About Havano Ranch

We started off in January making the glycerin soap. Always looking for something "different", we decided that, when the weather got warm enough, we should try to grow luffas (looffas) to go with some of the soap packages. In mid-January, Rick and I (mostly Rick—he's wonderful!) got busy in the back yard (about a half acre), clearing the weeds so we could FIND the back yard (LOL). For a couple of weeks, we even turned Shiloh loose in the yard so he could help with the weed patrol and add a little fertilizer here and there.

Once the weeds were cleared out, Rick dug a bed for the luffas. Then I mentioned that I had some cantaloupe and pumpkin seeds left over from last year...so he dug a bed for those....

...You know, it sure would be nice to grow some potatoes. We had two old tractor tires 'way in the back of the yard. Rick rolled those up to the "garden" area, filled them with dirt and we planted potatoes....

...Carrots! Shiloh likes carrots! He dug another bed. And then 15 rows for corn...another short row for eggplant...another row for cucumbers....

...Some friends gave us some basil seeds and five willow tree cuttings that already have roots growing on them....

Today, we added some rosemary and lavender to the collection. We have everything planted but the carrots and basil and those will go in tomorrow.

Oh—did I mention that in the meantime, we took on three boarders? Now we have Shiloh (who is in 7th Heaven with other horses around), Flicka (aka Tank), Bar-Bar and Fanny.

Things are progressing! The corn and pumpkins are starting to come up. Rick and I go out several times a day to cheer all the plants on, telling them what a beautiful day it is and how they're going to grow BIG and strong!

We've also added another four (or is it five?) rows for gourds...good thing we have a large back yard, huh?

And, in the course of digging, we've been finding pottery sherds all over the place! When the we found the first pieces, I thought they were broken pieces of ceramic "K-Mart" garden pots discarded by the previous owners of the property. I was VERY wrong! They are more like "Cave-Mart" pieces! These are not the garden-variety sherds, but some really OLD pieces that date back to around 1000 AD! They have popped up like weeds in places we've been walking, riding and driving over frequently...and never noticed them before now!

I also find it a little ironic that we're planting Indian corn...and all of a sudden, these pieces are popping up....

We have literally been tripping over pottery sherds all over the property! We've found them in the front yard, back yard, side yard, by the burn barrel, in the front pasture, back pasture, on the driveway, by a gate we go in and out of several times a day and even in the round pen! As of today, we now have about 3/4 of a coffee can full.

Oh yeah...the garden! Our corn is coming in and doing well, but we've had to replant the pumpkins and cantaloupe because some little critter ate the shoots that were coming up. We've also discovered that we planted the luffas too soon and have started them over with fresh seed. We're still waiting for the other things we've planted to sprout. It's almost like waiting for a baby to be born! We expect things to start emerging here in the next day or two....

This has been "research month" for us. We took a trip to our small but mighty local library. Charlene is wonderful at locating research materials and if she does not have a certain book, she will hunt it down and get it for us.

We went straight to the historical section. This is where things begin to fall into place. Rick grabbed a book off the shelf about ancient pottery and opened it at random. On the page was a map of known archaeological sites in our area. One was labeled the "Webb Site"! We checked the book out along with several others and went straight home. I started sending out e-mails to various archaeology firms, the Universities and several museums asking about the Webb Site.

Allen Dart, who is the Executive Director at Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, was kind enough to answer my e-mail the next weekend. He is wonderful! He sent me an old survey map from the 1920's of the area. I was able to show him on the map where our property is located. Seems this area has been occupied for thousands of years.

This has been a "half month" for us. The garden is growing and the corn is doing so-so. We just did not realize how bad the soil is in some parts of the yard. We've had a heck of time getting the luffas to grow. In the meantime, we planted dill, catnip, cilantro and tarragon in the front yard and they have yet to come up. We did add four grape vines and so far they are doing good. Pumpkins are doing great and the cantaloupe is coming in, but we haven't seen hide nor hair of the carrots or eggplant. We also planted a variety of gourds, which are coming along nicely.

The last half of May found us on a road trip. Rick's mom decided that she wanted to visit family in San Diego and Seattle. Since neither one of us have "real" jobs, she asked Rick if he would do the driving. We left good friend and neighbor Tammy in charge of the ranch and off we went! It was our first vacation in about eight years and while it was good to get away, we both kissed the ground when we got home.

I had never been north of Los Angeles, so once we got out of L.A., we drove up Highway 1 and then cut over to 101. What a beautiful drive! I would almost kill to have some of the pastures that I saw! Shiloh and Tank would be so fat they would look like bed ticks!

I got to spend some time with my daughter in Seattle. I hadn't seen her since she graduated from the U of A and moved up there in 2005 to work on her Master's degree, which she received last year. She is currently working as a private contractor for Microsoft. I'm so very proud of her!

Well, we've decided that we're going to go away every few weeks and leave Tammy in charge. Things really grew while we were gone! With the coming of the monsoon, almost daily rain and higher humidity, things are growing almost as fast as kudzu. We lost about a third of the corn to high winds. I have ONE carrot coming up and three cilantros. We've added a cherry tree and an apricot tree to the collection, as well as some oregano, basil, winter savory, parsley and sage. Oh—and some Chinese Chi-Chien peppers. I'm not saying they're hot, but Rick tried one and could almost instantly breathe through his ears!

It's strange...you can water and water and things just kind of plod along. One good rain and they all just explode!

We have also been setting up a booth every Saturday (weather permitting) at the Bisbee Farmer's Market. Even if we don't make any money, it's still a hoot and we have a great time people watching and getting to know the other vendors.

UGH. This has been the most uncomfortable, hot, muggy, icky summers that we've had in a long time. And it's not just me...the general consensus around town is the same. We are normally 10-20 degrees cooler than Tucson and Phoenix, but even our temperatures have been in the 100's for almost two weeks...and no rain. I truly admire our pioneer women who went though many a summer wearing long dresses and not having air conditioning!

On the other hand, with no rain, the weeds haven't been growing and we have NO mosquitoes this summer! The first year I lived here, I went through two cans of OFF! a week!

The corn is done, as are some of the gourds. Plain and simple, we planted too early. We did get some nice ears from the corn, but no where near what we wanted. We do have plenty of seed for next year, though!

The luffas are loving the heat! We now have about 20 "babies" and you can almost see them growing. I can't wait to see the end results and use them with the soap!

We lost one of our cats, "Speed Bump" to unknown causes. He was one of our escorts when we go out looking for sherds. Otherwise, he pretty much stayed close to the house. But something got him. Such is the way things are with barn cats when you live out in the middle of nowhere. RIP, Speedy.

We also lost the red mare, "Tank" this month. Her owners showed up out of the blue to take her home and got offended when I told them they had to pay their feed bill first...in cash.

And, I killed our first snake of the year the other day! It was right up against the house and behind the beans. Okay, so I over-reacted and I feel bad for having killed it, because after it was dead, I realized that it was only a King snake and harmless. But their head and body look very much like a rattlesnake, so I'd rather be safe than sorry!

We still continue to find pottery sherds, but because of the weather, we haven't ventured too far away from the house.

Looks like I get a new back patio! YeeeHaa. July 31st, we were sitting in the home office about 2 PM and the wind started to blow...and then the floor and walls began to shake...and then this really loud THUD-BANG-CRASH came from the roof. We thought the wind blew the cooler off, but it was only the patio roof making parts for our new chicken coop!

What turned out to be the wind was actually a well-placed dust devil that ripped the roof off its hurricane hangers and even stripped some of the hangers from the main roof (they're held on with 3 inch screws!). Half the roof just kind of collapsed and the other half landed about 40 feet away...on top of the propane tank. One of the 4x4's flipped around and landed on the front of the roof and I have no idea where my other two window

screens are.

But fortunately, no one was hurt and no further damage was done. The cooler is still on the roof and working as it should. With the patio roof gone, the living room is really bright now. Guess I'll have to clean house better now that I can see (darn).

This is not the Green Mojave that I almost stepped on. I pilfered this photo from a website about snakes. Heck...when they're coiled up and shaking their tail at you, they ALL look the same!

Yup—never a dull moment on the ol' Home On The Range! The first few days of August were nice and quiet. The weather has improved...it's not nearly as muggy and yucky as July was. There's something about the way the wind blows in August. You can almost feel the change saying, "The worst is over. It will cool off soon..."

August is also a good month for snakes. One morning toward the end of July, I was checking on the garden. I noticed that one of the cats was very interested in something. Coiled up between the house and a row a beans was a snake. It looked like a diamond back, but wasn't shaking its tail...just trying to get away.

I don't like to kill anything, but since I couldn't see its tail, I couldn't tell what kind of snake it was. So, I grabbed the hoe and killed it. Better safe than sorry.

Well, come to find out, it was only a harmless King snake. Unfortunately for him, King snakes are marked very much like a diamond back and have a wedge-shaped "viper" head instead of the rounded head that most Bull and other harmless snakes have.

I put his carcass on an ant hill. I've been trying to get enough snake bones to make a couple of necklaces. I put a screen over the carcass with a rock on top to hold it down. During the night, something stole my snake!

About a week later, I was going to walk from Shiloh's playpen down to the round pen and almost stepped on a green Mojave rattlesnake! You can read that story in the Horse Tales section, "What You Don't Want To Step On". Long story short—Rick killed the snake and we put his carcass on the ant hill with the screen and the rock. I'll be darned if something didn't steal that one, too!

The next day was Rick's first full day at his new job, driving a school bus. It rained ALL day. Just a nice, steady rain...which we badly needed. Of course with Rick being back to work and having to be there at 5:00 AM, this means we have to get our happy hindquarters out of bed at 3:00 AM. Well, he does, anyway. I don't have to, but I do get up and make his breakfast and pack his lunch for him.

I kind of like the early hours. At first light, I go outside and get a lot of the outside work done before it gets too hot. I'm usually done by 8:00 AM. Of course, I'm ready for lunch at 9:00 AM and a nap at 10:00 AM, but I manage to make it through the day.

We had a battle with squash bugs that I think we've won. They got into the gourds and killed off most of the vines. In our ignorance, we didn't disturb them because we didn't know what they were or what they were doing to the plants. Then they moved over into the pumpkins...and then the cantaloupes. These two were almost done anyway because we planted too soon this year, so we still weren't worried...

...THEN the little bastards moved over to the luffas. That's when we educated ourselves and found out what they were. I started spraying them with a dishsoap and water concoction, but we had to resort to buying some Sevin and hosing them with that. It seemed to do the trick, because now the little buggers are all gone. We might lose one of the luffa vines. Right now, it's too soon to tell.

September, 2009

Well, not much went on around here in September. We seemed to have won the battle with the squash bugs. They only managed to kill one luffa vine. We've picked some of the luffas. They are not quite as thick as we'd like them to be, but we do have some nice ones. It will take another season or two to get them to perfection.

With the luffas that were picked, I ground up some of the fibers and made a bar of soap. The fibers exfoliate the skin. On the first bar, I over shot the quantity of the fibers. The soap exfoliates...right down to the third layer! I won't use as much fiber in the next ones!

With the weather cooling off, I've resumed my early morning walks and sherd hunting. It's getting down into the 50's at night, so by the time the sun comes up, it's too cool for snakes, right? HA! I was out walking the other morning. Two of the cats came along to "protect" me from the wooly mammoths and giant sloths. I'm not sure who is supposed to protect who. They ran ahead, and were very interested in one of the small sage bushes. I noticed something bright yellow under the bush...and it started to rattle...and move. I use one of the garden hoes for a walking/digging stick. I got the cats away from the snake and took another look at it. It was the most beautiful bull snake I had ever seen! I never realized that they've learned to imitate a rattle snake. He wasn't shaking his tail, but the rattling sound was his hiss! He was about five feet long and was a beautiful bright yellow with brown markings.

I left the snake alone and he began to slither away. These are the kind we don't kill (or try not to). They eat mice and other rodents.

Once the snake was a safe distance away the cats took off back toward the house, leaving me alone. I guess they figured they had done their job in protecting me.

We also got a new boarder this month. A huge, red Quarter horse named "Beau". He's an older fellow and came down from Phoenix. His owner said that at one time (before she owned him), Beau was a cutting horse. His front knees are blown and he has arthritis, but that doesn't seem to bother him. Judging by the scars on his front legs, he must have been a champion at one time. Whoever owned him spent thousands of dollars on various surgeries, trying to keep him in shape.

I have been given the pleasure of taking the photos for the Bisbee Home Tour calendars this year. The photo work is done and at the printers, so the calendars should be ready in the next week or so (early October). The Bisbee Home Tour is the last weekend in November. Ten homes are put on display. Most of the homes this year were formally miner's shacks that have been renovated to the max. They are beautiful! There is also a silent art chair auction, where decorated chairs are auctioned off with the proceeds going to the Bisbee Women's Club. They then donate the proceeds to one of the charity groups in Bisbee. If you're in the area at that time, make time to take the tour!
The chair to the right is a little girl's rocking chair that I did for last year's auction. I also did an office chair with a cactus/sunset painting on the seat and chair back.
I have a chair to do for this year's auction...guess I better get busy!

October, 2009

October was kind of a quiet month. I'm another year older and the event was celebrated by helping Rick paint part of the underside of his parent's patio roof and then sharing a nice dinner after. It was great! Rick's folks are wonderful and fun to be with, so I didn't mind one bit getting splattered with paint.

I also had the fun opportunity to take the photos of the homes for this year's Bisbee Home Tour calendar. We did the photos in two weekends and the calendar came out great. If you're in the Bisbee area at Thanksgiving, get a ticket and tour the homes. They are fabulous! The houses were old mining shacks that have been renovated to the max. Good decorating ideas abound on this tour!

We've harvested most of the loofas. Some were harvested naturally and then we had to cut quite a few off the vines because of a short freeze period we had at the end of the month. They're not quite the quality we would like to see, but they are by far totally functional and wonderful to bathe with.

We have also returned to the Bisbee Farmer's Market on Saturdays. Halloween was quite a hoot. A lot of people dressed in costume...vendors as well as customers...and wandered around the park. I really enjoy my Saturdays at the FM, even if we don't sell anything. There is a very...diverse...crowd of people in Bisbee and it's always fun to people watch.

November, 2009

The beginning of November has not been a good month for creatures. Maybe the full moon had something to do with it. Rick hit a deer on his way to work on the first Monday of the month. It didn't damage the car and when he went back to check on the deer, he couldn't find it. Hopefully it wasn't injured too badly and will just be a little stiff and sore for a few days.

The afternoon of the 3rd, I was sitting in the living room. The radio was on and sometimes we don't get very good reception, so there was a little static. But this static sounded a little different. Our permanent inside cat, Trixie, had her nose pressed against the screen on the front door and was very focused on something outside. I got up to see what she was looking at. HOLY DIRTY WORD! At the bottom of the front steps, in the flower bed to the left and up against the house was a VERY ticked off and coiled up rattle snake! There was also a semi-circle of seven cats sitting a safe distance away from the snake, but they were starting to get curious and closer.

I think it's rather appropriate that he stopped in front of the fake tombstone that I had out for Halloween, because he didn't live long after that.

I grabbed the camera and phone and carefully went down the front steps. I was out of striking distance, but like to run on the side of caution. We had a garden hoe leaning up against the house, which I grabbed, with the intention of using it as a weapon. We don't like to kill things. Everything serves its purpose. However, they don't need to serve their purpose on the front doorstep!
The cats were getting more curious and I found myself swinging the hoe more at them to keep them away. In the meantime, "Slithering Sam" is getting more and more agitated.
Since I was home alone and couldn't get a good swing at him with the hoe or shovel, I did the next best thing...I called 911 and a sheriff came out to do the deed. Hey—I'm very much at peace with my inner chicken! I would have been braver had Rick been home and hollered for him to come kill it. Before the sheriff arrived, I managed to get some good photos of Slithering Sam.

The next day, Rick took the snake photos to work with him. As it turns out, one of the guys (Dale) that works part time is also in the snake removal business. He looked at the closeup photo and said, "Female...about 2 years old."

Female...great. Hopefully she hasn't deposited a batch of young'uns under the house....or in the barn. So "Slithering Sam" is actually "Slithering Samantha".

Anyway, Dale said that Western diamondback males only have three stripes on their tales just before the rattles. Females have four to five stripes and also have thicker bodies. Huh...who'da thunk it? They all look the same when they're coiled up and shaking their tails!

As for the age, they shed their skin about four times a year. Each time they shed, they add a button to their rattle. She had eight buttons, therefore she's about two years old.

The sheriff buried her head out in the desert and Rick and I are going to skin her out this weekend and start tanning her hide. In the meantime, don't look in my freezer!

On the 4th, I managed to kill one of the two gold fish we have in Shiloh's water tank. We put the fish in there the beginning of summer to eat any mosquito larve that may have been laid, and to help keep the tank clean. They do their best, but it's a big tank and they are little fish. So...it was time to dump the tank and rinse it out.

I filled a small bucket with water from the hose, caught the fish and placed them in the bucket. I then proceeded to dump the tank and power spray the inside. As I was putting the fresh water into the tank, I noticed the fish in the bucket were not doing well. As soon as there was enough water in the tank, I stuck my hand into the bucket to catch the fish to put them back into the tank...and realized what I did.

The water hose is black and 100 feet long. It had been laying in the sun. Even though the air was cool, the water coming out of the hose was hot enough to take a shower with. DOH!!! I was cooking the fish! Where was my brain?

Once the fish got back into the water tank, they started to swim around and I breathed a sigh of relief. When I went out to check on them an hour later, one was doing the side stroke on top of the water while the other one was swimming normally at the bottom of the tank. Crap. The poor little fish is buried close to the tank.

The afternoon of the 5th was almost a play by play repeat of the 3rd, right down to the hour. This time, I was in the kitchen when the buzzing began. I looked out the front door but couldn't see the snake. The cats were all laying around on the patio and very indifferent to this snake.

I went out the back door and walked around to the front. Sure enough, in almost the same exact spot was another rattlesnake! This one was not quite as big as the first, but she (yes...SHE) was very ticked off. I grabbed the shovel and now she too, is in the freezer.

Rick skinned both snakes over the weekend and the hides—with rattles—came out nicely.

Monday morning, November 9th, Rick is on his way to work. He called me at 5 AM to tell me that his day is done. Most of the driving on his 50 mile commute over to Sierra Vista is through open range. He may or may not see another vehicle on the road until he gets close to Sierra Vista and it is dark, dark, dark out there. Open range means there are few, if any, fences along the road to contain livestock. This time of year, the deer and javelinas are coming down out of the mountains. Cattle might be present...and donkeys might be wandering around.

Four black donkeys were standing/crossing the road when Rick came around the curve. Three of the donkeys made it. Rick hit the fouth donkey broadside and threw it about 50 feet up the road. By the time he got pulled over, he was even with the donkey, who was laying on the center yellow stripe of the road. Fortunately, the donkey was killed instantly. Rick was a little shook up, but otherwise was uninjured. He called 911 and then called me. Two cars passed by and Rick was able to get them to slow down. It was almost 40 minutes before any type of Law Enforcement showed up, which was a member of our Border Patrol. When he showed up, he parked on the other side of the road with all his lights on. It's really amazing how people will NOT slow down...even when they see flashing lights.

This is what a car looks like after an encounter with a donkey. Luckily, the donkey didn't go through the windshield.

When the sheriff showed up, the Border Patrol officer left. Since it's now about 5:30 a.m., traffic is beginning to pick up on the road and it's still quite dark outside. Rick and the sheriff are trying to get people to slow down, as a big Waste Management (garbage) truck came down the road the other way. He barely slowed down until the last moment...and ran over the donkey, dragging it about 50 feet back to where he was hit. The driver of the Waste Management truck got out to see if there was any damage to his vehicle, hopped back into his truck and drove off. Nice.

Someone with a chain finally showed up and they were able to drag the donkey off the road. By now, it's 7:00 a.m.. Rick called friend Walter to ask for a ride home. Walt came and got Rick and he was back home around 8:30. Now we had to get the car home.

Fortunately, some friends of ours are starting a badly needed towing business here in Elfrida. We called them, and they were able to pick up the car and bring it home. Whew!

So now we had to get the El Camino fired up and running. We hadn't driven it since January because of a leak in the brake line. Turned out it needed a new Master Cylinder. Our local mechanic in town was too busy to do the work, so we called a guy out of McNeal who does mobile repairs. He came out to look at the car. When he went to leave HIS van wouldn't start!

Wednesday, the mechanic came back, put in the new Master Cylinder and adjusted the carburetor. The El Camino now runs...and stops!

The rest of the month went without critter incident and ended well. The Bisbee Home Tour was a smashing success, with people from all over coming down to take the tour. Rick drove one of the shuttle busses and had a blast playing tour guide and getting folks to their destinations on the tour. I still don't know if my chair was sold at the auction...all the results are not in yet. And, dang it...I forgot to take a picture of it before I took it over there!

Thanksgiving was wonderful. We had a LOT to be thankful for this year and celebrated the day at Rick's parents' house with his sister Judy, her husband Rocky, and two sons, Chase and Tye. The food was great, we ate way too much and just had a relaxing good time.

December, 2009

Well, compared to November, the last month of the year was pretty tame. No car crashes and no major disasters. I even managed to get my Christmas cards out on time!

Rick was off from work during the Christmas break. We had planned on doing a lot of outside projects, such as burn off some weeds and undergrowth from around the yard perimeter and get the garden dug up for spring planting. Wouldn't you know it? The weather turned cold, rainy, snowy and windy for most of the two week break! Needless to say, we didn't get as much done outside as we planned.

Christmas Eve, we watched "A Christmas Story", which has become one of our traditions. As many times as we've seen the movie, we still get a kick out of it and speculate on a sequel about Randy and Ralphie some 20 years later, where Randy (the whining younger brother) becomes a child psychologist. We haven't decided if Ralphie becomes a high-dollar sniper or a brilliant scientist....

Christmas Day, we went to Bisbee to have a wonderful lasagna dinner with Rick's parents, sister Judy, her husband Rocky and their two boys, Chase and Ty.

What did I get for Christmas? It's not about gifts. Rick asked me several times what I wanted. He gives me Christmas every day. Since New Year's Eve is our anniversary, all I ask from him is another year together. His parents gave me a cell phone. The cordless house phone only goes so far, and I tend to do silly things when no one is around like wander around on the back part of the property or ride Shiloh. When you're young and fall off a horse, you bounce. When you get to my age and fall off a horse, you splatter. I splatter like spilled milk. With the cell phone, I can call 911 and at least tell them where to look for the circling vultures if I can't hobble back to the house!

All in all, 2009 was a pretty darned good year. We made it. We still have our health, the love of a family and a couple of crumpled up bucks in our pocket. The lights are still on, there's hay in the barn, gas in the car and food on the table. Happy New Year, everyone!