# Car 54

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© 2005 / revised 2014
K Pelle

### Chapter 48:
Emergency Zone - No Stopping

When I walked inside, I found out that the gift was a little kitten. Lucille had decided that the house was lacking a cat. Thankfully the cat was litter-box trained, so Lucille had bought a plastic litter-box and a big bag of litter. Inside of ten minutes, I knew that cat wasn't for me or for the house. It was really for Sandy and Lucille. When they'd played with the kitten for a while, then it had eaten, they put it in a cardboard box with an old cloth and although it had fussed for a short time it finally curled up and fell asleep.

That's when Lucille heaved a heavy sigh and started to cry. In only a second, Sandy and I were on either side of her, holding her gently and wondering what was wrong. Once she'd had a short cry, she managed to tell us that she'd had a very rough day, then explained why she felt worn out.

She'd been on duty about five that morning, when the ambulance had brought Ray Smithies and Sid Parker into the emergency room. They'd both been shot in the butt and thighs by a twelve-gauge shotgun loaded with ground rock salt. She didn't know who had done it, but the police said that a farmer on the east side of town had seen them sneaking around his barns. Since he'd been losing stock rather mysteriously for the last while, he'd shot first and asked questions afterward. What bothered Lucille was the fact that the hospital had to deal with the result.

It had taken the doctor, an intern, and two nurses almost four hours to remove all the pellets of salt they could find, then wash out each wound with saline solution. However the doctor was going to have to x-ray the pair's butts again in the morning to be sure they got all of the salt and bits of cloth that had been driven into the wounds. Since Lucille had been on duty as a trauma nurse, she'd been one of the nurses in the operating room working with the intern and staring at Sid Parker's ugly butt for four hours.

Then, only a few minutes after they'd finished and wheeled the Smithies/Parker duo to recovery, one of the women who'd been in the maternity room had gone into labour. She had a rough delivery that took another three and a half hours, but the doctors and nurses had saved both the mother and the baby.

Lucille should have been off shift and gone by then, but just as she was taking off her scrubs the ambulance came back with another emergency patient. They had a five-year-old girl who had been scalded badly on the lower half of her body. There was no burn ward at the local hospital so they needed someone to ride in the ambulance while the little girl was rushed off to another hospital. Although Lucille wanted to go she was so tired that she was afraid she'd make mistakes. Since the hospital was short staffed because of the holidays she subbed for the nurse who did go and had put in another six hours, doling out pills and soothing distraught patients.

Needless to say when she finished that second shift she'd booked out and at the matron's insistence she was on a forty-eight-hour break. When Lucille had gotten home she was met by a friend who was waiting for her, the friend was carrying a kitten that Lucille had talked about wanting to get for the cabin. She was so tired that she'd called Carissa and asked her to come over and look after it so she'd be able to take a two hour nap. When she woke from her nap, she had something to eat then had driven out to deliver the cat only to end up in the snow bank.

It was no wonder she was crying. Sandy and I decided she needed to be pampered, so Sandy ran upstairs to fill the tub and I followed carrying Lucille. As soon as the tub was full we eased her into a hot bubble bath. Then Sandy stayed with Lucille to keep her company while I went back to the kitchen and made a cup of hot chocolate. Once Lucille had been bathed and had drunk the hot chocolate I carried her to the bed, tucking her in the middle. Sandy and I slid in to cuddle her from either side and she was asleep in minutes.

Sandy and I weren't as lucky.

Just about then the kitten awoke from its nap and decided that since no one was around it was positive that it had been abandoned. Instantly, it began to complain about the situation. I'm not sure if there is anything in the world that sounds more pitiful, or has a more plaintive lament than an eight-week-old kitten that feels lonely. On top of that kittens have been graced with a wail meant to carry for miles, probably in order to alert the kitten's mother of its plight. In this case the kitten was trying to wake mama cat, a cat that lived in a town which was probably about thirty miles away.

Either Sandy or I had to go find some way to shut down that caterwauling little monster's shrieks of anguish and I drew the short straw. Okay, I'll be honest, I was dumb enough to volunteer so Sandy could be there in case Lucille needed more comfort. By now, you may have guessed that I am not really a cat person and if I'd been given a choice, I would have chosen any of several other small animals for a house pet. However, I'm a softhearted fool when it comes to the wishes of the women in my life, so I drowsily went downstairs to attempt to calm the little intruder.

Now, I've never had much to do with cats. To me, cats are beasts of prey that you allow to live in the barn in hopes that they will help control mice and other small vermin. I had no idea what would calm the kitten, but in a short while that skinny bodied, ball of fluff taught me what it wanted. I soon discovered that it demanded complete attention and nothing but. It virtually demanded that it had to be cuddled and petted until it fell asleep. However, if I attempted to put the sleeping kitten back in its bed in order to try to get some sleep myself, it awakened instantly. Then as the night wore on, I discovered that the kitten hadn't been well cared for previously, so it had several far more serious problems than just being lonesome and homesick.

When Sandy and Lucille came downstairs in the morning they found me dozing in my recliner, with that animated flea trap lying on my lap. I awakened to hear one of them saying something like "Ohhhh, isn't that cute? Don't they look just darling like that?"

That was the wrong thing to say since I hadn't really slept all night. Instead I'd spent most of the night, just caring for and cleaning up after that obnoxious beast. The shortage of sleep hadn't left me in a good mood either. I sat up and handed the cat to Lucille with a growl.

"This beast has diarhea and has shit all over the floor in the kitchen. It managed to get into my office, where it pissed and shit on the rug my mother made me for Christmas. It suffers from projectile vomiting and has thrown up in my lap and on my shirt. It's coat is riddled with fleas. There are worms in its stool that are so big they can damn near carry away an elephant. In other words, it desperately needs veterinary care. Needless to say, it's not welcome in this house or anywhere on this ranch. It wore out that welcome several hours ago.

"You'll notice that I feel strongly about this, but that's because this is a ranch. On this ranch there are hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of purebred animals that are the whole point of our being here. Those animals are our chief means of making the money that pays the bills. Before we bring any animal onto this ranch we always have it thoroughly checked by a veterinarian to be certain that it is healthy. We have enough problems with wild animals bringing in sickness. We do not need to import sick animals ourselves.

"I intend to wash very thoroughly and fully change my clothing, perhaps I'll even burn them, just in case that beast is carrying some sickness that could infect the other animals. Only after I am completely positive that I am clean from head to toe will I dare to go out to the barns. Otherwise I might inadvertently carry some illness to my costly livestock; illness that may have been brought here on that mewling sack of festering pestilence. Please dispose of that thing, somewhere off the ranch, but preferably at the veterinarians where it can be disposed of properly. If it was my choice I'd have it put out of its misery and have the corpse tested for pathogens so I can properly immunize my animals and myself. Once that beast is gone we will need to clean and disinfect the whole house, or at least every room we have entered since that beast arrived."

Both Sandy and Lucille were staring at me as I marched upstairs to the shower where I scrubbed clean, then changed my clothes from the skin out before going out to do the morning chores. I didn't talk to them before I went out, nor did I take the time to have a coffee like I normally would have done. I didn't dare. I was still furious.

I felt I had a good reason. When I was about eight or nine years old, Dad had gone to an auction and had brought home a small female weaner pig to add to our small herd. Inside of a week, all the pigs and chickens we'd had on the farm were sick and we'd had to destroy them. Since the buildings they'd been housed in were old and couldn't really be disinfected, we'd had to destroy those too. As a result we lost the value of all the animals we'd had, then we had to pay for new animals as well as new buildings to replace what we'd lost, so that one sickly piglet had cost my family several thousands of dollars. From that time on my family has always had newly purchased animals checked over by the veterinarian before we brought them home.

While I was doing the chores I made up my mind that if Lucille wouldn't take that kitten to the vet, I would, but before I got back to the house her car was gone. She'd left, taking the kitten with her. When I walked into the kitchen, Sandy was scrubbing the floor with a strong mixture of pine scented cleaner and crying softly. She looked up at me, her face woebegone, then got to her feet and poured me a coffee and set it at the kitchen table before sitting down to face me.

"Lucille didn't know the cat should have been taken to the vet before bringing it here. I wouldn't have thought of it either though. Actually, since neither Lucille nor I had ever thought of anything like that we thought you'd overreacted, so I called your mom. She told me that when you were young, your family had lost all the pigs and chickens on the farm because of one sick animal. When Lucille heard about that, she grabbed that damn kitten and all the junk she'd bought for it, phoned the vet to see if he was going to be there for a while, then got in her car and left. All the time she was packing up she was cursing about the woman that gave her the cat. I think someone is going to get an earful and I wouldn't blame Lucille one bit if she chews the woman's ear right off."

"Oh my. I guess I should have gone easier on her," I sighed.

"I wouldn't worry about that. It was a shock for both of us, but we know how you feel about your animals. So since that cat had something wrong that might have infected them, it needed to go, at least it needs a veterinarian's care. A contagious disease can spread the same way in people, so I wouldn't worry about having gotten upset about that. Lucille is a nurse and she understands contagion. If Lucille hadn't been so tired last night I doubt if that cat would have ever shown up here, at least not in the condition it was in. Even I should have seen that it was sick and flea ridden."

"Maybe, but I should have had more patience with Lucille this morning," I sighed.

"Chris, you'd just sat up all night with that animal, trying to care for it. You were probably as tired as Lucille had been the night before so don't feel bad about being curt when you saw us. If you think you were rough you should try talking to a doctor after he's been operating on a patient for eight hours or more. When you're tired, I don't know anyone that has much patience with stupidity," Sandy argued. "Now, talking about tired, if the chores are done, why don't I make you some breakfast. After that you can go to bed for a few hours?"

I really was extremely tired so that's what I did.

When I awoke several hours later Lucille was sleeping beside me, but she awakened as I got out of bed to go to the bathroom. After I came back into the bedroom to put on my clothes both of us tried to apologise, but in the long run it was obvious that we'd each blundered and we agreed to try to put it behind us.

Since we were both hungry, we headed downstairs to find that the house was spotless and had obviously been cleaned from top to bottom.

Sandy hadn't done the cleaning all on her own though, Mom and Beth were there too. It only took a few minutes for Sandy to make lunch and soon we were all sitting at the kitchen table. Then while Lucille and I ate lunch, the three women who'd been up and around made sure that we were caught up on the local gossip.

The farmer who had shot Sid and Ray was one of the Hungarian immigrants who had come to Canada after the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and was a bit touchy about his property. He had used a double-barrelled twelve-gauge shotgun to do the deed, and had emptied one barrel at each of the intruders as they were trying to scale an eight-foot fence, but they were climbing over it from the inside. The police estimated that he was at just the right distance to do the most damage to the two of them, but they were astounded that so much salt had penetrated both their clothing and their skin. They had to charge the farmer for shooting the pair, but our lawyer, Cyrus Ambrose, had posted bail and was going to defend the guy in court. Since the dolts were on private property that had been posted with no trespassing signs and surrounded by an eight foot page wire fence with barbed wire on the top, I didn't think he'd have that much work to get the old fellow off the hook. Since they were on the inside of the fence they'd already trepassed and were definitely guilty of breaking and entry.

We all felt that Sid and Ray were in a lot worse trouble than the farmer was and if they weren't, they should be. Since their trial hadn't come to court yet over the time they'd been trapped on the top of my pig sty, I wondered if both charges might be levied at the same time. If they were it would be a very interesting trial and I definitely wanted to be there.

From talk about the shooting, the gossip drifted to a discussion about the little girl who had been scalded. It seemed that her mother had been cooking and the little girl had tried to help, but had pulled the pot over and accidentally spilled the boiling water on herself. Luckily it had only splashed on her legs. Then her mother had done the right thing by scooping up the girl, stripping off her clothes and running outside to dunk her in a snow bank. Not only was the little girl going to survive, but she'd probably only have minimal scarring on her legs.

I was having a second cup of coffee and probably looking bored by then. I really wasn't into sticking my nose in other people's business unless it concerned me, my family or my frieds. Mom saw the look on my face and obviously recognised it for what it was. She suggested that she and I should go over the ranch's books since we both had some time on our hands. I think I surprised her when I jumped on the idea. Although I liked going over the books almost as much as I looked forward to visiting the dentist, even that was a good excuse to get away from a gossip session.

Besides, I thought I'd been doing a fair job of keeping the books and records for the ranch, but Mom soon disabused that notion. In the next couple of hours, she pointed out several small problems and discrepancies that a tax audit would find. Needless to say she decided that I needed a few lessons in accounting and bookkeeping. She said she had better records of what I'd done than I did, and she called herself the second line of defence for the tax man. Her main argument was the cardboard box of bills that I called miscellaneous expenses. She came close to screaming when she saw that pile.

I was actually relieved when Mom had to go home to make supper for Dad and Wil, but then I had to go do chores as well. However, I spent the whole evening going through the ranch's small miscellaneous bills for the last six months. At least Sandy, Lucille and I were on good terms by bedtime.

After chores the next morning, I packed up the clothes and personal gear I'd need for the next few weeks, then hit the ranch's books again until lunch. Just a short time later, Matt arrived with his brothers and I walked around the place, showing him the things that had changed and what he'd have to do to care for the place.

As we were walking back toward the house, I realized that all in all it had been a very strenuous week and I felt I needed a break. I hoped that going to Olds to study would be a relief from the pressure I'd been under, but I wasn't counting on it. Actually, since it was a cram course there was very little chance that I'd get anything of a break, in fact I'd probably be under even more pressure.

Sunday, the 5th of January, 1969, began to develop complications on the ride down to the family farm for Wil's and my 'good luck' lunch with the family. Lucille, Sandy, Matt and I all planned on going, but only Sandy and Matt would be returning to the ranch that afternoon. I was leaving from the home farm with Wil to enter our respective courses and we were taking his new truck to Olds. Lucille was going to go head for town right after lunch since she had to work a shift at the hospital. Both Sandy and Lucille insisted on driving their own vehicles, but since Matt had been brought out by his brothers in their monster truck I felt the road would be open enough to be no problem. However, I was surprised when Lucille asked me to ride with her, leaving Matt to ride with Sandy.

Once we were underway, I asked if there was a reason for the switcheroo, and was surprised at Lucille's response.

"Yeah, there is," she snapped. "Matt has a huge crush on me and it can be a pain in the ass. I'd rather not be alone with him right now. Not after New Years Eve."

"What happened on New Years, other than Matt getting sick?"

"Well, after helping him clean up when he barfed over the porch rail, I was helping him back to bed. He pulled me into bed with him and was damn insistent. I don't know if you've noticed or not, but he's bloody strong and I'm not nearly as big as he is," she sighed. "If you're wondering, he didn't rape me, but he came damn close. The problem is that he doesn't want to take no for an answer. Don't worry though, I don't want you to get involved. I'll handle it my way."

"I can't do that Lucille, and you know it," I sighed. "First of all, Sandy is going to be alone with him on the ranch. They might even be snowed in for weeks at a time. If he tried to force you, what makes you think he won't do the same thing to Sandy?"

"He has no attraction to Sandy."

"Rape has nothing to do with attraction. It's about conquest and control," I growled. "Even I know that much."

"That's why Sandy is safe and I'm not. Sandy reminds him of his father. I'm the one who reminds him of his mother."

"What has that got to do with it?"

"It's the way he was raised. His father insisted on complete control of the family, bossing everyone around. His mother was subservient and gave in to his old man. For some reason Matt thinks I'm subservient, while to him, Sandy is strong. When you guys were walking around the farm this morning, I spoke to Sandy about it and she isn't worried. She said if he ever forced her in any way, she'd cut off his balls, then feed them to the old sow and force him to watch. In fact, she asked me to arrange for you to ride with me in order to be alone with him. She plans to tell him the consequences of him harming either of us in any way."

"Shit, even that worries me. What happens if he loses his temper while they're driving down to the farm?"

"Don't worry about it. I've heard how her mother always bossed that family, but let her father think he had control. A few months alone with Sandy will do Matt a lot of good."

"Hmm, maybe," I grunted. "It still worries me though. Just the idea that she's going to be alone with someone that attacked you scares me silly."

"Chris, wake up and smell the roses. That woman only gives way to you. Every other man that Sandy meets takes a back seat and if he doesn't, she mentally slaps him around until he behaves. I just wish I was a bit more like that."

"Well, aside from that, there's the deal about the lease that Matt and his brothers want to have. Now I'm not sure if I want them living that close to us."

"I'd advise you to wait and see how things fall out over the next few weeks. You and Wil both intend to be home next weekend or the one after and you can still talk to Sandy before you leave. Perhaps I shouldn't have said anything, but I didn't want this taking you by surprise either."

"Actually, I wish you'd said something before. I might have been able to make some other arrangements."

"Well, you might talk to your mother. I spoke to her the other day in the hospital and from what she said I think she and your dad have something in mind."

"Well, just having her know about it is a relief. I wasn't looking forward to talking to Mom and Dad about it, but I knew that I'd have to. Now I can just ask their opinions."

"Yeah, they'll have some," Lucille snorted. "I like your folks a lot. I wish mine had been more like them, but if they had been I might not be here."

The conversation drifted to other subjects then, but after we were at the farm, I managed to talk to both Mom and Dad. They had an idea all right. Since Wil was heading to Olds at the same time I was, Corinna was going to stay with Sandy and Matt at the ranch for the first while. Not only that, but the first day she was there, Corinna was going to spin a yarn about being almost date raped when she was younger, and that she now carried a pistol all the time. Then she was going to take Sandy outside and set up a target to teach Sandy how to shoot well.

I hadn't even known Corinna had a pistol, let alone that she knew how to shoot one. Mom wised me up about that in a hurry. It was actually Carissa who had been almost date raped when she was sixteen and it had been her father who had bought both of them pistols and taught them how to shoot with them. Dad had seen them shoot and he said he was very impressed, but was surprised that I hadn't heard about them having pistols and knowing how to use them. About then I decided that Sid and Ray had gotten off lucky that they'd tackled a farmer whose shotgun was loaded with rock salt and not one of the twins with a pistol loaded with lead slugs.

All I could do was shake my head. There were so many things going on around me in other people's lives that I was unaware about that I felt lost. Then I calmed down, because I realized that there was no reason for me to know every detail of everyone else's life.

The one thing I did know was that I'd have to arrange to cover our butts over owning a pistol and having it on the property, so I asked how to go about that. Dad explained that he had taken out a 'collectors' permit which covered him for ownership, but theoretically his 'short weapons' could only be fired on a 'registered' gun range. Canadian law didn't allow people to shoot a pistol or revolver in self defense or in defense of their property. In other words I could arrange to legally own a weapon, but I could only shoot at targets, so at best owning a pistol was little more than a bluff and if I used it I'd need a darn good lawyer. That left me with a rather empty feeling in the pit of my gut, but there wasn't much I could do about it so I did my best to put it out of my mind. After all, the whole point of my question was theoretical at best and in a way I knew we were setting up a bluff to scare off a possible threat, not worrying about an actual situation.

When we sat down at the table for lunch, I noticed that everyone seemed quite relaxed, with the exception of Matt. He seemed to be watching Lucille surreptitiously, but if he happened to see Sandy looking at him he actually blanched. I decided then that I had to speak to him before I left for Olds.

I had the opportunity shortly after lunch when the two of us went with Dad to look over the new machine shed. Even I was surprised to see a small target range set up on the open side, complete with a sandbag and steel backstop. I knew it was a setup, but I played along.

"Gee Dad, who's taken up serious shooting? Are you or Wil planning to compete again?"

"No, Corinna didn't want to get too badly out of practise, so we set this up for her and the other gals. It's funny, after she told your Mom about that date rape thing that almost happened to her, even Liz has been out here once in a while," he shook his head. "It's strange, all those years we were shooting and she said she wasn't interested, but have Corinna tell her about almost being forced to have sex and she's suddenly an enthusiast. She even had me buy her a brand-new pistol, but she says she wants new targets as well."

"New targets? What's wrong with the old targets?"

"She wants full figure targets with the bullseye centred on the crotch," he snorted a laugh. "She says a rapist should have his balls shot off and she wants to be ready, just in case she ever needs to use her new skill."

I joined in Dad's laugh, but I don't think Matt found the idea funny and when I saw the look on his face, I knew I didn't have to say anything else to him. I think about then he realized that the whole family knew what had happened between him and Lucille. Actually, I'd probably been the last person who'd been told about it and other than him, I'd probably been the last to hear about the handgun practise the women were doing too. Perhaps that was a good thing, after all advertising something like that might not be the best way to impress some folks. Besides, the only person that might need to know about the threat that the women posed was now aware of the risks any stupid action could precipitate.

With that in mind, I changed the subject, asking Dad if he didn't think the whole building wasn't a bit fancy when you considered what it was used for. He didn't think so, in fact he told me that he thought it would save the farm money because he could work on all the farm equipment during inclement weather. As well as that, the building prevented rust and corrosion since everything was stored inside and out of the weather. I could see his point, and we were discussing it as we went back to the house. Even Wil got into the discussion with us when we got back inside. In fact we even talked about it as Wil and I drove to Olds. By the time we got to the apartment where we were staying I was so convinced by their arguments that I decided we needed an equipment shed up at the ranch. Only I wanted a separate section on the side that would be set up as a workshop, so I could have a warm place to do small jobs in the winter.

After a couple of quick calls home to let everyone know we were okay, both Wil and I found our beds and soon were sawing logs. I was extremely glad that I had gotten a decent night's sleep the next day, because it didn't take long for me to find out that the two courses I was taking were going to be darn tough.

Animal husbandry dealt with all forms of care for farm animals, from feeding and cleaning to minor veterinary care and the school had arranged for it to tie in with a course on farm equipment maintenance. For three days of the week, I'd spend an hour and a half taking lectures and two hours doing actual hands-on care of the animals, then after a half hour break for lunch, I'd move on to work with machinery for the rest of the day. On the fourth day, I'd still have the lecture, but that day I'd spend six hours looking after the animals. The fifth day was similar to the fourth, but after the animal husbandry lecture, I'd be working on equipment for the longer period of time.

The lectures weren't a sinecure either. I had to be prepared to take notes, do research and write reports. As well, since what we were taking were virtually two cram courses, all of us taking it found that we had virtually no time to spare during class hours. The actual hands on segment of both courses was far easier for me to handle since I'd been around animals all my life, and I found the mechanical course to be a snap. I was used to caring for and repairing all kinds of equipment. On top of that, I'd worked with Tom and George so much that the tools in my hands just seemed to automatically do what I wanted them to do.

In fact by Friday afternoon of the first week, I was already working on mechanical maintenance projects that had been planned for the following week. Perhaps that's why the instructor just pointed at the door when I told him I'd like to leave a couple of hours early that day. Since Wil had gotten off early as well, we headed for home around two in the afternoon.

I was wiped out by the time we got home, but I was interested in seeing how things had gone while I was away. Actually, I was worried about the situation between Matt and the women folk, but it turned out that there had been no problems of any kind. Well, none except for the fact that Matt might have been somewhat uncomfortable. He approached me at the first opportunity and asked if it would be okay for him to have his brothers come get him, saying that he'd like to spend some time in town with them that weekend.

Since Wil had driven me all the way to the ranch so he'd be able to pick up Corinna and take her home, it wasn't long before Sandy and I were home alone. She was quite excited to make sure I knew I was welcome back, so I was very glad that Matt had cared for the animals before he left. We sat down to eat late that night and I phoned home to talk to Mom and Dad, then Sandy and I lazed the evening away in front of the fire, but we did climb into bed earlier than I expected.

To my surprise, Sandy insisted on doing the chores with me the next morning, but when we were leaving the barn after we were done, I could see why. Lucille's car was parked in the yard and when we went inside, she was cooking breakfast. In fact she was just the first to arrive, over the weekend several people showed up for a short visit. Then almost before I knew it, Sunday afternoon came and it was time for Wil and me to head back to school.

That weekend was typical for most of the winter, at least for those weekends when the weather cooperated and we were able to go home. Wil and I would rush home on Friday night and try to get caught up on necessary business, then we'd head back late on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Sandy and Matt stayed on the ranch all winter, but Lucille visited on many of her days off. When her free time coincided with my weekends home, it was great. Matt still seemed to need to go to town to help his brothers handle a renovation job every weekend. He told me privately it was to give us some privacy, but I've always felt he was both embarrassed and envious of the closeness between Sandy, Lucille and me. I know he carried a torch for Lucille, but he never again showed the pushy side of himself to any of the family and I never heard a whisper of gossip that he was ever pushy to any other woman either.

I think Matt was tremendously relieved when mid-April came along and the land was dry enough to start building on the lease that he and his brothers had negotiated with me. They built right on the corner of the municipal road and the ranch's access road because that was the simplest access point for the electrical and telephone service. It was also the first place they drilled a well and the well driller had found water, easily enough water for two houses and a few animals. Carissa and Jackie decided that rather than drill another well they'd lease the ten acres that sat on the other side of the access road, and have a separate cabin and barn built there. Anyone driving by on the municipal road would have thought our access road was their mutual driveway, which suited me just fine because it effectively gave the ranch even more privacy than we'd had before.

We surveyed both ten acre leases, which were separated from each other by a fifty foot wide road allowance, and I asked both groups to fence their lots with either page wire or chain link fencing. Then we put in what Dad called a 'Texas bluff' gate at the end of the roadway between the two leases. The gate was weighted in such a way that you could spring it open with any vehicle's front bumper, but it automatically closed after you went through. That gate was designed to work on sound principles of mass and inertia. The initial push by the vehicle had to be strong enough to give inertia to a rotating mass, which utilized it's own momentum to roll through a full turn. A series of latching pawls and counterweights were activated by a winching arrangement on the rotating mass and also swung the gate wide open as the weights shifted. Once full rotation had been achieved, the pawls were triggered to release, and since the counterweights were overbalanced, they returned everything to the neutral position with the gate closed. Since the weight would rotate each way, it didn't matter if you were coming or going, all your vehicle had to do was move that weight far enough and fast enough to get past the point of no return and the rest was automatic. In other words, it wasn't perpetual motion, it just looked like it was; in actual fact the extra energy to operate the Rube Goldberg device came from the car or truck you were driving.

Since Wil and I were studying at Olds every week, we really didn't get to spend much time helping build those two houses. I think everyone else got their hands dirty though; the buildings certainly went up quickly enough. Instead of helping out, Wil and I were busy with other duties. In fact our lives were hectic, and although both of us felt we were under a lot of pressure that year, we managed to pull through. We both concentrated on our courses as much as we possibly could and both of us managed to finish our studies with high grades. I'm not sure what Wil was doing when we were home each weekend, but I was almost constantly tied up with ranch business. By late March I had cows calving, horses foaling and we had to deal with a minor flood early in the spring when all the snow melt came rushing down the valley from the foothills to the west of the ranch. That flood had been bad enough that at one point we thought we'd lose the bridge over the creek, but we were lucky, the bridge held and the flood slowed before too much damage was done to it or it's foundations. We did lose a section of our fence and had one of our fords across the creek wiped out though, so those both had to be repaired.

On top of all that, Sandy and I both felt that we had to establish the windbreak that our friend, the surveyor, had planned out since we'd had to deal with plowing the road through the cut one time too many. So early in the spring, but well before I was finished school in Olds, Matt and I had driven to Bowden on a Friday evening and we picked up a thousand small caragana plants. Sandy, Matt, John and I spent two weekends planting them according to the surveyors plan, hoping that they would grow to become a good windbreak. We laid them out in long hedgerows, parallel to the roadway, both on the hill above the access road to the ranch and in other areas along the road where we'd found that drifting had been bad the winter before.

Inside of a few weeks Sandy noticed that those caragana plants were wilting and drying out. Needless to say we didn't like the idea of losing those plants after working so dang hard to get them planted where they were. So I bought an old two-ton Ford truck and a used thousand-gallon tank that were both rusting away in the back of Frank Dolens' car lot. I had the truck tuned up and repaired, then I had the tank steamed out and loaded in the dump box. When I got them home, I rigged the tank on a skid that I could mount inside the box of the old Ford and set up a gasoline-powered pump near the bridge across the creek so we could use the pump to fill the tank. All it took was a couple of valves and a long hose and I was ready to water some bushes, but I knew it was a pain in the butt job. I didn't count on Sandy though. During the following week, while I was off studying at Olds, she taught herself to drive the truck, then took over the job of watering those bushes and she was darn dilligent too. Every few days, all summer long, Sandy would fill that tank, then she'd drive up the hill and water those bloody caragana bushes. Although it was a dry summer, she kept almost all of those plants alive and they grew like weeds.

By the time Wil and I came home for the summer, Sandy, Corinna and Carissa had all finished a series of evening courses on small business accounting that they'd started two months earlier. Meanwhile Tom, George, Beth, Jess and Jean were close to finishing grade eleven while Jackie and Jasmine were finishing grade ten. Wil and I were only back home for a couple of weeks before they were all finished school for the year. We held off on a big celebration for two weeks after they were all out of school though, planning to have it in combination with the dual house warmings for both sets of new neighbours.

In fact for the first four weeks after I was home, Matt and John set aside work on their house during the day and spent their time with me since we needed to catch up on some of the early summer work. We worked like slaves from morning until night for five days every week, but since both of them were going back to work on their house in the evenings and on weekends, I insisted that their days of work for me were only eight hours long. As well, I insisted that on two days of every week we'd only handle essential jobs. In fact, between the three of us, we alternated doing the chores on the weekends, so two weekends out of three, each of us had two days completely work free, unless an emergency cropped up. Of course nature provided us with some of those, just to keep us on our toes.

The two new cabins that our new neighbours were building weren't quite finished, but both of them were livable, so the boys planned on finishing the last trim and details of that sort in the evenings or on the weekends. Of course once the houses were relatively complete, both groups wanted to have that big house warming party. It was only after Carissa and Jackie had moved into one house and the McAdam brothers moved into the other that we all agreed to have a party. Only this time, Lucille and I tried to make sure that no one was going to spike the punch bowl, even going as far as hiding every bottle of Grampa Bender's hooch that we could find. Not only that, but Lucille warned Corrina that if Will spiked the punch bowl, both of them would feel her wrath. I think Corrina took her seriously, very seriously! In fact she told me that Lucille reminded her of Mom right then, so she knew she'd better listen and Will had better behave.

I made note of that idea, thinking it just might be a way to keep Wil from screwing up various other things.

### Chapter 49