Realizing that the dirty dishes in my sink wouldn't give a good impression, I decided to go ahead and wash them while I waited. Hmmm, water pressure is way down. Five minutes later, hmmm, no hot water. I was waiting at the door for Brad, and told him I thought the water heater had died. Worse than that, he replied, you have a water leak, we're going to have to turn your water off. They are out there now, and I hope they'll be able to fix it. I guess we could move to the bunkhouse for the duration, but that's only two weeks, and I really don't need the aggravation.
Hubbell was a bit of an adventure, too. We were given the 'manager's house' for what was to have been a three-night stay. First impression was good...it had carpet, a big dining area and what I would now describe as a huge kitchen, and two bedrooms that didn't seem to get any heat. We had asked if we needed to bring bedding, and were told no. Thank goodness I did bring our own towels and pillows at the last minute...mostly for comfort's sake. We found one double bed with a blanket...no sheets. Two futons on folding frames. One thin bedspread, and a sleeping bag. Repeat, no sheets. Well, if we've learned nothing during this stay, we've learned to cope. One of the futons and its frame were in the living room. None of the beds was big enough for Budd and me both, and the bedrooms were too cold to sleep in, so he hauled the mattress from the double bed and the other futon into the living room. We figured doubling up on the futons would provide him a relatively comfortable bed, and I took the mattress on the floor with the sleeping bag for a blanket.
One sleepless night later, I told him I'd rather sleep in a cold bedroom than have the furnace blowing hot then cold air at my face all night. He could hardly walk. After showering, he came out and told me to be careful in the shower or I might get wet. It was literally a trickle, though the water pressure was good at the faucet. It took me five minutes to get the shampoo out of my hair, and right now my hair is shorter than Ellen DeGeneris'.
Budd went to work, and I read and cross-stitched all day. We went to Window Rock for dinner, as the kitchen was very poorly equipped and the fridge had frozen all our food anyway. That night we switched sleeping arrangements...I took the futon, he took the double, back where it belonged. Both of us slept better, but I had had enough and asked to be brought back 'home' that night. It's only a half-hour drive, so he agreed and we came back to Canyon de Chelly yesterday evening.
I did take the opportunity to stop by Hubbell's visitor center and check out the rug that I saw barely started a month ago. Pictures are on Facebook as usual. I asked the rug weaver, Ruby, how long it would take to finish this rug, which is about 4' x 6' in the Two Grey Hills pattern. Four months, she told me, because of the complex design. It will sell for $4000-5000 when finished. I don't know whether she is paid by the Park Service to do her weaving in the Visitor Center, or whether her only compensation is the sale of the rug. Calculating the 40-hour weeks she puts in, cross-legged on a sheepskin-covered wooden Coke crate, not to mention the artistry involved, I'd say she's seriously underpaid either way.
As I watched Ruby work, for about an hour, I again marvelled at the engineering that goes into the task. Not only the loom itself, which is very complex though made of simple materials, but the pattern. Each color is woven back and forth within the design, but must be entwined with the others to preserve the integrity of the rug. Otherwise, it might separate on the lines that are vertical on the loom, sometimes all the way from one end of the rug to the other (for example, the borders). So each color is looped over the adjoining color before being woven back into the row.
The loom itself is too wide for the batten, which has to be short enough for the weaver to wield with one hand. As I arrived, I could see that the pattern had been woven about two-thirds of the way across in a step pattern about 12 inches high at the highest step. Ruby used a needle to loop the yarn into the previously-woven section every row, but the other colors were crossed over by hand. It is a fascinating process to watch, almost too fast to catch what is happening in the really intricate patterns. A book I picked up to look up something about the pattern indicated that there might be over 100 rows of weft (the colored yarn that goes back and forth sideways to create the pattern, as opposed to the warp threads) to the inch. Anyone who has ever done any knitting or crochet will recognize how long it would take any pattern to emerge. If you look carefully at the pictures, you can see the progress Ruby made in the hour or so that I was there, as the picture was taken just after she finished for the day. Where the pattern dips about a third of the way in from the right was the previously-woven area. She had done two and a half of the steps in the second small grey triangular shape that surrounds the central pattern when I came in, and the matching grey vertical stripe is where the areas met. She probably finished an inch to an inch and a half of that one-third side while I watched. When she was done for the day, she gathered several colors together and wound them up, looping them through the warp threads.
It's interesting to note that she works with no more than 12 inches of any color at a time. When she isn't weaving it, the yarn hangs down until she gets back to it for the next row. When she is finished with a color for the moment, she breaks it off and weaves it in, tamping it down with the comb that insures the weft is packed close. It disappears as crisply as if it had been tied off. Both sides of the rug are virtually identical. A new color, or continuation of the old color, is simply placed into the warp threads at the proper spot and tamped down again. The tight weave ensures that they will stay in place, and it isn't possible to tell after even just a single row that there is an end hiding there.
I asked Ruby how long it had taken her to develop the speed with which she works, and whether she had been weaving since she was a child. She told me she started weaving when she was 23, and pretty much had the expertise by the time the first rug was done. She has been weaving now for over thirty years. My guess is that she has some serious triceps going, but she looked like any other middle-aged woman trying to rise from the floor...she reversed to an all-fours posture, then found something that stood up off the floor to lever herself to standing. I can relate.
Understanding and telling how it's done is certainly not the same as being able to do it. As much as my fingers itch to create this kind of beauty, I know it isn't something I'm likely to take up as a hobby. All I can do is start saving my pennies to someday own such a magnificent piece of artwork.
That brings me to the last piece of exciting news for the day. Most people who know me will realize I'm seriously underemployed. Prevented by licensing requirements from plying my real estate trade in a different state, and by remoteness in an area where there is no private property from doing any investing at the moment, I have been occupying my time with my hobbies, this blog and a few hours of online tutoring a day. But we got a very interesting call on Monday from one of the two Adminstrative Officers who are involved in Budd's temporary assignments. It seems that there could be a job for me, too, at the next one...if I want it. The first AO said I probably wouldn't because of the real estate, but he was wrong! I sent my resume in right away, and have reason to expect I'll be working, also temporarily, when we reach Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in a couple of weeks. Owning that beautiful rug might be possible sooner rather than later after all!
P.S. Water is still off. They think the pipe has broken under the house, and there's only a crawl space, which right now is full of water. They'll be back this afternoon to fix it, when the water level goes down enough that they won't drown. Wonder if the mice got out before it filled up. We know they're down there, because they've been coming up through a heater vent, which we closed. None in the house since then, that we know of. Like I said, never a dull moment.
