Kansan Ranch life

So, after the long night, I slept in a bit. By the time I had awakened, Josh had already left the ranch and went back into Lawrence to go to work. I had asked him to stay out there with me because honestly it would have been quite creepy out there by myself.

When I woke up, I really got to see what this place was all about. I opened the window blinds in the back of the house, and the whole place just lit up. The sun comes up from the back and by now (about 10am) it was fully up. Even nicer than that, was the view of a good sized lake in the back of the property. I found out later that the owner of this ranch owns the lake too. After eating breakfast, I went out on the deck in the back of the house. The house is perched up on a hill, so it’s nicely elevated over the lake. The deck is really nice to be on during the day. The air was clean, crisp, and just the perfect temperature – I’d guess about 70 degrees. There were a ton of birds out and they were chirping.

I sat out there for an hour or two and read some of the first lines I’ve ever read of Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences, a seminal work in the conservative canon. The first lines of Weaver’s book state, “This is another book about the dissolution of the West.” Those lines and the beauty of the nature surrounding me made me just sit back and think for a few moments – what it must be like to live out here on this ranch and in this area of the country and not have to think so much about the concerns of the world. I would be happy to be the biggest defender of Western Civilization, but I’d also be content just sitting out by this lake and enjoying the serenity of this peaceful environment.

After realizing that this was too peaceful, I gathered my things together and decided I’d head into town. I didn’t have a key to the door (Josh had it), so I just left one door unlocked (as I was told). I got in the car and headed out from the house. After a 3/4 of a mile drive up to the gate at the front of the property, I only got up there to realize it was locked! “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I thought. My cell phone was out of service out there so I had to back up and turn around to go back up to the house. I actually got out of the car at this point and made sure there were no ditches!

I got up to the house, picked up the phone and called Josh. “Good morning, Francisco,” he answered with a cheerful voice. “Good morning, Josh,” I said. “I was trying to leave and go back into town, but the gate was locked.” He felt bad, but I knew he didn’t lock it and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. He made some calls to his boss (the owner of the ranch) and called me back to tell me that apparently a friend of his boss’s had used the lake that morning to go fishing and must have locked the gate behind him. At this point, I remember seeing someone out on the lake in what appeared to be a paddle boat, but I didn’t know this guy had owned the lake too!

Within an hour, Josh’s wife Carol came out to “get me out” of the property. Later Josh quipped, “We just wanted to give you the full monastic experience.” I told him it had been a “Kirkian” experience at the ranch – no tv, no internet, and just nature all around. Of course, there was electricity, like any house would have, but it was secluded. I even saw horses on the ranch which were out in the fields as we pulled out of there. What a great place. Once you take away the getting stuck in a ditch, and then stuck on the ranch, you couldn’t help but just love this place. But for now, I actually did want to get back to civilization, because civilization needs defending too.