Fall-Winter 2005
The busiest thing going on in Aug/Sept is the pronghorn antelope hunt. Here's a couple of shots I took of a buck, and remember, I'm using just a normal old Olympus digital camera here!
Cattle shipping went very well this year and once again, we used a helicopter. It worked extremely well and was a huge stress relief on both us and the cattle. Nothing much exciting happened, although I did sell the CA-X guitar to the helicopter pilot. He really liked it and so I just let him have it.
Above: Early morning shot at the "south ranch", approx. 40 miles south of me. As you can see, the terrain varies quite a bit more. I took this while helping gather cattle down there. Just thought it was a cool scene with the windmill, the early morning light, and the mesas in the background.
Above: And here's a shot of a moonrise over Tripod Mountain. I was out filling some tubs up with water before bringing the generator for the winter.
We finally got a well in. The "old man" came out with the "big rig" and "got 'er done". It took him a solid week and he went to 410', but he got a decent well just in time for me to use it to temporarily pump water to the main tub while we shipped cattle. I merged cattle from 2 pastures into 1 and boy, I really needed that water right then! Total cost of new well- $18,000.
Now that cattle are shipped, I'm pretty much settling down to guitar work and routine ranch maintenance. I hooked up with another local dirt rider and started doing some riding with him. In late September, I splurged and bought a very nice used Kawasaki KX125 to ride on a newly opened MX track in Raton. I'm learning a lot from riding the smaller bike. My new riding buddy wanted to do a hare-scramble race in Berthoud, CO and I've been saying I'd like to do one more race before I get too old, so I agreed to do it. Read my report here.