Gonna Build Me an Ark

 

               Gonna Build Me an Ark

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It is not that rain is unwelcome. It is that the rain is so startling. We’ve had rain every day now well into a second week. The forward lookout drips wet. This is the dry season. It Does Not Rain in January. It rains in July and August. Any other Rain time is Bonus. Or a Threat.

I’m doing what any sensible person would do in this situation. I’m thinking about building myself an ark. It’s a lot to think about. After all, I’m not an Arkiologist.

I’m considering a floating habitation bigger than a breadbox, but smaller than a cruise ship. There’s a lot to think about. Even I, when I say the word “ark” see a child’s drawing of a dinky boat with a giraffe’s head poking out a window.

Animals? I have a dog. She will need to be in my ark. I’m not trying to save the world, just my own selfish self from drowning in the floods, should they come. Animals need space, food, clean bedding, staff, and more care than I’m willing to provide. Sorry.

How would one possibly make a decision of which animals to include in one’s private ark? Elephants or chickens? Well, if I were choosing, chickens beat out elephants, just from a kitchen standpoint. However, imagine living in a chicken coop.

Sure, chickens are friendly animals, have babies and drop eggs daily, but, eggs are not all that chickens drop. Ewww. Ammonia. Guess who had to clean the chicken house every Saturday of my growing up years?

That’s the kind of consideration accompanying every thought I could think up of every animal. So, no animals. Exception of Lola.

I’m sure ants and cock roaches and scorpions and lizards will find their way inside.

Food? Ah, good point. Stockpile food or hope for floating restaurants and stores? People are ingenious. Where there is a problem, People generally find solutions. I think I’ll leave that one for you to solve.

Friends and Family? Won’t they want their own arks? Really? Who do you want in yours?

Electricity? Propane? Communications? Oh, details, details, details. Surely we shall iron out the various details as we build. Build, uh, with what?

Hmmm. Come to think of it, I have a perfectly good house. Should the rains continue, and as it is late afternoon and I see the clouds moving in like cruise ships docking in the harbor, why should I not revamp my perfectly good house? Put something like runners underneath, maybe something similar to floats on a float plane, with ballast floats along each side, to keep it upright in storms? If I can imagine it, someone can build it.

This is my fantasy so I can build in whatever amenities I want. So, Cloudy Sky, rain all you want. I shall float along in the comfort of my own houseboat, visit my neighbors when I gently, gently, bump into them, so to speak. Instead of a giraffe poking its head out the window, perhaps I’ll dangle a fishing line.

Actually, this valley with the islands of mountains poking up all around, this country, this very yard in which sits my house, was underwater a mere 900 years ago. Our little town of Etzatlan is built on the mountainside for a reason. The city center at one time sat on lakefront property.

So maybe my fantasy is not so fantastic. So, to borrow a name for my new houseboat from Woody Guthrie, I could, may need to, float the lake singing at the top of my voice, “Roll on Columbia, roll on, roll on.”

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

Last week in January, 2026

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