The Day After

The busy season appears to have ended. Michelle, Linda, Rachel, Linny, and Jax, all who have contributed to helping over the last few months are gone and the last four or five days were the busiest of the year. Twice in four days every single room, both hogans, and both houses, went vacant and rented again the same day. It was brutal. Yesterday I knew I wasn't going to be able to get everything clean in time before guests got here and I talked to all the out going guests the night before and they all cleaned as much as they could before they left and it helped immensely. As is always the case, no matter what, you can be sure that as something goes vacant and you start cleaning it and knocking them off one at a time, the room or house that you're doing last will be the first guest to show up and Sunday kept the record perfect. When all was said and done a couple people moved around a little and a couple guests helped me clean and I survived it.

The last week I've been struggling with why I bought the place next door and is it worth it? Yes both places have made a lot of money the last two or three months but much of it is going back in to infrastructure to support the new occupancy levels. New pump in the river, cistern, new 20k generator coming, new washer and dryer, and on and on and on. For the future there are still a lot of guests booked and this month some time will surpass cash collected for all of last year and when you add in bookings it's going to be at least double last year which was almost double the year before.

Then last night all the guests were here in the there houses, hogans, or rooms and it was over. Taking care of them is the easy part. Preparing for them the hard part. In February I was reading Mind of the Raven and getting an hour or two reading every night thinking I'd be done by the end of the week and I haven't been able to open the book since. Last night I got to look at it.

Then Kobae moved into his house yesterday. Two days later than two years ago and one day later than last year so I have some free time now and don't have to watch him constantly. I can leave the gate closed if I don't have time to deal with him. Today I caught up on most administrative stuff. I cleaned and filed away in my office. I got some quality time hanging with Kobae on the porch. Last night all the critters showed up. There were lots of raccoons, foxes everywhere, the bats have returned. Today the birds are singing like crazy. The cowbirds showed up the same day the red wing blackbirds left. Without Jax the porch is over run by rock squirrels trying to steal Kobae's food. I had a squirt gun in each hand blowing them off the porch as they would make a run at a carrot or romaine. The cactus bloomed which lasts but 7 to 10 days every year but it is glorius.

At the doctor appt earlier in the week he said I'm going to kill myself if I keep it up. Base Camp which once saved my life when I was massively over weight prior to moving here and helped me lose a lot of weight is going to kill me this time if I don't get it straightened out. So I'm working on developing my fitness routine and if I have to take less guests it's better than taking all guests and not being around to spend time with them.

I had a little time today, to myself, and I got to walk around Base Camp and I fell in love with it again. I think I'm going to be ok. I wasn't sure.