The Ranch

My family has a ranch up in Wyoming where my dad has been "building a house" for the past eighteen years and actually building one for the past ten. Him and my mom plan on moving up there when my younger sister graduates high school (more likely it will be when she graduates college).
I live in the middle of nowhere, but that middle of nowhere is nothing compaired to the ranch. The ranch is three miles from the nearest neighbor and a wopping fourty from the nearest town. It is litterally the middle of nowhere. It even looks a bit like the middle of nowhere in Courage the Cowardly Dog. (Not nearly as interesting though).

While the actual house is in progress, we stay in a little one room cabin that we call The Shed. The Shed has electricity, a radio, a stove, a fridge, a fan, and two or three cots for people to sleep on. (There's also six or seven chairs, a kitchen table, and two to three side tables per cot.) Oh, and there's also a bathtub.

While there's a bath tub, there isn't actually running water in the shed. For baths, we walk down the hill to the stock tank. (No, we don't bath in the stock tank.) We hook up the hose and run water into jugs, which we then poor into pans and heat up on the stove. (Things are old school out here.) Not having running water also poses the problem of drinking water. It is safe to drink the well water for the stock tank it just tastes a bit tinny. Even though we can drink the well water, my family insists on going into town and filling the water jugs at the park. (A park which is right next to railway tracks.) I have never gotten this. The town water tastes clourinated. As far as I'm concerned they taste equally discusting, so we should just drink the well water. It's less work. (I will warn you. Since bathing is such a pain, we tend to avoid baths until the flies start to get annoying.) I know the only things we're missing are a trailer, shot guns, and a lawn chair. Well we've got the shot guns and for the longest time we stayed in a trailer whenever we came up to the ranch. (We gave up on the lawn chairs when they fell apart.)

When you're at the ranch there's not a lot to do. There are no trees. (When my dad asked me to find a stick, I had to hold my breath to avoid being a smart ass.) There are some sandstone rocks around. (Which when I was little, were my sand cruisers and buildings on Tatooine.) Mostly though it's just dirt, dead grass, rabbits, and the occasional frog. (Maybe, if your lucky, you'll almost get bit by a rattlesnake.) Since there's not a lot to do, you read. If there is a tedious book you really want to read, but can't focus on this is the place to do it. There aren't any distractions if you go outside. (My favorite place to go is the roof.)

The one thing that amazes me the most of all is that I'm the only one to ever get injured. Not counting the time when my dad broke his arm falling off a ladder or the time my older sister dropped a saw on her foot. (I wasn't at the ranch during these times, so the cosmos was taking it out on someone else.)
With all the rusty barbed wire, jagged metal, cactus, and roofs to fall off of, I'm the only one that ever seems to do it. And most of the times it's not by ways described above. While at the ranch, I have:

I stepped off a platform while we were handing a board to my dad. (While not more that a foot off the ground, I fell in such a way to make it hurt like a bitch.)
While spinning around with friends I was the only to land on the thorn bush. (One of my friends came close, but I landed right on top of it and spent the next thirty minutes having my friends scrape thorns out of my back.)
While riding my bicycle down a dirt mound, I ran over a cactus popping both my tires and leading me to crash into the outhouse. (Not much of an injury from this, but I never did get the tires on my bike fixed.)
During one summer when I decided socks worked as well as shoes, I got a cactus stuck in my sock. (I decided shoes weren't so bad after all.)
There is a board that stretches out in front of the shed. It is used for a pathway when it rains so that you don't sink into the mud that builds up in front of the door. A couple days ago, I stepped off the steps onto this board. I stepped on it just right so that my food slid off and all my weight landed on it. I twisted up my ankle and foot and heard a lovely cracking or popping or crunching noise (maybe all three). I have since then been hobbling around of no use to anyone. (Other than the kitchen maid aparentlly.)

I'm fequently injured as is, but bring me to the ranch and I don't stand a chance. I always manage to get hurt when I'm there. If you think it's boring when you can walk try it when you can't.