An Eye on Spring

February 25, 2024

Hello again,

Well, we keep thinking warm thoughts as our minds are drifting towards spring.  Not that it's been that cold...20s or 30s at night and sunny days rising up into the 50s.  Just this week we finally hit 60 for the first time this year.  Now, all that being said, the weather still has the power to shock you around here, more than a mile up in the air above sea level.  We were at the hot springs over the weekend for our weekly dip and actually got in while it was 18 degrees outside!  Back in the beginning of January we had some temperatures like that, but lately it's been more seasonal and mild.  I must say, though, that it makes a big difference.  Montezuma has ten different hot springs, clustered into three areas and the temperature of all the different pools can fluctuate quite a bit.  The hot springs are much busier in the winter time and everyone is always trying to get into the warmest pools and some of the milder pools just don't cut it on a freezing morning!  However, as the year progresses and the temperatures rise, suddenly any pool will do and even the more moderate ones can have you sitting back on the edge with only your toes in the water within 20 minutes.  Wind plays a big factor.  Where we're at in San Jose the wind is usually howling, but Montezuma seems to sit in a nice little bowl that isn't anywhere near as windy.  The morning that we got in when it was only 18 was very still and quite comfortable.  You sink down to your ears for about twenty minutes, but then gradually emerge more and more out of the pool.  A week later it was about ten degrees warmer, but with a very stiff breeze, and our process was to go in up to our ears for almost twice as long and, then, after that, only rising back out of the water to just the tippy-tops of our shoulders.  What a great activity and such a thing for me to look forward to while I'm stuck digging a ditch or working on the backhoe out on the ranch in the middle of the week.  What's fun, too, is our approach to it.  Erin has our suits, towels and sun hats ready and we zip right in on a drive mostly on the interstate, then, after going through Las Vegas and heading north into the countryside, we finally make it to the hot springs.  We slow to a crawl, Erin peering down to the right from the front passenger seat, looking to see which pools are open and which ones are busy.  We tend to go to one of the first two clusters of hot springs, only going to the farthest one, if necessary.  Of course, you always want to get a pool to yourself that you can just chill in, but, sometimes when it's busy, you join a pool full of people and meet some of the most unique characters that you could ever imagine!

Meanwhile, Erin spends her days holding the fort down and running the household.  With so many cats coming and going in and out of the house, she spends ample time looking after them.  Luckily, they all seem to want to poop and pee outside and only use the litterboxes inside as a last resort.  The little kittens don't know any better at first, but everyone else does.  And, we open the door at dawn, so whoever's been inside all night can go out as soon as it's light.  Most go out and aren't seen for the rest of the day, but some literally run out to do their business out in the dirt and then run right back inside within five minutes.  On other fronts, we're always torn about truly unpacking and finally going through everything that we brought out West with us, but, then, sometimes we feel that we might move on again soon enough that it isn't worth the effort to get everything out only to pack it back up again.  Our original plan, including actually putting money down on a property, was to be on the mesa west of Taos, with only a huge pole shed and some yearly elk tags to start out with.  That fell through, but sometimes that still seems like an awfully good idea!  Back on the ranch, Erin tries to slip extra trips to the hot springs in every week whenever she heads to town to get groceries or to see her friends.  She can literally tell you which time is the best to hit which pool at the hot springs on any given day of the week.  I'm pretty much only ever there on Saturdays or Sundays, but Erin has now gone long enough that she spreads it out across all seven days.  Once we get a few months further into spring she'll be out in the garden for hours and hours at a time, her own personal, little sanctuary.  And, once in a while, she even hops in the buggy and drives out to her secret spot about a mile north of the house, way out in the farthest reaches of the horse pasture to disappear for a while.  And, then, all the baking and cooking!  Day in and day out, always something from scratch!

Now, it's time for some more pictures from the ranch.  First up, two artistic renditions: one of the tractor moving a big water trough at night to fill it; one of the truck and trailer all ready to go for Hidalgo.  Then, three shots of our little table and chairs just outside of our kitchen door, with first Shayna and then Daisy(Erin's favorite), then both, making an appearance.  Next, two shots of Chelly(one of our two sisters that are the baby factories here) sitting on the back of the tractor while it was warming up.  Then, out with the dogs while they checked out my trimming around the solar panels.  Next, four shots of me filling up the water trough that I've been keeping separate in the horse corral at night, a once or twice weekly occurrence in the winter.  Then, two shots of me cleaning up all the branches I cut around the solar panels with the backhoe.  And, finally, the backhoe and tractor all lined up, waiting for me to put them to work!

That's it for this time.