Although this is our third season gate guarding, this is by far the southernmost point we have been.  Initially I didn’t mind being this far south, because the weather is better and I was told we were less than three miles away from a border patrol station.  My thought process (and what was insinuated) was we would be pretty safe because of the proximity.  I will say that we do feel safe, but I should also mention there has been a ton of activity.  We see border patrol vehicles several times a day and one stopped and an officer told me that directly across from us was a common immigrant pickup spot.  This morning Lee had five border patrol vehicles come in his gate because they were chasing illegal immigrants on the ranch.

Oddly, I am not nervous, although I do find it interesting that even three years ago most of these extreme south gate guard positions were armed ones.  The landscape appears to have changed though and we were told no guns were allowed on our post.  It’s not just border patrol because this evening one FBI agent and two DEA agents came to search the ranch for a suspect.  Again they had difficulty because the ranch was so big, even though they knew the company the gentleman worked for and his approximate location.  Thankfully our role in these situations is to simply let people in.  And truly it sounds way more scary than it is, although I have requested some more light for our RV area.  We were only given two relatively small light stands and I would feel better with a little more light on the backside of the RV. So all together we have seen Border Patrol, Homeland Security, DEA, and a helicopter of some sort hovering over the property.  Let’s just say there is lots of presence.

Aside from that things have been going well.  We discovered we couldn’t get any TV at all here but Lee did some research and now we are using Hulu. It’s $40 a month and so far at least the streaming is working great.  I can watch football, which was my major concern, and also see lots of other programming they have in their archives.  It’s a nice alternative with an unlimited plan and since there is no contract we can start and stop it at any time.  I’m also impressed by how solid the signal is even though our cell signal isn’t always that strong.  They seemed to have solved many of the issue with freezing pictures, etc.

Jack’s also doing well and definitely settling in.  He is sleeping with Lee now and waking up at 4am and for the last two days has hung out with Lee outside.  Lee keeps him on a lead and has his cage outside, and aside from Jack getting bored he seems to be doing OK.

 

 

Lee tries to keep him occupied with chew toys and lots of walks and at least he is with one of us almost all of the time.  He has also learned how far he can go on his lead and in the evenings he zooms around a bit to get some exercise.  The herd of cows has been getting closer and closer since we moved in and Jack likes to go outside and bark at them.  It’s effective and they readily scamper off, which cracks me up up because he is so small.

 

 

Jack aside, Lee’s shelter is working awesome and the heater is great because it does get pretty cold once the sun goes down.  It hasn’t been too unpleasant except for one evening when it rained buckets.  That was definitely not a fun night.  I’ve adjusted to evening shift with relative ease and since Lee blacked out our windows in the bedroom I am sleeping well.

 

 

 

The only bad thing is I started having some stomach complications after the rainy night.  I tried some over the counter meds but wasn’t feeling better so on the fourth day I went to an urgent care.  This is only the second time I have gone to an urgent care since we have been on the road.  The first time in the Outer Banks and that was a really good experience.  This time not so great.  There was no wait which was a good thing, but after a cursory exam my choices were to try over the counter meds and wait 24 hours or go to another facility and get more tests.  My deductible is paid up for the year but I decided not to go the test route and instead opted to take the over the counter meds and see what happened.  It seems to help some, and I get why the nurse practitioner was being cautious but I also think the treatment plan would have been different if I didn’t have insurance. That really continues to bug me and I am just really glad nothing serious has happened to us on the road.

Other than that, things are going fine and I am glad we should be getting paid soon.   I’m not sure how much I will have to write about in the near future, so don’t be surprised if these posts slow down a bit.  I am getting tantalizing close to finishing the book,  I completed the final edit, but Lee wants to take a crack at it so we are making one more pass.  It’s amazing how every single time I find new things.  Definitely NOT my favorite part of writing.  My goal is to hopefully get it out before the end of the year so I will be pushing to get that done.  That’s all for now and I’ll leave you with the absolute cutest picture of Jack.  Yep I know lots of Jack but seriously how can you not love this!

 

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