The barn, as we were told, was already on the the ground, so anything was fair game. The property it once serviced sits at the intersection of highway 16 and highway 20 just west of Williams. We'd have to access the property through the front gate and follow a rough dirt road for about three miles before finding the barn.
Last Tuesday I loaded up my tools of destruction... sawsall, various wrecking bars, various hammers, and cordless drill... as well as Theo. Theo and I have a love hate relationship. He loves me. I hate all the hair he sheds, his hyperactivity disorder, and his inability to listen to a thing that you say. I figured I'd take him with me and we'd have a little bonding experience. Caren wasn't sure what to think. I'm sure that one of the thoughts that crossed her mind was that I planned on leaving him out in the sticks somewhere... about as far away from a road as one can get in Northern California.
Finding the gate was easy. Getting through the gate was easy. Following the "rough dirt road" was not so easy. The road started out as a two lane gravel road. after about a hundred feet it became a one lane dirt road. After another hundred feet it was a jeep track... with grass growing in the wheel ruts.
Theo and I, being the adventurous souls that we are, followed the jeep track. Over hill and around dale we went... at a snails pace. We made our way across dry stream beds that I was sure would bottom out the truck. Soon we began spotting sun-bleached cattle skulls and vertebrae alongside the road. Two thoughts crossed my mind: What have I gotten myself into? and This might be a good place to let Theo out of the truck!
Rounding a corner and crossing another stream bed, Theo began to growl. Two rather large cows stood in the middle of what, in a very nefarious way, could be called a road. They bawled out a little protest to our being there but graciously stepped out of the way. They did however decide to follow the truck rather closely. I think they thought we were the feed truck... either that or they were herding us into a trap.
On we pressed. Soon our two friends were joined by three or four others. Then five or six more. Not long after that a very large cow stood right in the middle of the "road" in front of us. Had we been going much faster than the three miles and hour that we were, we would have been unable to avoid a collision. One that I'm sure the cow would have been none the worse off for. Caren's truck, however would not have faired so well. The cow was large. To add to its size, it stood nursing a calf. Not really a calf... it could have been considered a full grown cow in my book.
Theo growled, and I waited patiently for the lunch break to end. It didn't. I thought about honking the horn but thought better of that idea when I pictured a ranch hand with a shotgun loaded with rock salt becoming annoyed with me for bothering the cattle. After a minute or so an idea occurred to me. Because we were in the middle of an oak savannah and because the road wasn't really much of a road, I could just drive around the cow cafe.
On we went. Just as I was beginning to lose hope that we would ever find the barn, the "road" ran out. It was no longer a jeep track. It was simply a cattle path... a single track cattle path. I gave Theo a what-now look. He returned a just-drive-up-to-the-top-of-that-rise-and-have-a-look-around look. That is what I did, and, low and behold, off in the distance was what appeared to once have been a barn. There was no road leading to it, but that didn't matter because we were no longer driving on a road anyways.
In short order we arrived at the barn and stepped out of the truck only to be pleasantly greeted by a large... I mean very large... I mean much larger than the cow and its calf large... bull. Fortunately the bull was on the other side of a barbed wire fence, but he left no uncertainty as to his displeasure with us being there. He began to bawl and continued to bawl for the hour or so that I rummaged through the remnants of the barn. I carried a large hammer with me the entire time I was there, making sure that I never had my back to our new found friend. Theo, demonstrating all of his love for me along with his willingness to lay down his life in the name of that love, promptly hid under the truck.
After picking through, wandering around, and climbing over the pile I gave up. Other than the large hammer that was my only defense against a charging bull, I never even got a tool out of the truck. I simply was not willing to pull anymore nails, plane, or sand another piece of wood if I didn't have too. And, I didn't have to do any of that to this pile of wood if I didn't want to. Did I say that I didn't want to?
Greg Brown's song, You Drive Me Crazy (but I love you so much that I am gonna drive you crazy, too), was running through my head as I reached over a scratched Theo behind the ears, started the truck, turned it around, and headed back to civilization... without any more barnwood.
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