Tag Archives: Howard Mesa

Not Especially a Good Day

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I have a day.

Well, I shouldn’t complain. It certainly could have been worse.

Trouble began early, when I got an e-mail message from the person I thought wanted to buy the assets of my FBO at Wickenburg. He was trying to get out of the deal. He said he didn’t need me. He said my asking price was outrageous. This coming from a man who practically begged me to sell to him and didn’t even attempt to negotiate the price.

Let’s not go there.

I contacted two people at Robinson Helicopter via e-mail. The first was to try to get my local mechanic in on the September maintenance course. Fully booked, I was told. But there was no one on the waiting list for October. The second was to see if the Robinson Helipad that comes with the purchase of a new R44 would work on my property. It was designed for rooftops, I was told. It wasn’t big enough to eliminate the dust problem I had. I should consider laying down concrete.

Not what I wanted to hear.

I was so worked up over the FBO deal problems that I couldn’t think well enough to write. So instead of knocking off two chapters to my Quicken book revision, I did only one. And that was a no-brainer chapter with very few changes to the text.

That means I’ll have to work on my birthday to get the damn book done on time.

Someone kept e-mailing me all morning at the pilotcharts.com e-mail address, asking me questions about a specific product, shipping, etc. We must have exchanged a dozen messages. I warned him that if he wanted the item shipped today, he’d have to order before 2 PM. The last message from him requested a phone number. The last message from me gave him a fax number. By 2 PM, there was no fax and no order.

What a waste of my time.

My sunglasses, which I’d ordered two months ago, finally arrived. That’s a good thing. My old ones were about to fall apart.

In fact, that’s about the best thing that happened to me all day.

Mike decided to take a trip to NJ the same week I have to be up at the Grand Canyon. He fully expected me to take the dog, bird, and horses with me. The poor dog would be locked up in the trailer for 13 hours every day, six days straight. (The bird would, too, but heck, he’s used to being locked up.) For some reason, I went along with this. Until I started thinking about it. A good thing: I found a place to board the horses for only $100 for the week. A bad thing: I couldn’t find anyone to take the dog. I didn’t even try to find someone for the bird.

So I have company with me this week at Howard Mesa.

I had to drive to Howard Mesa. If you’ve been reading these blogs, you should know how spoiled I am. I usually fly up here. It’s about 1-1/2 hours by helicopter but 3 hours by car. But I couldn’t very well fit the dog, the bird, and all my gear in the helicopter. So I took Mike’s truck. Now I have three vehicles up here. (Sheesh. It’s almost embarrassing.) The good thing: Mike filled the tank with diesel. Another good thing: because I didn’t drag the horse trailer up here, I didn’t even use up a half tank of fuel. The money I saved on fuel probably paid to board the horses. Yet another good thing: if I get ambitious, I can use the truck to take my bicycle to the airport and get some exercise during lunch breaks this week.

Nah.

It was cloudy up here when I arrived. Cloudy like it might rain. Imagine that. I haven’t seen rain in Arizona in so long, I forgot what it looks like. (It was a good thing it rained in New Jersey when I was there earlier this month. Otherwise, it would have been at least three months since I’d seen rain at all.) But the moon’s out now and I think the clouds are breaking up. I don’t think it’s going to rain.

The darn bird is doing laps in his cage, climbing all over the inside. He’ll do that until I shut off the light. Sounds like a good excuse to call it a day and put this one behind me.

Got Another One

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I catch my second mouse and transport him to Grand Canyon Airport.

I can tell that the mouse problem is one I’ll be dealing with all summer.

Less than a month after catching my first mouse and letting him go at Grand Canyon Airport (see a previous blog entry for details), I realized that another mouse had taken its place. (I seriously doubt that the first mouse returned, since it is about 30 miles from Howard Mesa to the Airport and mice have very small legs.)

I set the trap up in the middle of the floor one night, with a dab of peanut butter for bait. That night, I heard tiny noises that woke me. (I had had a rough day and wasn’t sleeping very soundly anyway.) At one point, I thought I heard the trap bang shut. But I must have dreamed that, because the little noises continued, on and off, all night and the trap was still wide open in the morning.

Mike, Jack the Dog, and Alex the Bird came to visit me the next day. They spent the night. No mouse is dumb enough to show its face when a dog is around, so I didn’t bother setting the trap.

The next night — last night — I set the trap up on the sofa. I threw some extra special treats in with the peanut butter: some broken up cashews. I climbed up to bed and read for a while. By 9 PM, I was falling asleep, so I killed the light and pretty much passed out.

Crash! It was the sound of the two sides of the trap dropping shut that woke me. And, moments later, my little captive trying to get out of the trap. Knowing I’d never be able to sleep through the continued noise, I turned on the lights and climbed out of bed. It was only 9:30. That little bugger hadn’t wasted any time going on the prowl. I put the trap outside on the picnic table and went to bed.

This morning, I happened to be flying back to the airport again. So I loaded up the trap and its occupant with the rest of my gear. At the airport, I had to literally shake the trap to get the mouse out. He hit the tall grass and disappeared.

I wonder if he’ll find the other mouse I relocated….

Decisions, Decisions

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I make a tough decision each day on what vehicle I’ll use to commute to work.

I’m spoiled. I know it. Even though I live in a tiny trailer when I’m working at the Grand Canyon, I have three vehicles to choose from for my daily commute from Howard Mesa to Grand Canyon Airport.

Three! The first is my “airport car,” a 1987 Toyota MR2. I’m the original owner of this little gem and put most of its 130,000 miles on it. I learned to drive a stick shift on it and it still has the original clutch. (Okay, so it’s a little high, but it does still work. Toyotas are great cars.) I remember when it was brand new and shiny and lovingly waxed. Now its paint is faded from the sun, its windshield is pitted from road debris, and it’s covered with dust. Still, it gets about 25-30 miles to the gallon — something to consider when fuel is $2+ per gallon. And it’s peppy. (Read that fast.)The second is my 1999 Jeep. It’s perfect for the 5 miles of dirt road between the main highway and the trailer atop Howard Mesa. Unfortunately, it only gets about 15 miles per gallon and its soft top makes a ton of noise at highway speeds. And it rides like a cardboard box in heavy wind.

The third is my 1999 Robinson R22 Beta II helicopter. Yes, I brought that with me. Heck, why the hell not? It’s not like anyone would be flying it at home. And there’s nothing like turning a 36-mile, 45-minute commute into a 25-nautical mile, 20-minute commute. Of course, it burns about 10 gallons of fuel per hour and with warmup and shutdown time, the hobbs meter registers .5 hours after each commuting flight. 100LL costs $3+ per gallon up here. Ouch. And let’s not even talk about the other cost of operating that vehicle.

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Three Niner Lima and the Toyota parked behind the camper at Howard Mesa.

Of course, they’re not all here at the same time. For example, tonight the Jeep and Toyota are at Howard Mesa and the helicopter is at the airport. The other night, the helicopter and Toyota were at Howard Mesa and the Jeep was at the airport. Sometimes it’s tough to remember where each of them are. But it’s easy if I remember that two vehicles are always where I am. When I drive the Jeep to the airport tomorrow, both the Jeep and the helicopter will be at the airport with me while the Toyota waits patiently atop the mesa.

So how do I decide? Well, when I’m tired after a hard day flying or if it’s really windy at quitting time, I take whatever road vehicle is at the airport to Howard Mesa. If I’m not tired and feel like getting back home quickly, I take the helicopter. Pretty easy decision.

In the morning, it’s also an easy decision. I take the helicopter. I love flying it in the morning. But this morning, I took the Toyota. Why? Because I thought I might be driving to Flagstaff from work. I hate driving the Jeep long distances because of all that roof noise. The other day, I took the Jeep home from the airport even though it wasn’t noisy. Why? I’m still trying to figure that one out. I did discover, however, that the side step on the driver’s side needs welding. So I have to take it back to the airport tomorrow. Bummer.

Why all these vehicles? So I have options. I don’t want to get stuck at the airport or at the trailer. With two vehicles wherever I am, there’s always an option for getting from point A to point B.

And if you’re wondering what I have at home, it’s my sole remaining car, a 2003 Honda S2000. That car will never see the top of Howard Mesa.

Call Me a Mouse Relocation Specialist

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I catch a mouse, take it for a helicopter ride, and set it free at Grand Canyon Airport.

Anyone who has been reading these blog pages carefully should have noted that my trailer at Howard Mesa has a mouse problem.

The problem started last season. The trailer is parked here from late spring to early fall. Last season, we didn’t spend much time here. On our last stay, when I opened the door I found that the fringe on the throw rugs was gone and there were tiny black mouse droppings all over the floor. No other sign of the little buggers, though.

We bought those noisemaker things that are supposed to keep rodents away. We plugged them into an inverter that we left plugged into one of the trailer’s cigarette lighter-like outlets. Then we left for a few weeks. When we returned, we found that although the batteries were still charged (thanks to the solar panel on the roof) and the inverter worked fine, the two noisemakers were dead. There were more mouse droppings on the floor. And the little buggers had begun chewing the white threads off the sofa upholstery.

We hooked up the trailer and took it home. Mike went at it with whatever mouse removal tools he wanted to use. That usually includes sticky pads and nasty, snapping traps. I don’t like those. I don’t like seeing dead animals. So I just avoided the trailer for the whole winter season. Mike assured me sometime in January that the problem had been resolved.

This spring, we took the trailer back up to our property at Howard Mesa so I could live in it while I worked at the Grand Canyon. It’s only 36 miles door to door, and it beats the trailers with housemates program Papillon makes available to its employees.

I scattered moth balls around the trailer’s tires. Someone told me that would prevent mice from climbing up the tires and into the trailer through openings we knew nothing about.

But when I returned to the trailer after being home for a week, guess what I found? More droppings, chewed up Kleenex, and less white thread on the upholstery. The mice were back.

Mike planned to come for the weekend. I asked him to bring the humane mouse trap. That’s a mouse trap that actually TRAPS the mouse. It doesn’t kill it. It holds it in a tiny metal box so you can do something humane with it. And I went to Flagstaff and bought another rodent noisemaker.

When Mike came, I gave him an assignment. I told him that the mouse nest must be under the sofa. That was the only place we hadn’t searched thoroughly. I asked him to check it while I was at work. When I returned at the end of the day, he showed me where all that white thread and throw rug fringe had gone. And he repaired the ductwork for the heater.

Had he seen a mouse? No.

We left after the weekend. Mike had set up the humane mouse traps (we had two) in the trailer. I closed them up, explaining that they wouldn’t be very humane if we caught a mouse and let it starve to death. Instead, I set up the noisemaker.

I returned to the trailer on Wednesday evening. Opened the door and looked inside. And guess what? No mouse droppings, no torn tissue, and the sofa looked just as bad as when I’d left it — not worse. The noisemaker was still making its weird noise. I unplugged it and put it away, then set up the humane mouse trap, with a dab of Skippy peanut butter as bait.

At around midnight, I was wakened by a snapping noise. And then a tiny rattling, kind of like a very small mouse trying to get out of a metal box. I’d caught a mouse!

The tiny rattling went on for a half hour and I soon realized it was likely to go on all night. I got up, fetched the trap, and put it outside on the picnic table. Then I settled back to sleep.

In the morning, after having coffee and getting dressed, I went outside to look at my prey. What a cutie! I would have been shattered to see such a cute little guy stuck to sticky paper. He looked scared. And cold. But I had no pity for him. Not after what he’d done to my sofa. In my eyes, he was lucky to be alive.

Now what to do with him? Sure, I could take him out to the road and let him go. But what if he was some kind of homing mouse, one that could easily find his way back to the trailer? I could drive him down the road and let him go. But that would take time, and I had to go to work. So I decided to take him to work with me and let him go there.

I’d flown my helicopter to the trailer the evening before and that was how I planned to get to work that morning. So I loaded the mouse trap with its prisoner into the helicopter, along with the odds and ends I was bringing to work. I started the engine, warmed it up, and took off. I’m pretty sure that was the first time mousie was ever in a helicopter.

I landed at Grand Canyon Airport and set down on one of the transient helipads. I cooled down the engine, shut down, and unloaded my stuff. I brought the mouse trap over to the grass at the side of the helipad and opened it up. I shook the mouse out. He landed at the base of a tall clump of grass and looked at me as if to say, “What now?” Then he was gone, into the grass.

I set the other trap tonight. Let’s see if I can get another one.