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.