THE DIRE

Over the decades of this life I've landed in the occasional dire situation, usually by result of my own mistakes, but sometimes due to circumstances beyond my control. Circumstances like the time the now-convicted felon in the White House refused to warn US citizens that SARS-CoV-2 had arrived because he din't want a stocks decline while he was desperately scrambling to cling to office through hook or crook. Or the time the USFS played with fire and burned my homestead of 22 years to ash and ruin in the Hermit's Peak/Calf Canyon Fire. Fortunately, I have survived all of the times I've landed in what I refer to as THE DIRE to reflect upon the effects each instance has had on me. Another time in THE DIRE was when the weldor/generator used to build my homestead and later to provide electrical power to pump water wells broke down mid winter. I had just run it to fill the cistern to capacity when it sputtered, coughed, wheezed and stopped, and I had just given away my spare the previous summer. I wasn't snowed in at the time, so I began planning on getting a new one.

The Hobart Champion 10,000 had served well during its seventeen years of heavy-use service and repairs just weren't practical. I needed something fairly hefty to do the well pumping which required two-phase power, and I wanted to get away from having to tote gasoline out to the homestead from town to feed it. A quick search online revealed the ideal choice, a Champion dual-fuel model I could hook up to the propane tank already on site. The only problems were that I had to go to Monument, Colorado to get it. Also, it wouldn't be there to pick up for a month.

That pushed the pick up date out to February 21st. Oh boy. There were at least three, possibly four more heavy snows to fall before then, so timing the trip to Monument and back around the generator's arrival date might be tricky. I also had to make the cistern full of water last a month since I could no longer pump the well to refill it. Water rationing began immediately as I fanatically monitored weather patterns on a daily basis, hoping for the best.

The trip to Monument went well but morning weather forecasts reported a blizzard arriving over southeastern Colorado that evening. I left home without eating so I risked dining in Monument before starting back, and by the time I was scaling Raton Pass, the storm began.

A good 1,000 feet lower than the elevation my homestead was sitting at, driving over the pass did not worry me much. I just had to drive in 4x4 mode to stay on pavement. A piece of cake. And I wasn't very worried about driving the 120 miles of paved highways from the pass back to Ledoux. I was more concerned about snow accumulation on the final four miles of primitive roadway leading up to the homestead gate. It was prone to drift up pretty fast in a blizzard like the one unfolding that night. I had a bad feeling I would have trouble driving it.

Making it safely over the pass, the storm intensified every hour during the drive home, but I managed to make it all of the way without any problems, and by morning had the generator unpacked and running to refill the cistern before drawing a deep, hot bath in the grand old clawfoot tub to luxuriously soak my weary bones in, once again having survived THE DIRE.