Visitor Profile: Jean-Claude Mezieres

We are so excited that Jean-Claude has been here for the last three weeks or so! He is a dear friend of the family, who also happens to be a famous French cartoonist! It is so fun to have him here. Let me tell you his story…(you can also find him on wikipedia, although I haven't asked him to verify the contents)

Jean-Claude was here for the first time in the mid 1960’s. He had a work visa for Houston, Texas, but didn’t work there. He traveled around, and he ended up working on the ranch. This was back when Number One’s Dad was running the place, not long after Number One’s grandfather had purchased the ranch. CG wasn’t even living down here back then.

Jean-Claude worked here, on the ranch, for about a month and a half. From what we can gather, he got stuck with a lot of the crappy jobs that no one else wanted to do. But, it was always his dream to be a Cowboy. He was raised on the adventures of Lucky Luke (a famous French cartoon cowboy) and I think Europeans have fantasized about the “Wild West” all along. And they did let him do some work on horseback too! (He filmed some video when he was here the first time; we are dying to get our hands on a copy of that! Number One’s Dad is in charge of transferring the old format to DVD and making copies since he lives in the City and we obviously do not)

After Jean-Claude’s initial time here, he came back circa 1969, but couldn’t stay as long. (by then CG was living here too) And after that, he lost touch with Number One’s parents and the ranch.

Until the 1990’s, when a friend of his daughter’s returned from a visit to the States, with pictures of certain rock formations. Familiar rock formations, which brought the ranch to mind, along with a sense of ownership to which anyone who visits can attest: I know those rocks! Those are MY rocks! By god, I have BEEN there! I love that place! I need to go back there!

And since then, he tries to come back and visit every few years or so. He was here in the summer, two years ago, around H-Bomb’s third birthday. We have an awesome sketch he did for us as a gift. We also have the sketches and drawings and paintings that he and H-Bomb did together, which we have documented with photographs. It is very exciting. Not many kids can claim they have sketched with a famous French cartoonist!

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Shameless Promotion:

If you'd like to read one of Jean-Claude's graphic novels, but don't read French, there is a new English compilation of several of the Valerian comics available. He collaborates on the novels with his childhood friend, Pierre Christin. Also, four of Jean-Claude's books were published in English, mostly in the 1980's I believe (let me know if you'd like the titles). We found some copies for the boys on ebay. Try your luck, they are very fun.

Incidentally, if you've ever seen a small, little-known movie series called Star Wars, you will see many similarities and inspirations drawn from Jean-Claude's work. (sadly, this inspiration has gone unacknowledged all these years. Tsk, tsk, Mr. Lucas.)

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Jean-Claude is delightful to have around, so funny and a gracious guest. He is staying in our camper for his month-long visit, when he isn’t on the mountain playing cowboy with Number One. His main objective was to ride and help Number One with the fall gather. His secondary objective is to drink wine with me and play and draw and paint with the boys and snip occasional parsley for dinner. I am also trying to expand my French vocabulary to include more than “la toilette.”

We went hiking together and carved pumpkins. H-Bomb drew and/or painted Jean-Claude several spooky Halloween pictures because they don't have Halloween in France--H-Bomb didn't want Jean-Claude to miss out!

He has repeatedly invited us to visit him in France. He has a studio in Paris, and a country house in the South of France. We all want to go, so we are planning our trip. As soon as Sawed Off gets out of diapers. I have invited my mom to come and help with the boys. I absolutely cannot wait.

Jean-Claude leaves tomorrow, and we will all miss him. We have treasured our time together.

We'll see you again soon, Jean-Claude.

Unexpected Harvest

On Sunday morning, CG informed us that she had ice on her trees, from where she had her sprinkler running all night long, and that her weather station said it had gotten down to 30 degrees during the night. She asked about our tomatoes. Our weather station, 1/10th mile away, said 36 degrees. And our tomatoes were fine. Peppers too. So honestly I didn't think much about it, and since Sunday was already scheduled as Salsa Day, I spent the morning making eight batches of salsa with all of our ripe tomatoes. I left the green tomatoes on the vines.

Sunday night, however, it FROZE for real. I awoke to our weather station registering a low of 26 degrees. Wilted tomato plants and pepper plants. I knew, after we got home from school today, we'd have to harvest every single vegetable in the garden.

We have yet to turn on the heaters in our house. We're just not ready for this kind of weather. I think I'm in denial.

Today, when we got home to school, I got to work. Wifey said all of her tomatoes, every last one, froze. She tried to bring some in the house, and they were just mush. She pulled up all her tomato plants and fed them, tomatoes and all, to the goats.

I harvested all the tomatoes that weren't mushy, and some that were. I am going to experiment with roasting them tonight into a batch or two of salsa. Roasting and salsifying tomatoes makes them mushy anyway, so I'm hopeful. We'll see. And I'll let you know.

I harvested all the peppers, even the teeny tiny ones that just didn't have enough of a chance to grow, and all the tomatillos. It seems like this is a very early freeze--it seems like I usually don't have to harvest EVERYTHING until at least the end of October, sometimes later.

We lost about half of our beautiful basil. I fed the blackened, wilted, frozen basil, stalks and all, to the goats. Another experiment: I moved the EarthBox of herbs (basil, Italian parsley, sage) in front of the windows in the addition. We'll see if they will last just a bit longer until I can at least make some pesto or dry some of the parsley. I don't see why they wouldn't last, as long as I write a note to myself about keeping the box watered.

Now I will need to monitor my bowls of tomatoes, gathering the ripest ones for salsa every couple of days. Did you know you can pick green tomatoes and they will ripen on the counter or in a bowl? I was happy to learn that several years ago--it really works!

So anyway. The salsa will continue until we are out of tomatoes...

The State of the Ranch: Good and Bad

If I sat down and listed every single thing that is currently wrong with our house, I believe I would lose my mind, so I’ll just list a few. To give you an idea. I haven’t blogged in a while, so please bear with me. Or skim through, whatever. There a couple good things in here too. (Trust me, there really are!)

We are still, apparently, waiting on a bid from the contractor to complete our addition. We were prepared to wait, but MONTHS AGO when ABEG said to “Go Ahead” we got excited. For nothing. So now we are somewhat frustrated about the lack of progress.

The new front door the contractor installed during Phase I, but did not finish on the inside, you remember, the one that fell off the hinges a couple days later? Or maybe I was so mad about that one I didn’t even tell you. Anyway, now it doesn’t close unless you lift up on the handle. Hard. And if you want to lock the deadbolt? Forgetaboutit. You have to not only lift up the door but align the deadbolt with the hole, and then the doorknob thingie doesn’t line up. Whee. Also, even if the door is closed, you can kick it open. I tried it the other day when Sawed Off accidentally locked me out. It’s good for relieving aggression, but not so good when you’re thinking about being home by yourself. Deadbolt it is. I’ll have to add it to Number One’s list.

Our siding is not yet completed. We were waiting for the satellite internet dude to make it over here, and he finally did over the weekend. Now we can have someone finish installing the siding and seal it all before the snow flies! I am so glad I pushed to have the old chinking removed and the logs resealed before the siding went on—there was a significant, noticeable reduction in the number of elm beetles in our house!

Also, we currently have only half of our electricity. Meaning, half of the breakers in our breaker box don’t work. Luckily it is the inconsequential half, if you don’t count the bathroom light fixture. The theory is that there is a break in the line, somewhere underground, and we have yet to find it. Some of the wires from the generator may be shorted out underground, which would theoretically explain why we only have partial power. It’s just a theory.

Right now we have no power/lights in our bathroom, no power in the hall outlets (but thankfully at least one light in the hallway), no power/lights in H-Bomb’s room, no power/lights in the playroom, only half power (no lights) in the living room (thank goodness it didn’t affect the television!) I haven’t checked all the outlets, or the lights in the garage, but thankfully none of our appliances (2 fridges + 1 freezer) were affected.

Many of the other buildings are affected as well, the bunkhouse has untold fixtures/outlets that aren’t working; RanchHand and Wifey were running extension cords to their fridge and microwave; there is power out in the barn and some outbuildings. CG’s house seems to be unaffected, but she is on a different underground line from the rest of us.

CG’s brothers were here, trying to fix the electrical line, but they didn’t have the right equipment or couldn’t find the problem or possibly both. Who knows how long this will go on before CG breaks down and hires an electrician?

Her brothers did temporarily fix RanchHand and Wifey’s electricity by rewiring their breakers. When I found out about this, quite by accident, I was upset that the same service was not offered to us. We are running an extension cord from the kitchen (nearest working outlet) to the bathroom for a small lamp on the counter, near the sink—not exactly a kid-friendly setup! I spoke my mind this past weekend, and when I overheard one of the brothers discussing the situation with CG, “it could be another two weeks…” and she said “Oh, that’s FINE” without a second thought, I could not contain myself. I explained our bathroom situation, and asked that our breakers be rewired also. Brother was supposed to come down in the morning to address it.

The next morning, Brother did come down. And when he suggested re-wiring the entire breaker box, so we’d have all our power back, I asked what the risks might be. He said the box could get “hot” or the breakers could trip. I spoke with Number One, and we decided to just live with it. Brother said rewiring wouldn’t be too difficult, and we’d put the wires back in place it when the whole line is fixed, but with us not being here, we just said forget it.

I think I was just upset on principal, anyway. It’s not like we aren’t managing, and by now we’re so used to having things going wrong in our house On A Daily Basis that, a lamp in the bathroom? An extension cord running down the hall? Not a big deal. But the fact that someone else got their power “fixed” and we weren’t even offered or considered for the same deal? That’s enough to make this cowgirl fume.

It doesn't help much that Number One is constantly on the mountain these days, and we miss him. The other day when Sawed Off said, “Wan go moun wit you, Dada” (translation: Want to go to the mountain with you, Dada). Number One was getting choked up. He misses us too. Soon the fall gather will be complete and he will be here with us, and maybe even be able to come to town with us too.

H-Bomb has been playing and loving soccer, he has even kicked the ball a few times in the games. That’s all he needs to get excited! “Mommy! I kicked the ball THREE TIMES tonight!” Number One has only missed one game (he’s been doing a lot of driving to come down for the games: a two- or three-hour drive from the mountain plus almost an hour to town, and back).

H-Bomb is so proud whenever anyone comes to see his games. A couple weeks ago, he had even more spectators: his Grandpa and our famous cartoonist friend from France, Jean-Claude Mezieres. Grandpa drove Jean-Claude down from the airport, and Grandpa stayed the night at the town house. Jean-Claude is staying at the ranch, in our camper, for a month, I will post more about him next. We love Jean-Claude. We are going to visit him in Paris and at his country house. Very soon.

I have been canning pear and apple jams and butters (in my spare time!) and am getting ready to move on to salsa. It is almost time to harvest all the tomatoes—green and all—before the frost comes. I need to get busy. I made just one pear pie (…sniff…) before the pears got too ripe…I wanted to try freezing the pies, but I just didn’t have time.

I also have a list a mile long of things to do in and around the house, which may or may not get done. The leaves have mostly turned on the mountain, making our drive home spectacular. Except for when a deer ran out and struck our van in the side the other day. I’m not even kidding. We need to get the van fixed now too!

Some days H-Bomb says he wants to be a skeleton for Halloween, which would make my job a heck of a lot easier, because that’s what he was last year. I think we’ll turn it into a Pirate Skeleton, just accessorize the skeleton costume to make it more exciting. I think he’ll go for it. Because I sure don’t want to have to throw together a Tyrannosaurus Rex costume (his first request) at the last minute!

Oh, and Woody, the male goat, STINKS. He literally exudes some kind of male goat stench. It makes a person gag. Jessie does not seem to stink at all. It’s hard to tell for sure with Woody clamoring for attention TOO!! Not only do you have to wash your hands after touching him, you also have to change your clothes. It doesn’t exactly help with my laundry situation.

And Coffee, sweet little Coffee, is pregnant. Again. We really need to do something about this. But the puppies will be very good cattle dogs, a Kelpie/Catahoula mix.

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A Canyonful of Balloons

On Monday night, Wifey said some guy was going to park his RV out in the field where Marlboro usually sets up. She said some folks were going to travel down the canyon in a hot air balloon the next morning. I didn't know anything about it.

Tuesday morning, we woke up and I decided we all needed to go out in the field and watch. And wait. The balloon was supposed to float by around 7:30am, so we took some lawn chairs and coffee and dry granola for H-Bomb and Sawed Off out to the field. Then we waited. At around 7:40am, Wifey ran back to get some blankets and waffles.

I don't know how much longer we waited, until we saw this:


And we thought, man, he's flying kind of low. It was cool and all, but sort of anticlimactic, since he didn't crash land in the reservoir or anything.

Until we saw another balloon.

And another.

And they just kept coming.

There were about 8 balloons in all. I didn't get digital pictures of all of them because of course my camera battery died. I was also taking pictures with my 35mm (so you have something to look forward to). At some point I had to run back to the lawn chairs and get more film.


We watched the balloons for a very long time, much longer than I had intended since it was a school day for H-Bomb and no one was even dressed yet.



As we watched the balloons drift by, I also couldn't help but think of Stephanie and Christian Nielson. I don't think I have mentioned them on this blog before, but they have been constantly in my thoughts and in my heart since August, when they became survivors of a small plane crash in which the pilot died. Both Stephanie and Christian suffered severe burns, hers much worse than his, and both remain in critical condition in an Arizona burn unit. You may have heard about their accident, or about Stephanie's lovely blog, the NieNie Dialogues, both of which were covered nationally as well as by The New York Times and the Today Show.

The Nielsons have a family tradition of releasing balloons with hopes attached to them, to celebrate occasions in the lives of themselves and their four young children. Of course I thought of them. How could I not. And all my hopes for them were attached to these balloons that passed right over the ranch. Great Big Hopes, with Great Big Balloons.

If you would like to learn more about Stephanie and Christian's recovery, or contribute to their exponentially growing medical bills, you may read C Jane Enjoy It (written by Stephanie's loving sister, Courtney), where there are several ways to contribute. Fundraising efforts are also in full swing on the Nie Recovery website. Please at the very least keep good thoughts for them in your heart, they are very powerful things.


A couple of the balloons flew right over our heads, down the middle of the canyon. The horses and cows noticed the balloons too. They started running around the fields, confused.

The horses galloped over to us, "Are you guys SEEING this?"

And then they stood quietly and watched the balloons float away.

A balloon team (do you call them teams? a pilot and the crew?) drove in, testing the wind, watching their friends fly by. A couple of the balloons (including the first one) flew very low, over the reservoir. One guy touched down in the reservoir, in the water, and the balloon team suggested he had done a "Splash & Dash." But one of them said it may not have been on purpose. Then the possible splash & dasher touched down in the field, very close to a dead tree, and took off again. We don't know if he was playing around or having problems.

The balloon team decided to try to launch, right from the drive! It was exciting to watch them set up the basket, unpack the balloon, try to inflate it. And then they ultimately decided that it was too windy to launch. They were trying to gently deflate the balloon and set it back down on the tarp, but they asked for more weight. I ran over and tried to help them hold the basket down, control its location, while they were working on getting the balloon set down. It was really cool. A whole new world.

H-Bomb got to learn about what makes the fire (propane, like our heaters) and he and Sawed Off got to watch the whole thing up close.

Back in Michigan, we used to see occasional hot air balloons, but not like this. Not this close. Or this many. When my pictures are developed, I will post more from the set-up at the ranch headquarters entrance, and more of the balloons in flight.

At some point I ran back to the house to get the van, and we drove the van back when I decided we couldn't possibly stay any longer and still make it to school on time. We usually leave around 10:am, but because of all the balloon excitement and running around, I decided I needed a quick shower at 10:am. We still made it to school on time, with stories for H-Bomb to tell.