The MisAdventure Ranch

Our Home in the Colorado Mountains

April 22 through October 6, 2008

On top of Wolf Creek Pass
Near Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

     We arrived Tuesday April 22 evening at the MisAdventure Ranch, near Westcliffe, Colorado. We had planned on taking 2 days to move from Navajo Lake in New Mexico, but both of us were homesick and felt the need to get to The MisAdventure Ranch. David decided that he wanted to take the full roundtrip train ride in Durango, so we will wait till that route opens and return to ride the train to Silverton. The drive over Wolf Creek Pass was spectacular, the day was beautiful, the scenery fantastic. The 5er did its usual fine job of pushing us down the pass and the new brakes on the Mighty 350 held up just fine.

Bill, Evert, Lynda, JoEllen and David finished over 28 yards of Redi-Mix between Thursday and Saturday, a bunch of very tired people!      We are now starting to lay concrete cinder blocks on the below grade walls, soon the lumber will go up.

We have had snow and freezing temps, even had the trailer water line freeze up 3 times until spring finally arrived here at the ranch. Lots of activities this summer, as Evert and Lynda are building a garage, and David and JoEllen are as well. We found an excavator that did our digging for a reasonable price, and we have now poured the concrete on both garages.

Thursday, June 5. Evert and Lynda's concrete slab.

Saturday, June 7. David and JoEllen's garage pour.

Ace concrete crew and three tired guys.

Ranch Visitors

     We were lucky enough to see a Bobcat walking across our ranch early one morning. No bears have been seen yet, but one visited the hummingbird feeder and bit holes into it the night of June 12. Father's Day brought a visitor, our first bear seen. This picture was taken out the side window of the trailer. There is a tag in this bears ear, number 729, my guess would be that this bear has been in trouble before. This fellow did not bother us as he just walked through the forest

     Then on Thursday morning, June 19, another bear decides to visit and pose for pictures through the trailer windows. This furry beast nosed around the camp for quite a while, and we scared him off after he reached down and bit the Hughesnet Satellite dish cable.

     Bears have also been visiting our new trash containers as well. When we arrived at the Ranch, David found some thick plastic haz-mat cleanup containers with screw on lids. Although there are teeth holes in the lids, the bears got nothing for their trouble. Looks like these barrels are going to work well. We keep the bird and squirrel food in one, trash in the other.

     Many different birds enjoy the sunflower seed we are feeding them. JoEllen found this neat bird feeder on ebay. The feeder has perches that give way when larger birds land on them. We have an enormous flock of Piñon Jays that are real pigs with the seed.

We have placed a deer block about 20 feet out the window of the trailer. Its great fun to watch these skittish animals feed and drink at times from the bird bath. This is a picture of our valley's 3 eared deer. We noticed him as soon as we arrived, but could not get close enough for a picture until now. This looks like a healed injury, not a freak of nature.

These elk were in the meadow next to Colorado Highway 96, less than 5 road miles from the Ranch. The early evening brought them out for water at the small pond located here.

     The deer have not had little ones yet, so pictures of the fawns will follow later.