12/1/22: Welcome to December

Not sure what happened to November, other than a lovely Thanksgiving, but December is here, like it or not! To celebrate, Alan and I took a hike on the Kitchen Mesa Trail at Ghost Ranch. We didn’t make it to the end, as Clair de Lune wasn’t able to hop up the steep chimney (Zane Gray scrambled right up), but I wanted to share some photos of this beautiful place.

In other news, we have made some progress here at 4Fords: check out the finished solar inverter closet on the back porch, built to keep the dust out. Alan wanted to buy a British Telephone Booth for it, but we couldn’t find one. (The other door goes to the Cold Room.)

Having a working composting toilet has been a wonderful step forward in the process of renovation. So far, it works great, but takes some getting used to for sure. Strangely, we both still enjoy using the outhouse during the day. But at 3 a.m……..

Zane Gray sprained his neck about 10 days ago. For several days we had to carry him everywhere and hand feed him. The vet put him on steroids, sedating meds and anti-inflammatories, and he’s been healing well, as you can tell from the photos of our hike today. We’ll need to be more cautious when playing with him; he LOVES to do acrobatics.

Finally, for you gold-panning fans, here’s an interesting pic from another hike we took last week at Hopewell Lake east of Tierra Amarilla.