Crazy Monkey Ranch

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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These cows are FAAAR away.

This cow is small.

This cow is also small. And coy.

Juvenile Loggerhead Shrike

We popped down to the ranch yesterday to relax and take some photos. It was nice to visit, but we didn’t stay terribly long. We walked around, took some photos, and chose out an approximate location for the Rental/Guest House on the south lot.

Western Meadowlark

The grass is starting to green up nicely, and it’s starting to look lush. Down in the Arroyos the plants are green and the air was moist. It is apparent the area is getting ready to explode in rich dessert life.  It should be a very pretty spring.

Flower Buds on Ball Cactus

There were quite a few flowers hidden among the grass and cacti, most are low to the ground, but Christy got pictures of several.  We have identified some of them, but a few I am still not sure of. A lot of flowers were getting ready to bloom, and sometime in the next couple weeks parts of the field will be completely covered in flowers.  I think we even have a few wild lilies around.

White Locoweed

We finally managed to get some pictures of a couple of our native birds and positively identify them. We know we have Western Meadowlarks and Loggerhead Shrikes.  I think we also have American Robbins, and also Mountain Bluebirds, as well as either Crows or Ravens.  I don’t think there is anywhere real close for hawks to nest, but they do occasionally soar over.

Stemless Daisy

In all the dry mud from the recent weather, we saw lots of pronghorn and dear tracks all around the property. As well as some other tracks.  A couple may have been wild horse, and some were probably coyote.

We also stopped by our “local” Big-R in Pueblo, and checked it out.  It’s pretty nice, and should be a great source for tools and supplies once we start actually ranching.  It is much bigger and more fully stocked than the Big-R in Falcon.

We are also starting to plan out our “landscaping” and gardening for the future. There is so much wonderful potential there! One thing we know we want to do is to plant at least one Cottonwood tree, like the ones we pass on the way to the property. We are also dreaming of a fenced garden area, with vegetables, roses, an arbor, bird bath and feeders, and much more.

Redstem Filaree

Layers of Mountains

Cottonwoods Along the Road

Here’s the shed, almost finished, with Benny on top of it. He got almost all of the shingles on the last time we were out. All that’s left is the gable ends.

After much poking and prodding, and finally just a completely fresh installation of WordPress, we finally have the ranch blog back up and operational! It seams to be working just fine now, although we never did figure out really what was wrong with it in the first place.

Many thanks to Anthony at our web host MediaCatch for all of his help in trying to fix this problem.