busy monkey

What it's like to be a busy monkey:

I realized that I was not a typical person when very young. Just looking around, and savoring the aromas, and listening to life's sound track was way too stimulating for me. It will be difficult to explain to a reader that is not a busy monkey. Colors are too bright, sounds are too loud, and smells are much more intense than is required to identify the odor. This can be very entertaining. For example: laying on the ground looking at ants while birds sing is like a fantastic movie that lasts all day long. It can also be a huge problem when the stimulation gets too great. The busy monkey is likely to misbehave and to retreat into a protective shell.

I had other senses that I naturally assumed were shared by the human race in general. I could recall past events with unusual clarity. For instance, I was able to purchase my college text books, read them from cover to cover one after the other, and then return them for a full refund. My test scores were nearly always 100% with no studying at all. But, there was no trick to that, because I could look up the answers very quickly in the mentally photographed pages, or recall the appropriate lectures word for word.

I also found that I could tell what people around me were feeling. Again, I thought that everyone could do that, and I wondered what all the talking was about. I found that one person that was in a good mood was no problem. But 3 people nearby provided too much signal. A person that can see auras clearly told me that mine was as big as a city block, instead of extending just slightly past the skin. If I was not able to draw that aura closer to me and stayed in a city, I would literally die.

A good memory is not always disturbing to the owner. It can be like money in the bank. I have been trained for many professions, gaining skills easily. One need keep no records. The down side is that I recall stressful events very clearly. It is hard to be around people when you remember every stressful event that you have shared with them. It helps if you have experienced many positive events together. If you can tell what they are feeling, that makes them very real and 'persony'. You can step into their shoes, and they need to be comfortable shoes.

I do not believe that I am mentally ill. I certainly seem so when overstimulated or trapped. Despite the gifts, my life has been one of constant flight. I can't stay in a city, where people, with their emotions and schemes, are thick. I fear any type of captivity, so that makes personal relationships close to impossible. I have managed a 3.5 year relationship with a woman, but we probably broke up 60 times in that period.  I succeed at nearly any job that I choose, but a formal job is similar to a prison sentence of indeterminate length. The most difficult job that I attempted was field engineer in the oil field. There was a solid 10 months of intense training, with a kind of final exam for the small minority that made it through. I ran a crew for 2 years then, writing bills of up to $120,000, and receiving bonuses of up to $3000 for a single visit to a well site. I learned to care for the crew on the road, controlling their drug and alcohol consumption, and making sure that they were well rewarded. I handled disasters, including a well explosion and a high speed highway accident complicated by explosives and dangerous radioactive 'sources'. The US part of that company [precision drilling] failed, and I was the last engineer in the US to be laid off as they wound down their American operation.

I love to take photographs, and have been recognized with grants and sales of expensive art images. It is very enjoyable to let others glimpse my cartoon world. I have made some documentary films, including one where I was the subject of the film [A desert life]. It won awards, because it allowed viewers to feel like a busy monkey for a few minutes. I was to be flown to the awards ceremony, but of course, I was unable to undertake the trip out of fear of over-stimulation and captivity.

For a long time, I occupied my time scaling cliffs, often with no rope. I have a body deformed by German measles during gestation. I was able to whip it into some kind of shape so that I could travel about and climb the most difficult climbs in the US. I did this for about 40 years, taking a break in the middle to try academia and heavy industry. I traveled a loop along the Rockies, and then back along the coastal mountains. For income, I guided climbers, sold images, and repaired climbing shoes. At the age of 55, I encountered chronic soreness that made it impossible to continue. My friends were nearly all dead by this point. Un-roped climbing is a mostly a self regulated activity. 

I began to take care of remote properties. With my ability to use tools, hunt and endure long periods of being alone, I was the ideal caretaker. Each client told me that I was the best that they had tried. The other caretakers had visited the place infrequently, and did the bare minimum to keep it going. I stayed there, totally content to do my busy monkey stuff. I was then hired by an entire family in Moab, Utah. They gave me a nice car, and bought the old hospital in Moab where I could live.  When the family vacationed, I moved into the parents house. I began to work for a solar installer in Castle Valley, and built my first tiny home in that isolated town.

Moab was very good for panoramic photography, with it's red rocks eroded into all kinds of interesting shapes. The town itself  grew greedy in time, and converted itself into a noisy, unpleasant playground for fossil fueled recreation. I towed my 19 foot travel trailer behind my Jeep to Washington state, to prove a new well at a friends property. The Methow Valley proved to be a somewhat pristine area, with a river that always runs, and is was protected from exploitation by the federal government.

I built more tiny homes, carrying one to California to show to a perspective buyer. I rolled that one on the way back, and injured my pelvic floor in the process. I was able to sell the wreck for a fraction of the material cost, and build more. By this writing, I have built a 10 by 14 observatory, an 8 by 12 bedroom, a 6 by 8 tool shed, the 8 by 16 tiny home that rolled, an 8 by 8 kitchen, an 8 by 10 climbing gym, and a 10 by 12 foot shop.

I moved up the valley from Carlton to Winthrop, and began to work for another large family. I concentrated on operating heavy equipment when not building portable solar buildings. I made trips to the parent's ranch in eastern Washington, serving as welder and mechanic. I received some big city medical care, including the removal of all remaining teeth and the fashioning of dentures. That is where I am at now, having achieved 61 years of age. I continue to build an elaborate castle for myself, become trapped in the castle and then kick the castle down. 

a month at a run down ranch

I was living on an amazing property along wolf creek.

I had fought the neighbors tooth and nail to be able to exist among their elite number without constant calls to the county, the health department, and the fire department.

By being a very considerate neighbor, i had worn down their hate over the course of a few summers and a winter. Now, some had actually started to visit the first tiny home community, and to give me the sort of gifts that rich people cast off like golden turds as they proceed through their privileged existences.

My goal was to improve the 45 acres that dominate the flat center of the valley where Wolf Creek meets the Methow river. Once it was possible to reach all of the 9 non-divided 5 acre parcels in a passenger car, my ambition was to create clusters of tiny homes with large solar energy systems that required little energy input from the outside. Every building would be portable, so that the 5 acre parcels would be subdivided and sold with a well and a septic system, but no other infrastructure.

I was underemployed, because many of the neighbors would not hire a non licensed worker who was also mostly despised. But, being a pretty stubborn dreamer, i just continued to create the buildings while living on food stamps, exploiting the food bank, and enjoying the fantastic health system in Washington.

A young gentleman named Russel was added to the property by the owners. It was done by telephone, without a careful physical inspection of the equipment that he meant to bring to the place. Russel had a ruined Winnebago dumped off of a tow truck in the center of the property, and then hauled in a ruined slide in camper tied with rope to an ancient self made trailer. He had been evicted from the areas lowest quality campground. 

The neighbors became frantic, because they perceived that their flawless retirement hide-out was becoming a low-end camping ground. There was trespassing, photographs, and the county shut the property down. I had 60 days to depart. The ruined RV would remain there, abandoned by Russel.

The owners parents have a large ranch near Spokane. I had been there twice before to help with welding and mechanics. The Ranch is in it's final stages of collapse. There are no buildings that can be used save a metal shop and a metal storage barn. The other buildings are in ruin, with a row of collapsed structures trailing away from each standing structure. There are no machines that work properly, including the passenger vehicles. Just hundreds of wrecked machines and trucks all over the place like a crazy junk yard. I have not seen a meter of good fence on the place, which attempts to imprison several thousand cattle and a few hundred bison.

The ranch has trouble attracting able help, because there is no place to live on the ranch. Capable workers do not do hazardous work for minimum wage with no benefits at all.

Thus, the ranch is worked by ancient hands that get crippled and die by the time they learn how to use the ruined equipment. The owners are now getting too old to work the place, so there is need for a real clean up, and perhaps, a habitable building that could house a young family that might be capable of running such an operation.

A deal is struck with the elderly ranchers. I would pay 10 hours of work per month to stay near a ruined house while i remodeled it. The son and I brought over one of my tiny buildings so that i would have a clean and pleasant place to live while i did the remodel. it would literately take years, so the ranch bought me a nice pick up truck that i had found with cosmetic front end damage. Only, the ranch backed out of the purchase in mid stream, leaving the son to purchase the truck in my name. It is a nearly perfect Toyota Tacoma, but with a smashed front, bald tires and filthy oil. I need such a truck to change between the coast and Eastern Washington, but my Jeep Cherokee is already adequate if i stay on the coast.

I move into the tiny home and spend a few days trying to clean up the area to purchase my months rent. Then, I attempt to begin the remodel of the house that is completely full of hoarded trash, dead animals, and toxic dust composed of asbestos, mold and animal droppings. I have a room mate, who is an elderly worker from the Ranch. He is supposed to help clean the building, but is too self centered and insane to do anything but clean 'his' room, and to play with his hoardings. He begins to bring his stuff to the house, filling the entire room from corner to corner with boxes of old magazines and conspiracy theory paperwork.

The female head of the ranch claimed to be too busy to think about the remodel, even though I had arrived during the last month of good weather for building. I was given no materials, and instead, was disturbed at all times of day with ridiculous tasks like driving the same cows into a pasture with ruined fences each day. There was welding to do, but she was also too busy to get the welder fixed or to order the many things that are needed to weld and do mechanics. I busied myself trying to clean up the shop, which has a dead backhoe occupying the center, and all kinds of junk littering the floor. The tools were in heaps and covered with grease and used oil, even though i had arranged and cleaned them on a previous visit. to get any work done, i had to bring my own tools and safety equipment, and even my own electrical and welding supplies.

There was no way to order parts, and no way to really replace the broken tool attachments and materials that i was using. I just soldiered on anyway. A terrific storm then damaged my tiny home so that it can not be heated any more. I moved into the ruined house after cleaning a room as best as i could. it is still way too filthy and stinky for a sensitive person to live in, but i had hopes that the remodel would soon fix that.

My room mate turned out to be not a worker, but an insane elderly conspiracy theorist. For his work, he seems to be a sort of professional con man that operates on the very edge of the law. He feels that he deserves to live in the house that i am trying to repair because he has successfully attached himself to the ranch as a permanent parasite. He begins to suck my blood, requiring me to rotate his car tires, and to perform each of his tasks at the house after he fails to do it. It is ridiculous, and I realize that no remodel was ever intended.

I run the parasite out of the house. It does not really work, as he returns again and again to beg me to let him stay. Having a human parasite attached is very uncomfortable. He kept pestering me until I blocked his phone, and offered to call the sheriff and have him hauled off.

Meanwhile, the son has arranged with a local lumber yard for me to get materials at his expense. I drove into town with the still wrecked Tacoma that had bald tires and no insurance. I was still putting my own gas into it, but had made no repairs at all. I brought back a truck load of materials, and used my own tools and fasteners to create a roof over the entry of the building. I then pried up the asbestos tiles in the bathroom, and put in a composition floor.  When the ranch woman found out, she was furious. The remodel was then officially over, and i was paid 45 dollars per day for my efforts.

I find myself with a unusable tiny home that should never have been brought across the state to a fraudulent remodel. I have a truck that i do not need, and can not repair or insure with the 45 dollars per day. I finally repaired the wire feed welder, and waited over a week for the inert gas bottle to be filled. I was called again and again to do tasks that should not be done, and required to do the tasks incompletely and incorrectly. It is a very bad feeling for a retired field engineer to work in such dangerous conditions, with no way of getting supplies, and basically no pay. The 45 dollars of 'pay' is actually half of the per Diem living expense that i received when doing dangerous work in the oilfield.

I have been welding for 2 weeks now, and have ruined every pair of pants, and my only hiking boots. The welder now feeds the wire reliably, but it has a further electrical problem that allows it to sputter molten metal all around instead of laying down a good bead of weld. I am able to repair way more complicated devices, but not without use of the internet and suppliers like amazon.com. I used the welder as it is, getting burned, and eventually sputtering molten steel through all of my layers of clothing onto the screen of my cell phone. Two days before this writing, i got hurt monkeying with the parts of a giant feeder. I realized abruptly that i had no support on the ranch at all. If my injury had been severe, i would be treated just like a homeless person that had wandered onto the place and gotten hurt.

I do not enjoy being a captive on a ruined ranch. Luckily a second son lives near Spokane, and he may have some construction work for me. I will get my teeth plucked out and replaced with dentures. i will see a surgeon, and find out if my pelvis can be repaired. And I will travel a bit to see if anything changes on the ranch during my absence. It looks like I will have to bring the degraded tiny home back across the state and sell the Tacoma.  What a gigantic waste! The ranchers will die leaving almost no accommodations or working equipment. The sons are not equipped or inclined to take over the distressed operation. The livestock will be lost, and the leased parcels will be rented to someone else. I am not sure if a ranch in this condition can be sold for the price of totally empty land. The cleanup might cost a great deal, and go on for years.

I have hurt my back severely on the ranch, and now seem to be taking sick with depression and COPD from spending time in the ruined house. I am not tempted to end a fairly entertaining and adventurous life by dying of poverty on a ranch that is doing the same thing.  I am documenting events without naming names; not to punish, but because it seems to reduce the pain slightly.

Trouble along wolf creek

Shame on the elitists of Wolf Creek!

My name is Alf Randell, and I have been working to revegitate and clean up the center of the valley where Wolf Creek meets the Methow river. Thus far, it has taken one and one half years.
From the moment that I arrived to start the work, I have been plagued by the exclusionary and elitist attitude of the less friendly members of the Wolf Creek Property Owners Association. It seems that these part-time residents despise and resent less affluent locals who would like to live near them. Part time residents tend to build huge foolish-looking fake mansions. To me, they look like shoddy double wide trailers, with nearly flat roofs. On the odd weekends that the fake mansions light up, many complaints are phoned in to the county.

In my own case, none of the complaints have produced any citations. Indeed, almost all of them were ridiculous and clearly fraudulent. They have cost the county, and the less affluent permanent residents, thousands of dollars, and heaps of misery. At the conclusion of last season, I received the planner and the building inspector at the same time. They had both wasted many hours of taxpayer fundeed time listening to overly empowered part-time residents cast these absurd allegations. By this point, however, they were simply collecting transcripts of the fraudulent calls, and providing the transcripts to the property owners who had been targeted. The two officials reassured me that they were not processing a single one of the fraudulent complaints. Indeed, they stated that neither of them had found anything actionable at 292 Wolf creek road, despite the barrages of memorial day and labor day phone calls. We walked around, and I showed them the tiny homes that I had been constructing to relieve the boredom of my sunset years.

You can see the documentary about me on the internet by searching for 'Alf Randell , A desert life'. Although I may look like a homeless person, my family owns a pretty nice printing company on 6th avenue in New York City. And, although I seem to be a mentally handicapped geezer, I am a fairly well recognized professional photographer, and a fully trained engineer and physicist. Now, I enjoy building tiny homes that are powered and heated by the sun, and operating heavy equipment.
I imaginemn thatn I see clearly what is going on at Wolf Creek. The area has a group whose main hobby is to gather evidence of wrongdoing on the part of their less affluent and more permanent neighbors, and to report these imagined crimes to the proper authorities. I was astounded to see such behavior flourishing in an otherwise perfect valley. I was reminded of a gang of bullies who like to find the most vulnerable victim, and then work in concert to harm them, and drive them from the area. Except for myself, the victims of the illegal surveillance, trespassing, and fraudulent complaints are families with young children. I can not figure out why these hate crimes are tolerated in a community that otherwise has a lot of cohesion and transparency. It is a case of the least polite individuals winning every single battle. The victims have failed to organize, being the sort of humans who shun legal battles and endless drama.
This came to a head for me on August 18, 2019, when a summer resident trespassed onto the property and conducted her own independent inspection. When I tried to get her to leave, so that I could get back to my work, she refused, and had to be driven [without harm to her] to the property line.
She had been infuriated when the health department would not immediately take action, and had been convinced by her fellow trolls to take matters into her own hands. Ironically, she gets her mail on the deeded land, and has built a long glass house along the edge of the property. Her knowledge of my comings and goings, guests, and habits was chilling, and I realized that she had been observing the property in a way that is not even remotely legal. She also made it very clear that there was a strong group of neighbors dedicated to my removal.
I am a sensitive person, I found it hard to sleep after the illegal search of the property. I began to hide behind my own buildings, aware that eyes were measuring my every move.
Members of the hate group approached me, making it clear that I lower the value of their properties, and am not a good enough person to live in such elite company. I was informed of the large membership and dedication of the hate group. From their point of view, they are doing a public service, and each poor family forced to move to Carlton makes the end of the valley more pleasant for Wealthy Seattle retirees.

To me this looks like a harassment law suit that is already won. The transcripts of the fraudulent calls are freely available, along with the results of each costly investigation. There is a signed letter drafted by the group, and submitted to the county to drive out a family that has lived here for decades. This family also found trespassers photographing their property when they were not there.

I have indications from the county that they recognize the methods of the hate group, and are waiting for someone to get fed up enough to start the court case. Because the hate group overlaps a lot with the Wolf Creek property owners Association, let us sue them until they are forced to disband. I believe that the group partakes in harassment, illegal surveillance, trespassing, and have organized a tightly knit  group with meetings and possibly employees. The attempt to drive out people due to their social class is very likely a federal crime, and the feds might wish to look into such a group. A family left last summer, and a second family is shopping for land down valley as this is written. There are not that many more local families to drive out, and then this end of the valley will contain nothing but empty mansions.

alf randell
292 Wolf creek road
alfrandell@gmail.com