ranunculus

A few days ago a young man contacted me about seeing Devil's Den.  That is an erosion area on the Ranch that was once a popular destination for people from Ukiah. It isn't far and it can be spectacular, but it has changed a lot in the 140 years since the newspaper article that he had found was published. 
Even in the last few years Devil's Den, as a formation, has changed a lot. The grey pinnacles are just mud and a lot of rock, but they are a little less erosion prone than some of the dirt around them.  Here is our guest standing on a really, really steep slope with one of the smaller pinnacles at the mouth of Devil's den. Note the dog overhead.( Pics )

Yesterday our friend Dave G. (hunter Dave to distinguish him from the three or four other Dave's up here), came up with his co-worker John. We piled into the Gator and drove down to the Red Barn where Cody was just getting the cows out of the exclusion area. Don't know who left the gate open but now I have to check all the drip irrigation again. Grrr.
We went on up, up, up the hill to an area I call Skye Meadows. At the top of the meadows we parked the Gator and walked up perhaps 1/3 of a mile to the boundary gate.  I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of flowers I don't see often, and some of the views. Putting them behind a cut. ( Read more... )

When I was in my late teens I began telling my parents that I wanted to be left the Ranch, not money from the sale of the Ranch.  They reacted with great surprise and disbelief.  I'm nothing if not persistent, so for the next almost 20 years I kept saying the same thing. I had nightmares for a number of years involving bulldozers and house sites on the Ranch.  Ultimately my parents did leave me some land of my own, and a 1/3 interest in a much larger piece of land (all of which has been generally called The Ranch in this journal.) As a family we put a conservation easement on The Ranch in 1999 something that had long been a goal of my parents.  After that the bulldozer nightmares stopped. My Father passed away in the early 1990's but Mom only died 6 (?) years ago.  Two and a half years ago my sisters said they wanted to sell our co-owned property.  Donald and I said we wanted to buy.  Six months later we had nailed down a price and an agreement on how payments would be made.  Since then it has taken at least 10 lawyers (one sister changed lawyers 4 times), extreme unhappiness from all parties and a great deal of frustration to get to today.  They both agreed to sign the current purchase agreement, and in fact one has already done so.  I think this negotiation is the hardest thing I've ever done. 

In some ways the extremely long time frame helped.  I learned a number of things I didn't know about real estate transactions, local land taxes and the IRS; all of which have helped shape the current contract. 

All in all, this is something I have wanted for more than 40 years. I'm really, really excited about it!!!

Today was day 2 on Howell Creek with an excavator, lots of wood, and 95+F temps. Really, it is supposed to start cooling down in October!! After getting in and having dinner at almost 10pm I got a slow start to the morning, arriving at Howell Creek about 8:45. John and his lovely wife Bobbie met me, along with Missy the hound puppy. Missy tried gallantly and persistently to play with Tazlina. Tazzy was confused, and repeatedly groweled and barked at her "tormentor". Silly pups. I'd say: give it a week and those two would be playing happily with each other.
The night before John and I had identified a likely tree to cut down for the fourth and final log. Choosing a tree was a frustrating process, mostly including an analysis of how much rot would be in any given tree that was tall enough for our needs. We settled on a very tall, stately tree, close to 50 feet tall. It proved to be 35" wide at the base, all but 8" of which was soft, completely unusable rot. It wasn't as if we hadn't been warned, several big branches had dropped off the tree in recent years, an indication of potential problems. We moved further out and found a likely target in the back of a grove of smaller trees. Cut for length and pictures!
( Read more... )