Home of the FREE becasuse of the BRAVE....

 Photo courtesy of tattoodesign.me

A day to reflect, remember and appreciate all that we have, the freedoms we take for granted and those we hold dear.

Bailey Day 2011

 Entrikin Cabin located in McGraw Park

Photo courtesy of Gary Nichols

Well, here it is Bailey Day 2011; and boy did this one sneak up on me!  I had to look up in the newspaper when we were expected to be there, now that is pretty bad....but you know what I told myself?  I decided that that meant that I am getting so good at my job that I don't need much time to prepare for gigs like this anymore and no big deal; I can do them in my sleep practically.  And it is true.

But that doesn't make Bailey Day any less fun.  Or important.  This is our towns big event; and it is important; it is important to our town and it is very meaningful to us as a Ranch as well.  See, this will be our 9th year at old McGraw Park with the llamas; our historical park in downtown Bailey, CO.  And it is a beauty.  With cabins that have been carefully moved there from their original homesteads and then meticulously refurbished; a schoolhouse that received the same loving treatment all from our very own county.

Our town really does this celebration up right too.  Lots of great vendors and food too.  And it is so fun to teach people about the love of llamas...  So, if you live in the area and feel like a drive today; head west towards the cool air of Bailey, Rebels.  Consider this your personal invitation.

Happy Birthday to Me

In honor of turning forty today, I looked up jokes...And this song came up.  Pretty funny, I hope you enjoy and happy Sunday to you!

Heritage Breeds/Varieties

I've been doing a little research lately on heritage breed chickens because of a hen of mine going broody.  Broody means that she has gone into the state when she is bound and determined to raise her own brood of chicks.  It has been really quite interesting to watch, and although I was not going to raise chicks, I have decided to do so because of the health of this chicken.

Broody chickens go into a zen, almost comatose state and will not leave their nest, and with my chicken it has meant even to the detriment of herself.  When I would try to put her back in with the other hens, they would pick on her terribly, so I just decided to let her stay in her nest.  The point that I am trying to make is that these chickens have a strong instinct that is almost impossible to override, and I got to thinking, why would I want to?

I have a huge demand for my organic eggs, absolutely adore having my chickens, and have the facilities to raise the chicks safely until they can live in with the rest of my chickens.  So, with a little research, and a couple of days of  collecting just the right eggs, we have placed the eggs under our wonderful broody hen.  But with that research, I have learned some very interesting things about heritage breeds.

First and foremost, heritage breeds are very hearty and intelligent breeds, just like my broody girl.  One of my new favorite sites is the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, and according to them: "The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy protects genetic diversity in livestock and poultry species through the conservation and promotion of endangered breeds. These rare breeds are part of our national heritage and represent a unique piece of the earth's bio-diversity. The loss of these breeds would impoverish agriculture and diminish the human spirit. We have inherited a rich variety of livestock breeds. For the sake of future generations we must work together to safeguard these treasures."

The site also has a great list of all heritage breeds, whether it be poultry, goats, sheep (which I have), cows or horses.  So if you are at all interested in raising livestock, look into heritage varieties, you won't be sorry.  It takes much less work as they tend to do part of the work for you.  And not only that, you will be keeping a part of our history alive!

Once in a two moon(s)!

Photo taken in June 2006 by Judy

Man, am I really disappointed!  I hate it when I find out something I was really looking forward to was a big old hoax!  Our neighbor had told us that there was going to be two moons tonight (on his birthday, Happy Birthday Old Man!), and I should have known better.  Two moons?  It actually has nothing to do with two moons, people somehow got a moon mixed up with Mars.

Actually, according to NASA: "The origins of the Hoax can be traced back to 2003 when Mars really did swell to unusual proportions. On August 27th of that year, Mars came within 56 million km of Earth—the nearest it has been in 60,000 years. People marveled at the orange brilliance of Mars in the night sky and crowded around telescopes for clear views of the planet's towering volcanoes, ruddy plains and glistening polar ice caps. At the height of the display, Mars was about 75 times smaller than the full Moon."

And the old fashioned "telephone" game started from there.  One science guy said to the next not so sciencey guy, use a 75x magnifier and take a look, and then he forgot to tell the next guy that important piece of information, and so on.  And here I sit on the 27th of August, seven (my god, I first typed in four!) years later, all excited thinking I'm going to see two moons, when I darn well know better...Thank goodness I have this blog to keep me researching and on the straight and narrow!

Recycled Roof

Yes, a recycled roof.  I was bragging on my daily (almost) blog yesterday about my environmentally, money saving, recycled roof; but I wanted to wait until today, when I could share it with all of you, even the GSO readers, because this is a pretty good one.  Wow, another sentence that would have my English teacher popping migraine (or worse) medicine!

I have to give you a little background here.  I have mentioned (groan, many times, over and over, you, my dedicated readers say?) that our little piece of heaven, The Royal Ranch, sits at almost 9,000 feet in elevation.  It also sits at the base of two almost fourteeners, Mt. Logan and Mt. Rosalie.  Now, I'm not just telling you that to brag, okay maybe a little-ha!, but we get some wicked winds up here, and I do mean wicked.  

This last winter seemed to be particularly harsh.  We had quite a bit of damage, we lost our historical sign, which I posted about here, and we had lots of little pieces of roofing come off the barn.  Well, I hadn't really noticed that those little pieces had all really added up to one big problem until we got all of this rain.  And then the other day, I went to step inside the barn and sunk six inches into the mud.   Now, I'm no genius, but when you are inside the barn, I don't think you're supposed to be slopping around in mud like that!

So, I get to thinking.  We have tried multiple kinds of regular roofing on this barn and it has not worked because of the tree limbs rubbing on it and the wind tears about anything paper like or shingle like, ie: typical roofing.  Okay what about a tarp type situation?  Now wait, I know you all are thinking, what, a tarp?  Now that's pretty hillbilly.  

But wait, these are the sides and the tops of the old hay barn that the wind took year before last.  It was one of those car port type things you buy at Costco, and it would have worked out great if it weren't for the wind picking up the whole thing, that was concreted three feet into the ground, and throwing it around like a ball of play doh (I told you we got wicked winds!).  It bent all of the poles beyond recognition and tore a few of the tarps, but for the most part the tarps were still in tact, and just awaiting a new life.  I recycled the poles, why not the tarps?

As a matter of fact the buildings themselves are recycled.  My tack shed is a six seater outhouse from a Civilian Conservation Camp from the Depression era that was moved here by Charlie Royal.  And the llama/sheep barn is an old chicken coop that old man Royal built himself.  When we first got llamas, we had our then renter, remove a wall and reinforce it for the larger animals, and voila, a loafing shed ideal for ruminants (which is what sheep and llamas are).

Well, it wasn't exactly me that did the work on the roof, anyway.  I don't think any of us would want to know the outcome if clumsy old me had gotten up on that roof.  But Tom did a heck of a job.  He laid the first tarp down and nailed it around the edges, and then a second one over the top, to make sure to cover any of the seams of the first one since these were meant to be walls instead of roofing.  He then sort of wrapped the barn roof like a present, and it looks great.

He also used some wood to reinforce where the wind will catch it.  He just took a long 2x12 and nailed it over the tarps.  It will hold down the tarps and to a certain extent guide the runoff away from the front of the barn.  The great thing about this is that now it is essentially one piece, so hopefully the wind won't catch little bits of it.

While Tom did the roof, the kids and I worked on the drainage around the barn.  I dug a few trenches, not really dug, more like guided the mud, to get as much runoff away from the barn as possible.  We all worked on raking up the loose dropped hay to put in the barn to soak up the mud; so it got recycled too.  Normally I would be able to rake this up once a week and feed it, saving myself quite a bit, but it is all too soggy to use; although I did see the chickens happily scratching their way through it, so that is good.

Back to me and my brilliant ideas, thank goodness I have a husband to help implement all these crazy ideas of mine.  I'll let you know how this one holds up, but in theory it's a good one, and it didn't cost me a dime.  So far we have had some really amazing rain storms and the barn isn't any wetter, which is of course what we were going for!

Sorry folks, I am experiencing technical difficulties, and have been waiting all day to get my links together and post this, but it isn't looking like the problem (within Blogger) will be fixed anytime soon.  So, I shall go ahead and publish without the links, hoping that you will come back and check those out another time!  Thanks for your patience~Judy

Happy Memorial Day

On this very busy first weekend of the summer, I hope each and every one of you can take a quick minute to thank a veteran.  If you do not know one, pop by any local gas station or grocery store and they are out in full force handing out their beautiful poppy's and asking for donations.  I know this must be the case just about everywhere, because they are even at my local Loaf N Jug here in Bailey, thankfully.  By the way, I have always had this question myself, so I thought I'd clear it up.  Anyone who has served in our military services for more than 180 days (outside of basic training) is considered a veteran; there are also combat, or war time  veterans.

In honor of this Memorial Day, we got our sign up again!  Well, kind of.  To me, we got the most important part up in time for this all American holiday.  This sign is a very historical piece of this ranch and was blown down this last winter in one of the extreme wind storms that we had.  Over a decade ago when we bought this ranch, we were told that this sign is even used as an aerial survey land marker, it is that historical.  With the ground frozen, and the winds having continued to roar down the valley, we have not had an opportunity to fix it.

As you can see, we still have the cross members to replace, but we will use the same interior signs that Charlie Royal made all those years ago.  We have made minor changes to them, like painting them, and turning one around so that it does not advertise cabin sites for sale, but it still is the same sign he hand crafted.  Keeping the historical value of our ranch is very important to both of us.

I have missed my flag terribly.  Not only do we fly it on holidays, but just about everyday, which I have found since it has been gone, that I use it as a weather vane somewhat as well; my neighbors have commented about the very same thing.  I also would have flown the flag at half staff when we lost my cousin Joe recently.  I have only lowered my flag on very rare occasions, but that would have been one of them.

So, while you are hopefully spending a wondrous day barbecuing with family and friends today, don't forget to fly your flag proudly.  And by all means, thank a veteran, because if it weren't for them, you'd be having a much different kind of day.  Remember, America is "The home of the free, because of the brave."