Birthday Treats

May 16, 2021

Howdy there, folks,

We've taken a few weeks off from the email, so to speak, as we worked on switching our weekly email over to a weekly posting directly on our website. Also, with spring roaring in like a lion, we've been busy here on the ranch with a sudden batch of kittens from the outside cats and a lightning-caused wildfire just about ten miles north of us. We knew that the one cat, Hiyupo, was pregnant and saw her give birth to six kittens just outside of our bar window in a little cat hutch that is there. Everything went fine and she seemed pretty content with things and was eating regularly. But, after persistent nosiness on the dogs' part and the kittens getting close to crawling stage, she moved them to the garden shed between the garden and the tool depot. Literally, the next day, roofers showed up to finish the roofing on the depot...they had not been there in months and were suddenly there banging and cutting away right next to her and her kittens. We haven't seen her since then and Kim took the kittens inside to bottle feed. Everyone's pulled through(two were cold and stiff when the girls finally moved them) and are eating heartily. We've still seen no sign from Hiyupo, but apparently it's not uncommon for wild cats to abandon their litters if they get too stressed, so we'll see if she shows back up. As for the fire, lightning struck in the mountains about ten miles north of here on Mother's Day and the National Forest Service decided to let it burn up that stretch of National Forest Land to clean up the debris on the forest floor and hopefully prevent a worse, more out-of-control fire in the future. They hand-ignited about 100 acres this week and let that get going good before they air-ignited more of it and are up to about 1000 acres burning. It's startling when you suddenly see smoke billowing not too far away, but out here it seems a good bet to first see if the forest service is up to something before you run home and grab your go bag!

Last weekend we ran down to Albuquerque for Erin's birthday, which was the week prior, with the sole intention of finding her some Paletas, or Mexican popsicles. To get there we drove into Santa Fe on the interstate and then took the Turquoise Trail south through the beautiful and artsy villages of Cerrillos and Madrid then slipped through some mountains before coming back down in San Pedro and then Sandia Park. This is on the backside of the mountain that towers over Albuquerque to the east. From here we drove up to Sandia Crest, at the summit, and were mesmerized by the sight of Albuquerque, or ABQ as the locals say, lying some 5000' below us. That's correct! Albuquerque, which is a mile above sea level, lies another entire mile below the summit of this ridge. Also, from this summit, you could look back to the north/northeast from the direction that we came from and see the mountains below Madrid and then the larger Rockies that lie beyond where we live. You really felt like you could see the whole state from there and this is the fifth largest state in the country! Before we drove to the summit we stopped in Cedar Crest at the Ale Republic and downed some great, local, artisan beer with wood-fired pizzas and salad. After the trip to Sandia Crest, we drove into Albuquerque and were on the east side of the city in 45 minutes or so, stopping at a grocery store quickly and then on to the Paleta Bar, which is a chain that specializes in these Mexican popsicles. Basically, you start with some kind of fresh fruit as your base and then you dip it in a few things and the options are endless. But, in Mexican fashion, it is not always sweet stacked on top of sweet and often involves chile powder and other spicy things to match with chocolate, coconut, Nutella and Dulce de Leche, among others. We each had two and started with a lime pop covered in chile powder and a Mexican fruit sauce that I can't remember the name of. For the second one, Erin chose avocado with a half-dip of dark chocolate and then a coating of pinyons. I chose pistachio, wholly dipped in milk chocolate and pinyons. Yum, yum, yum! Even greater, the city was a breeze to drive through, on and off the interstate, and we were home in about an hour and twenty minutes. We will definitely be back, as there are a lot more shopping options than Santa Fe has, and a lot less attitude, too. Some of the stores in Santa Fe are pretty interesting...one of them is only open five days a week for four hours over lunch! How convenient! But, hey, if that pays your rent, then why not keep it short and sweet?

More recently, today we ran into Las Vegas to get something to eat(we've been rarely going to town and eating nothing but refried beans in every conceivable manner from a huge, 50# bag of dried beans that we got), then grabbed a few groceries and took a ride. Just below Las Vegas we dropped down to I-40, about 50 miles to the south and then stayed on I-40 West for about 25 miles before heading back north to our house through Villanueva. I tell you what, this was just about the prettiest little area that we've ever seen. First the drive went through rolling plains of evenly-spaced 10' tall Junipers that it looked like you could just get lost in. Closer to Villanueva we started descending rapidly through a canyon before we bottomed out just below the town on the Pecos River with everything as green as Pennsylvania in all directions with big trees everywhere. We then wound up to the hilltop that the town was in and saw a whole bunch of super-cute houses, a general store, an old church and a community well house! There is also a state park just outside of town that everyone raves about, we didn't swing out there, but now that we see how beautiful it is in town, we can't wait to see the state park. The longer that we're here the more we think that we'd like to go back to our original plan of buying a piece of land and building our own place. We love the ranch and all the work that we're doing here now, but Villanueva is not even a half-hour away and would not preclude us in the least from attempting to do both at the same time. We could continue to live and work on the ranch but someday save up enough money to buy the right piece of land perhaps down in that direction and then we could spend our free time building something from scratch. We're super interested in what can be done with adobe and straw bales and have always been pretty smitten with earthships, too, so who knows where that road will wind?

Now for some pictures. First, the dogs: begging for some pizza on our ABQ trip; and getting incredibly filthy on an 80 degree day this week. Next, the horses: chowing down in a blazing sunset; and then a closeup. Then: our brood of just-born kittens. Next, some landscapes: the fire a few nights ago when I noticed it out feeding; the full moon rising a few weeks ago; one of our many little neighbors; two shots today from below Villanueva looking north towards the Rockies; and then a beautiful, sunny day with huge marshmallow clouds soaring over Starvation Peak. Lastly, some shots of us up on Sandia Crest, plus a look towards ABQ and then another back the way we came, and then the infamous Paletas!

Take care.