Derek J. Barbee
2/12/99

The Ranch

Well, a few days ago Josh and I went to the Ranch where his dad works. The Ranch is a really a big estate with vineyards and a lake and a lot of land. It's officially known as Alden Vineyards. Josh and I usually run around, drive one of the little "mule" 4 Wheeler vehicles and explore. Well, we went there again the other day . . .

On the way to Josh's house (I was dropped off there and then his dad picked us both up), my mom was saying that I should do an inventory before I left. I had a lot of stuff because it was freezing out there. The conversation went a little like this:

"So before you leave, just check. Gloves . . . jacket . . . both shirts . . . shoes . . ."

"Ummm . . . lunch?"

We had forgotten it at the house so we had to go back. We were late, but it didn't really matter. Josh's dad ended up being late, too. None of my friends come from very "prompt" family. I'm only usually on time to places because my parents drive me. As soon as I start driving, I'll be late all the time.

But his dad finally did come, and Josh and I trundled out to the car, decked out with winter gear. I had two shirts and a heavy jacket on, along with gloves and a watchman's cap (one of those little things Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit used to wear.), and Josh had on a heavy army survival jacket and pants, with camo and black gym gloves. We were NOT going to freeze.

That day, Josh's dad was bringing about 20 bales of hay to the ranch, and they were all in the back of the truck. So when we got off the main road and onto the dirt road that leads to the ranch, Josh and I got out and lay on top of the hay bales in the back. There's always a point where we get to go out and ride on the back. But we had to lie down this time, because if we stood up we'd probably fall off.

Then we got there and went to get one of the Mules. In the garage there were 4 backhoes, two diesels, a ford and a toyota, and one Mule that wasn't working very well. We said we'd take a diesel, but his dad wouldn't let us, so we had to go find another Mule.

We finally did and then went down to the lake, stopped the Mule about 30 yards from the lake and proceeded quietly on foot the rest of the way. We were trying to find an otter that had recently made its home in the lake there. Only two people had seen it so far, and we wanted to find it (Josh loves otters). We had two pair of high-powered binoculars that we scanned the sides of the lake with, looking for a den or the otter himself. We were hoping that he was a she, and she was pregnant so we'd have lots of little teeny otter pups.

At one point when we were down by the lake, we suddenly heard a bubble, then nothing. We peered out and saw this one spot where there were some bubbles coming up. After a few minutes of waiting, we realized that that was waaaayyyy too much air for an otter to be releasing for no reason (Even if it did have really bad gas), and passed it off as a pipe underwater.

We combed the shore and almost ran into a group of four mondo swans the size of Dobermans. One of them hissed at us and beat its wings. Crap, those things are big up close.

"Do you know if otters hibernate?"

"I don't think so, because I've seen pictures of them in winter, and -"

*HONK!*

*HISSSSSSSS*

"Ack! Run away!"

*scatter from the very pissed off goose*

We finally regrouped and hid in the bushes for a while until the monster passively sidled into the lake and went about tearing up the local fish population. Then we tried a loop that went around that particular spot.

At the far side of the lake, we found one spot by the water where there were a ton of otter tracks. You could see which were the back feet and which were the front, because the back are larger. Well, we spotted a couple bubbles, but nothing much. We deduced that he was probably trying to rustle up some grub, and we might as well do the same.

But on the way back, out of the corner of my eye I saw something. I looked quickly and just saw a glimpse of brown back legs and a long fluid tail slip under the water.

*enter hyper yelling from Josh and I*

We sat there, transfixed, waiting for it to come up again. The something occurred to me.

"Josh? How long can otters stay underwater without coming up for another breath?"

"About 5-10 minutes."

"He was probably coming up for one now."

"Crap."

Ah, well. We were close. At least we knew he was still here. We headed back and told his dad, then took the Mule down past the river along this very fast and very windy dirt road (all the roads there where dirt). We shot down it, grunting like cavemen the whole way (we always do that while driving). The conversation went sort of like this:

*grunt grunt grunt grunt*

THUD. BUMP.

*GRUNT GRUNT grunt grunt*

At one point we slowed down because there was a very large tree blocked part of the road. Then Josh squeezed the Mule around the corner of it, very close to the cliff, and we resumed.

*grunt grunt grunt*

"Nature can't stop us!"

"EEEK!"

Another big tree in the road, even bigger than before. This time we had to get out and move it, which sucked.

We went down by the river, tried to get a sling to work (those are harder to work than they look) and I discovered quicksand. I had this really cool stick with a rock embedded in it that I stuck in the ground next to me while I tied my shoe. When I was done I looked over and it was more than three quarters of the way embedded in very soft sand that LOOKED normal until you stirred it a bit or stepped in it.

Then later I was walking and stepped right into some, sinking past my ankles in less than a second. I just have bad luck with that sort of thing.

We WERE going to cross the road, but the river has risen so much that it had sort of buried the road. We couldn't even see it any more. So, we went on an alternate route and went looking for cows on the Harris Ranch, which was next to this one.

We snuck up outside real slow on the Mule, shut it off and snuck up to the fence. The main house was in plain sight, so we hid in the weeds with camo uniform. One by one, we slipped over the barbed wire fence in one low and sort of broken spot. Josh got caught momentarily but quickly freed himself and ducked into the bushes next to me. We broke from cover and jumped down immediately into what we thought was just a small ditch but what turned out to be a 20 or 30 foot drop.

*we both jump and gape while in midair*

"Ohhhhh, shhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiittttt!"

*WHAM WHAM*

That big ravine had been sort of cut there by a creek that had grown because of the rains. The whams turned into splats. We were lucky, because we had jumped so far that we weren't in the dead center, but more the far side. If we had landed in the middle, we would have landed in water. We both got up, soaked, and started climbing. We both suddenly noticed a trail that was forged by dozens and dozens of heavy cow tracks, with hoof marks sinking up to a foot into the ground. These are big cows.

We were sneaking up over the next rise, dodging the surprises the cows left for us and suddenly spotted them. There were about 50 cows, all in one tight clump, chewing their cud and munching on some grass. We quickly ducked back down and split up, Josh taking the left side of the hill by the fence and me going down and to the right. We jumped behind rocks and trees, hiding from the enormous bovines. At one point I leaped behind a big rock and was nearly knocked off my feet by an incredibly loud, startled moo. A cow the size of a buick took off, hooves beating the ground speedily. It disappeared over the next rise mere seconds later, but the damage was done. The herd of cows looked in my direction, dozens of eyeballs the size of eggs blinking at me. I grinned meekly and hid again. It didn't do much good, so I started up the hill to herd them over to Josh's position. They milled about at first, but then started moving. Right at Josh. More of a stampede, really. Then I realized how stupid this was. I hollered and hoped Josh could hear me over the thunder of cow hooves. Suddenly, I saw Josh's head appear over the hill, and he eeked and ran for the fence. He climbed it and sat on top of it just in time as the cows thundered past, a giant, mooing stampede.

Afterwards, we were both ecstatic about how cool that was. It doesn't really sound like much just reading about it, but when you are seeing dozens of cows that could easily flatten you, cows the size of small cars, charging all at once, you hear the thunder of their hooves on the ground, you see the grass and dirt being flung into the air, the mooing mixed with the thundering bass sound, the formation of them charging down and right past you at close range, your adrenaline pumping . . . it's just kinda cool.

We tracked the cows for a while longer, trying to hide behind rocks and trees, but the cows could spot us quite easily. Don't let anybody tell you cows are completely stupid, because they're not. They even had scouts that would stand out in the open and would moo and run back to the big herd the second they saw us. And a group that big moves fast, even uphill.

I was getting so tired that I sat down and took a break at one point, but then I saw Josh up on a hill, yelling and chasing some of the cows with what looked like a bone that was twice as big as his head. I blinked and got up to meet him as he came down my way.

"Where'd you get that?"

He just pointed up the hill the way he'd came. "You've heard of elephant graveyards? This is like a cow graveyard!"

So we trudged back the way Josh had come, and we came to a clearing with bunches of white objects hiding in the grass. We found the remains of two or three cows, with bones literally scattered around the clearing, hidden under grass and under leaves. Some of them had even ended up in the creek next to the clearing, washed clean by the water. We rounded them up and put them in a pile in the center of the clearing. Josh found a second pelvic bone, matching the one he had been waving at the cows earlier. He judged which one was better for caveman purposes. Me, I was looking over the two skulls. One was smaller and dirtier, but better intact. The other was almost bleached by the sun and missing a few teeth. Both were missing the lower jaw half, but we found those later. I eventually decided on the larger and cleaner cow skull, and washed it out in the river, took out a couple of large rocks that had been lodged up its nose, ignored some comments from Josh about stone-headed cows and we set off back, carrying our bones and grinning. We passed the cow herd on the way back, and we waved the skull and bones at them, yelling to them.

"The hunt was good!"

"Yaaa! We got one!"

"Hope you didn't like Bessie too much!"

With some difficulty, we trudged back to the Mule and, put the bones in the back and drove back to the Ranch. On the way back, we were really thirsty, so we stopped by the big house. The ranch is owned by one rich dude named Ellis. He has some marvelous cellars where he stocks sodas, drinks and chocolate stuff. We parked the Mule halfway down the driveway and I scouted. There were a bunch of workers in the back, messing around with the house, so we snuck to the front to use the main door. We blinked as we realized that the door wasn't there anymore, replaced by a big plastic sheet and held down by stones the size of two bowling balls each. We realized that in lifting the stones and the sheet, we would attract the attention of the workers, even more for the worse now, because someone had tried to break into the ranch a while ago. Messed with the gate keypad and broke a lock. All the workers at the ranch were Hispanic and didn't speak English, so we were screwed if they caught us.

We went for another door, through the Lounge. The second we stepped inside, everything was quiet. Quiet, that is, until Josh bumped into a chair and knocked it over. Far down the hallway was an entire wall that was a window. Now the workers had started moving past it, walking with cement bags and stuff. One of them stopped as the chair clattered and looked through the window. By that time, Josh and I were already down on the floor, cursing our luck, and praising it for different reasons. There was a small wood rise that made it so the window didn't go totally to the floor, therefore the worker couldn't see us if we stayed flat. But, the door handle to the door out was high up off the floor and I think the worker would notice if an arm suddenly reached for the door handle. The only other way out was down the hallway TOWARD the window, which we definitely didn't want to do. I peeked my head up slowly to see the worker give the window one more look and casually toss what must have been a 50 pound bag of cement into the back of a truck and keep working.

"Now!" I hissed.

Josh reached for the handle and slowly started to slide the door open. The worker looked up again and I kicked Josh lightly, making him stop opening the door. The worker didn't notice that the door was slightly more open than it had been a while ago and went back to work. This time Josh and I made it out, wriggling on our bellies down the steps and back out front. I managed to close the door quickly and rejoined with Josh hiding behind a bush out front.

"Now we know that the workers are over there, and we can go the other side way this time," he said, motioning with his head toward the other side of the house.

We snuck past the pool and through the bushes to the door on the other side of the house, listening for the workers the whole time. We eased the door open with a small squeak and made it inside, closing the door behind us as it had been. We stumbled through the house in the dark, until Josh made it to the cellar door and slid it open. We both ducked inside, closed the door and turned on the light. That way the workers wouldn't think much of it. We quickly scanned the shelves and looked for anything. The sad thing was, this time, he had no popsicles or little chocolate thingies! Bummer. We made faces at the Club Soda and Beer, and just grabbed a soda each, hiding them in different large pockets. I stuck my in my jacket, which was already lumpy. Josh had a neat little pocket in his army jacket that it fit in, and we turned off the light and snuck back out, making a break for it when the Mule was in sight. As we drove off, we mentally congratulated ourselves on the good shows.

"We have to keep up our skills, y'know. Even if he didn't have any chocolates this time."

"He will next time!"

We made our way back to the main ranch house and caught up with Josh's dad. On the ride home, we sat on the truck roof and drank the sodas, grinning until we each got whacked by a low-hanging branch. What a day.

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