April 17th was my birthday and along with it came this years first humming bird so I set up one of our feeders. And today, Sunday, the first frog of the season appeared at one of our two ponds. The 
plants are getting green and starting to bud and some are even flowering and it is warm enough to ware shorts and a tee shirt.
The birds are selecting which bird houses they want to raise their new families in. This year the bluebirds are in fierce competition with the sparrows who have decided that our bluebird houses are just what they need for themselves. So I suppose that sometime today I will need to start on some additional bluebird houses. Like 11 isn't quite going to be enough this year.
The renegade raven is back already this year! Last year he discovered that he could get lunch in the form of our goldfish from our ponds. I caught him circling the ponds already this morning
and sent him on his way. I am sure that he will return on another day. The interesting thing is that on some days we are within a flight pattern which sees hundreds of ravens commuting back and forth from the evening nesting to the south to their day job to the north and back again at the end of the day, yet this one raven has not shared his find with any of his buddies. On two separate occasions which I observed last year, he fended off an osprey that seemed interested in the ponds as well. Yes, life here in the desert can be interesting.
I know that I have been pretty busy this winter with the solar business, skiing and carving so I failed to post the news about our new arrival. A couple of months back I took Lady Wolf,
the dog that adopted our house, to the vet to get her required by law shots. While there this skinny, half shaved black cat comes over and sits on my lap just as if he knew me and that this was something he always did. So before I leave while paying the bill I asked what's the story with the cat. So I'm told that back in November one of their clients brings this almost dead road kill in and plops down a hundred bucks to have his face reconstructed. Ted, our vet than adds an additional thousand plus bucks of his time to reconstruct the critter's broken leg and hip and decided that he would make a good mascot, wrong. As we found out that Lucky (our name for him) was much too hyper for that job. Just not quite mellow enough. Anyway, the net day on my way back from skiing I picked him up and took him home. Now we have Dieblo (their name) living at the ranch with us. Now that he has been with us for awhile it is uncanny just how much he acts like Critter my New York black cat.
I just got back from feeding the pond goldfish and again chasing away Mr. Raven. Now there are two frogs in the front pond.
The Petaca a waterway that runs near our Solar Ranch has been flowing for the past few days. Normally the Pataca is a dry waterway, having water sometimes after a heavy rain storm. Now it is flowing like a small river. This only happens when there is a good winter runoff from the snows. Since living here, this is only the second time that it has run for more than a day. They tell me that on a good winter of snow, it runs from Wolf Creek Ski Resort all the way to the Rio Grande and can run for a week or so.
Well that is enough for now, it is about lunch time and then it is off to start some new birdhouses and this year I am going to finish all my inside doors. I worked out a deal with Peter Templeton and his skilled team is going to do the assembly of each of these nine doors which will free me up to do the carving on them. That will be nine steps closer to finishing the house. After that I will attack the stone work, leaving only a few minor items. I may even make a new main entrance door while I'm at it.
Spring sure is a time of renewal and like the plants, we humans are also renewed with new energy. So get out there and enjoy this beautiful season.
Terry R. Wolff
PS I am doing this Blog on my laptop and do not have any images of Lucky in it so I will post his mug on here in the future.
plants are getting green and starting to bud and some are even flowering and it is warm enough to ware shorts and a tee shirt.The birds are selecting which bird houses they want to raise their new families in. This year the bluebirds are in fierce competition with the sparrows who have decided that our bluebird houses are just what they need for themselves. So I suppose that sometime today I will need to start on some additional bluebird houses. Like 11 isn't quite going to be enough this year.
The renegade raven is back already this year! Last year he discovered that he could get lunch in the form of our goldfish from our ponds. I caught him circling the ponds already this morning
and sent him on his way. I am sure that he will return on another day. The interesting thing is that on some days we are within a flight pattern which sees hundreds of ravens commuting back and forth from the evening nesting to the south to their day job to the north and back again at the end of the day, yet this one raven has not shared his find with any of his buddies. On two separate occasions which I observed last year, he fended off an osprey that seemed interested in the ponds as well. Yes, life here in the desert can be interesting.I know that I have been pretty busy this winter with the solar business, skiing and carving so I failed to post the news about our new arrival. A couple of months back I took Lady Wolf,
the dog that adopted our house, to the vet to get her required by law shots. While there this skinny, half shaved black cat comes over and sits on my lap just as if he knew me and that this was something he always did. So before I leave while paying the bill I asked what's the story with the cat. So I'm told that back in November one of their clients brings this almost dead road kill in and plops down a hundred bucks to have his face reconstructed. Ted, our vet than adds an additional thousand plus bucks of his time to reconstruct the critter's broken leg and hip and decided that he would make a good mascot, wrong. As we found out that Lucky (our name for him) was much too hyper for that job. Just not quite mellow enough. Anyway, the net day on my way back from skiing I picked him up and took him home. Now we have Dieblo (their name) living at the ranch with us. Now that he has been with us for awhile it is uncanny just how much he acts like Critter my New York black cat.I just got back from feeding the pond goldfish and again chasing away Mr. Raven. Now there are two frogs in the front pond.
The Petaca a waterway that runs near our Solar Ranch has been flowing for the past few days. Normally the Pataca is a dry waterway, having water sometimes after a heavy rain storm. Now it is flowing like a small river. This only happens when there is a good winter runoff from the snows. Since living here, this is only the second time that it has run for more than a day. They tell me that on a good winter of snow, it runs from Wolf Creek Ski Resort all the way to the Rio Grande and can run for a week or so.
Well that is enough for now, it is about lunch time and then it is off to start some new birdhouses and this year I am going to finish all my inside doors. I worked out a deal with Peter Templeton and his skilled team is going to do the assembly of each of these nine doors which will free me up to do the carving on them. That will be nine steps closer to finishing the house. After that I will attack the stone work, leaving only a few minor items. I may even make a new main entrance door while I'm at it.
Spring sure is a time of renewal and like the plants, we humans are also renewed with new energy. So get out there and enjoy this beautiful season.
Terry R. Wolff
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