Well, Finally A Blog Post!

Hello, it's me.
I was wondering if after all these months you'd like to meet
To go over everything.

Thanks, Adele.

Yep, it's been awhile, and I am sorry, but also not sorry because I've been concentrating on being healthy, visiting doctors and wondering what the heck was wrong with me. It started this past summer, a weak, shambling, dizzy, heart pounding, hurting-in-every-joint, mentally confused and depressed kind of summer. I was very scared and had many blood tests to figure it out. All was negative except for a slightly low normal B12 number which my local physician's assistant pronounced as normal. After a little reading, though, I learned that low normal B12 for people over 55 may signal a deficiency. Hmm.

After all that I can say I am well and what might have been Lyme disease/something autoimmune/rheumatic/hemochromatosis or what ever else I've been Googling on the internet has boiled itself down to a plain old Vitamin B12 deficiency and osteoarthritis. So after taking the B12 in megadoses and beginning a keep-the body-moving regimen, I'm much better and ready to forget all this nonsense.

So let's catch up and go over everything so far this winter:

We've had snow, more than ever since we moved here. Z came for a visit around Christmas time and we did a little hiking. Isn't it just like Californians to go for a hike while it's snowing?

Then it snowed some more and melted. Then it snowed some more and that one lasted for a couple of weeks because it was cold. Last night it snowed again and it's absolutely gorgeous. Tom went walking around this morning before the sun came up and then decided to plow the driveway. Ms. Pearl likes to ride in the Polaris Ranger, but doesn't like the whirring sound when the plow goes up and down and bails out of the vehicle.

That's it for today. Hope you like the pics.

For my quilty buddies: I have one top finished and another one almost there. This will be the Year of Finishes. Yep, it will.

Tom shot all the photos.

Z and B hiking in the snow-That chubby person is wearing lots of layers, just so you know.

Snowy Beaver Dam

Cabin Before Sunrise

Front Gate of Nickel and Dime Ranch

A Sleeping Garden

Snowy Rimrock

Sheepherder's Wagon-The Sheepherder is Out

Growing Dome and Rimrock

Looking West

A Snowy Woodpile

Ms. Pearl is Plowing

First Snow of the Season-Ranch Headquarters

Calling our place ranch headquarters is a joke, because with a gigantic herd of two Angus beef cattle, there's not much coordinating to do.

The snow is already starting to melt, but I hope there will be enough for our visitors to enjoy when they arrive on Friday.

Fall Already?

The past couple of weeks have reminded me that winter is coming. The yellow-flowered chamisa is the last of the allergens to bloom and I think this blooming schedule has been designed to make all the hay fever sufferers happy to see the first frosts and the last of their runny noses.

"Die, chamisa, die!"

The first frost was about a week and a half ago, killing the summer veggies, so goodbye to you,  tomatoes, peppers and green beans.

Since then we've had a few more nippy nights but the kale, carrots, cabbage and lettuce survive.  I planted too much cabbage and we are not sauerkraut fans, so cabbage soup is in the cards.

Next year the summer stuff will go in earlier since the raised beds are in place and ready to go.

Upcoming jobs: the dead plants are outta here and garlic goes in that empty bed in the foreground.

Plant garlic by Halloween; harvest it on Fourth of July. Sounds okay to me!

Come Set a Spell

The weather is friendly enough for sitting on the porch, usually in the afternoon, a cold beverage close at hand.

Sometimes rain snare drums the metal roof or clouds drift across a blue sky like dancers across an ever changing stage.  Red tail hawks surf the air currents, wings barely moving, scanning below for an unsuspecting morsel to venture out of its rock home.

Life is good.

Almost Summer at the Ranch-Country Busy

For the past couple weeks it's been busy at the Nickel and Dime, well, our version of busy:

The cabin got a new coating of oil based stain, which makes it look as good as new. Thank goodness we only have to do this every 7-10 years.

There are two bridges across the creek, but Tom made some "walk the plank" bridges for the harder to access areas. At the end of each plank, he drilled a couple holes and added rope handles so he can pull them off the creek when the water gets high.

Since we heat with wood and winters are, in my dad's Tennessee vernacular, "colder than a well-digger's a@#," the wood gathering and sawing continues. So far we haven't needed to go to the National Forest to cut wood since there is plenty right here. We haven't had to cut anything living yet, just dead and down branches. It isn't as pretty as big logs, carefully split, but wood is wood and if it keeps us warm, who cares how it looks?

And it's green! I twirl around and sing, "The hills are alive with the sound of music," but the steers just look at each other and say, "I think there's some more of that Blue Grama grass over here, Bro."

Peace on Earth

Let us hope and pray for Peace on Earth.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Solar Heating the Cabin

Most of our winter days don't look like this. Snow, if we get it,  melts in a couple hours or a couple days. We let Angel Fire and Sipapu, our local ski areas have all the snow because they need it for business. Which reminds me to tell you that on my list for this season is ski biking. But that's for another day.

We are pretty lucky because the previous owners who built this cabin spent considerable time planning how to site it. They tracked the sun's path during different seasons to determine how to manage the sun's heat, so in the winter the sun comes through those three windows and warms the living room and in the summer when the sun is higher in the sky. we stay cool.

Since this area gets about 310 days of sunshine a year, using solar is a no-brainer, and the cabin, with its passive solar design, was a smart move.  Once the sun is up, we usually don't even need to use the wood stove or the propane for heat.

If it's cloudy, like in the photo below, Tom uses some of his wood supply to warm up the place, and the Airlock logs with their hollow centers act as insulation to keep it toasty inside.

Ms. Pearl and Miss Bonnie love the sun, too, and have found the perfect place to enjoy it.