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Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies atop
Cone Flowers in Cousin Tom's garden |
What a fantastic day we had! It was so fun filled that I'm splitting Sunday into two posts. The day began with yet another Masterpiece meal for our breakfasts. Dave and Tom are no slouches in the kitchen I can tell you! Then, we headed out driving south on the road that runs past the house, stopping to look around when something interesting might pop up.
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| Gentle little hills above tree bedecked grassland |
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| A beaver dam across a babbling brook |
Below a ridge we stopped at, were hundreds of sheep grazing peacefully. We heard lots of barking and we had to look hard at first to see who was barking.
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| The flocks sprawling grass pastures |
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| Some of those sheep were doggies! |
Great big ole' Great Pyrenees were guarding their flock. I always imagined there would be only one dog per flock. Come to think on it, more dogs makes more sense.
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| Dogs that earn every bowl of Alpo they eat. |
All my wrong ideas corrected, as there were at least a half dozen of the giant guardians that barked to warn us, then went back to watching out for 'their' sheep.
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| Checking out the mountain view at Dunckley Pass |
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| Carol at the Dunckley Pass overlook |
We took time at Dunckley Pass to admire the distant mountain. Tom was chock full of info at every stop but for the life of me, what was that distant mountain called again?
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| Jonni(front left) is Queen of Selfies! |
After spending time checking out the view and surroundings, we headed off again. We did a little drive by wildlife viewing.
At this point we out-of-towners though we were having a lot of fun. Then we drove over to Tom's Aunt Judy's spread. The REAL fun began! First off we were in a pen making friends with a big ole black angus bull.
Everybody wanted to feed the puppybull: a half ton of cuddly love on the hoof.
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| CHEESE! Or maybe HAAAAYYY! |
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| ♫Green Acres is the place to be! ♪♪ |
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| Charlaine shows off half of American Gothic |
Aunt Judy was great! We all went into the barn, built 1927. And there were dozens and dozens of great saddles, bits n' bridles, harness and other horsie stuff.
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| nearly a century's worth of horse tack |
Judy was a font of equestrian & ranching knowledge. I asked her why many of the bits were made of copper. She told me the copper bits (held in the horse's mouth) make the animal salivate. And that the bit being all spitty had a more comfortable mouth feel for a horse. I'd asked that question back in college and no one ever had a answer for me! I think you may have to work on a ranch, rather than study books to know some of the ins and outs of such things!
We all clambered up the stairs in the old barn, which was a kick!
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| Charlaine headed up the stairs |
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| The top of the barn - rather cathedral-like in my mind |
There was a big ole wasp nest (sans wasps), lots of cattle roping
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| Cool paper wasp nest |
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| Nifty cattle ropin' accoutrements and an old harness |
And old stories, such as the time a small child backed up & went down the chute (where hay stored up top could be dropped down into stalls). The kid was fine, the viewing adults near had heart attacks!
Then lots of photos were taken of everyone looking so cute in the upper barn door.
Outside again, Judy showed us how they brand 'em on her ranch.
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| The metal thingmajig holds hot coals that heats the branding irons |
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| Judy uses a branding iron on the dirt to show us.... |
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| The ranch's 'Quarter Z' brand. Cool! |
And there was lots of puppy play, particularly between Cousin Jonni and Judy's two ranch dogs.
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| The younger pups wuz rompin'! |
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| Who took this photo? Wasn't me! |
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| Yeah, I'm just too flippin' cute! |
We even spent some time - at my request as you can guess - checking out the seasonal hummingbirds back at Judy's house garden.
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| There were dozens of hummers like this little girlie Rufous Hummingbird |
You would think we'd had enough by that point, but oh no! We said "Goodbye for now", to Judy and got back on the road.
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| Then we finally headed back out again |
Not too far off from David & Tom's house there was a beautiful little creek, with fresh flowing mountain water...
And if you looked up on the opposite ridge, on the hillside....
There you could see pictographs of two beings, that honestly, look like extraterrestrials (ETs). I will pause here so you can have a chance to gape in awe, just as we did.
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| Where IS Erich von Däniken when you need a word with him? |
Most impressive petroglyphs I've ever seen anywhere! David said when he was a kid, he thought they were spacemen. From the mouths of babes, eh?
Our next stop was the nearby farm buildings that Tom's ancestors homesteaded. There was a barn, and an old lean-to corral.
There were several other buildings, built in the 20th or perhaps even the 19th century by the looks of them. All deserted and beautiful. I took a zillion artsy fartsy pix of them, but will spare you all but a few.
The last building we looked at before heading back to the house was where Tom's parents lived for while (I think!). These days it serves as a temp home for hunters.
We took peeks into the windows to see the 1950s style kitchen that had a 1800s sort of old firewood stove (sooo cool!). Then we peeked at the back screened in porch.
There were umpteen sets of antlers, and such. There was a noose in there and we spent a good 15 minutes making sick n' silly jokes about it, but that's what 'cousins in the wild' are apt to do from time to time.
It was a great morning and afternoon, but our day wasn't even over yet. We were going back to the house to get read for an early evening Bridge Party put on by Aunt Judy for us, in our honor!
