Crazy Monkey Ranch

It has only recently occurred to me that this visit is by far the longest we have stayed at the ranch in consecutive nights. Things are going well, although it has generally been too cold to bother doing anything productive.  Christy is making huge progress on a crocheted blanket, and I have been making good headway into the second part of Don Quixote, and I’ve even managed to knit a few rows on my monkey socks.

Last night it snowed about 3 inches, and it was overcast and cool the whole day.  Today the sun has mostly come out and it is looking like a lovely day, although it is still quite cold.  At least we have solar again. We have had to run the generator quite a bit more than we would have liked the last couple of days. If the weather holds we are planning to go up to Pueblo on Christmas, and hopefully find a nice meal there to celebrate.

I went out this morning and snapped off a few photos to share the beautiful snowy fields with you all.

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We decided to drive down to the ranch and spend the next week and a half or so here, just chillin.  As always it feels great to be on our own land, and in control of our own destiny.  We will spend Christmas here, which will be awesome.  After Christmas, if all goes well, Christy will start her new job.

On the way to the ranch this time, a spot that has always been clear of snow (even when there has been snow all over) had fairly deep snow, which had not melted off, and we got the poor Element completely stuck in it, and had to walk the rest of the way to the ranch for the night.  The following day we walked back to the car and dug it out, and drove the rest of the way to the ranch.  Now that that spot is cleared, getting in and out will not be a problem.

After retrieving the car I decided to go for a photo walk.  It was a pretty day, and I got some nice photos, which can be seen on my Flickr Page. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Cholla Before Greenhorn

Rugged Winterland

Here is a snapshot of the trailer, and most of the property beyond.

Trailer and Ranch

We were going to go down to the ranch this week to fill a couple orders and to extricate the cats and dog for the winter.  We were going to go Wednesday, but it was snowing, so we went Thursday instead.  In Colorado Springs all the snow was long since gone, but once we got south of Pueblo, we found snow everywhere… We were a little weary, but we got into the ranch just fine, snow doesn’t generally pose much of a problem.

We spent a lovely evening relaxing Thursday, then got up on Friday morning, and instead of working, we decided to go for a nice hike through the snow.  After a bit of walking around we realized that the snow was actually the kind that sticks together!  We never got sticky snow in Falcon.  So, we took the opportunity to build ourselves a snowman!  I can’t remember ever building a real snowman in my life.  I have tried on numerous occasions, but the snow has always been wrong.  This time the snow stuck together fantastically! We did a somewhat rushed job though because we didn’t have gloves, and our hands were getting cold.

We present Snowman Cooper!

Snowman Cooper

Sorry for the crap phone photo.

Getting out the next day though we got stuck, and it kinda sucked, but we did get out.

We went down to the ranch for the week (as we often do these days) and I actually decided to get off my keester for a bit and snap off a couple photographs.  We didn’t actually do much of anything while there, otherwise.

Trailer Under The Moon

Driveway and Badito By Moonlight

Yuccas Before The Wet Mountains By Moonlight

The Morning Snow

Due to boredom and people coming to see the house again we drove down to the ranch to play.  We decided to take the scenic route, and went down 115, through Florence, Wetmore, Fairview, and Rye.  It was a very pretty drive, which I wouldn’t mind doing again.  From Rye we took “Highway” 181 down to Apache, from which we took CR 660 to Lascar (CR 650) to the farm road to the ranch.  Along CR 660 we saw tons of Prairie Dogs, and several different birds which we failed to identify.

Once we got to the ranch we immediately got out the tree frog colored kite we bought earlier at Target and promptly launched it into the air.  It flew great in the gentle breeze.  Christy flew the kite for a while and I went around with the camera and the bird lens trying to find good pictures of birds, plants and wildlife. I finally found some meadowlarks on the far south side of the property, and I had to cross an arroyo to get a good shot of one, and it stayed on the bush until I got back up the other side.

After some more random pics, we started to leave, and I decided to try and find the bush that held the Loggerhead Shrikes last time.  So I was walking around, and saw a Loggerhead on a bush.  As I was trying to get a good angle on it, and move closer I spotted a pile of animal droppings, which isn’t unusual since there are tons of dear and pronghorn tracks all over.  I was about to step past the dung when it caught my interest that it was remarkably well spiraled, rather like in a cartoon.  This gave me pause, then the dung wiggled it’s tongue at me, which made me stop dead for a fraction of a second, before stepping quickly backward.  I got some shots of said “dung” and then got an ok shot of the Loggerhead.

On the way way out I spied a birdie, which I didn’t get a good picture of, but later identified as a Lark Sparrow.  We also saw some huge black and orange furry bees, about twice as big as a bumble bee, which I haven’t ID’ed yet.

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