Ranch Hands

'Tis time to be ranch hands and get crackin' on our chores here at 2nd Chance Ranch.  Susun's gonna saddle up her paint roller to give her shed a fresh look.  She sez she's gonna spend all day on her shed, doing extreme makeover stuff inside, too.  I'm gonna wrassle to metal posts and plant 'em near the watershed.  Last summer someone found a way to drive right into our front yard and then around the ranch in their truck.  The posts will be set in concrete and placed to block that avenue of entry.  That pretty well should take the whole day.  If it doesn't, we'll saddle up the backpack sprayer and resume Weeds Wars.  Exciting stuff, huh?

Yesterday went as planned.  Susun did 13 loads of laundry.  She's a Saint.  No doubt about it.  I spent more than 3 hours at Tom's getting the most thorough tutorial I've ever received in any endeavor.  Tom's awesome and it's great to spend so much quality time with him.  After refilling 24 gallons t the Water Store, we went down and dealt with this year's federal and state taxes.  Our tax person, Helen, has been a great gift to us over the years.  She's a Magician as far as we're concerned.  It's great to have last year's taxes finished and paid for.

The rest of Friday afternoon was easily forgettable until campfire time.  Both Robin and Gary came over and stayed late.  We had a great visit.  Susun whipped up some turkey burgers to finish off the day.

Snow melt water continues to flow in the Verde and its tributaries.  Each trib is running roughly 200 cfs and the Verde at Camp Verde is about 800.  That's also roughly its flow into Horseshoe reservoir.  The Salt isn't doing anything, trickling a mere 335 into Roosevelt with barely enough water to duckie the day stretch.  The big news (relatively speaking) is that Grand Falls is running 500 cfs. That's not huge by any means but it is putting on a show--a minor show--but still a show.  Warm weather is progged to continue so this will be the tepid peak of our runoff this season. Enjoy it while you can!

Cheers, jp