Building a New Environment

     Stephen and I sat down a couple of days ago so we could put both of our ideas down on paper. We created a blueprint of exactly how we want things to look when we are finished. We seem to add new things on a daily basis but when all the details are finalized I will share them.
     Some of the things we are including in our blueprints are.... an outside bar, a bocce ball court, an herb garden, root cellar, my zen garden, a 350 foot stream with a couple of footbridges, and a pond. We are also planting several fruit trees and a bamboo forest. It will be a lot of work but we have already started to dig the stream and hopefully the recent rains will help wash it out even more.
     I am also building a wildlife viewing blind on the back 20 acres so I can capture the beauty of the wildlife that has been moving into the area with the cooler weather. We saw two large mule deer a few days ago. One was a 10 point and the other a 6. Stephen is ready for hunting season to start but I have to take the hunter's safety course first.
    We want our place to be an oasis for wildlife and we know that this means some of the less desirable animals may wander in as well but I feel that the area has always been theirs. We decided that we will only kill the animals if they are a threat. We saw our first badger the other day. Stephen didn't even know that badgers lived in the desert and he wanted to shoot it. It hissed at him a few times but I told him he had to let it go on it's way. It ran and jumped in a hole that my oldest son had made so when Stephen looked in it was not happy. Once we backed away it crawled out and ran off. I wanted to shoot it too... with my camera. It was amazing. I didn't have my camera with me but now I am keeping it by my side at all times.
    The snakes are really starting to move around now. We killed another a couple days ago. It is the third poisonous snake we have killed. We also saw a bull snake which was beautiful and about five feet long. Of course, we let it go about its business. It will help keep down the population of rodents and smaller poisonous snakes. Most of the snakes we have killed have a lot of rattles. The past two have been 9 and 10 years old. I kind of feel bad because this has been their land and now we are moving in and taking it over. If they stay away from the house I don't mind sharing the area. I am grateful that winter is coming so they will climb under some rocks for a while.

 

Not Poisonous and still alive somewhere on El Chupacabra Ranch

 Poisonous and dead... was only 20 feet from our front door!

 

 

 

         

My Own Corner

    I have been working on a space that I can call my own. A quiet place (as if that isn't everywhere in the desert) that I can use for work. I had brought some flat rocks that I collected at Robert Jenkins house when the Colorado was running low and decided these would be the base for my zen garden.

 

 

     
        I placed a small bird bath in the middle; one that I could fill with less than a gallon of water. So far it seems that the honey bees carry away most of the water by the end of the day. The rest of the water disappears as I watch birds dive in and fly away again.
        There has been some changes since this picture was taken so I will have to update it when the garden is complete. I have added several cactus that I placed in what I call the relocation program. Basically, any cactus that must be moved due to work being done in the yard.
       I plan on adding a bench and some type of wall to the area but I have not decided yet if it will be made of rock or wood. It started out as a five foot circle guarded on three sides by yuccas but it has now expanded to an area of about a quarter acre. Much larger than I had originally needed but when plants must be moved and can still be saved, why not!

Tiny Horned Toad

     When I was growing up in the hill country I remember seeing horned toads all over the place. I never realized that it had been so long since I had seen one until I moved to west Texas. I now wonder when they began to disappear from the areas I grew up with. I am sure you can find one here and there but they are few and far between. In Bertram I remember seeing them quite a bit but after I moved an hour or so away I never saw any. Now looking back on it I realize that even visits back to that small hill country town did not produce any horned toad viewing.
      Since we have moved here we have seen several horned toads. Stephen came to me with the most adorable thing I had ever seen so I snapped these pictures just to let you know that in west Texas they still thrive.

      

Farm and Ranch Museum

   We decided to get started on our bucket list so we headed up to Las Cruces, New Mexico to see what we could find. The drive took about an hour and a half but traveling to new places is also exciting for me.  Once we arrived we found an amazing view of a mountain and decided to get a closer look. Heading toward the mountain range we came across one of the things on our bucket lits.... The Farm and Ranch Museum. We decided not to let the opportunity pass us by.
    The first thing we did when we arrived was jump on the back of the cart for a tour around the farm. The Farm and Ranch Museum is actually a working ranch. It is funded by the state and is very educational. They have different things going on throughout the day.... milking cows, roping cattle, and they even have a full black smith shop where you can purchase items made right there.

 

   
    Throughout the tour we saw many cool things. Heading out on the start of the tour we saw a really nice oven that the Indians used to bake their breads. I took a picture of it so Stephen can make me one. The way it was used was by starting a fire and then allowing a large pile of coals to build in it. Then they would put their bread in to bake and cover the outside with mud to hold in the heat. It seems a bit too much for me so I won't use mine for baking bread but I think it will cook other things rather well.

        Next we headed across the old wooden bridge. The bridge was going to be taken down and just replaced so the Farm and Ranch Museum basically rescued it. It was moved here and then put together and repaired. It is a beautiful old bridge.




Old wooden bridge



 

 

Mountain range

       Once the tour was complete by cart we walked the rest of the museum. There was a lot to see. Mostly old farm and ranch machinery, everything you would need to pick pecans, cotton, cherries, plow fields, plant seeds, or just about anything else you may do on a farm or ranch.
We went inside the barns to check out the animals. They checked us out as well.

 

 

     
        Before heading back to the building we checked out a few more things outside...

Then we headed inside to the John Deere Museum. This place reminded me of my friend Josh Gill. He would have loved to see all of the old tractors they had. I took plenty of pictures so he could! Here are a couple of them.


 





































   After all of that, we headed back to our car but not before stopping off to say good-bye to a very sweet couple....


   

 

 

A Long Week

    Stephen's new job allows him to work only a couple of days a week and still make the same amount as before. This has been perfect because the house was not complete when we moved out to the ranch. The chickens needed more space being in smaller pens than they were used to. They had just started to lay again so we needed to get them into a coop as soon as possible. We decided to spend a week getting things in order.
    First on our list was to get the chickens in a new home with more space. We had only kept our best mother hens, one rooster and two pullets (all but two are game chickens). We needed to build a coop that would keep them safe as well as give them warmth for the winter. We took into account the fact that we now live in an area with bob cats, mountain lions, coyotes, and snakes. We used landscaping timbers for the outside border and then dug down around the coop to install tin. The tin would be harder for snakes to climb. It would also make digging into the coop a longer task so we could respond to the chickens if they alerted to danger. We then added a small room with laying boxes that would keep them out of the weather. The chickens were very happy to be in their new home. We still wanted to be sure they were protected so in a final effort to do that we built a dog pen around three sides so that at night the dogs can keep them safe.

    The next job to tackle was one I was desperately waiting for... inside plumbing! Stephen is licensed in water and waste water so this part was the easiest. The hardest part was digging a huge hole for our septic tank. I tried to help but he really did most of the work. This was a huge stepping stone in getting things the way we want them. Once the septic was in it was time to install the toilet. I could not wait for this to be marked off our list but I would have to because it was getting too late and darkness was fast approaching. (Solar power was next on the list!)
    The next day Stephen wanted to start by installing the solar panel. This would be a quick job since we had a completed 1600 watt panel. We had also purchased a smaller panel as well as additional squares to build another large panel later. We wanted to have plenty of power for the house and shop so we also bought two large wind generators. Stephen installed the solar panel and then we got to the toilet.

 

          
        The installation of the toilet took most of the day but we still had a bit of time to install the roof trim. Everything was coming along just as we hoped. We spent the rest of the day relaxing in the cool evening breeze. Out in the desert you can see a million stars when darkness falls. The Milky Way looks like thick cloud cover and shooting stars are common. Some nights it takes forever for the moon to come up and on others, it comes up almost as soon as the sun goes down. I think the evenings are my favorite part of living here.

    
   
 

Creating A Bucket List

    Our move was all about changing our lives for the better and living it to the fullest. We decided one of the things we would do is make a bucket list of the things we want to do. No matter what we will do the things on our list and every time we find something new we would like to do, it will be added to the list.

     This is the beginning of our bucket list.... 
                                some ideas are mine alone and others we share


Caverns of Sonora     
McDonald Observatory   
El Paso Zoo
Lake Balahmorea     
Auto Museum in Ozona    
Fort Davis
Marfa     
Guadalupe Mountains National Park    
Fish the Pecos River
Hueco Tanks S.P.  
Fish Llano River in Junction
Friends of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
Grand Canyon
Visit Indian Hot Springs
Glacier National Park 
Dry Tortugas National Park   
Bryce Canyon
Sea of Cortez   
Fish the Rio Grande 
Big Bend State Park
Fort Jefferson National Monument
Exmoor National Park
Carlsbad Caverns  
Trout fishing in New Mexico 
Catch Apache Trout in Arizona
Old Spanish Missions   
Palo Dura Canyon S.P. 
Hot Air Balloon Festival
Grindstone Lake      
Fredricksburg with friends 
Chihuahuan Desert Research Center
Elephant Butte S.P.    
Museum of Science & History 
Farm & Ranch Museum
Eat something new    
Find a restaurant in the country
Capture an amazing image
Franklin Mountains S.P. 
Chase a tornado 
England
Yosemite   
Jasper National Park   
Yellowstone
Travel to all 50 states  
Snow skiing in Cloudcroft   
Skydiving
Haiti             
Icefishing    
Cover border wars
Arches National Park  
Sequoio National Park  
Mount Carmel
Make clean water available to everyone, everywhere 
Ireland
Deep Sea Fishing  
Water Skiing  
Ghosthunting in Scotland
Bear hunting   
Dance with Indians  
Catacombs
Haleakala National Park
Mount Reynols    
Mount Rushmore
Throw some money away at a casino  
The Alps
Dolphin Tour
Big Bend Brewery
Climb Dunes at Monohans Sandhill State Park
Watch seaturtles nest at Padre Island National Seashore
Watch icecream being made at Blue Bell
Hamilton Pool
Brewery in Shiner, Texas
Tour wineries in Fredricksburg
The Rocky Mountains 
Planet Marfa in Marfa, Texas
Hang Gliding  
Scuba Diving
Truth or Consequences New Mexico 
Petroglyph National Monument 

Great Sand Dunes National Park
Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge
Work for a newspaper
Niagra Falls      
New Zealand  
Canada
Zion National Park
Buy land in New Mexico
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Denali National Park   
Cape Hatteras National Seashore
Pueblo Bonito  
Pueblo del Arroyo  
Chaco Observatory
Poor Whiskey on John Wesley Hardings Grave in El Paso 
Look at Aluminum Boxes in Marfa
Buy land in Colorado
Eat Mexican Food at H&H car wash in El Paso   
Go to Devil's River Pool
Attend a Classic High School Football Game (6) man    
See Marfa Lights 
Read First Chapter of Los Diabajo in El Paso at Pablo Baray Apartments
Snag PicNic Table at Railroad Blues in Alpine (Listen to Politicians argue there)
Take Photograph at Prada Store in Marfa                              
As we complete something from our list we will cross it off here. If it is crossed off there will be a blog for it or one will be coming soon.

Better Weather

     After just a week of living at our new property we found that we had moved at the perfect time. It was the start of the rainy season in the Chihuahuan desert! The storms and rain brought cool weather. We are used to triple digit temperatures. Rain in Bastrop has been rare in the past few years. I think I have seen more rainbows, since we moved to the desert, than I have seen in my entire life. We have seen over twenty in the past month. The rain is a welcome site. We put up a rain water collection system and in two days we caught 450 gallons of rain water.

    There are many things that live in the desert that I never would have imagined to find there. Right after a rain the desert comes to life with a million dragon flies, turtles, and turantulas... along with other things.

      Rain is always welcome but on a highway with a speed limit of 80 miles per hour it can be very dangerous. We drove into Van Horn and along the way we saw two cars that had hydro-planed. We also saw an accident involving 18 wheelers. This is a thing that, I have discovered, are seen often. So be careful out there.

The Final Move

     Everything was set to take the final load to our new home. We had just a bit of packing left to do and suddenly we both got sick. We were so sick with whatever it was that we could hardly get out of bed. We had paid Stephen's mom to do the final cleaning but when we got sick, she did more than we ever expected. She came over every day, for three days, and cleaned, packed, and helped load the truck and trailer. I don't know what we would have done without her. When she wasn't caring for the house, she was doctoring us and cooking our meals. After everything was finished and we were on the road with our final load, she got sick. I felt so bad after all she had done for us and we could not do the same for her.
      The shop was enclosed and everything had to be unloaded into it. We were still weak from whatever had knocked us down. Stephen's brother, David, had come with us on this trip. He had pulled Stephen's truck as well as hauling a load in the back of his own. It was his first time seeing our place nestled in the mountains. We were glad he came along to help unload and spend some time out on the land.
      The house was not finished but at least it was dried in and had a roof on it. We knew that we would have our work cut out for us. I think my least favorite part was the fact that we had to use a compost toilet. I was told that this was the norm for the area but I wanted inside plumbing. We went to the county to see what regulations were for the installation of septic systems but, other than the certificate of compliance- which we already had, there was nothing more we needed to do. So, this was my most important goal!
      Our first week living full time at our new place we encountered our first wildlife neighbor. He wasn't exactly happy to see us there. I was willing to be neighborly but he just wanted to have things his way. So, Stephen and Mr. Mohave did not see eye to eye- resulting in the death of Mr. Mohave (a fictional character; not referncing any specific person with said last name).

       I was glad that Stephen saw the snake before my little dog, Baby, walked by and got bit. Baby loves it out west. He jumps around and runs in circles when he gets to walk on the road. Baby is a mix between a papallon and a chihuahua. He weighs just a few ounces over five pounds. This was a warning that I needed to stay close to my little dog when it is outside and that the desert is definitely a wild place; not to be taken for granted.
     
   

Freeway

      After renting our house, we had a lot of packing to do. The next week was non-stop running and travel. Stephen had to work in Waxahachie in the middle of the move which added to our extensive travel time. Each trip to our west Texas home was a ten hour drive- one way. We had to make a trip out to enclose the shop so that we could use it for storage while we continued building our home.
      On the way back to Bastrop, after a long couple days of working on the property, we were approached by a semi-truck driver who had found an injured Audad. He was trying to find a wildlife refuge but was running into dead ends. He knew he could not care for the young animal and asked if we would take it in. The poor thing had one eye that was just gushing blood, one of its' tiny horns was broken off, and it had a small scratch above the other eye. We doctored it and stopped to get some baby goat milk and a bottle to care for it during the rest of our drive.
      Once back in Bastrop, the Audad (which the truck driver had named Freeway) was feeling a bit better. It was a stubborn little thing but she was adorable. Over the next few days she learned to follow us around. She also learned to get into all kinds of mayhem. She would jump up on the kitchen sink and turn on the water, she chased my little dogs in circles around the bed, and she would eat her bottle, only on her terms. She also insisted that the bed was hers!

        At first she was hard to get used to having around. School had started and she would scream for attention while I was trying to study. She started to get an attitude about eating and just found it to be a game. She would be eating her bottle just fine and then would realize that she was doing what we wanted her to so she would stop and start fighting it. Poor Stephen was covered in bruises.
      The last trip to our property, before moving out there, we took Freeway for a walk. She loved it out there because it was so close to her home....which was in the mountains close to Van Horn. She did very well on a leash and we could let her off and she would come when we called her name. This day was different and when Stephen let her loose she ran ahead. We called to her and she stopped, waiting patiently for us to catch up. Just as we got near she took off again. We called her name and again she stopped. This time she looked back at us and then forward again. I told Stephen he better get her or she won't stop the next time she runs. The wild nature in her had returned but she was still eating from a bottle and completely blind in one eye. She only had bottom teeth- the top had not come in and her injuries were still not completely healed. Stephen called her again to make sure she was waiting there but she suddenly took off through the desert. We took off after her but could not find her in the thick brush.
      We spent all night looking for her and calling to her. I knew that once night fell she belonged to the desert. With coyotes and mountain lions all over the valley, she would have no chance. Stephen thought she would return when she got hungry but we never saw her again.
      A few days ago, I saw another Audad about her size and I realized that the little girl with the big personality would always hold a piece of my heart!