Our Daily Life at Desert Haven Animal Rescue- Truth or Consequences NM

I thought I would give you an idea of what an average day is like, here at the Desert Haven Animal Rescue. We work 3 days a week.

Morning starts way to early for Mikey, around 6:30 am. Grandfather Sun is coming up over the Caballo Mts. I hesitate to get out of my warm blankets, since it is cold in these high desert mountains. I can here a few birds, time to make coffee. It is the smell of fresh perking coffee that finally gets Mikey moving. Meanwhile I feed Dakota and take her for a walk. Mike makes his famous fried eggs. By 7:30 am, we make our way up the hill to the animal area. As soon as the dogs hear the crunch crunch of my boots on the gravel road, they start barking. They are so glad to see us. As we pass the bird sanctuary, I can hear the doves cooing, and of course Chicken Soup, the big rooster, is waking up the neighborhood.

I start by fixing the dog food, and then go to the cat's playhouse and fix their food. We have about 30 dogs, and 30 cats. Then I go to Birdland, where guinea pigs, doves, chickens, peacocks and a rabbit live. We chop up fruits and veggies, and throw seed around. Meanwhile the others are cleaning the Dog runs. If we could sell poop , we'd be rich... The dogs are taken in 3's up to Old West , which is a large fenced yard, where they can run and be free. They like to nibble on the chapparel leaves and branches.

All the cleaning, feeding and walking take about 2 hours. At 3:30 pm, we do the whole thing over. By 5:30 it is dark.

We have met some wonderful people here. Carmen, who is from Buffalo, NY, has now moved on to Florida. We immediately liked him, since we had lived in the same area of Buffalo, it was like old times. Connecticut Donna, who lived with 4 dogs and a cat, was a big help. We could not figure how she managed with a Great Dane and 3 dogs about Dakota's size. Donna has also moved on to CA. We miss them. Then there is Indiana Tom and Donna. they are very cool people. Tom is Mr Fix-it and fixed Mike's car. Donna is a Balloon Twister and made Mike a Hobo Mike Balloon and me a monkey in a tree. We sit outside in the evening and have a beer and laugh.

On the days we are not working , we drive into town, buy food, window shop, sometimes go rock hunting. I work on my creative projects, Mike watches TV. somethings never change....

So that is our fun filled days.

El Paso Roadtrip

We have been here about a month. The days we work with the animals are fun and some work. We are becoming friends with lots of the dogs, and a few of the cats. It is hard to buddy up with doves, chickens and peacocks, but they are all very glad to see me with the food.

We have the RV in pretty good condition. The days are pleasant , in the 70's, but the nights can be chilly, down to the 40's. We are in high desert mountains, 4245 ft above sea level, so it gets chilly. We bought a little space heater which does a good job of taking the chill out of the air. We have a stove and for breakfast we have either eggs or oatmeal, for lunch soup and sand, for dinner usually cup of soup and a treat, which is mostly pop tarts, but tonight it is mini pies. Every once in awhile I crave some meat and salad and fruit. I am on a grapefruit kick right now.

The one thing different from home is the potty and shower. It is a manual flush, which we have to dump once a week...hope your not eating... sorry. and the shower. We have to turn on the hot water heater, which gets hot, but not much pressure, plus it is only 5 gallons, so no long shower. It is impossible to wash my hair well..

So last weekend we felt like we needed to get away. We decided to go to El Paso, where Hobo Mike had spent many of his winters at the Hobo jungle there. The idea was to find the jungle, see if we could find any of his buddies. El Paso is only about 130 miles away.

El Paso is a big city, which sits on the Rio Grande River at the western corner of TX and Mexico. You can see Boarder Patrols and huge fences that separate El Paso from Juarez, Mexico. Interstate 10 , a very busy road, runs through the city. I Would not like to travel this at rush hour. We got a motel room right off the interstate. We were going to check things out, but the luxury of a big bed, cable tv and a hot shower won out. We went across the street got a fabulous Mexican meal, and vegged. I took an hour hot shower..it was great.

The next day we went to search out the old Hobo jungle. It took Mike a while to get his barrings, since he only walked or took the bus, or train. After driving around, we found the spot, but it had been walled off, because it was too close to the border. The jungle was gone.. what a drag.

We went back to the old town where a flea market and shops were open. It was one block from the port of entry., which may explain the shops. They were only selling clothes and shoes. I never saw so many used and new shoes in the life...so there was nothing I could buy, and I was in the mood to buy. We were going to go to the boot outlet, but that was closed on Sunday, so we decided to drive back.

Back in New Mexico north of Las Cruses is one of the many old frontier forts. This one was Fort Selden. Fort Selden was a post on the Rio Grande River in now what is Radium Springs. It was built to protect white people in 1863. It played a role during the Apache Indian wars, with Cochise and Geronimo's people trying to survive.

One of the first troops after the Civil war, were the Buffalo soldiers, who gained metals of honor for there attacks on the Apache people. Also Arthur MacArthur was commander in 1884, father to Douglas MacArthur, WWII Brigadier General. Young Douglas learned to shoot a gun and ride a horse here.

The adobe wall fort is in ruins, but it is an interesting place. It was also interesting that only officers could bring their wives. Most of the time that was 4 or 5 women to 200 men. The women complained that it was a very dull place. I can imagine it was.

It was a good weekend away.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES- I guess we will find out!!!

The last night on the road was at Kiva RV park, right off the Interstate 25. We were not too sure of things because...there was cattle grates and a dirt road. We have now found out most of New Mexico rural roads are dirt! This RV Park was no frills, but still pretty nice. We met a great lady there, Val, who is like a sister of another mother. We are now friends. Since the sewer thing was broken, we were literally pissing in a pot...I sure hope things get better. We did have the last long hot shower there, and we picked up more rocks. This area is interesting. The Large Array Telescope is located here, as well as one of the nations best wild life preserves. They are waiting for the cranes to return here, thousands of birds winter here. It is reported to bean amazing sight.

The next day we headed for Truth or Consequences. Well let me say the brochures are a bit nicer than the town. It is really a pretty small town. We drove out to our campsite, which is 2 miles south of Williamsburg, which is 4 miles south of T or C. We are parked on the side of a "hill". There are 6 RV's and 2 permanent trailers. This is Desert Haven Animal Rescue. When we saw it, we thought gee, what did we get ourselves into.It is pretty rough. Rock and dirt roads, no frills, no shower house, no pool, no cable just 6 RV's.

OK we can deal with this. first we had to get the sewer thing fixed, for obvious reasons. We had the part, which is very tricky to put in. Of course, we put it in wrong. Mike insisted in doing it, so every day we heard cussing coming from under the RV, where Mike worked on the sewer line. Well it still leaked, so we are still pissing in the pot. Mike siliconed the whole damn thing, ,still leaked.. It cost Mike $1.87 to use the convenience store bathroom. (He had to buy something.) OK so that is the bathroom issue...

Now inside the RV is a converter box, which changes AC to DC and charges the batteries which run the lights. The thing was running very hot, and then suddenly stopped. I asked our friend, and co-workamper, Donna, about it, and she saw the fan had burnt out. Donna, a most intelligent person, rigged the converter box with a new fan. The fan worked but the converter box was not sending out a charge to the batteries..so you may now guess..that besides no toilet, I have no lights...

All is not horrible, we do have candles and flashlights.

Two days later, another former workkamper, Deb, came to see if she could help. She said she thought the converter box was dead. Oh good said I!! Deb, a wonderful person, lent us her battery charger, so we could have lights until the repair man could come. Deb also helped me get a PT job.

The repairman came Thursday and said "Yep It's dead...cost about $500 to get a new one. Have to order it, will be in Tuesday". Okay doakie what else can I do. You need these things. The best part was he had another part for the sewer thing, and I asked him the trick to putting it in. and you know what he said Vasoline...unbeleivable..

So Mike put it in with vasoline, and YEA we have a toilet. Tuesday O'Neill put in the converter box and YEA we have lights.

Now we had to figure out the propane thing. We had help from Reba and Gene long time workampers. We had our first shower in 10 days..YEA. we were pretty ripe., working with the dogs and sweating.. The only thing about showers is the are "Navy" showers. get wet, turn off water, soap up, turn on water. I miss a long hot shower.

But we have all systems on, even the TV, no cable, and I hooked up the DVD. so Life is still rough, but livable...alot better than the settlers.