Give the plants a bath

I remember reading about this one time.  You know, I bet it's from my Better Homes & Gardens Houseplants Book, but anyway, I gave a couple of my plants a bath the other day and they really seemed to enjoy it.  No big thank yous or anything, but they do seem to look a little perkier!  Isabella had taken a bath the night before, and you know me, that is an awful lot of water to just go to waste (especially down my very old septic system) so I started watering the outdoor plants with it, then the indoor plants with it and then remembered the bath idea!

Obviously, this will only work with certain plants, but I had a Christmas Cactus, that just got done blooming at Easter (don't ask me!) that was quite dusty and had no loose dirt, so I held the pot upside down and swooshed the greens around in the water and then let it soak for just a minute or two while I grabbed the next plant.  The next was a spider plant, also with no loose dirt, that I just set in the water and rubbed each spider around until it was clean; I have lots of spider plants I did this with and they all seemed to love it!

A couple of precautions; if you are using leftover bath water like I did, make sure that the soap you used was all natural like my girly soap for Bella is.  If not, just use a shallow tub of cool fresh water, they'll love it.  Watch out for loose dirt, this can turn into a big mess if you're not careful, don't be cussing me out while you're cleaning mud out of you're shower, I warned you multiple times-ha!  Actually, this was the fastest and easiest way I have ever come across of cleaning my plants, and they are all very dirty after a winter of burning wood in the house.  Spring is a great time to give those plants that help our house breathe a little easier a good cleaning, go ahead, give it a try!

Stress and Life

My neighbor, Royal Ram

Okay people, I have a confession to make.  I have been suffering from a writers block,  Odd, that has never happened before.  But, I come by it honestly.  My rabbit is very sick, I think she is dying.  My sister has been waiting for some very serious test results and we finally got some good news yesterday.  I actually started my post for Tuesday, which would have been my cross post for this blog and for GreenSpot-On, but it was just not flowing the way I wanted, so I ended up posting a recycling post from here at GSO and leaving you all in the dust instead.  I know, I know, shame on me.

So, last night I get home from my weekly conference call (which entails sitting on the side of the road for an hour and a half for a cell signal so I don't pay long distance here at the house) and Tom tells me to sit down, I had no idea how wound up I had been until that point.  When he handed me the package that said Royal Ranch Publishing on it I literally quit breathing; my book was here.  I had not realized how stressed I was that it would not be right, or that it would look homemade or "hillbilly", as I told Tom.  It looks really great and very much exceeds my expectations!

With a few minor corrections and adjustments,  that hopefully will be worked out today, my book will go to print!  WOW!!!  The funny thing was that seeing my book kind of broke free all of the stress of the last week, the stress that I hadn't even realized I was experiencing.  I took one look at that book and started sobbing.  I was so happy about the book, and relieved about my sister, and so sad about that damn rabbit.  God, what a mess I was, I bet the kids thought I had lost my mind!

I'm still a mess today, but as you can see the block has mostly passed, but the rabbit has not.  She is not suffering at all or I would take her in.  She is almost twice the age rabbits normally live to be and is a very tough old girl.  I have spent my days making her comfortable and feeding her all of her favorite foods every few hours, which is how I know she is not suffering because she is still eating and drinking.  She is with her beloved, Rusty, and that is all that counts in my book, so I am doing the best I can.  Who knows, she may surprise us all and come out of this.

I must say, this has been one crazy week.  I know I'm supposed to be a tough rancher, and that I have been rescuing animals for years.  I should be used to this by now, but if I was, would I be any good at what I do?  No.  So I shed a few tears, endure a little stress and hopefully write one hell of a childrens book from my experiences. 

Off to the Planetarium

The fourth grade is off to The Gates Planetarium at the Museum of Nature and Science today and I am one of the lucky chaperons.  We will see an IMAX movie and then will follow it up with a tour of the museum and some of the cool exhibits.  This is all very exciting, but for a gal that suffers seizures, it is also a tad bit nerve wracking, so keep me in your positive thoughts today!!!

Royal Ranch Royalty

Good Morning!!! I hope you all are having a wonderful weekend.  I had hoped we would be camping this weekend, and that I would possibly be downloading pictures from one of our spectacular state parks.  Well, next weekend.  In a move that I would normally really support, Park County Government has closed all offices on Fridays in an effort to save money.  I really wish the clerk that I talked to on Monday and said that I would pick up my plates and proof of insurance on Thursday or Friday would have told me that, but I guess that was too early in the week or something.  Tom didn't take me up on the idea of faking temporary plates, darn him, so we decided to take Nathan bowling for his birthday instead.

So, this is where the big decision comes in.  Do we head to the big city of Denver, or go to Fairplay?  In general, if given a choice, the kids always want to go to the city; I mean these kids live in the mountains.  But, my poor husband on the other hand, commutes to the city at least four times a week and will do just about anything to get us to not go back down there on the weekends!  When I reminded him about the bowling alley in Fairplay, he was on the phone in no time flat- checking prices, menus, etc.  Lucky for him, we are a very food oriented family and the menu in Fairplay sounded much better than anything we could get at a bowling alley in any city.

So we climb into the truck and head toward South Park, yes, that South Park, and yes, it is very much like the show from what I gather.  Mother Nature really put on a show for Nathans birthday; we saw a very large herd of antelope which is rather unusual, a huge herd of elk which is usual, and of course the occasional deer.  The drive up and over Kenosha Pass is one that I even remember from when I was a child, coming into South Park is quite a spectacular view, you can see for miles.  I think it may be one of my favorite places in Colorado, it is also a popular aspen viewing destination in the fall.

Yes, this is where I finally get around to announcing Royal Ranch Royalty, it is hands down, South Park Bowl!  (Sorry, no link, couldn't find one) This place went all out to make sure that we had a wonderful evening, which we absolutely did.  I think it must be a husband /wife team, and they both work their butts off, but still took they time to ask Nathan things like "what's the best thing about being 14 that's better than being 13?"  And they had the kids go through their music collection to put on whatever they wanted, you know, a real small town place.

As for the food, oh lord, did we make the right choice.  The specials were beer battered shrimp and ribs.  We had already decided on the way up that we would each order one item and then share everything.  Yup, that's two full racks of ribs we ordered and two orders of beer battered shrimp-YUM!!!  It's funny, because in my family we have a rib competition going; my nephews say I make the best ribs in the world, so my brother-in-law is always coming up with some crazy new way to try and beat my recipe, which he has not done so far according to the nephews.  Isabella and Nate say Fairplay's ribs come close to mine, boys!

After we ate, we got right down to some serious bowling.  I did some real butt kicking on my family and then we went home.  Okay.... I can't tell a lie... I came in fourth out of four, but I had a lot of fun trying!  The family says they are going to use the bumpers for me next time, can you imagine the gall of them?-Ha!  Tom who hasn't bowled in years, had the entire bowling alley beat and crowed about it the whole way home!!!!  (I'm sure this is why I did so poorly, I was just being support for my macho husband---I almost laughed myself right out of the chair typing that one!!!  Sometimes I just kill myself!)

Anywho, we really did have a great time bowling.  The people around us were a lot of fun, some were local families, but we were a little surprised that people had come over Hoosier Pass from Breckenridge to bowl as well.  I guess bowling is a popular sport and draws a crowd.  But it was when we were done bowling that the tears started flowing.  The waitress brought Nathan a brownie sundae while a Happy Birthday song blasted over the entire sound system while everyone in the whole place sang to my fourteen year old little man.  It was exactly what my middle son needed.  He was the center of attention of the entire family, restaurant, heck he had given the entire town of Fairplay reason to celebrate it felt like!

So, if you are ever in our neck of the woods, and have the urge to knock a few pins over, head to South Park.  On the way there you will have your breath taken away by a view that you'll never forget, chances are you'll see a huge herd of elk, too.  If you are really lucky, like my son Nathan appears to be, you might even see a herd of antelope!

Happy Birthday, Earth Day!

In doing some research for this post I found out that Earth Day and I have something in common, we are both turning 40 in the year 2010!!!  So, Happy Birthday Earth Day!  That's just downright fun to say.  To be honest with you, I had no idea that Earth Day was that old, I thought it was a much younger, more new fad idea.  Maybe it's just because I think of myself as much younger and newer too, ha!

From the sit ins of the Vietnam war came the lesson of a teach in day that became Earth Day.  A young senator from Wisconsin (doesn't that make you proud Daisy?) by the name of Gaylord Nelson proposed the nationwide teach in day in late 1969 and word traveled like wildfire across the nation, and the world, 175 countries take part in Earth Day.  20 million people participated in the first ever Earth Day, and the response was overwhelming according to wikipedia:

"Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself."
I think one of the most striking things for me in this article is that it reminds me that grassroots movements really do make a big difference, and that one man or woman really can make a huge difference.  They talk about all of the various groups that were trying to save the whales, and fight pollution, and were horrified by these gargantuan oil spills that were happening coming together and realizing that they all had a common goal and common values.  And here we are 40 years later blogging about it on a computer system that those folks would never have dreamed of; I mean to me, that is simply astonishing!

My friend Tiffany has a great Earth Day post at her blog today as well,  I really enjoyed reading it this morning, thanks Tiffany!  I couldn't agree with you more.

Gardening and Composting Challenges with Altitude (and chickens!)

Gardening at 9,000 feet in elevation is not even exactly considered gardening; it should really be called trial and error.  But, after a couple of decades I'm learning a couple of things, like always plant stuff that deer don't like, never waste your money on annuals (we've just got too short of a season), and reuse everything I possibly can, including seeds.  The seed thing has come from necessity; the plants that do well up here do very well and therefore tend to take over the garden with seeds if I am not careful to collect them.

I do not do much to prepare my very hearty perennial garden for winter as you can see by the picture.  I try to cover it with a good layer of mulch if there is one available, but I do not pay for mulch, because many of them have ingredients in them that I don't like and it is a product that is usually readily available if you wait for the right time.  I wish I hadn't had to lose my trees, but now I sure have plenty of free mulch, thanks to road and bridge.  Back to winter preparation, I have read that it is good to leave the plants standing for the winter because it gives bugs and such places to winter over and it also avoids premature pruning.  One of the main reasons I do it is to avoid my beautiful perennial garden becoming one very large cat litter box over the winter months-eeeewwww!!!!  If the large poky plants stay in it, the cats stay out of it, works for me.

So, early Spring, like last weekend (for us this is early), I use my spiffy new pruning shears from my great Mom and prune everything down to the ground and rake it all out.  This year I am composting everything so I tried something new.  I put all of the large clippings into the trash bin and used our weed whacker to break them down into smaller pieces so that they would compost faster.  Again, this is one of the biggest composting tips to come across, the smaller the pieces to go into your composting bin, the faster you will have compost.  This is a little difficult to do, and I went through quite a bit of whacky string, but I got the job done as you can see.

Now, the object of the composting game will be to see if I can beat the chickens.  A year ago when I started composting, we didn't have chickens, so it was a great way of using up our kitchen scraps, which of course now go directly to the chickens.  Well, the chickens discovered the compost bin and its tiny morsels of year old food a few weeks ago and must have worked together as a team to get the very large wood block off of the cover and have absolutely cleaned out the entire bin!  I guess I don't have to worry about stirring it!  The good news is, is that the stuff that the chickens have kicked out is quite black and nice looking, so at least I know I was on the right track, I just need to start over on a new chicken free track!

Obviously instead of composting with food scraps I will be composting with chicken manure, which means I will have to be very careful that my compost pile does not get too hot in the summer months and cause a fire.  That is when I will be very thankful for our high altitude and cool temperatures.  So, I will be mixing manures plant scraps,  a beer or two (shh, don't tell the big guy) and a little of the mulch from our beautiful trees that the county cut down for good luck (shh, don't tell the county).  I wrote a post on composting (pre-chickens) that has a great breakdown of things that can and can't go into your compost bin here.  I had to laugh when I saw the pictures because the bin was so full, and now the chickens have dug through and emptied the entire thing!  Oh well, this way I will rake up what they cleaned out, use it on my gardens and start fresh this year; that is what you are supposed to do with a compost bin, right?  Pop back to the other post, it's worth just looking at the pictures to see what the chickens have done, it will give you a chuckle for the day!

"Crashing" Down the Fences

Well, my babies are growing up!  The other day I went to go do chores and Crash was on the wrong side of the fence!  His mama was in an uproar!!!  I knew the time was coming and that he was getting tired of just hanging with girls because he had gotten out once before.  Our poor renter had seen him in with the llamas and his daddy, Paco, who was giving him a heck of a time.  Tom and Thomas helped him get Crash back in with Mama and Princess and fixed where he got out and we left it at that, but I knew my time was limited.

I have learned a lot about Rams since getting Paco, and I love him dearly, but I'm not sure that he will stay at The Royal Ranch.  As you all know, I am very careful about breeding programs and will not tolerate any unaccounted for breeding or aggressive behavior in between breeding times.  Paco is having a very hard time understanding this concept; he is a ram and that is what rams do for a living.   But, he has made life a little difficult here on the ranch by making us have to separate pens out for different fellas.  Luckily, I had done this a couple of days before Crash came crashing through.

So, as I said, I go up to do my morning chores to Esther's panicked bawling (Crash was not so happy himself at this point either); he had done quite a number on the fence so I got everyone fed to try and calm them down and started to try and repair what I called the nesting area fence where I was keeping the lambs and Esther.  Crash had himself so worked up that he couldn't find his way back in with mama so I kept making the space a little bigger, pretty soon I turned around, and the sheep were out and the llamas were in!!!  Oh, and did I forget to mention how happy my chickens were to have access into the barn where they had been locked out of for weeks; they were happily clucking and scratching their way through the layers of straw that I had neatly laid down for the lambs!

Yes, it was as backwards as I could get it, and I just stood there laughing.  Esther, Princess and Crash were happily trotting around the edge of the bottom pasture, Marcel and Jasper were eating Esther's breakfast and the chickens were in chicken heaven and I had lost complete control of my little piece of paradise and was supposed to be at a meeting in about 15 minutes!  The only thing for me to do was to run back home, postpone my meeting, grab my fencing supplies and get to work!  Thankfully I had my plan already in place, as any rancher does, and just had to implement it!

As you can see, there are smaller panels that have to be moved, and corral panels that have to be moved, all in the name of safety for Princess and Crash...

(The bucket is a step for the chickens to use to get over the panels, because this was their favorite exit, which is how I knew the lambs could get out; when, or where, will it end?)

 

My old boys, Marcel and Jasper, had been appointed lamb sitters.  Llamas are fantastic guards; as a matter of fact many of them are put to work in fields specifically for this purpose.  They are very aggressive towards coyotes and many progressive ranchers are now putting them to work to save their herds of cattle and sheep from losses of babies.  I had already divided out the rest of the herd from these two, so it was just a matter of taking the panels from the "nesting pen" and placing them around any danger spots in the lower portion of our llama pen to make sure that little Crash is not going to escape to the outside world.

I would like to leave you with a mental picture of how things are done here at The Royal Ranch though.  Keep in mind that I was dressed for a meeting, nothing too fancy, just dressed.  Anywho, when there is panels being moved around, that means excitement, and I don't do it alone.  I usually have a string of cats following me, one long haired black, at least one orange tabby, and one gray.  The chickens are always following me, again at least three or four; I have to always be careful where I step.  Marcel, my big white llama is at least one half step behind me because he is hoping for some grain, and after Crash's big scare, he was a little upset and needed reassurance, so he was rather clingy too.  So, each time I got down on the ground I found myself with a lamb on top of me, doesn't do much for the hairdo, although he is very proud to be in with the big boys now.  Needless to say, I had to redress and rearrange before I left for my meeting 1.5 hours late!!! Oh, the life of a rancher, wouldn't trade it for anything!
 

Yes, I know it is Tuesday, but I have had this post sitting in my drafts folder since the weekend, shame, shame!  I decided not to cross post to GreenSpot-On for that reason and because I wanted to share with those readers about my recycled chicken coop, which of course you all have read about before!  But, make sure and pop over there to check it out and leave me a quick comment, I'm curious as to how their comments come through!!! Thanks again for being such loyal fans!