dream ranch

Sometimes my nobility is as thin as the stucco on my fake adobe house.

I made it through our annual homeowners’ meeting without a scratch — probably because everyone studiously avoided discussing free-roaming horses and Donald Trump — and ducked assignments to any of our civic boards.

I soon was back in my life as a public lands miser, walking on the 240-acre inholding just beyond my back door, hoping a public-minded government agency doesn’t trade it off to a subdivision developer and turn me into a backyard Bundy. Shouldn’t my subdivision be the last?

We talked about recycling and water consumption and I made as stab at cleaning up my own place when I got back from the walk. I plugged my fancy Dyson into what I’m afraid might be coal-fired electricity and admitted to myself that if I bought the vehicle of my dreams, it would be a Chevy Suburban.

As the full moon rises, I photograph a speck of semi-rural suburban life on a hazy horizon.