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| Elmer |
After we arrived at Windsock Ranch, that first day with our dreams and our trucks full of stuff packed over the course of two years or more, we dismounted and had a look around.
I soon realized that this was the first time I was really looking at the property. The trip from Phoenix was all of five hours. If you believe the computer driven maps of any brand, you will note, that depending on the time of day they report any where from 3 hours and 15 minutes to 3 hours and 45 minutes trip time.
I am here to tell you that the machine making such a prediction is not driving a bouncy 26 foot truck and is not controlled by a 66 year old set of kidneys and bladder.
Its five hours. Trust me.
The trips we made down here prior to our purchase were pretty rushed on the ranch. We came with lists of things to ask about, see, test, photograph, and measure. But more than 2-1/2 hours on the ground and it quickly became a test of mine and my wife's driving fortitude with a 15+ hour round trip day.
So this was my first time with less pressure. The sun was going down soon and we would spend our first night in a relatively empty house, unpack the truck in the morning, and head back for another load tomorrow.
I was walking about the main house when I spotted this fellow. This is Elmer. He is , based on distant observation, a grown roadrunner. A Greater Road Runner, specifically. I assumed a male as I believe no self respecting female would choose such a ridiculous perch. He is actually perched five feet off the ground with his butt pressed up to the glass window, tail pointing to the sky.
My son, my wife and I found this a curious, but fascinating posture and let him be for the night. He seemed to take no notice of us what so ever.
The previous owner, nor the tenant had any knowledge of the bird and he was gone by daylight.
We continued our trips north and south several more times and each time, just before sundown our little roadrunner would be on the window ledge. Always the same window and never seen coming or going. He never so much as turned his head to watch us scurrying about with armloads of boxes and bags in the dwindling sunlight.
And so it went on. Weeks into months, sundown until sunup, our little good luck omen (as my son called him) stood his nightly vigil at our window.
Even though no one observed his arrival nor departure, I began to admire his choice of windows. That particular window is exposed to sunlight from dawn to dusk. It is completely surrounded by burnt adobe brick, warmed all day by his arrival, and his corner is most often on the lee side of the wind. The glass on the exterior is perforated with a hole the size of a BB and so the double pane insulation has escaped allowing the heat from the house to warm the outer glass. I don't know how he discovered this particular spot, but as window seats go; this was a gem.
I came to calling him Elmer, much to my wife's amusement, for no particular reason. I would pass him with armloads of trash headed for the dumpster nearly every sundown. And I became accustomed to addressing him, "Hello Elmer" As I passed. He remained as stoic as ever, never acknowledging my greeting nor my passing. He never even blinked when one night I pulled out my phone and snapped this picture of him crouching against the wind.
One of the chores remaining for the previous owner was to replace the septic drainage field. The work was to be completed before we moved in, but was delayed due to weather. I didn't mind much because that put me here to observe the project.
For Elmer on the other hand, it was the last straw. One evening it would have been time for him to arrive and the driveway was filled with pump trucks, crews milling around, and a backhoe still digging noisily in the yard until dark. This was obviously too much. After months of putting up with our comings and goings at all hours of the day and night, he did not occupy his spot at the window that night.
Nor has he returned. If I would have guessed my time with him was limited, I would have put more effort into acquiring a professional like portrait of our first boarder.
The ranch has many such daily and nightly guests. We're getting to know them all. The two pair of jack rabbits, two pair of white winged doves, several pairs of cactus wrens, a complete city of gophers, loggerhead strikes, an owl or two that hoot all night long, and a hive of honey bees under one of the storage sheds- which have been very passive, but have to go.
All of these and more greet me in the morning and evening coming oddly close at times for wild critters.
But I miss Elmer and his aloof but watchful eye outside my window as I slept at night.
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| Goodnight Elmer |
Be Well.
