A Quick Horse Ride

We've had a lot of activity at the ranch lately, as it's time to ship some of the one-year old calves. They weigh about 800 pounds now. Wow! I am always amazed by how fast they grow. And a little grateful we don't grow that fast. I sure enjoy having little kids around for multiple years!

We headed down to see some of the activity surrounding moving the calves, and the kids were fascinated with the horses. Who wouldn't be? Seeing a bona fide cowboy galloping is the quintessential image of the West.

As we were wandering about, I noticed some metal artwork that captured the Wild West flavor. Hanging on the scale building was a cowboy roping.


I took two photos because it stretched around the corner and one part was in the shade and another part in the sun. But then I tried to capture the whole thing.


I'm not sure who put it up, but it sure is clever. And what cowboy wouldn't like to be able to lasso all those cows that are just out of sight!


Next we were very lucky to have Tierannie share her horse with us. Desert Girl took the first ride. She wasn't too certain about being up on a horse, but she really wanted to do it. It was interesting reading all the expressions going across her face.

She held on tight and enjoyed being up so high.

Then it was Desert Boy's turn. He sure was ready!

His most exciting part was when he got to hold the reins. Tierannie gave him a two-minute rundown on how to ride a horse, and Matthew declared that now he was a cowboy because he knew how to control a horse.

My little cowboy. He even was wearing his cowboy boots for the occasion.

As soon as he got down (all by himself, just like a real cowboy!) he declared he wanted his own horse. I guess he and his friend Ava now have something more to talk about!

Desert Survival: Eating Cattails in Winter

I've heard it said that cattails are one of the most important plants for people in the wild to know. They signify that water is present, provide a great fire starter, make a good shelter, and even can be eaten. My husband knew where some were on the ranch, so he went out and collected some tubers and brought them back. They didn't exactly look like I thought they would:

I tried eating it and found it a little starchy without much taste. It wouldn't be great, but I guess if I were starving, I'd be willing to dig some up.

 Above is a view of the tuber spread out. It's kind of stringy, not so much like a potato, which is what I expected.

A few days later I decided I wanted to go see the cattails and try some other survival things with them, such as making cord and possibly making shelter. Desert Boy led us to them. Again, I was surprised by what I saw.

 
The cattails had been eaten by the cows and deer and were only knee high! I had to readjust my expectations.
 
Nevertheless, I was able to make a little cord. I need to practice more, and it would be fun to try to weave several strands together to make a stronger rope.

 We'll be back in the spring and summer and give the cattails another try. Still, I'm glad we went so that I know what they look like in winter!

Signs of Spring

While we might not have turkey vultures migrating through, we do have some signs of springs. First off, it's so much warmer than it has been, so that we are actually willing to venture out of the house and go look for those signs! Hurray! The house sparrow (above) had grass, a clear sign that it's building a nest. It won't be long till we have more of this non-native species in the area.

 The house sparrow isn't the only one taking to the air--it's time to get the spray plane out of the hangar and get it ready to go. Cheatgrass is already greening up, and it won't be long till the other plants follow.

 My favorite sign of spring I saw today:

 Mud puddles! Desert Girl was prepared, wearing her rain boots (aka irrigating boots, but hers are just too pretty for me to feel comfortable calling them irrigating boots!). She had accessorized herself with some red beads, and they sure did jiggle as she jumped and jumped and jumped in the mud puddles.

Life is good when you can jump in your own mud puddle.

Cracking a Coconut

For Valentine's Day I gave Desert Boy a coconut. He's been seeing them a lot on the survival shows he loves, and now he had his chance to hold one, drink from one, and taste one. He was beyond excited, but I gave it to him in the morning, so he had to wait till after school. Ah, the anticipation! He did get to shake it and hear the water sloshing around in it before he took off.

 The first step was to unwrap it and read the label and find out where it was from. I have to admit I didn't think of that part--Desert Boy did. Our coconut was from the Dominican Republic, and we had to do a little searching to find the island out in the Caribbean. I had fun imagining the sandy beaches, warm ocean waves lapping at those beaches, plentiful sunshine with coconut palms providing a little shade. Okay, the coconut may not come from an idyllic beach, but it sure does bring to mind such a place!

 We found the eyes of the coconut and tried to stick a straw through one. Nope--that didn't work! The eyes are a little toucher than that, so we pierced it with scissors and a knife.

 Desert Boy stuck a straw in and started drinking the coconut water. After a long sip, he made quite a face--it wasn't that good! I gave it a try and liked it. So then he had to try it again and decided it might be okay.

Then came opening the coconut. I should have looked it up on the Internet, as this WikiHow site has many ways to open a coconut. I didn't have much success, so when my husband came home he attacked it with a saw and got it open.

 Ah, success! We broke off little pieces of coconut--delicious!

Even after eating the flesh out of the coconut, Desert Boy wasn't done with it. Here's one of his art projects. I think we'll have a couple more in the next few days.

So our first coconut was quite a fun experience. We'll probably try it again sometime. 

Do you have experience with coconuts? What do you recommend doing with them?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! How are you celebrating?

My husband and I have had a really nice week of giving love notes to each other every day. We'll head out for a special dinner tonight.

I also always think of my brother Ed on Valentine's Day, as that's the day when he chose to arrive in this world. What a special Valentine!

Desert Boy's school is having a Valentine's Day Party, and as we are really trying to cut back on processed foods and eat more real foods, I cringe at the thought of all the sugar and chemicals he may be ingesting today. To help make me feel a little better about that, I'm sending some heart-shaped snacks with him (photo above). It might not make much difference, but hopefully the kids will enjoy eating something healthy.

Have a great day! And if you've been wondering why I'm not posting so regularly, I have several posts I'm working on. It's been quite a crazy week, so I'm looking forward to a long weekend to catch up. Maybe we'll manage to fit in an adventure or two (or three!).

Comparison of Ungulate Pellets

I took a hike last week in a place used by three different species of ungulates. I didn't see any of them. So how did I know three species had been there? By their pellets, or scat, that they left behind.
I'm going to show you the photos and give you some clues. You see if you can figure out which three species left the following scat.

The first scat I examined closely looked just slightly larger than rabbit scat, but instead of being brown and totally round, it was black and slightly pointed at one end. The pellets were in a group, but rather scattered within the group.

What's your guess? If you said bighorn sheep, you are correct!

Scat Number Two:
I came across a place where the gravel had been cleared away. Adjacent it to it were two big piles of scat, along with a smaller pile and a wet area from urine in the cleared area. I surmised that this was a favorite ungulate hangout.

A close-up look at one of the piles of scat:

A close-up of the pellets, brownish-black, slightly dimpled, one end (or sometimes two) narrowed.

And your guess? If you said deer, you are correct! We have mule deer out here, a LOT of them. Deer scat is about the size of a raisin, although not quite as wrinkly. I'm not sure if I should admit this, but I have a fun prank that deals with deer scat. (If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you read about it here.) I've given talks about scat to school kids. I like to have samples of various scat with me (in Ziploc bags--in reality, handling scat with your bare hands is not the best idea and can lead to nasty diseases, so don't do what I'm doing.) Anyway, I show the kids the deer scat and ask them how they can figure out how old it is. After I hear their more reasonable guesses, I tell them that the best way to do it is to do a taste test. I pretend to take a pellet out of the bag, while palming a Raisinet instead. I pop the Raisinet in my mouth, bite down on it slowly, and make an appropriately theatrical expression. While the kids look on, faces frozen in horror, I declare the age of the deer scat.

It's an awesome prank.

I may have scarred some kids for life. Probably not. But they may never look at scat the same way again.

Okay, last ungulate scat of the day:

This scat is also black and in pellet form like the other two, but is noticeably larger. Here's a close-up:

Your guess? Elk is the correct answer. They are bigger animals, so it only makes sense that they leave behind bigger poo.

Although all these three ungulate scats look similar, it doesn't take too much detective work to tell them apart. And the more practice, the easier it gets.

Thanks for joining me in this little soiree into the leftover matters of life.

Desert Survival: How to Tell Direction with a Shadow Stick

 This winter we've been watching a lot of survival shows, mainly because Desert Boy is fascinated with them. (And in case you wanted to watch some, here they are in my order of preference: Man, Woman Wild; Out of the Wild: Venezuela; Dual Survival; Man vs. Wild; Survivorman.)

Desert Boy talks about survival all the time. So we talk about how to be safe. And although he really wants to practice his fire-making skills, we decided we'd start small. So we tried a survival skill to determine which direction is which. Now, out in the Great Basin, that's often not something that's hard to figure out, as most of the 300+ mountain ranges run north-south. But when we travel, we might need to know the direction.

The first step to finding your direction with a shadow stick is to insert a stick into the ground. Note: a straight stick is recommended, and some survival manuals recommend a 3-foot long stick. Sticks that long are dangerous around my kids, so we used one-foot long.

 After the stick is in the ground, mark the end of the shadow it casts with a stone or other object that won't be disturbed. (Note: this technique only works when it's sunny.) Then wait 10-15 minutes (or longer if you get distracted by hunting lunch, making a fire, building your shelter, etc.)

After you've waited a bit, check the shadow stick and mark the end of the shadow with another rock.


Draw a line between the two rocks. This is an east-west line; the second stone placed marks east. The line that intersects the line is true north-south (which differs a bit from magnetic north-south).

Simple! I did it again a few days later in a different location, and it still worked. I guess the earth hadn't changed its rotation.

This is a great, quick activity for kids and kids-at-heart. Stay tuned as we experiment with more survival techniques in the near future. And if you have ideas for ones we should try, please leave a comment!

Views from the Road

 As I was driving today, I noticed a distraction from the wide, open road. As I got closer, I saw that cows were on the move. A cowboy on a horse and another on a four-wheeler were behind a very long string of cows, stretching a couple of miles. The cows seemed quite content to move.

It was a beautiful day. Tomorrow the snow is supposed to come. If I have my druthers, it will snow up on the mountains (we'd sure like more!) and rain in the valleys. As we get closer to spring, that becomes a better possibility. We might be a little too far away from spring, though. Stay tuned for photos of what happens...

Desert Girl's Birthday

Desert Girl recently turned 3, which to her means that she is now a big girl. To me, that means it is time to be toilet trained! So diapers are out the window (so to speak) and Desert Girl is using the toilet like a big girl. This tactic worked with Desert Boy amazingly well, and is going well so far with Desert Girl. 

But back to the birthday. We decided to have two celebrations. One for kids in the local gym so they could run around and have fun, and a family gathering later in the day after my husband was done with work. 

I took a bunch of dress up clothes to the gym, and the kids had fun trying on different outfits.

 It was hard to get them to stand still for long!

We played some bean bag toss and the kids switched outfits and ran around (at least the younger ones. The bigger ones were doing something in the corner!)

 Then we tried the balloon race, with each kid squeezing a balloon between his or her knees.

 Desert Girl needed a little help.

 Next it was time for the piñata--one of my kids' favorites! My husband thinks it should be banned from our town, as many a kid has nearly got whacked--and a few have got whacked--by the pinata stick. Nevertheless, I don't think it's going away anytime soon.

 I brought some healthy food, which disappeared quickly, I think mainly because the kids liked eating with toothpicks.


Then came the blowing out candles part. Desert Girl seems to have a hard time aiming her breath.


Nevertheless, she eventually succeeded!

 In the evening she had some fun with one of her uncles.

 She was also ready to blow out more candles!

 She blew them out so fast I hardly had time for a photo!


It was a relaxing time with family, and Desert Boy even had us all playing an alphabet game.

 Desert Girl was delighted with a new princess skirt. Oh my, it is hard not to catch her enthusiasm!

 Brothers hanging out.

 There is such joy at a little kids' birthday party. It is so precious to witness. I try to take lots of photos, because I know that those teenage years aren't all that far away! Happy Birthday, Desert Girl!