When do you call where you live remote??

2007-10-27T15:50:00.000-06:00

Ok, let's talk about remote living...

Like I said, you have to drive at least 65 miles just to buy gas for your truck or a coke. Your cell phones haven't worked for the last hour of driving time coming home. An hour into your trip to town for groceries, you are still on the ranch. 35 miles of this trip is gravel. If it rains, either stay home, or don't come home. Mail only comes 3 days a week, if it hasn't rained or snowed. If you have a home phone, it works most of the time. The ground stays white in the winter non-stop for 5 months straight. Hopes for repairmen are slim to none, so you'd better be handy. Lots of electrical outages, so you save computer work frequently. Oh, internet? Two choices: dial-up or satellite, which is ample as long as there are no storms or high winds. Trash service - bears. Quality of drinking water? Depends on how new & good your well is. Filters work great. Your pantry is as big as your utility room. You don't buy ice cream at the grocery store in the summer time. You join the volunteer fire department and learn to fight wildland and structure fires so that you have a social life. And, you wonder if you're smart for doing it when they issue you your "tent" for cover in "bad" forrest fires. You get a "big" dog to take with you, along with your pistol, when you go hiking or riding by yourself. You plant flowers in an effort to make it feel like home and the next morning they've been eaten to the ground by elk. Weavels are protein. (just kidding on that one!) Your neighbor bakes in a solar oven on their front steps & save rain water (when & if it rains) to wash their hair. You don't leave home without water, chapstick, flashlight, matches, coat, good boots to walk in, and in my case, my gps.

The above aerial picture, I took of our camp (cowboy's term for where you live). You can click on it to zoom it in more. In case you can't see it, it's by the dirt tank (pond). There are "no" county roads north of us running east & west for at least 50 miles. Actually, most of the country around the camp is Wilderness which means - "No Motorized Vehicles Allowed", which means - no roads - period. Mode of travel is horseback or hiking by foot. Remote enough for you?

Picture below is to the south and east of our camp.

Below is taken in the north pasture:

And another one in the same pasture, below, with my husband in it: See why the gps?? Two pastures have over 30,000 acres in them. Smallest is around 7,000 acres. Total area this ranch covers is 188,000 acres.

And a good one to end with, below we are driving cattle to another pasture. The dark spots in the foreground is malpais, or lava rock, which becomes much more dense the further north you go.

Well, since I've mentioned malpais, I might as well give you an aerial of the malpais. These volcanoes erupted thousands of years ago causing these lava flows. Remember, these are taken from a long ways above. The green you see are large ponderosa pine trees. The brown area in the background is the famous "Hole In The Wall" as written about in Louis L'Amour's book "Flint".

Next post I'll show you some winter scenes around our camp.....

My first elk encounter

2007-10-25T21:10:00.000-06:00

Moving from a ranch in the beautiful flint hills of Oklahoma to the High Desert and Mountains of New Mexico has given me the opportunity to experience elk for the first time in my life. There is a dirt tank (pond) about 200 yards from our house at the camp where my husband and I live. Early one morning I could hear splashing in the tank & grabbed my camera in hopes of some elk pictures. It was pretty chilly as I was still in my pj's & slippers and in the 40's. As I topped the back side of the dam on my belly, it dawned on me that what I was hearing in the water might not be elk or mule deer. A record mountain lion had been killed just behind our house & bear signs were seen a lot. I still had to look. Here are some pictures. The sun was just coming up and I was shaking from the cold & excitement, so they're a little hazy. Hope you enjoy them.

New Mexico Outdoor Exposure by Denise

When do you call where you live remote??

My first elk encounter