"In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle"

 Ok, so I jumped the gun. I couldn't wait to start gardening so started pumpkins, zucchini, tomatoes, yellow, green and pepperocini peppers and a couple of other things.

 The pumpkins are growing about a half inch a day. By mid May, they will probably have baby pumpkins on them! Last year my squash was in full bloom by the time I planted them outside.

 You can almost watch them grow!

 Brocolli, I only had one plant survive last year so I planted plenty this year.

Tiny tomatoes. I have 5 different kinds this year. I was so impressed with my Prudens purple last year, I had to grow more this year. Pa didn't care for them so I planted Early Girl, and Mortgage Lifter to see how he liked them. Also grape tomatoes. I want to use them to make Sun Dried tomatoes. And cherry tomatoes cause Pa likes them.
  Bad news, I checked my blood pressure for the first time since moving here and it is pretty high. So back on my diet I go. If I can lose the weight I gained back, it should go back down. I hate being dependent on pills to keep me alive so will do what I have to so I don't have to take them. Pa's mom at one time was on 18 different meds. If I had to do that, I would just tell everyone good bye and cash out.
  I ran into Saint Johns on Friday to get the mail and get a load of water. When I got home, Pa made me pump the water into the holding tank. He said I needed to learn that if anything happened to him. I told him I didn't want to learn because if I did, he would expect me to do it all the time. I already knew how to do it in theory, I had never put it into practice. We use our old pool pump to pump the water into the big tank. I really can't see us hauling water when we are in our 90's but who knows? We will do what we have to do. Besides that, I'm planning to live till I'm 110 so I'll be hauling lots of water from town.
   It's cloudy today and is supposed to be windy. But 72 degrees! We have the weirdest weather here. I don't know why we even bother to listen to the weather report. Even the report coming from Show Low isn't accurate for our area.
  Pa is going to Show Low on Tuesday. He had an appointment with the VA but they cancelled it until April. He is still going because he called his long lost cousin twice removed and they are meeting for lunch so they can meet for the first time. This guy's mother had the same last name as Pa and I think the connection is their grandfathers were brothers.
  Last week I was driving down our road and found a dead cow across  from our house. I called the dreaded rancher and let him know. He was out within an hour and dragged it away. I'm glad he was prompt because we didn't want to smell it all summer. I don't know what is going on this year, but this is the fourth dead cow we've heard about. And the coyotes hadn't even been around the one across the road. You'd have thought they would have taken advantage of a free meal.
  Not much new here at the ranch. Pa and I did more exploring on the ridge behind our property. There must have been a huge encampment because pottery shards are scattered for at least a mile if not more all along the ridge. Fascinating!!!!!

Snow again

 A big winter storm was forecast for this weekend and into Monday. Yesterday we had winds but no snow but when we woke up this morning, it was all white and pretty. It is supposed to snow shower off and on all day but the snow is already melting.

 Last Thursday I went to Show Low to get a few groceries. Stopped by Lowes to get more cedar fencing so Pa could make more gardening boxes. I have 7 of them now and have room for 5  more. Pa and I fenced in another 8 feet of gardening space where I will plant potatoes and some other stuff, maybe asparagus.

 Friday was such a beautiful day, Pa and I went off to explore the ridge to the south side across from our property. There are so many pottery shards on the ground. There is a wash on the south side of the ridge which in earlier times must have held water on a more permanent basis because the entire ridge looks like it could have housed a village.

 We haven't found any foundations of houses, just lots and lots of pottery shards and what looks like might have been fire pits.

 We think someone else might have been out exploring and piled up these shards . We found 4 or 5 piles like this. And found some Jeep tracks near by.

 Shards every where!

 See the round one? We heard these were game pieces. I have two of them now. Some of the paint on the shards looks like they were just painted on yesterday. I can't figure out how they could paint such straight lines time after time. Shoot! I can't draw a straight line at all!

 There are red pottery shards as well as ones that look like they have been grooved with a finger nail or maybe a twig. Some grey, some tan.

It just amazes me that I can touch something that someone made hundreds of years ago. I wonder why they would just break their pots instead of taking them with them. Someone told me when an Indian woman died, they would break their pots so her spirit could leave. People out here have found a few whole pots and necklaces and such. Wish I could! And then of course over the years, I'm sure the roaming cattle have broken their share.
  Pa made a chocolate pie the other day and I made cookies yesterday. Since today isn't a good day to play outside, I will probably play in my craft room. Earlier this week, I planted a bunch of seeds in peat pots and have them sitting in the window of the guest bedroom. The pumpkins and zucs have already sprouted. Where are my tomatoes? I planted 6 different kinds and can taste them already.
  Not much else to report so toodles for now!

The Best Laid Plans

Pa woke me up this morning at 6 to tell me he was on his way to town to pick up a couple of telephone poles. Really! He could have left me sleeping, I wouldn't have minded. Right after he left, the dogs started barking so I got up to see what they were barking at. Looking out the back window, I see the yard full of cattle. I grabbed the pellet gun and threw some extra pellets in my mouth and ran out the door. Mind you, I'm in my nightgown with a flannel shirt over it and my Crocs for shoes.And the temperature was below 32 degrees. Can you picture that? All I was missing was knobby knees and hairy legs. Oh wait a minute, the hairy legs were there and my knees are too fat to look knobby. Well I chased those bovine interlopers clear off our 40 acres and sent them packing on down the road. As long as I was up and totally awake, I decided I would surprise Pa and bake him a cake for his birthday tomorrow. Got the cake all mixed up, had the oven prewarming, poured the batter into the cake pans and that's all she wrote. The power went out, the batteries were dead. Ok I thought! I'll just go and turn the little generator on and get the power going again. Great plan except that Pa took it with him to power up the chain saw he was going to use to cut the telephone poles in half . And the big gennie didn't have a battery in it. By 8, the sun hit the solar panels and I was in luck. Into the oven went the cake. I was so inspired, I decided to make a loaf of white bread and some chocolate chip cookies.

 Pa loves these with the Hershey chips and Hershey recipe. My buddy Katie is coming over to play in my craft room tomorrow so I wanted something for her to snack on.

 absolutely delicious!

 I had to stop with the cookies because my bread was as raised as I wanted it to be and bakes at a different temperature. By then my back was killing me from being on my feet so long so I was grateful for the 35 minute rest.

The cake? Well after sitting in the cake pans for an hour before baking, it turned out airy (full of holes) and crumbly. I glued it together with frosting. Pa's surprise? He got home before it was done. Oh, well my heart was in the right place. The cookie jar is full and I made enough to send over to a couple of neighbors. I made my self a cup of tea and set it down somewhere and couldn't remember where. After searching the house twice, I finally found it in the bathroom! I must be tired because I don't remember setting it down in there. Old age maybe? Lets just go with being tired.
Yesterday the weather was almost 70 with heavy wind. Today our high is supposed to be 40 with heavy wind. And a chance of snow. I have never seen such weird weather!
I've done all the chores I'm gona do today. My back is still having fits plus something else went south, feels like a rib because it hurts to take a deep breath. Lordy! I'm falling apart and I'm still young! Well, younger than Pa anyway! I've been hanging upside down like a bat on my incline board and nothing is popping into place. I'm grabbing the hot pad, a good book and claiming the couch as my own till supper time!

When the rob,rob,Robin comes bob,bob bobbing along!

 We had a visitor passing thru yesterday. Can spring be far behind? He not only got a big drink.......

 He had a nice bath so he would be clean for the rest of his trip.

"Splish, splash, I was takin' a bath" and it was even on  a Saturday! Robins are one of my favorite birds, the other being Hummingbirds.

 Today, Pa and I decided to drive around Sierra Highlands Ranch to see if we could find our friend's property. The road is terrible for a lot of the way. This old ranch windmill was at the bottom of the big hill ya have to climb to get to the Highlands.

 Just as we were about to start up the hill, I glanced out my window and saw the remnants of this old rock cabin. Rocks? did someone say rocks?!!!! Of course we had to get out and explore.

 Amazing how they got the rocks to fit together to make a house.

 There was a huge wash, (arroyo) on one side of the house and lo and behold there was another rock house! It was quite a climb down the wash and back up.  There was an old corral and next to it was this old wagon wheel that was used as the gate.

 If you click on the picture to make it larger you can see they used an old iron bedstead for part of the fence.

 Here is the second rock house. I wonder how old it is?

 Isn't this a great picture? It's one of my favorites.

 This was the old door jam with the hinges still attached.

 We found two or three springs on the property. This one is frozen but there was running water, a trickle really from the other ones. No wonder the occupants chose that spot to build a house.

 Another old wagon wheel. Pa wanted to bring it home but it had a bush all growing in and around it. On the other one that was used as a gate, you could still see some of the wood attached to the inside of the rim.

 I spotted this rock formation and noticed that it was made by human hands. Pa thought it might have been used to hold water because you could see water minerals on the inside. There is an old stove pipe sitting on the rock.

 This was another interesting rock formation. Pa thought it would be cool enough in there to keep food. It was close to the house.

 Isn't this neat? Looking down from the right side of the picture, it looked like dried dinosaur bones. Really interesting seeing it in person.

All those little holes are caused by the wind and rain. We finally did find our friend's property. Also ran into a woman who lives out there full time with her 4 dogs, 4 horses and husband. They are the only one's who live out there full time. She was on her way to town to get water. I don't envy her one bit going up and down a steep hill and driving down bad roads just to get to the main road to go to town to get water. She said during rain or snow, they can't even leave their property. The roads are made up of clay and if it even gets a hint of wet, you are in for a slippery slide of a drive. We thought Sierra Highlands was beautiful but we are so glad we have our property where we do. We've gone 2 winters here and have always been able to get to the main road with out four wheel drive which neither of our trucks have. We don't have to go thru any washes, or go over any hills. There is one spot that gets slippery but hopefully our POA will decide to put some gravel down. We did finally find a back way to get from Sierra Highlands to Woodland Valley so we didn't have to go back the way we came in. The back way takes forever and would be useless during wet weather.
That catches us up for now.