A New Definition for Snuggling on the Beach

As you all know I am a sucker for a good video, especially one with animals...This one is so amazing to me I had to share it:

The video is at Greenfield Park Blog 

Taped in Gold Harbour where Elephant Seals and Penguins migrate in the winter to breed along the glacial stream; this lady was a love magnet for this big guy!  Thanks GPB for sharing this great work of art.

Is it the weekend already?

On our way to Breck, we saw one of these...

Amazing!

(this is my pic taken in '05)

Wow!  I can't believe the days have flown by like they have.  This is going to have to be an all inclusive post, dear Rebels, as I have had a few things on my mind to write about this week; I just haven't had the time (or the will) to sit down and actually do it.  The kids went back to school late this week, so we tried to make the very most out of the last bit of their winter break.

Which brings me to my first point.  Never tie your lunch to the top of your car when you go skiing!  I took the kids to Breckenridge on Wednesday, and due to my back I was sitting in the truck people watching when I saw a murder of crows (yes, that is the proper term for a group of crows) gathering over a neighboring car.  I saw the small plastic bag tied to the top and hoped for the owners sake that it was trash, but since there were receptacles everywhere, I kind of doubted it.  Those crows sure enjoyed the sandwiches and Funyuns that those people donated to them.  Fifteen crows took about three minutes to empty the bag and close half of the peoples' ski rack.  I wonder what they thought when they came back to that mess!

And you know what else?  I am so glad that my Broncos have finally pulled their heads out of their butts!  This coming from a girl who has been "crushing" on the Broncos for as long as she can remember.  Maybe it was when Rich Karlis walked into my hospital room when I was a little girl getting my appendix out, oh yes, I've always been a big fan.  But to see them cheating and going down the tubes like that was really a bummer for me...so bring on the Elway generation (and no, I'm not talking about my very lazy llama)!  By the way, what took so damn long?

So, the kids just got back into school, I barely get the Christmas tree down to the llama pen for their enjoyment...and here it is the weekend!  I hope your New Year is starting off great...I'd love to hear what is on your mind.  And how 'bout those Broncos?  Oh and watch your lunches in public parking lots, the crows can be just as bad as thieves, I was sooo wishing I had a video!

Too Cute...

I absolutely loved this video and had to share it!

Ode to the Porcupine Gods

Dear Royal Rebels,

Please excuse the absence of Judy Jeute as she has been sitting around pouting.

Thank You,

Judy Jeute

No, I'm mostly kidding, but I have been having quite a pity party.  See, a very difficult part of being an animal "sanctuary" is that animals tend to find us, and that is not always a good thing; because sometimes they are coming here to die.  And it really breaks my heart. 

Take Monday morning for example, I dropped my daughter off at the bus stop and headed off to do my chores.  Rosie made it to the hay stack first, as usual, and I heard a hissing and then saw her jump back, and then lunge forward!  I knew to call her (good thing she's such a well trained dog!), and ran to see what it was that she was so interested in:

(Please excuse the mess, obviously I wasn't prepared to take a picture!)

This is what I saw.  A full grown, full blown, pissed off (well, kinda), porcupine!  Now, if this rings a bell, you're not crazy, this recently happened with a fox too.  Blessedly, we were able to chase the fox off, this guy... no such luck.

After taking the dogs home, grabbing the camera, and making sure that a porcupine is an herbivore and not there for food (like my chickens), and this is important to determine normal behavior or not, I headed back up to try and assess the situation and get this somewhat dangerous critter off of my ranch.

Now when I say dangerous, I mean dangerous in how my animals will react to him, and also if he was sick.  And don't forget that I'm not moving too quick myself, so thank goodness my renter was home to rattle his cage first thing in the morning!

So, being the mountain loving people that we are, we did everything we could to make sure that this was not a typical porcupine.  We talked it through (I know it sounds funny, but in a situation like this it is important not to panic), and then tried to chase him off and then even got a shovel and literally was able to physically move him around with it; problem was all he wanted to do was go into the llama pen.  And they were waiting to attack him with their front legs, and that would have been a huge disaster for me!  

This fella was terribly injured and so the only humane thing to do was to put him down.  Again, the Porcupine Gods were smiling on me, and I did not have to do it myself, although I was prepared to.  I have spoken with my vet since then and he agrees, which makes me feel so much better in my heart, but mostly I feel better about rabies.  It appears that porcupines are not prone to rabies like other rodent species and he agrees that it probably got hit on our new speedway of a road and came up here to die.  How sad.

But I will place some of his beautiful quills on my altar, and who else do you know that would be bummed out over a porcupine for two days?  So, I guess he chose just the right place to come maybe.  I honor the Porcupine God... and did I mention there is never a dull moment here at The Royal Ranch?

A work day poem

I didn't want to go to work,

My life was feeling a little too berserk.

Cleaning fire pits and picking up trash,

Can really be a big old pain in my ass.

But I really must go,

they aren't going to clean themselves, you know.

So I will make the best of it,

Because I am a tough little chit.

I grab my shovel and rake,

along with my pail I do take.

And there as I work a Stellar Jay flies by,

While a chipmunk is running up high.

A Gray Squirrel gets mad we are in her space,

And throws pine cones at Isabellas little face.

A chickadee is hopping down a nearby pine,

Gee, I am really glad this job is mine!

Metaphysical Monday

Good morning and I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Did you stay cool?  We tried to beat the heat with a few walks in our wonderful mountains, and it was really funny because I hadn't started out on a feather mission, but I sure completed one.  Let me explain myself a little bit here.

I have been wanting to start an altar here at the ranch, a healing altar for myself.  A place for me to do my Yoga and some meditating on healing my back; I also plan on meditating on my businesses in front of this altar.  And as funny as this sounds to you, it sounds funny to me too, because this is the first time I have ever done such a thing.  Really, I have never done any "official meditating" either, so this is one giant step for me.

I have been gathering pieces for this altar for months, well frankly for my entire life (like my Bible from my parents), so I knew a few of the things that I wanted to include on my altar.  I even knew the piece of furniture I would use so that it would be multi-tiered, movable, and have a surface I could safely put a candle on.  So, anyway, something was just holding me back... until this weekend.

On Friday I met up with my sister and nieces at Mount Falcon park for a great little hike with the kids.  It's probably only about a mile, but has really spectacular views (can't believe I didn't take my camera, sorry!) with a cool historical castle at the end of the loop.  As we were ending the hike we spotted a Red-tailed Hawk diving for a morsel of food, it was so cool!  What I didn't mention to my sister is that to me this is a very common experience, actually daily.  Not the diving, I knew that might be a sign, but I am always followed by the Red-tailed Hawks, and feel a very strong connection with them.  So it was no surprise to me that I finally found a hawk feather in the parking lot that day as I was on the phone, a feather that I have been searching for for a long time.

I mentioned our Heron quest yesterday when I introduced you all to our adventurous cat, Hector.  See, Blue Herons are somewhat new in our area, you know the last decade or so.  So they still totally amaze me.  In my research of the birds I have found out that if you find the nest of one, you will find the nest of many; so I of course I am challenged to find a nesting area of this giant fascinating bird.  The evening before we had spotted her going from the neighbors ponds to a tree and sitting for almost a half hour before jumping to this tree and going in and we thought staying.  We hiked over with the whole family, and I do mean the whole family, on Saturday and didn't find the nests, but we did find some feathers, which is to me, an honor.

On the very same day, I found a Magpie feather up at the barn when I was doing my chores.  Magpies and Ravens (and Crows of course) are said to be the most commonly worked with birds in metaphysical lore.  I had been waiting for a Red-tailed hawk feather, and in the span of two days, I had been given the gift of many feathers, it was definitely time to get moving.

A lot of people don't know it, but when a person is doing metaphysical, or energy, work and would like help from animal or nature's spirits, which of course I take help from quite often (usually without knowing it), things like feathers and crystals are very helpful.  These are very precious gifts to me and have been placed on my new altar that I finally made yesterday.  It literally took me about five minutes to pull this together because as I said, the pieces have been coming together in my head for a long time now.

As you can see my feathers are there, along with my Bible, a copy of The Secret, a yummy smelling candle and of course my healing crystal and amethyst.  I chose to cover the seat of this old phone table with a deer hide that my boys got to honor the deer, and covered the yucky table part with an antique pillow case that I found at the ranch when we moved in to represent it's spirit.  The doll is one that I gave my Grandma so many years ago I can't remember now, but she always said it looked just like me, and it was the only thing in her entire house the great-grandkids weren't allowed to play with, so I know it meant a lot to her.  If you look closely it still has the tag on it, so you know it wasn't fooled with all these years.  The cat, well, I guess that is probably self explanatory for me, the animal lady; plus the weight of the brass animal weighs everything down so I know my real cats won't knock it all over!

Right now my altar is placed on a wall facing west, the direction the sun sets and it just sort of felt right.  I like it there because it sits under a few of our favorite wedding gifts; the first being a framed, cut-up and re-made version of our wedding invitation and the second these very neat soaring wooden birds.  It seemed like the wall was just a continuation of my altar.

The direction didn't have me overly concerned, but when I did a little research, it did not surprise me to find out that if you are wanting to work metaphysically, a person might want to face their altar in the direction of the west.  Gee, what a coincidence, oh wait a minute, there really are not many coincidences in my world are there?  It is all about making sure that we are open to receiving each and every little gift we are given, even the little gifts like always having the guide of a Red-tailed hawk nearby, or a simple feather being dropped in your path.

Royal Ranch Royalty

I can't believe that I have not introduced you all to Hector before now, but it works out just as well because I didn't get the evidence pictures until yesterday.  For years my neighborhood has talked about this cat going on walks with me, and I have been wanting to get pictures of him doing so, but I of course am always the one with him, so it just never works out.  Well yesterday, we went on a Heron hunting mission (you know, we thought we might have finally found where she nests) and Hector went with us.  There were plenty of people to catch a shot of him, so finally I was able to catch a shot of the elusive cat going on his long walks with me!

I mean this cat is really an adventurer.  Yesterday's mission took us through the beaver ponds, which had many creek crossings.  Hector would fall behind and we would hear him start to howl.  I told him many times that he should just wait there for me and that I would be right back for him, but he would not think of it.  We got to the tree that we had seen the Heron go into from the house, but keep in mind that we had walked a good half mile by this time, and here came Hector.  His back legs and tail were all wet from one of the creek crossings, but he was just as happy to be there as the dogs were!  Even Tom was pretty impressed with the cats adventurous spirit.

Hector always goes to the bus stop with us.  The kids on the bus get a real tickle out of seeing the dogs playing with rocks and Hector over the hill sunning himself.  He is very much a "Mama's Boy" and pretty much goes wherever I go.  He is constantly with me when I do the chores, etc.  As a matter of fact, as I write this I have decided that Hector may be the feline character in my next book, Happy Hector, perhaps?  Each book has all species represented of course, I am an equal opportunity employer, you know!

Look closely, he's in there, this is after the crossings, he's having a little rest!

We finally met a moose...

 Not my photo, obviously, but too cool not to share!

We did not have the chance to give him a muffin.  Of course I am only joking, you know that I would never feed the wildlife.  It is a series of books that my Mom reads all of her grand kids!  He was just passing through, and did not even stop for a snack, but was here long enough for me to thank him, and wish him luck in his breeding endeavors in our neighborhood!

We had heard of him passing through the campground right before we got there yesterday afternoon to clean the fire pits.  I was broken hearted to hear we had missed him by minutes.  We did our work and headed home, where we got the message that another neighbor had seen him working his way down the valley.  There was still hope!!!

I kept my eye out the rest of the afternoon, but you know how it gets at dinner time and chore time.  I also snuck in a couple of hair cuts during that time too.  Whew, I am one busy gal-ha!  Anyway, after keeping my eye out the window for hours, I'm up finishing the chores and putting Marcel back in after a day of grazing when I hear Tom honking his way home from his turn at the campgrounds.

Isabella is yelling, "there's a moose in our yard", and sure enough, big as day, there he was.  Right in my yard.  Like I said, he just quickly passed right on through, no time to get the camera or we would have missed seeing his big bad self.  He was almost jet black, still had felt on his beautiful antlers and looked as if he knew how spectacular he was.

The great part of the story is that he must have spent the afternoon in the dark timber right near where that neighbor who called lives.  He chose to come out onto the road right in front of Isabella and Tom on their way home and just sort of walked in front of them until he got nervous when another car came by our house and then came here.  That gave them time to come and tell us, so that we could catch a glimpse of him as well.  Man I love living in the mountains!

Royal Ranch Royalty...or not!

A relative of my intruder?

(Pic taken in 2006)

There was a fox in the hen house!  Or damn close enough for my liking, let me tell you.  I went up to do my chores the other morning with my daughter in tow as usual, and thankfully had Rosie and Gigi with me like I always do.  

Well, that morning the chicken scraps were particularly yummy for dogs, so I set them up high on the top of the hay stack so that Rosie would not eat them.  As per typical fashion the baby sheep and the rest of the critters were cramming themselves up against the fence where the hay is stored impatiently waiting for their breakfast, when suddenly Rosie pushes past me to growl at my feet.  These vicious little snapping jaws come out from underneath the pallet from where we store the hay, just inches from where my foot had just been and the faces of my beautiful animals!

I freaked out and yelled for Isabella to run and tried to get the dogs away from the snarling and snapping unidentifiable jaws; all the while the llamas, lambs and sheep are still yelling for their breakfast as if nothing at all is happening.  See, I thought it was a badger, which are very mean.  Either way, I was getting the hell out of there!  

A badger

We got the dogs home, and got the live trap that we recently found in the campground.  I thought it through, and realized that whatever it was could really only have two options.  The first being that it was not a well animal and that it had accidentally gotten trapped under there when we went up to feed and might need some help.  The other option was that it was a very well animal and that it was waiting to ambush my chickens when they came out that morning after I did my chores.  It had chosen the perfect spot to do so.  Again, either way, I was not taking any chances.

I prepared the trap the best I could and psyched myself up into going back up there.  Isabella stayed at about the halfway point.  She said it was to keep the cats from going up there, but we both knew it was so she had a straighter shot to the house!  My feet stayed as far away from that hole as I could possibly keep them while I literally threw the hay to my critters, and then I used a looong stick to retrieve the bucket of chicken scraps that I had placed unknowingly above the attackers hiding spot.  

When I set the trap up is when I found out it was a fox, and the damn thing had the audacity to be napping.  Here I was on a total adrenaline buzz, and he's having nap time waiting for my chickens for breakfast!  Needless to say, the chickens stayed locked up that first day.  The fox did not go into the trap, because when it came out from underneath the pallets to have a look around, Isabella taking off for home like a shot, scared him off!

All joking aside though, this could have been very dangerous for me (I don't particularly want a bellyful of shots thank you).  We have talked with a few neighbors since then, and we are a little concerned about this fox being ill and/or aggressive.  It really saddens me, because it is only because people have been feeding the local wildlife that we find ourselves in this predicament.  The foxes are one of the worst up here as far as people being guilty of feeding them.  It's not until the bear shows up for the foxes portion that the people quit, and then the smaller wildlife is already dependent.  

This is something I feel very strongly about, and even touch on in my book.  When I was doing a little bit of research on this fox's behavior, I found a great link on living in red fox country at the Colorado Division of Wildlife.  There is of course a different one for each species ( bear, mountain lion, etc), so take a look around the website, it is quite informative.

Well, although we did not trap him, and have not seen him since that morning, I still feel his presence "hanging around", so I'm afraid we are not quite done with this little guy.  Hopefully I will learn that he is a typical healthy fox that was just after an easy meal, but my gut tells me otherwise...

The funny things that make me tick...

The view at The Royal Roost

I say it time and again, guilt is a useless emotion.  When I am going to start listening to myself, well, that is a different story all together.  I had spent weeks beating myself up that I hadn't set aside my meager marketing budget for our bed and breakfast The Royal Roost.  Set aside my foot, we have no budget!

See, we normally advertise on VRBO, which is a great site, but the price to advertise almost doubled this year and I had not expected that in this economy.  Of course summer is our busiest season and I just felt like I was some kind of schmuck business owner for not doing the status quo of the previous years and couldn't get my poop in a group to get my advertising bill paid.  What a piece of work (well that's a nice word), I had been telling myself.

That was when I realized that I was getting my weekends booked, and even a few week days as well.  Mostly with repeat customers and some new, but all of them had been referrals of some kind.  On one of the days I had gone up to the cabin to clean it for the weekend, I found that our bird had rebuilt her nest; now, what does this have to do with advertising?  Everything, in my book.

Mama bird

(this shelf is structural or we'd remove it)

I had been watching for signs of her, and we had done a few things to try and get her to not build her nest there, because last year some of our guests made her so nervous we lost three baby birds before I knew it.  Besides my family, I have not told anyone until now, that is how upset I have been over the loss of those baby birds!!!

So, mama bird can finish out her time at the B&B, and we can be a little more choosy with who are guests at The Royal Roost right now while she is laying and hatching and raising her young.  My motto has always been to listen to your heart and to always do what you believe is the best thing for yourself, but sometimes in business you forget that.  But, even as a business owner I need to stay true to my goal, and that is to be environmentally friendly, I started that way over a decade ago, and I will surely not change course now.  In these times of trouble and upheaval I think it is of utmost importance whether it is in business or personal situations to really reexamine what makes us each tick, and really passionate about the world to remind us where we stand and hopefully it will leave us on nice solid ground.

Working with Nature

I must admit, I'm a tad bit jealous of our neighbors and their gorgeous ponds.  We sit up on the hill overlooking the valley and the neighbors with the gorgeous ponds, so don't get me wrong, I don't have too much to complain about, I just don't have waterfront property.

One of our neighbor's, we'll call them the J's, have spectacular fly fishing ponds that they have built up over the years.  They stock them every few years with prize winning trout and even make a little money through a local fly fishing association.  The P's on the other hand, have a smaller pond just to watch wildlife and such.  It is so cute, they are a retired couple and have a bench sitting over the dam, and all kinds of rocks and wildflowers, they really enjoy their yard.

So recently, I have been hearing about troubles with the ponds.  Actually, I caught Mr. P going after the geese, yelling and chasing them out of his pond (he doesn't want them taking over because then they will contaminate it).  Funny as could be!  Then, come to find out, the J's are having a problem with the Blue Heron damaging some of their beloved fish.  And I do mean beloved.  We have seen Mr. J (one of Tom's best friends) jump in the freezing cold winter water to revive a fish that has been caught and released, the rules of the pond, of course.

The main problem is that the fish are too big for the Heron in the first place!  So the fish is getting injured for nothing, and the Heron still gets no dinner, bummer.  The J's can't use a lot of regular detractants for the Heron because that would interfere with the fly fishermen.  They did buy a fake Blue Heron, but that mostly just scared the dog.

Well, I got to thinking (could be dangerous).  And watching that Heron's pattern, he seemed to like the P's pond just as much as the J's pond except he wasn't getting anything to eat there.  But when the Blue Heron was at the P's pond, the Geese were nowhere to be found.  They seemed to hang out in the beaver ponds up the valley just a bit where they belong.  Hmmm..., how about we stock the P's ponds with inexpensive (native, of course) brookies for the Heron to hunt so that he leaves the J's nice big fish alone?  This could solve everyone's problem.

I talked with Mr. J and he thinks the plan is brilliant (with just a tiny bit of prodding from me-ha!), and I will talk with the P's today.  I'll let you know how the plan works out, but it is always best to try and work with Mother Nature than against her!

The Gulf Oil Spill

You know, my Mom always told me that if I didn't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.  As a matter of fact this is something I firmly believe in and pass along to my own children, but there really isn't anything nice to say about this mess in the Gulf and how it is being handled.  I am not one to watch much news anyway, but lately the blips of news coverage that I have caught about this story disturb me to the point that I must get a few words is about this environmental disaster of historic proportion.

I heard at the beginning of this mess that BP could have had an automatic shut off installed on this line but it was not cost effective, so therefore was not put on the line.  What?  I'm thinking that this multi-billion dollar clean-up effort is going to be much more than the cost of any auto-shut off valve.

Obviously as an animal lover, the thoughts and images of the animals that normally live and thrive in this region send shivers through my spine.  The effect that this spill will have on the people and businesses in that area make me literally heartsick. 

Okay, it also makes me mad.  What the hell happened here?  Why aren't they doing anything?  Why did it   take so damn long?  Well, I thought maybe I was the only one thinking that, so I was a little surprised to read this article from the Washington Post today when I was doing research for this post.  What surprised me about this article was how hard it was on the President.  It was refreshing to see actual journalism and reporting of the news at hand instead of "politics as usual".

I also found a good website that looks quite informative that I will be able to keep up on without having to watch the news. But this clip is what really struck home with me:

So the question from here, is what can we do to help?  Sitting at home in Bailey complaining does nothing.  Any ideas?  What are you all doing?  Aside from avoiding BP, I am at a loss here.

A day late and a dollar short

 The Lone Dead Tree

I think that just may be my new motto, a day late and a dollar short.  No, I'm just kidding, but it is definitely true for the past couple of days and this post, sorry GSO readers!  As it is for many of you, it is the last few days of school around here, which means all sorts of picnics and graduations and field days and all kinds of fun stuff when you have three kids in three schools.  It is also the week we are preparing to open our campgrounds for the big Memorial weekend.  So, it was not a good thing when I went out to start my beloved truck yesterday on the way to three of these fun events and it would not start.

Let's say I am very thankful that I know a lot of people in this community and was comfortable just hopping in the truck with the Dad of one of Nate's friends and hoping I could find rides from there on out.  Which I did.  My friend Amanda took me from the middle school up to the elementary, a neighbor took me from there to the food pantry where I was needed to put some extra hours in, and my wonderful seventeen year old sons came and picked me up from there and delivered me back home last evening-WHEW!!!

Now, the trouble of the day really started when we headed off to work at the campgrounds (that's pretty bad after a day like that-ha!).  I have mentioned the forest mitigation project going on around our area before, and I have said that I am pretty much on the fence about it.  Mother Nature is unable to take care of things because we as humans have gotten in her way, so I was hoping that we as humans had gone in and fixed the problem.  Well, I'm pretty much off the fence now.  My campground, er, the campground that the company that I represent that represents the National Forest I mean, looks like s@%t.  Yup, I said it (sorta).

You know, I can get past the loss of the trees, as a matter of fact many of the stumps that we investigated were diseased in the middle.  I am actually surprised by the number of trees that were already dying in that forest, but had shown no outward sign.  A few of the odd things were the fact that they left some really dead trees standing, one that looked as if we could just knock it right over, hence the picture.  They are riddled with beetle holes and both were struck by lightning and have a ring from top to bottom.  We looked for nests or any other obvious reason for them to have been left, but could find none; odd.  Tom joked that it was because they had not been tagged so the workers hadn't taken them, and I'm afraid he's not too far off the mark. 

I must say that my biggest concern is wildfire.  Ironic isn't it?  They come in for fire mitigation and I think Tom and I have one hell of a campground season ahead of us to make sure our campers don't burn down our home.  I am now thinking our new motor-home may come in awful handy as we may have to move into that campground to keep the campers from dragging all of the mess that the fire crew has left just on the outskirts of the grounds, into the grounds to have their fires.  Campers tend to get their fires as big as they can, and as you can see from the pics, the wood crew has left a "tinder box" of  wood debris about a foot thick just to the west of my, I mean your, campgrounds waiting for a spark to escape into.  Directly in the direction of my ranch I might add.

Okay, okay, in about twenty to fifty years, after this mess is all cleaned up by campers and decomposed back into the soil, it will be beautiful.  Nicely thinned, and some wonderful green grassy meadow areas, hopefully the deer and elk will love it.  As we stood there debating this whole mess, and I do mean mess literally, we must have been quite engrossed in our conversation because this moose must have walked right past us.  As we were leaving we saw some cars at the entrance; when we stopped to see what they were doing they pointed her out to us!  Look closely, that is her back side in the trees there, laughing at us as she walks away...

Royal Ranch Royalty

Wow!  It seems like it has been a long time since I have done a Royal Ranch Royalty post.  I apologize, I know that many of you look forward to them, it has been a little bit of a crazy month or so around here.  If you have read my blog more than once or twice, you have probably figured out by now that if I don't get my post written by the time that the family and the critters start rising, it doesn't get written for the day.  So, today for Royalty I thought I would do things a little differently, I wanted to share my favorite time of day with you.

First, let me give you a snapshot of how my posts get written.  As I have mentioned many times, The Royal Ranch was built as a summer home in 1955, so it is a rather large, uninsulated (slowly, but surely working on this problem) house, so  even in late May I still sit in front of the fire in the wee morning hours to write to all of you.  I patiently wait to hear the birds start chirping and the dawning rays of the morning sun.  That is when I take my first set of dogs to potty and to check from a distance on all of the outdoor critters.

I have told my Dad that this is something that I would like to include with my book and the visits with the special needs kids somehow, a recording of the morning.  I know that may sound strange, but the sounds of the ranch in the morning can be simply intoxicating, I think.  With the sheep Baahing, and the rooster crowing, and all of the wild birds chirping and the geese honking away, all the while my favorite hummers are zipping overhead to get an early morning drink from my feeder... FANTASTIC!

The llamas are funny too, in their own quiet way.  Once they see me, especially Marcel, they are up and pacing the fence for their breakfast.  If I am too much later, they too will join in on the symphony and start to hum.  Many moons ago, Daisy asked me if llamas all hum in one chord, and I have not researched that, but I do know that they get higher pitched as they get more concerned.  Which means the later I am, the higher pitch the noise is from the peanut gallery on the hill.  I mean this crew really has me trained!

So, I have done my duty, and written this post, now I am off to take Gigi and Rosie potty and hopefully gather you all some videos and pics to go along with these words.  Let's see who is the loudest at 6:13 am, shall we?  So far I only hear my hummers...

So, this is the second morning in a row that we have woken up to this:

And this is what our regular trio of geese thinks of it:

They were not too happy about their ponds being covered in a thick sludge of snow and ice and their feilds of green grass nowhere in sight!  There raucous complaints were so loud they had the cats hiding in the shadows!  Poor Fat Gary!

Leave No Trace

Royal Mountain

The Royal Ranch sits right at the base of two beautiful trail heads in Bailey, CO.  A hiker can climb Mt. Rosalie, Mt. Logan and can even reach the Mt. Evans Wilderness from our neck of the woods.  There are two spectacular campgrounds that Tom and I manage in the summertime that ironically enough I used to camp at when I was a kid just a mile from the house here.  So, needless to say, we can always tell when "Spring Fever" has hit by the amount of traffic passing by, and with the warm weather this past weekend here in Colorado, Spring has Sprung!

This has gotten me to thinking about all of the visitors headed our way, and to be honest, all of the trash that is headed our way.  We have some of the best visitors around, I must tell you, but even the best tend to forget a few little items.  The top three offenders on my list are cigarette butts, twisters and straw wrappers from juice boxes.  Yup, tiny little offenders, but boy do they add up!

So, as you are headed out the door on your first or second or any spring picnic, think about using reusable drink containers and don't forget a good trash receptacle.  A lot of picnic grounds are still officially closed until after Memorial Day, so you may have to haul out your own trash.  Double and triple check your site before you leave, and make sure there is no trace of your visit.  The less impact you leave, the better it is on the environment which leaves it just as beautiful for the next time you come to visit!  Oh lord, and don't forget the camera to take pictures of all the wonders of nature!!!

Don't forget regular readers, on Tuesdays I am cross posting at GreenSpot-On.

Metaphysical Monday? Not even close...

I say it time and again.  This blog is meant to be a positive influence on people's lives, period.  But, I have really gotten to thinking a lot lately about how I tend to heal and recover from injuries, illnesses or hard times in life.  I just hurry and get through the hard parts, and then just try to forget they even happened, never really processing the whole thing; which in the case of an injury means I re-injure myself again and again and in the game of life I just don't seem to process the issue, just cover it up.  Come on, I know I'm not alone here.

So, the thought of having material for a Metaphysical Monday is downright entertaining.  I'm not even close to spiritual right now.  As a matter of fact I bet my Spirit Guides are having a lovely vacation laughing at me wondering when I'm going to quit having a pity party and get back to work!  No, I know that life piles things on all of us.  Like back injuries that lead to dental injuries.  And then the county comes and cuts down all of your trees and the whole neighborhood thinks that because you are in such a public place on the road and such a community supporter that you should lead the battle.  Maybe your having a hard time with money or your teenagers, even if you know the rest of the world shares these same problems, it is sometimes hard not to feel a little sorry for yourself. 

So, that is what you do.  I finally figured out that a person can feel bad for themselves without feeling sorry for themselves, there is a difference.  And that is when it is time to take a mental health day, which is exactly what I did yesterday.  That is what all of these pictures are from, and as you can see, Mother Nature gave me plenty of reasons to remember my love of this planet and my respect and passion for the earth and the very close connection I have with it.  Wow, kind of sounds almost like my Metaphysical Monday posts after all!

For those of you that are familiar with Colorado, Tom and I took a drive up Guanella Pass to see how far we could get.  Yes, that is what mountain hillbilly's do for Valentine's Day, and yes, it was a spectacular Day!!!  The Mountain Goats were down in Grant, I had just said "since we have the camera I sure wish we'd see the goats" and right then Tom pulled over because there they were.  This is my first picture ever of these guys, not near as white as I had expected but I certainly wasn't complaining.  The other pic is of the old Geneva ski area, and the drift you see is only a mile or so past the ski area and a dirt bike was stuck in it just on the other side so we knew we weren't going any further.  That was a big surprise for me, how many bikes were up there; there was even a big group that had side cars on them, way cool to see.  We did also see two Bald Eagles on our trip, but they were on private property too far away, so I didn't get a picture, darn!!!  My friend Viv works at Zoka's on the weekend, so we popped in there too!  I can't tell you the last time Tom and I did something for ourselves like that, we really had a nice time, thanks Babe, I love you!

Recycling Hair?

Yes, Recycling hair!  I couldn't believe my eyes.  What a fantastic natural resource that every single person, yes even including my very bald father, has to recycle.  I signed up for the Earth911.com newsletter a few months ago and it has been an absolute treasure trove of information for this blog!  I recently came upon an article entitled "I Didn't Know That Was Recyclable" and on the list was hair.  I was pretty sure I was going to come across the same old line of hair donation, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was actually hair recycling!
In 2000 an ingenious hair stylist named Phil McCrory was watching film coverage of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill and notice the oil that stubbornly saturated the fur of the otters he thought of the huge amounts of human hair that is collected in salons and started testing the amount of oil he could soak up with the hair from his salon.  According to the article at Earth911.com "McCrory invented the hairmat to help soak up oil from an estimated 706 million gallons of oil that enter our oceans each year. There are more than 370,000 hair salons in the U.S., and each collects about 1 pound of hair per day. That represents a tremendous amount of landfill matter from something we probably never even thought about!".
With this great invention, was the birth of a great public charity called Matter of Trust that accepts hair clippings and turns them into the hair mats that are used to clean up the oil spills.  The group is doing all sorts of research with hair and fiber and it's uses and what a wonderful natural resource it is.  If you have a minute check out the website, it was very interesting and gave me some really great ideas for my llama wool as well.  Keep the link handy, and next time you get your hair done, pass it along to your hair dresser and they can sign up and send the hair in a shampoo box that they would probably like to get rid of anyway!
Now, I do not mean to minimize donating hair, it is just up until now, I thought that was the only way to "use" your natural resource that grew on top of your head, or unless like my Dad only on the sides of your head.  Boy, he's really taking abuse on this one isn't he?  Anywho, back to the subject of hair donation.  This actually is something I very firmly believe in.  The first time I donated was when my aunt in Iowa got breast cancer.  I could not be there, so I felt the best way to support her was to cut my hair when she lost hers.  I donated it in her name.  I must say I was a tad disappointed in the impersonal postcard that she received from Locks of Love.
The next experience we had was when my Grandma was first diagnosed with cancer, my decision to cut my hair was still fresh in the mind of my very young daughter at the time, but she decided that she wanted to cut her hair for "GG".  The timing still amazes me to this day.  We had been waiting for Isabella's hair to reach the proper length and for me to be okay with losing her beautiful blond locks when one morning I awoke and knew that the day had come.  My friend Della had just finished cutting her hair when my cell phone rang, I answered to my Grandma sobbing.  See, she had been a hairdresser for her entire life, so to have woken up that morning to clumps of hair on her pillow was more than she could bear.  The day that Bella donated her hair in GG's name was the day that I had to shave GG's head.
I have donated my hair one more time since then, but again, have been a bit disappointed in the simple, impersonal postcards we have gotten in response to the very personal gifts we have given.  I know that sounds kind of funny, but when I sent in Isabella's ponytail, I put on the form her age and the reason she had donated her hair, and again, just the regular postcard.  I did save it for her baby book and of course will make a big deal out of it on the page if I ever get around to updating the book, but it was just a matter of principle. 
The great news is that when I googled hair donation in doing my homework for this post, there have been many new companies that have gotten into the business of hair donation in the years since we have done it.  So whether your hair is long or short, whether you want to donate or recycle, don't forget, you have a wonderful natural resource growing right on top of your head (yes, even you Dad-love you!!!)!

Getting Rid of Those Pesky Meds

Good Morning!  Well, once again my family has given me the direction in which I should blog today, I just love that!  Of course with writing a "green" blog, I get a lot of questions about recycling and all sorts of other green habits; but the one my Mom asked me, regarding how to get rid of unused medication really had me stumped.  So... of course I did some research on how to dispose of medications properly.
The EPA has a website that is pretty full of information. It has a list of drugs that are safe to flush, and points out that many drugs have this information on the bottle or in its paperwork.  When in doubt, do NOT flush it, and this applies to all over the counter medicine as well.  I was really surprised to find out that if you have no other options, put the medication in a sealed container with something yucky, like coffee grounds or kitty litter and then put it in the trash. 
Interestingly enough, many states are just now coming up with ways to donate your medicine, which I was sorry to hear.  With as many people as there are who can't afford their medicine, it seems like a great idea.  This is what Louise at the Colorado Health Insurance Insider had to say:
I’m very curious about how the whole thing works. The donated medications can come from medical providers or individuals, but have to be unopened and sealed, and are checked by pharmacists to ensure safety. But who has unused medications sitting around? I know lots of people might have a few pain pills left over from a surgery, but they usually use at least a few pills out of the bottle first. As for medical offices and hospitals, wouldn’t they have a steady stream of need for the medications already? I think it’s a great idea to donate and recycle unused medications – I’m a big fan of donating and recycling just about everything – I’m just not sure where the supply is coming from. But it seems to be coming from somewhere – in states like WY and IA, drug recycling programs have netted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medications for uninsured residents who would otherwise likely have gone without their prescriptions. So far, at least 33 states have passed laws allowing for donation, recycling, and reuse or prescriptions, and these programs are still new – many are in testing and pilot stages, so the full potential is far from realized. It sure beats having the drugs just go to waste in a corner somewhere.
I stringly agree with this opinion.  It would even be worth going through the red tape if we knew the meds weren't going to waste.  I did read a couple of places that organizations like UNICEF take life saving prescriptions to third world countries whose population really needs them.  To be honest, their website was just way too slow to load and didn't have a very good search engine, so I moved on.  It was a little bothersome to me that there really is not a definitive answer as to WHERE to donate your unused meds, and even if you do there are many rules regarding this, like they need to be unopened-What?
So, I guess for now these are the best steps to take if you have medicine that is expired or unused:

1. Check the EPA website and see if your medication is on the list of things that are safe to flush.
2. Hope that your state is one of the ones with a recycling program and take it there.
3. Talk with your Pharmacist, he/she may have a recycling program, or may let you bring it in for them to put in their hazardous material disposal.
4. If all else fails, try the kitty litter method.
5. ALWAYS remove the label on the bottle, no matter how you are disposing of it.  Most medicine bottles that I have come across are recyclable, so toss the bottle in the recycling and get rid of the medicine separately.

We really do not want these contaminants in our water, be it ground water or drinking water.  The impact on the environment is still unknown, but medications show up in drinking water all over the world.  As for the ground water, we all know how contamination of it can lead to problems throughout the entire eco-system.  And, shamefully enough, we have to worry about people or kids taking medication that they have no idea what it is.  Recently I heard that identity theft is even becoming a problem; with people taking your personal information off of an old prescription bottle.  What is this world coming to?
I hope this helps, Mom; thanks for the idea!
Make a miracle today!

The Dog Got Skunked!!!

Good Morning! For those of you that missed Metaphysical Monday, it will return, maybe even later this week. I have a story that I want to share with you, but it is not my story, so I need to make sure I get all of the details and permissions to share. So...here it is only Tuesday and I'm already a day behind-Ha!

Sunday morning as I was sitting in front of our wonderful wood stove, I got a whiff of the unmistakable skunk smell. I quickly jumped up to run and let Rosie in, but I was too late! Why they like to chase those things I have no idea, but she got it full force. She smelled soooo bad that I couldn't even let her into the house.

We have had this happen once or twice before and have tried every method that we had ever heard of, to no avail, but I had to do something. So, the only thing I had on hand was a can of tomato soup, I grabbed it and got ready to give old Stinky a bath. One important suggestion, do not wet the animal until you have rubbed the soup in; if you think wet dog stinks, wet skunk is about ten times worse. I'll never forget many years ago I was in Iowa visiting family when my Uncle John hit a skunk, he thought it would be a great idea to take the car through the wash, which only amplified the smell! With both him and my aunt Jaris in the car smoking like trains, I preferred that smell to rolling down the windows!

After dragging the poor wretched dog to the tub, the tomato soup got rubbed in as well as I could possible stand (just to give you a mental picture; I am a gagger and this happened at about 5 in the morning, so my family woke up to the warming sounds of me dry heaving!), and then shampooed her with her regular doggy shampoo (just an animal lover warning here, never use products meant for humans, on your animals!), all the while praying that the smell would come out of the clothes I was wearing.

The good news is that Rosie smells almost back to normal, so the trick I'm pretty sure is to get the dog before the stink has time to settle in! Now, for my clothes and her collar and any towels that I used on her, I used good old vinegar. I washed them all in one load with a ton of vinegar and detergent, I can still smell it very slightly, but at least it is better! So, my best advice is to get to the stink quickly and act aggressively!

Have a miracle of a day!