2004  Archives

November - December

We have had a very stormy winter so far, with very cold temps and lots of rain and snow.  At one time it snowed more than ten inches overnite.  JoAnne missed that snow as she was visiting her parents in South Dakota.  The heavy rainfall caused flooding several more times; the big wash that we have to cross to get to town flooded for the about the seventh time since July.  Some years it does not flood at all.  Photo shows neighbors and me trying to decide if we will drive across the river.  We didn't.  The next day the wash  was dry and everyone drove across to get to work after a three day 'rain vacation'.  Everything is lush and green after all this rain.  We now have creeks running up here in the higher mountains that didn't run before except during and shortly after heavy rain.

We checked on another neighbor's road for them and sent photos to them of the erosion.  Digital camaras and satellite internet are nifty tools.

I have been getting something done on the house project, now that it has stopped raining.  The septic system is about ready for county inspection.  Here I am working on the house pad itself with a rented backhoe.   I have decided to do a monolithic concrete slab for the foundation.  I am only working two nights a week so I will have lots of time to work on the house.  The sunny days have dried out all the mud on the homesite.

September - October

The Monsoons are over and the weather is much cooler.  We still have a few kid goats to shear.  The goats are enjoying new grass that has come up.  These photos show the results of all the rain we had earlier.  These gourd plants came up volunteer from seeds discarded in a fire ring and have not been watered.  Wild flowers and plants are blooming as if it were Spring.  The tomatoes have new life and will produce a new crop.

These solar panels a great addition to our power supply

July - August

JoAnne took this photo of the wash just starting to flood  the first time.  Later at night there was much more water.  This shows Benny looking at what is usually our driveway crossing this wash.   I was away at work and had to be picked up at the bottom of the mountain the next  day as I was driving a 2-wheel drive vehicle.  The road was washed out in  numerous places.  They graded the roads within a few days, but it was an interesting time.  It was the first time since we have been here that the washes flooded.

Hurricane Javier (Pacific) brought even more flooding.  Again, JoAnne was the first one down the mountain in here 4x4.  The river which is normally dry was raging and no one could cross, even with 4-wheel drive.    I spent the day (I work nights) at a motel.  By the next day the water had subsided and I made it home easily, as I had a 4x4 by then.  The road was washed out even worse than the first time.  Again it was exciting for JoAnne who was up here experiencing it all.  It was the heaviest rainfall in many years.  I hope JoAnne will write about this period sometime.  Roger

MAY-JUNE

JoAnne is quite busy these days, having gone to work full time off the homestead.  I also work in town, but my work week is made up of 3 - 12 hour shifts.  I haven't been prompting her about writing this journal.  That does not achieve the desired results.  I did get her concurrence to go ahead and enter something this time as she wasn't likely to do so any time soon.  I expect she will have a lot to say for July.  She is going to visit her brother and niece in Las Vegas on one of her 'weekends'.

All the goat kidding  has finished.  They  gave birth to 13 bucklings and only 6 doelings.  We now have lots of wethers and bucks and will get to see how they develop as they get their first shearing at six months and the second shearing at one year. Their permanent fleece qualities really don't show until they grow  into yearlings.  Many of the bucks are red to brown and are fading, some more than others. Serra had black buck twins, Elvis and Conway.  A little faded red doe named Strawberry lost a horn, but it was just the shell and is growing back.  It was painful for her and me.  Now we keep a blood clotting powder on hand.  Strawberry now is always ready to eat a grain treat out of my hand. This photo is of Kofa and her pet cactus that she was carrying around for a day until I pulled it off.  The goats need a lot of salt in this hot weather.  I have since given them two new blocks of trace mineral salt.

We bought a Toyota 4x4 pickup for all our commuting.  JoAnne likes it a lot and as soon as I can find a small pickup for myself, she will have it all the time.  I work further from home, so sometimes drive the more economical vehicle  to work.  We are nearing the monsoon season, and our road can get slick when it rains.  I can still use our old full-size 4x4 pickup to get up and down the mountain if it rains.  I can leave it eight miles from home near the highway and use it as a shuttle if the roads require a four wheel drive.  We do some exploring back in these mountains when we get time.  Some of the roads are very rough and some of the roads go through the washes and have a soft, sandy sandy surface.  Our main road that we live on has a loose, sandy surface and a 2 wheel drive could get stuck there if one stopped in the wrong place. When driving 2 wheel drive cars, we just make sure we don't stop in the soft spots going up-grade.

This spring was one of the top five  hottest ever in the southwest.  We are glad that it cools off quite a bit at night up here on the mountain at 4600 feet.  Being here through the summer season is giving us some ideas about where a house should be situated.  Also we have taken note of the direction the sometimes strong winds come from.  Now that it is hot, it is nice to have the wind blowing through the windows to cool us off.  Our little swamp cooler helps cool us down also.   The air is so dry here that the evaporative process works well.

Our little garden is doing OK, but would do better if something wasn't eating the green  tomatoes.  I saw  a suspect  cottontail leaving  the garden.  I later  put some fine screen around the plants and it is still happening.   Maybe it is mice that can go through a one-half inch screen.  I think we need a cat.  The hardshell gourds that I planted are doing well.  Nothing bothers them.  The are not tasty enough for wildlife snakking.  The plants bloom at night, each flower lasting only for that night and into the next morning.

The windturbine helps charge the storage batteries when we get a moderate wind.  It will be interesting to see how much it puts out in windstorms like we had last winter and early spring.  Sometimes it put out over 20 amps during gusts.   A large photovoltaic panel may have been a better investment in alternative energy, but it wouldn't spin and flip around and make a whirring noise like the windturbine.  Kind of like the yard ornament windmills you see except that it produces power.

APRIL

Here it is the middle of May, and I have not written my monthly missive for April. It has been a busy month as usual, and prolific as well. The goats delivered to us, four more kids. A yearling black doe gave us twins. Unfortunately, this year has been the year of the bucks. We have had many more of them than does. But they are all healthy and growing fast. The browse on this ranch is very healthy for them, and they are all getting fat, with lustrous fine fleeces.

We did have a great deal of agony and excitement over the birth of one kid. Sedona, a yearling doe was very close to delivery on a day we had scheduled for our weekly trip to town. Upon our return, and counting noses, we found she was missing. We started looking for her knowing she had chosen the inopportune moment to give birth. We looked…. And looked…. We called and called with no response. Feeding time came and darkness started to fall, and still no Sedona. We went to bed that night with the uneasy feeling that “something” had got to her, and we might never find her. At daylight the next morning, we both started looking again, climbing up hill and down, calling and looking under every bush, but she remained missing. We of course blamed ourselves for not locking her in the birthing stall before leaving. By the end of the day, we were both privately thinking that she was gone, and figured that we had lost one of our herd, assuming that she could not have survived out for that long with no water or protection. The next day, sitting at the table, and discussing the situation, we decided we would keep looking for her, if for nothing else than to bury her, with the comment being made that we would find her when we saw the buzzards starting to fly. Roger then left to get some water, stopping at the barn. Next thing I hear is he hollering, “Sedona’s back!” There she was looking fine with the obvious sign that she had had a kid, been recently nursed, but NO kid in tow. We decided then and there that we would not leave her, in the hopes that she would lead us to the kid. Roger followed her when she next time she went out, and sure enough, after a long hike, over a couple ridges, she and the herd went close enough to the kid, for him to start calling for mama. Roger returned bringing in the kid, who he promptly named “Outback”. We learned our lesson, and the few does yet to deliver are locked in, and will remain so until they have successfully delivered their baggage.

Our small garden is doing well. The tomatoes are big, and full of blossoms, with the zucchinis, peppers, and gourds close behind. I planted a small row of lettuce, which was promptly eaten by mice or some other critter, so I replanted, covering the little seedlings with remay, a floating cover, and it is doing well now.

Roger is working on a wind turbine. The mast is planted in the ground with cement, and the alternator is ready to be installed as soon as the blades come in a couple days. In addition to the sun, which will provide energy, we have found that the wind will also be a constant source of energy, sometimes more than we want. We have had a few days that were very windy, causing us to wonder whether our little home on the hill would remain where it is, or perhaps be blown away. For the most part however, the weather has been pleasant, and the breezes refreshing.

Arizona is one of the few, if not the only state to not recognize daylight savings time. So, while everyone else turns their clocks forward or backward, our clocks stay the same. At the moment, we are the same as Pacific Daylight  Time, and this fall  Mountain Standard Time will be one hour earlier than Pacific Standard Time.  The sun is coming up earlier and earlier each day, and our days start with its’ rising.

I have learned to spin on a spindle! I have often thought about it, especially now, having no room to set up my spinning wheel. We had a visit from a cyber fiber friend who resides in Phoenix. She brought me 3 spindles; a bottom whorl, a top whorl, and a Navaho hip spindle, and then taught me how to use them. For some reason, I enjoy the hip spindle the most, but have taken the others in the van for our trip to town. I can even spin while traveling. THANK YOU SUSAN!

The rest of our month has evolved around my painting yet more gourds, the completion of the rebuild on the truck (which is running wonderful, by the way), and learning to bake bread two loaves at a time. In spite of the daily chores, we are still managing to find some time for some hiking and exploring this still untamed land, and learning the names of some of the indigenous plants, bushes, trees, and cactus.

 

March

We have been on the new homestead 2 months now. Sometimes it seems like we have been here forever already. It is amazing how easily one can adapt to new surroundings.

It’s been another busy month. The goats have started to kid, and we have had 11 so far. In years past, we have had many does and few bucks. This year, it seems the tides have turned. At the moment, there are 6 bucks and 5 does. We did have a beautiful dark red/brown buck that we will be keeping. He is out of Pansy, the white doe of unknown heritage, though we know she is an angora. She has consistently thrown color when put with a colored buck, and she did not fail again this year. We also got a red doe from her granddaughter, Biscuit, though not quite as dark as the buck. The rest, well, the rest are some shade of white, some with brown boots a couple that are kind of orange, and some just white. But all are in good health, and they will certainly provide me with lots of fleece for dyeing come fall. Spring shearing is completed already, with the goats happy to scratch where they haven’t been able to in some time.

We or I should say Roger has dug up a small plot of dirt for a garden. It will consist of a few tomato plants, a couple of gourd plants, and some lettuce. Water is in short supply here, as we have yet to dig a well. In the meantime, we are hauling water a short distance, and must be conservative. The garden, however small, will be enough this year to satisfy our craving for home grown tomatoes.

 

 

We do a lot of hiking around here, either following the goats to see where they browse, or just plain exploring to make sure we see every nook and corner of the property. We finally found the one corner marker that had been eluding us these past couple months. It was much further away than we had figured. The good thing is that we ended up with more land than we thought we had. We are fencing gradually, but now realize that some may never get fenced. There are some pretty steep hills and ravines to make fencing if not near impossible, then at least very difficult. The good thing is with all the ups and downs, hills and ravines; it makes for a big 61 acres. The other good thing is that we are both getting our exercise, and getting rid of some of that Oregon fat we have both accumulated over the past few years.

Spring sprung quickly around here. We went from pleasant days and freezing nights to pleasant days and warmer nights rapidly. The trees have new little leaves; some of the bushes are blooming, along with some of the flowers and cactus. The grass is green, and so the wild cows and the goats are enjoying all the fresh growth.

Speaking of wild cows, we have quite a herd here on the ranch. We talked to the ranch foreman the other day, and complimented him on his many new calves. He was a happy camper with so many this year, particularly when the prices are so high. The cattle are a motley crew, some with long horns, some with short horns, and some with no horns. These are range cows and so are on the bony side, but they are certainly throwing some beautiful calves. They range the surrounding hills, with plenty of developed springs for their water.

The travel trailer is still home and will be for some time. We are adjusting to the cramped space, and spend most of our time outside in the nice weather. Of course the small quarters also mean less to clean, and that is always a good thing. I have yet to get my spinning wheel set up, but partly because the days are so full. I have completed another order of gourds for the gallery, doing something new, which is always enjoyable.

The nights are beautiful. Because of the lower humidity, the stars seem much closer, and some days the sunsets are spectacular. We have lovely views of the hills around us, and so there always seems something to look at.

We have no neighbors to speak of, but have met most of the few that choose to live here full time. Traffic is nil, and the only tracks in the road are our own. We have done some exploring of the backcountry around here, and plan of doing a lot more as soon as the truck is put back together following the new valve job currently being competed. I know there are some that would say “time for a new truck”, but we prefer the old ones, and know that it will be soon back on the road. In the meantime the van is doing dual duty, taking us to town, and hauling home all the necessities.

So that’s about it for this month. Next month, more babies I’m sure. Speaking of babies, the word from daughter is Australia is that there will be an addition to their little family comes September.

February

WE MADE IT!!! I am currently sitting on a mountaintop in rainy (!?) Arizona. Yes, it really does rain here in the desert! We have had showers and heavy down pours since last Saturday, with more expected in the next few days. Unlike Oregon however, we know it will end soon, and the days will once again be sunny and bright.

The trip was exciting, but relatively uneventful. The weather cooperated with no snow over the mountain passes, and the vehicles, despite their vintage ages, ran in top- notch condition. We must have been quite a sight traveling down the road, with the big red, 40 year old cargo van pulling a little red barn on wheels behind it, with a big, white dog, staring mournfully out the door, and being followed closely behind by a 26 year old passenger van with another dog riding shot gun in the passenger seat.

It took longer to make the trip than normal, not being able to drive very fast, and the frequent stops to water and rest the goats. We stayed in rest areas two nights, sleeping in the van to be close to the goats. We had placed feeders in the double decker barn, and watered the goats every time we stopped. After two and a half days travel, we arrived in Kingman, stopped for supplies, and headed to the property, finally arriving a couple hours before dark. Everything left by Roger in November was safe and intact. We immediately unloaded the goats and Benny the livestock guardian dog. The goats jumped out one by one and started munching on the nearby live oak brush that cover our hillsides.

It was my first actual view of the property, and it was I expected, a beautiful desert landscape. Roger had made an excellent choice. The property is low and rather level at the roadside, for gardens and orchards, and gradually climbing almost 400 feet to a high ridge to the west. In between are lower hills, cut by ravines and washes. It is definitely goat country, up and down, covered by live oak and other as yet unnamed brush, pinion pine, large juniper trees, and of course prickly pear and cholla cactus. The property has excellent views of the higher mountains in some directions, and the desert valley below.

Our first morning’s view after a cold night was the sight of about an inch of snow, which melted quickly with the morning sun. Our next days were busy, settling in and building fence to contain the goats. The plan was to build some wing fences to direct the goats in a certain direction, but goats being goats, they just followed the fence to the end and went around it in the direction they wanted to go. So we have extended the wing fences, and the goats have found their favorite spots to browse, and stay where they belong for the most part. They are currently enjoying the browse on the southern slopes of the hills, and in the rocks warmed by the sun. They are finding a variety of browse, grasses and plants to munch, and the climbing and jumping on the rocks has nearly put an end to my hoof trimming days. Many are getting quite heavy with kids, but none have hit the ground yet, but soon, I am sure.

Benny, the livestock guardian dog, has lived up to the reputation of his breed (Great Pyrenees). Each morning he follows the goats out, cutting a wide path around them, marking his territory and sniffing for danger, and then finding the shade of a nearby tree to nap while the goats browse. I was somewhat surprised that he has decided to share his food with a couple of ravens, who have decided to stick around for the treat. We do have range cows wandering around with young calves, and Benny has decided they are not a threat, though he did chase one cow and newborn calf into the enclosed paddock. They were very nice looking, but we chased them back out to the range where they belong.

The weather has been interesting. While most of the days have been sunny and warm, the nights have been cold, below freezing most nights. Following the snow on our first night, we had 3” of snow several nights later, which melted with the rising sun the following day.

This past week has been cloudy and rainy, with almost 2” falling in the last few days, and more rain predicted for the weekend. The days have been cool, with the clouds brushing the tops of the hills. It has been an excellent opportunity to burn some of the high piles of brush Roger pushed up while clearing the property for driveway and pads in November. I am, at this point, looking forward to some warmer, sunny days, though the rain has been a welcome sight to this drought stricken area.

Our living quarters are small and cramped. A 26 foot travel trailer does not have much room, but we have managed to make it home for now. With the days so nice, and with so much to exploring to do, most of our days are spent outside. Building a real house will be a slow process, a pay as we go situation. I do miss not having the room to set up my loom or spinning wheel, but I figure as the weather warms, I can eventually set up some area outside, and can perhaps spin in the shade of some nearby tree.

Choosing to live in the middle of nowhere no longer means being out of touch with the world. The satellite for the tv came with us; the cellular phone works great for calls from family, and the satellite internet will be installed in about a week. Our electricity is currently being made by a generator, home built by Roger, and being stored in a couple of new Trojan batteries. Our cooking, heating, and cooling (refrigerator) are accomplished with propane. We are still hoping to find a spring for water, if not, then we will put in a well. In the meantime, we are hauling water. It is not too much of an inconvenience, picking it up weekly while out for supplies, and we are sparing with the water, while making sure the animals get their fill.

Well, that’s about all for now. Hopefully by next time I write, I will be able to brag about all those little kids of many color, frolicking on the rocks, while their mothers, close by, browse the hills on a warm sunny afternoon.

January

    We made the trip to Arizona in fine shape, 25 goats and all.  The one casualty was Mikey the cat, who didn't want to go and escaped into the woods and was left behind.

    There was a light snowfall the first morning we were here but I forgot to get a picture.  About a week later there was 3 in. of snow, that time I took these photos.  JoAnne will write an entry for February.  Roger.