Bed & Breakfast

The road leading in to Faraway Ranch

This would be the view out their front door

These folks were way ahead of their time by turning their cattle ranch into a Guest Ranch. Man if I would have been around at the time I would have loved to live here.

Faraway Ranch is the pioneer homestead and later cattle and guest ranch of Swedish immigrants Neil and Emma Erickson and their children located in Chiricahua National Monument. The Erickson family lived on the ranch for 91 years before its purchase by the National Park Service in 1979.

The Faraway House fireplace was constructed from stones used in a monument to honor President James Garfield. The names on the stone were hand-carved by buffalo soldiers, the African American troops of the Tenth Cavalry, stationed here in 1885-1886. The exhibit building contains displays about the Erickson family and stories of ranch life. The house is completely furnished with original family items and is open for scheduled tours.

Even though the homestead was technically owned by Emma Peterson from Neil Erickson's death in 1937 until her own death in 1950, actual control of the ranch operations was in the hands of her daughter, Lillian, and, later, her son-in-law Ed Riggs (of the aforementioned sawmill family) from the 1920s. In 1923 Lillian married her neighbor and childhood friend, Ed Murray Riggs. Ed had experience in ranching and automobile maintenance, and he had learned aerial photography in the Army Air Corps. (His photographic expertise was important in bringing the strange rock formations of the monument to the attention of a wider audience.) Ed threw himself enthusiastically into the guest ranch business, adding bathrooms and plumbing to the ranch house, creating the "guest dining room" from the north porch, and building a swimming pool.

something I found outside one of the barns

Spring cleaning

Come spring many of us like to get in there and scrub like the dickens. Well I did just that................................Tombstone Tumbleweed needed a good cleaning with some major sprucing up.

What better person to do that (certainly not me) than the blogfairy She put up with all my questions and more questions and came up with this great new look.



I love my new look, I hope you do to................go poke around my new sweet looking blog but also check out the magic of the blog fairy she'll make all your wishes come true but only for your blog ya know.

There is a bit more tweaking.............please leave your comments.

Be aware............a re-run

Earth Day

re-usable bags

something fun

send me your photos of your bags you made and I'll post them on my blog or if you have a blog post your photos there to show off your cleverness but please let me know.

Pollenating the Desert

Easter Sunday spent on the Desert..........weather was sunny but cool. We wanted to go on a hike but it was just a bit too cool since our hike would have taken us to a bit higher elevation. Warmer weather is on the horizon. Enjoy a couple a photos of one of my favorite cactus that is just beginning to flower.

Ocotillo. (ō'kə-tē'yō) During most of the year, the long stems of the ocotillo are bare except for the rigid gray spines. However this plant's appearance changes overnight after a good rainstorm. Under the dead looking waxy gray surface, ocotillo stems are capable of enough photosynthesis to enable leafing out quickly after rains. Tiny new leaf buds spring up along the stems and within five days, the leaves expand to their full growth. In five weeks, the leaves turn yellow and drop to the ground. Such is the quick life-cycle for this part of the Ocotillo, but during that short time the leaves utilize the soil moisture to produce the plant-sugars needed for growth. Depending on the amount and number of rains, ocotillo may gain and lose their leaves three, four, or more times a year.

Ocotillo flowers, blood-red and densely clustered, appear at the stem tips in March and April. They are a major food source for hummingbirds during their northward migration. Lots of other birds and insects also visit the flowers. Ocotillo produce flat, featherlight seeds in abundance during May and June. Many of those seeds germinate during the summer monsoon season, July and August, but few if any survive until the following summer. Those that do live to their second year have a good chance of living up to two centuries. Ocotillo grows to a height of twenty or thirty feet. These unusual desert plants are found abundantly from southern California to western Texans and south into Mexico.

Keep your window open

May your walls know joy; May every room hold laughter and every window open to great possibility.
Maryanne Radmacher-Hershey

Vintage gnarly

Gnarly

has it come to this???

I love me some gambling but this would be scary HA!!!

I want one!!!

my hiking honey

It was a beautiful, wind free day.............see the sky the danged wind blew all the clouds away the day before. We are on our way to Fort Bowie where there was a bit of a standoff between Cochise and the Army. Seems the Apache Indians were everywhere in this area of South West Arizona. Lots of great history here. So we find our way down an 8 mile dusty gravel road, park in the parking lot and head off on our hike. Three hours later we discover we have taken a wrong turn and gone five miles out of our way....................the opposite direction of the fort. How do we know that HA!!!



here's the photo of the fort waaaaaaaaaay in the distance on the opposite side of the valley where we are....................CRAP!!! So stay tuna'd we are going back.

Yeah..........finally!!!

Buddy POOPED.................is that too much information for ya!!!

Buddy has been feeling pretty crummy and his thyroid levels are OK so who knows the reason not a Vet that's for sure. So I went on line to do some research and came up with mineral oil. Buddy has been getting a shot of that for a few days and it seems to be taking effect...............let's hope it continues.

We tried a lot of things like sardines packed in oil, canned pumpkin, milk, even metamucil............nothing.

It seems our beloved cat of fourteen years has a form of arthritis in his spine and pushing down where it shouldn't. Mineral oil is just making it easier for the evil one. And he has a better attitude also. So keep Buddy in your prayers and stay tuna'd.