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!