The View From Our Place

(an old fence post standing in the middle of the pasture away from all other fences)

There are two parts to the ranch we live one. The original part of the ranch is where Malcolm's parents live. The other part is about 7 miles south of there. Its a ranch that was purchased by Malcolm's father a few years ago. It is commonly referred to as "the south place" and its where we live.

The south place is composed of I don't know how many beautiful acres. God put a lot of care into the creation and upkeep of this part of the land. Human's, on the other hand, have failed to follow His example of care. The previous owners pretty much let things fall into disrepair. The place looks a sight better than it did a year ago, after Malcolm's father had the scrap guy from town come out and haul off an untold number of old tractors, vehicles, tractor parts, vehicles parts, machinery, old irrigation pipe, and a wild accumulation of other things metal from the place. It had just been piled, rather randomly, all over the ranch, but particularly around the old buildings and on the hills surrounding.


The corrals and old barns are mostly beyond repair. Its just a matter of finding the time to tear them down and rebuild...something that is not on the priority list. Malcolm and his dad did manage to take a morning off that should have been spent haying to patch up a small pasture/corral for me so I could bring down my two yearling colts to play with. (I say play because I hardly call what I did "training.") It was much apprecaited. It turned out the whole day of haying was lost because by the time they were done with my project, the neighbor had called to say one of the bulls was in with their cows. Rachelle and I road out to retrieve said bull and discovered it was more than that. It was several cows and calves, a bull, and an entire section of fence down...again. (its been a problem fence between these two places for some time apparently) Anyway, what I was getting at was that after doing a little fencing project for me, they had to go out and repair that one too, and by the time they were done, the day was lost. I guess thats just the way things go, but I was oh so appreciative for my little horse pasture, and enjoyed it thuroughly my entire time home. So thank you Malcolm and Malcolm for your time and effort. It meant a lot.


Back to where I was going. So the place is kind of dilapidated, which to a ranchers eye is appalling and a mess and useless, but to my eye (and parts of Malcolm's) its beautiful, artistic, and quaint. I'm realistic...to be useful, the place has to be gutted and redone, and I look forward to the potentially great ranch that it will be someday. But I hate to see the old buildings done away with.


One of the old buildings that will eventually meet its demise at the hands of Malcolm's bulldozer, is this old house.



It is, if not the first, one of the first houses on this ranch. It stands behind Rachelle's house. It is filled with old junk from broken furniture to old jars, an old smashed bathtub, and much more. It has, on the faded torn wallpaper, water marks that are shoulder high from where Box Elder creek flooded several decades ago. There is an old 1930's green (you know the color I mean?) cabinet that is built into the wall, an old cook stove, and a treasure of other useless but really cool things. The windows are mostly gone and the place smells of mice, mold, flood and age, but it is, to me, so amazing to see it still standing. I have no age on it. I don't know when it was built, probably not as long ago as I like to imagine. It has seen so much.



This is the outhouse that stands back a ways behind the old house. I dont' get to close...it looks snaky, but I've been to the door and its definatly an old outhouse, which to some is gross, but I think its cool that its still around. Its structures like this one that, if you close your eyes to Rachelle's house and mine, you could almost imagine you'd steppe back in time.



I dont' have pictures of it but there is also an old cellar dug into the hillside. It was really neat because there are cactus across the doors threshold and they had big yellow flowers on them when we got home, but they had wilted and fallen when I was taking my pictures. The old chicken house is neat and one of the buildings that is not slotted for distruction. Rachelle and I have high hopes of making use of it one day soon.



A couple of the old buildings that will probably be gone in a few years. With no livestock around, the grass and weeds own the place, but they give the place a pieceful, undisturbed look.



Away from the buildings there are a million little "secret" places I love to go. They are not really secret, everyone knows about them because they are common places on the ranch, but probably not everyone knows that I love to go out to them and, well....just be there.

I love windmills. This is one of the windmills on the ranch that is a place I like to go. This time home Malcolm used his bulldozer to build a new dam below it to catch overflow and rain water. I was curious what kind of picture I could get with my camera as the wind spun the blades in a blur. Well, my camera took a picture of a "still" windmill. Really it was quite a windy day. I was surprised at the shot.









There are a million sights to see and drink in when I'm home. I can't possibly put them all on here, and pictures truly don't do it justice. Maybe one day you'll get to see it for yourself. I'd love to share it with you.