Bear Bath

Bear Bath
Originally uploaded by cieuxautres.

A picture remarkably similar to this made the Desert Democratic paper a couple of days ago. SkyGirl and some friends went to the Stuff-a-Bear factory and make stuffed bears to donate to the Children's Hospital. Of course, they also found time to make some for themselves. The bear SkyGirl has is the one she ended up keeping. SkyGirl named him...oh wait, the blog is now incognito, so I should give him a pseudonym...SkyGirl named him Lion.

She's giving Lion a bath under the air jets, blowing off all his fuzz. He later got a cowboy hat, and after we got home, stickers all over his body.

This past weekend, the whole family went up into the high country to visit a farm. The farmer purchased the farm back in the 70s, and it started out as a commune of sorts. But most of the hippie-ish members couldn't handle the absolute remoteness and the hard work necessary to keep it running. Except for the man who initiated the project, they had all left by the third year. Now he runs it mostly as an education center and retreat. People come by and study herbal medicines and wilderness survival. He sells some food when he has extra, and he has a small mail-order business dealing in herbal remedies.

To say the farm is remote doesn't really do it justice. We had a two hour drive from the desert city into the Lone Ranger National Forest. A 15 minute drive up a forest service road to a private ranch where we parked our little civic and waited for transportation. Then the farmer took us the last eight miles up a road that was more cattle path than anything. Even though we were up in elevation, the land was still rugged and dry. We crossed a number of washes that are impassable when it rains. One storm in the 90s kept vehicles out for 5 months. They hiked the 10 miles down to the store and back when they needed supplies. The views were amazing as we climbed steep, rutted tracks into the mountain. Besides the 40 acre ranch where we parked, his 13 acres near the top are the only private parcels in the area. Everything else is federal land.

While there we took a tour of the farm. We saw the masonary building that in another eight years or so should finally become the three story, split-level farm house. We saw the creek and the cistern that make up the water supply. SkyGirl got to pet a turkey and help gather eggs from the chickens. We ate fresh fruit and nuts taken right from the trees, and we had a huge meal made up of primarily of vegatable picked that day.

Almost all the power came from solar panels, with some additional gas and propane generators to handle high demand and such intensive machines like the water pump and the mill. The walk in cooler uses no electricity most of the year. They open it at night to allow the cool air in, and then close it in the morning, keeping their dry goods and perishables unspoiled.