Coyote Mornings

December 10, 2023

Hello again,

So, last week I detailed what an average day for Erin looked like and, this week, I'm going to do the same for what I do on a typical day.  I am the one who always writes the 'letters back home,' but, still, I thought a little bit more of a glimpse behind the scenes would be interesting.  Pretty much every day I awake with the sun rising.  That being said, some days the coyotes start carrying on an hour or so before dawn and then I'm straight up out of bed letting the dogs loose on them.  To zero in on this a little bit more, our bedroom is on the side of the house closest to the pond...a scant 80 yards away.  And this area is just about the biggest coyote crossroads in the area.  Friends used to worry about us letting the dogs loose on the coyotes and what might happen because of that, but once you see one, you'd understand.  Erin called me into the bedroom right before I left for work the other day to show me a fox that walked by, only for me to let her know that it was only a coyote.  They're pretty scrawny out in these parts; they are nothing like the huge, hybrid coyote/wolf mixes that we have back East.  So, I'm up at least by 6am or so and spend a little bit of time scanning the news from my favorite news websites(actual, traditional newspapers that we support by subscribing to them) and then hit the shower by 7am.  Even on the coldest of mornings, I like to wake up with a shower, no matter how much of a chill I have to be in for the first few hours of the day.  I then hit the barn by 7:30am to load up the feed buggy and then go out to feed the horses, stopping on the way to check the water tanks.  After that, my actual 8-hour day starts at 8am and then I'm doing just about anything that you can think of that might need done on a ranch: filling the bird feeders; filling pot holes in the driveway; working on the tractors; using the backhoe; running a pet into the vet; doing errands and shopping; doing landscaping; watering plants; repairing worn-out parts in the well house; unloading tractor trailers full of hay; or just about a hundred other things.  Winter has come and I've had to add a lot of other things to my list of daily activities, such as clearing snow off of the solar panels and clearing the driveway and walkways.  Just like Erin, I love to go in and soak in the hot springs at Montezuma, but it is only over the weekend.  There is just no way that I could get in there during the week.  We've attempted that once or twice, but once the alarm went off around 5am, it was quickly turned off and forgotten about while we went back to sleep for another hour or so.  Oh, would that those springs were just a few feet from the house!

I put an 8-hour day in, pretty much 8-5 with an hour break for lunch.  I can adjust as needed and work later into the evening, if something comes up during the day, or I can offer my time over the weekend, too.  By the time the end of my day nears, I run back home to round up all the cats(we actually maintain a list of all 25 or so of them and whether they are in or out) and then ready the dogs for their daily run.  We're just about at the darkest time of year, or the shortest days of the year when it comes to actual daylight, so there is not much time to screw around if you want to be able to see anything while we're out for our run.  When it is leading up to the full moon, the moon is always out as soon as it gets dark.  But, after the full moon, and with the moon rising 50 minutes later each day, the week after full moon pretty quickly descends into instant darkness once the sun goes down.  Snow does help one to see after dark, but, still, every day is different.  So, after our run of at least a mile(one for me, but many more for the dogs), I duck back into the house to see if Erin is done with cleaning and back home yet.  Then, after prying myself up and out of one or our bar stools, I head out to give the horses their evening hay.  In the morning, it's pretty quick and I only spend 20-30 minutes on average with them, but in the evening, it tends to be 45 minutes or more and I check everyone for cuts, sprains, hoof issues, etc.  Plus, it's nice just to hang out in a 220 acre pasture with ten mustangs.  Then, I load the buggy again for the next morning, trying to always shave a few minutes off of whatever my next duty to perform is and head back down to the house.  Finally, the boots come off and I'm able to strip down to nothing from the 3-4 layers that I've been waddling around in all day and I switch into a more comfortable outfit.  Quite often, you can start a countdown from this moment and within an hour, especially after dinner, I'm heading straight towards slumbering on the couch!

Here again is another batch of pictures for everyone's enjoyment, all of them snow-themed.  First up, two close-ups of cholla that are bathed in snow and shedding drops of water.  Then, another shot taken to show our contractor, Efrain, what the weather situation was on the ground out here...again, way nicer than the weather in Santa Fe.  Next, five shots of our mid-week snow storm as it unfolded in the morning: the casita engulfed; the Boneyard covered; the cars getting pelted; our house in the snow; and our little pet cemetery in the snow.  Then, four shots of what the ranch looked like just after lunch that day...mostly shots around the barns and driveway.  And, finally, four shots showing me cleaning off some of the solar panels with the final one showing the view from the roof.  Don't worry, it always melts in a matter of hours!

See you next week.