquite, but I was still aiming high and to the left. I called for the dogs and we all took off along the fenceline, but the cat had left the property.

I suppose this all says something about the "fog of war" experienced by infantrymen. It probably also says something about why cops and robbers have a hard time hitting each other during shoot-outs.

The dogs and I headed home where I unloaded the gun and inspected the dogs for wounds. I found none and was thus forced to conclude that the screaming dog must have been Jake, who cries at the slightest touch.

Hopefully the bobcat figured out he is not welcome on this 40 acres and won't come back to slaughter the chickens, guineas and ducks, which is what bobcats like to do in Southeast Arizona.

39th moon: November 20, 2002. Yesterday in the early hours (3:30) of the morning, we watched the Leonid meteor shower. It was a good show, but the nearly full moon caused a lot of the lesser meteors to be unseen.

Well, Paul lost the Justice of the Peace election on November 5. He has concluded that the race cannot be won as an independent. A major party nomination in that race is worth several hundred votes, an amount that makes it impossible for an independent candidate to catch up.

As usual, we are in the middle of several simultaneously advancing projects. We are finishing the guest room so we can move into it for the winter. It will be insulated and easier to heat, having its own propane-powered wall heater. The drywall is up in that room. It needs a second coat of mud on the joints before we can paint the room. The closet beside the room is in the same stage of construction.

Tomorrow we begin preparing the south wall for stucco. We are applying a special paper-coated foam wrap from International Paper called Fome-Cor onto the OSB. Then comes a layer of chicken wire, followed by cement / stucco.

In the living room we are installing a wood stove in place of the originally planned kiva fireplace. The stove will sit on a platform about 13 inches off the floor with the two walls behind the stove being covered with a layer of blue rocks which we are gathering from a wash near Mexican Canyon over by Bisbee. They have the color of blue jeans.

We have ordered the sliding glass door for the patio and the double sized bathtub for the master bathroom.

We started getting our overnight freezes around election day. The tomato plants were still going strong, so we saved about 4 gallons of green tomatoes that otherwise would have been killed by frost. They are ripening inside the house into little yellow pear tomatoes.

Our friend Michael is scheduled to fly in a couple days from now for a short vacation from his hectic life back in the corporate jungle. He will drive his car back to Dallas. This is the one Paul drove to Arizona when he was stranded in mid-flight at Dallas on the morning of September 11, 2001. We look back at that time and realize we are very lucky that the plane Paul was on was not one of those hijacked that morning.

40th moon: December 19, 2002. The sliding glass patio door was delivered and we installed it right before we left on a holiday trip. Michael helped us with some of the drywall work for the guest bedroom. He and Paul went exploring in the Whetstone Mountains searching for a source of workable stone that would have been used by the pre-historic inhabitants of the area. The Clovis-era archaeological site about 40 miles from us at Naco produced a mammoth skeleton with 8 perfectly-formed obsidian spear points embedded in it, so we know there must have been a source of workable stone somewhere in the area.

41st moon: January 18, 2003. It is always a pleasure to watch the giant full moon peek up over the Chiricahuas. After returning from our holiday trip, we began work on getting the flue set up for our woodburning stove. Paul had to cut a hole in the roof for the triple-walled stovepipe. We have arranged for a local stucco expert to put the first layer of cement on our south wall beginning February 1.

42nd Moon: February 16, 2003. The first layer of stucco on the south wall looks great. Paul has been going on field trips with the Sunsites Gem and Mineral club to visit local mineralized areas.

43rd Moon: March 18, 2003. We got the west veranda poured and during a visit from Beth's sister and her friend, we put up the vertical mining timbers that will hold up the light shed-style roof for the veranda.

44th Moon: April 16, 2003. Paul has been working on the framing of the west veranda roof. We are using rough sawn 2x6 pieces left over from the construction of the roof trusses a couple of years ago for the 8 rafters coming out from the house to the mining timbers. 2x4s are used between the 2x6 rafters. The steel roof panels will be fastened onto the 2x4s. This work in the area of the west wall will be the last major project we do on the house until we see some improvement in the national economy and our personal economy. Paul's business has been seeing fewer clients since September 11. Futures trading involves risk-taking and people are generally less inclined to take risks during unsettled times.

45th Moon: May 16, 2003. Last night the almost-full moon had a total eclipse. Our main car is in the local car hospital after it hit a pothole on the dirt road approaching our place and broke a rear shock absorber. Paul is almost finished with the work along the west wall of the house.

We have a Guinea Hen sitting on a nest behind the house incubating a bunch of eggs. Our Guinea population has dwindled to about 6, so we are hoping this batch of babies will produce some survivors. Guineas are notoriously bad mothers, walking off through the fields without paying attention to any youngsters who get caught or lost.

46th Moon: June 15, 2003. Paul has put up a new page showing some interesting photos taken in Cochise County.

That Guinea is still sitting on those eggs behind the house. Hmmm. The incubation period is supposed to be 28 days. In the meantime, we have hatched 2 ducklings from the incubator and one suddenly appeared in the chicken coop, where three hens are sitting on assorted eggs. None of the hens claimed him, so we added him to the brooder with the other two. We have placed another dozen duck eggs in the incubator.

Pancho the cat goes out nightly on hunting trips. On three recent occasions he has brought home live baby rabbits: one cottontail and two jack rabbits. He brings them into the house through the dog door and releases them.

We may be getting an early Monsoon season this year. We had a good rain on June 9 and an even better one a week later. July 4 is the usual target for the beginning of our summer rainy season.

What follows is the tale of the Great Emu Roundup.

Last night about 4:30 Paul answered the phone. It was a cell phone call from Beth, who was on her way home from work. She was about halfway down Morgan road. She told Paul, "Get in your car and drive down Morgan Road. I've got an Emu here." Paul said "OK" and jumped into his car, leaving the gates propped open as he left the property.

Sure enough, about halfway down Morgan Road, there was Beth's car slowly following an Emu as it walked along the fence toward our property. Paul parked a bit short of the action and walked down to Beth's car. He accompanied the Emu as it traveled slowly to the south. Emus are not difficult to herd as long as they acquiesce to the herding. When the bird stopped, Paul would walk up to its right side and put his left arm around the Emu's left side while pressing his left thigh against its right side of the bird and pushing forward to get it going again.

We got down to our corner and the dogs came over to the fence to greet us. This caused the Emu to decide it would no longer acquiesce to being herded and it turned around and headed north. There's no stopping an Emu that wants to leave. It stopped after a short run and Beth drove in and put the dogs away and came back with a pan full of chicken food. The Emu took a few bites and was soon back in the "acquiescence" mode, so Paul herded it the remaining 1/8 mile to the Morgan Road gate and it turned in to the property. Beth had also opened the large gate to the chicken yard and we herded it directly into the yard. It took a long drink of water while the Guineas scolded it continuously.

It quickly became familiar with our extended bird enclosure. It was walking along the west fence of the enclosure when Kayleigh the black Lab walked up to the fence. The big bird let loose with a couple of its very low tone "drumbeat" sounds and Kayleigh skeedaddled away as fast as she could run with her tail between her legs. After a fifty-foot run, she stopped and returned to investigate the bird again. Another couple of drum beats sounded and Kayleigh ran away again and hid behind the trailer. She refused to approach the fence for the rest of the evening.

Pancho the cat came out to where Beth was watching the Emu. She picked him up and watched as he spotted the big bird. His eyes opened very wide and he laid his ears back.

Since we are not interested in a long term relationship with an Emu, Paul began calling around to see if he could find who was the owner or who would be willing to adopt the bird. We learned that the owners were not really interested in getting the bird back, although they were willing to pick it up if we couldn't find an adopter. Paul found an adopter who is scheduled to bring a trailer over this evening to try to transport the bird to her home.

47th Moon: July 14, 2003. All that Guinea egg-sitting came to naught. Nothing ever hatched and the eggs disappeared one by one until there were only four left and then the hen stopped sitting and re-joined the flock.

We had better luck with the nest platform Paul built to Beth's specifications under the eves of the veranda. Within a couple of weeks a pair of Canyon Towhees began building a nest up there and before long we had three gaping pop-up mouths attached to tiny bird bodies in the nest. The parents kept busy all day bringing bugs to the babies. We were amazed at the number of bugs they found within 100 feet of the house. It never took them more than a couple of minutes to bring back a beak full of bugs.

48th Moon: August 12, 2003. Paul decided to close his commodity futures business by the end of July. Since the September 11 event of 2001, it seems that people have generally shrunk back from risk and there is certainly risk in trading futures. 2002 was a bad year, but we kept thinking that recovery was just around the corner for company revenue. February 2003 was very promising, but March set a new low. July 31 was the last day of business for the business. It will take a couple of months to complete the process of shutting it down. We will miss it because it was a key element in our plan to live in the boondocks. However, we have concluded that five years from now, we can probably look back and see this as a good decision.

49th Moon: September 10, 2003. Paul continues the work of shutting down Buffalo Trading Group, Inc. That should be finished in a couple of weeks. Then he will proceed to find a job. Beth continues her 3-times-per-week commute of 7 miles to her job with a local company. In the meantime, we had a fairly weak Monsoon season this summer. We have probably had less than 6 inches of rain for the year so far.

50th Moon: October 10, 2003. Tonight, with the full moon, Poncho the cat must have been a good target for some predator. We last saw him about 4 pm stalking some critter just to the west of the house. We assume he went outside the fence that surrounds the property for his nightly hunting. He did not show up the next morning for his regular check-in. Coyotes do not come past the fence, but we hear them every night just outside the fence. This month Mali the dog got bitten by a rattlesnake on the side of her snout. That adventure is recounted in the dog section of this site.

51st Moon: November 8, 2003. Well, this moon could have gone into the fifth year, but since it is the harvest moon and we arrived on the night of the harvest moon in 1999, we decided to put it at the end of the fourth year. We watched the moon rise and found that it was a mere crescent instead of a full moon. Seems that the shadow of the earth was falling upon the moon. By an hour after moonrise the eclipse was total. It was fun to watch and it reminded Paul of one of his favorite quotations. It is from Ferdinand Magellan and goes something like this: "The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." We had a rash of predator action in the poultry yard this month, losing our two roosters, a duck, and at least one hen. We know the hen was attacked by a skunk, but the others were not killed in skunk fashion and they remain a mystery. One of our neighbors did shoot a raccoon on top of his chicken enclosure this month. We are entering the time of the year when natural sources of food get more scarce, so predators like to expand their horizons. We have begun using the wood-burning stove for heat already and the first frost came in late October, a bit early. Paul rescued about 5 gallons of green tomatoes of the yellow pear variety from the garden.