Californian Cowboy: 9/13/11

Hey there everyone.

Woke up at 2 this morning, so ill try and give this post all I got.

Just got off work, we finished 5 out of the six tanks that we wanted to. Really good by Duke’s account. It was hard work, but really fun working with such large machines.

The job consisted basically of digging huge pits with the front loader, loading up the dump truck, and dumping the load at the base of the water tanks which had eroded away from water and cow traffic.

Here are some pics I took while on the job.

Tools of the trade baby. What beasts.

From the cockpit of the front loader.

Too many mirrors in there not to take a self pic.

Step 1: Dig a huge pit

Step 2: Pile that shit around the tank.

Pretty simple,

When you have one of these...

We had to return the dozer at noon today, and wanted to get a lot more done than we already had, so we worked through the night last night. Duke worked from 8pm till 3am and I went from 4am till 10 am.

It sounds shitty, but really it was a ton of fun. I woke up, make a big ol thermos of coffee, bundled up, and took off for the north trap, a pasture all the way out on the northern perimeter of the ranch. It takes about 25 minutes to drive out there.

I had to navigate all the way out there with only a full moon guiding my way. It was beautiful. Warm, bright, and somewhat dream like. Very serene.

I relieved Duke of his post, he took off to get some other work done, and I spent about 4 hours in the front loader working away.

We cleaned up and retired at about 4.

Thats about it for today and the last couple of days have been the same as well.

Its all done now though, so hopefully I’ll get to ride sometime soon. Its been a week since I’ve ridden last, and I’m dying to get back in the saddle.

One thing I do have though, are some pictures from a great friend of mine. His name is Steve, he went through the LDA program with me at Davis. He is working for a very high end plant manufacturing company named Monrovia. The nursery he works at is based in Visalia.

He sent me these photos he had shot, and they really struck me as absolutely astonishing.

The sheer scale of this plant production operation is staggering.

This is my medium, plants, most of these will be installed in landscapes all over the country. This is what people buy, what I carefully chose from when designing.

I this is my second dose of very large scale operation, next to the massive one I’m currently receiving, which I have recently experienced. Its amazing to me how much it really takes to supply people with goods, and how hard people honestly work to provide those goods.

So here are the pictures, I wish I could see this place in real life, and truly experience the grandeur of it’s life-filled space.