It’s spring in New Mexico for sure; one day hot enough for short sleeves and shorts and the next it’s snowing!  Woke this morning to a white frosting layer on the grass and porch.  It’s greening up all around us and the stirring of new life/growth is everywhere.  I love this time of year when the earth wakes up!  Trees and bushes budding and the grasses jumping out of the ground eager for the sunshine.  My spinach made it through the winter and is poking through the black dirt of the garden, another week or two and we can have a baby spinach salad.  It’s time to take inventory of my seeds and make this year’s garden plan, get the herbs started and the rich black dirt tilled.   It’s a beautiful morning at Rainbow Ranch and all the animals are ready for us to feed  and milk so off we go to get the day started….

Sunny

         Regarding our energy use and inefficiencies, we find ourselves in the same quandary as many others who are “land-rich” but “cash poor”.   Increasing the efficiency of these older buildings and equipment is expensive, but housing people and running the farm/ranch is also expensive; so how do we save enough money to make the improvements and modifications while still operating?!     It is one of those paradoxes that life in any rural setting is much more energy consumptive that it is in urban areas.  It is much more energy-efficient to house people en mass than it is singly and always will be.  The hope is that we can offset the higher consumption with production of “real goods” of the edible kind so that those people in urban settings will have healthy food to eat while they consume less!    We need each other, they, us; to provide healthy, ethical consumable goods; and us, them; to provide a market for what we can produce. 

          I said in my last post that I would describe our current energy and resource consumption. I hope the following  will give a clear picture of our present usages.  It’s time to have a look at our rates of consumption of all the various energies and resources; renewable and non-renewables.  I think it is also important to look at the human energy consumption factor.   I look at this source of energy as a” limited renewable”; especially my own!   I am always looking for ways to save this kind of energy too.  We need to be much more labor efficient. 

         We currently use propane as the major heating fuel for the occupied houses, they both have electric/propane furnaces.  Our electric service is provided by the local Electric Co-op:  we did opt to pay extra for renewable energy from them when it came available a couple of years ago.  Our water from the spring is all gravity flow and does not require pumping, just storage tanks which provide the pressure for household use.   The vehicle situation is:  three pick-up trucks and a suburban, all of ripe vintage (but paid for!),  that use gasoline.  One of those is a light duty four cylinder that is used on the ranch only.  There are two 4×4’s that are used for hauling “stuff” (animals and equipment and tools and feed, etc.)  and for getting around when there is lots of snow or rain.  The suburban is our “town trip” vehicle and is used as the farmer’s market vehicle.   The skid-steer and swather are gasoline, the backhoe and tractor are diesel.  All the wells have submersible electric pumps and they all have their own dedicated meters.  We have 7 electric meters on the place, each of which carry a monthly meter charge whether or not they are being used ( $16.00 ): three of them are dedicated irrigation well meters and are not currently in use, but we do pay the monthly meter charge for those.   The others are: one for each of the houses, one for the barn and quonset shop and one for the well which serves the barn and shop area, all of which are currently in use.  The electric rates have recently gone up and  usage has increased since we have added three more people ( the bunk house renter and my daughter and her boyfriend).    My mother spends the coldest of the winter months in another location.  . She has been doing this now for the last two winters.  The reasons for this are several.  As she ages, she needs her surroundings to be warmer and her house if very difficult and expensive to heat; even though there is a wood-buring heat stove, it still requires a lot of electricity and propane to keep it comfortable enough for her.  During the winter months it is sometimes impossible to get out of the ranch to medical and other services, If she had a fall, or urgent health care need, we would not be able to get her immediate medical attention.     She has just returned for this year (away from Nov. through March).

 In order to keep enough food supplies for ourselves, interns, renters, and guests; and to store meats, produce, flowers, and the other products that we make for sale,  we run several refrigerators and freezers continually (5 or 6 refrigerators and 4 large freezers).    There are three washing machines and one electric clothes dryer.  The cooking stoves are all propane.  My house has a swamp cooler for market prep days, but there isn’t a need for airconditioning for general comfort.  Even in July and August, it cools off as soon as the sun goes down!   Ok, so that’s basically it; now down to the numbers.  Electric use has increased and is now about 2764 KWH which costs $497.50.  ($50.00 of that is unused meter charges). That averages out to approximately $75.00 per person per month.   The propane usage changes dramatically from winter to summer, but the average usage for  a year is about $8000.00, or $667.00 per month; or $111.00 per person per month.  Gasoline for all the vehicles and equipment runs about $400.00 a month (we pay a premium for that as well averaging at least $ .20 higher a gallon in our area….at the local gas station [15 miles from here] a gallon of gas is currently $3.09 for regular!).  Diesel is negligible right now but will increase a lot during the summer season with use of the tractor and backhoe.  It should average about $100.00 to $15o.00 per month for the next 5 months.   I have no idea what our water usage is since we don’t have a way to track it, but my guess is that it is fairly high as well.  It takes a lot of water for cleaning to process milk, cheese garden produce, and all the other “value added” food products we make for ourselves and for sale.  The houses both have septic systems and there is only a gray-water system for one of the bathrooms at my mother’s house.  We do not now have any rainwater catchment systems in place except for buckets under the gutters at my house!   

I will continue this post a bit later, the computer has begun to slow down and it’s time to do the evening chores anyway………..until later,

     I will try to describe for you the “lay-of-the-land” as it is now and then explain where we want to go and how and when we hope to get there.  I will also be as specific as I can within reason (length being the major consideration, I don’t want overwhelm you with ALL the details, just what is pertinent).  First a little history.  I hope it helps round out the picture. 

       The land had been in our family for the past 40 years.  Before that, it was owned and worked by a great many folks engaging in various agricultural operations through the years.  It was homesteaded in the 1860′s.  We originally purchased 4500 acres, but over the years have sold all but 530 ac.  There are now almost the same number of acres on which  the original homesteaders began.  * For the sake of expediency, I will only take you back that far historically.  I do want to acknowledge  that there were many previous users of this land before being settled by descendants of Europeans.  Many American Indian tribes used this land long before the Europeans even knew it existed. *

     This is the current situation in which we find ourselves:  

       Most of the $ that allow us to live here and keep us from having to sell this land are not produced here.  The sources of the $ are:  Retirement income (my mother’s), income from odd jobs that I take periodically, my daughter’s two off-ranch jobs, and  inherited royalty income that has steadily decreased over the last few years.   Only about 10-15 percent of the money that it takes to stay afloat is generated by selling what is produced here.   In “good” years, that means when we have winter snows or rains throughout the spring and summer, we are able to lease pasture for grazing and that produces another 15-20% in those years.   Although we live in a beautiful place, have open space all around us, and are actively engaged in production from the land; the price in many ways is very high.  Not only in high energy per person use, but in $ as well.  It’s expensive to live far away from any sort of commercial services.   We use a lot of fossil fuels and electricity.     The houses, barns, corrals, fences, irrigation ditches, wells, machinery and vehicles are all old ( and certainly not energy-efficient) and need repair constantly.  All the houses need serious retrofitting and that takes capital we don’t have.   Neither do we have the capital to buy new, more fuel-efficient vehicles or farm equipment and I don’t think they make trucks or tractors that are capable of  farm work or hauling a load of animals in electric versions!     So, not a lot of capital on hand and a mighty aversion to debt!   It currently takes about $50,000 to $$60,000 a year to cover expenses.  We also do not have hired help.   Until four months ago, I was the only “full-time” worker on the ranch.  Since November, 2009; my daughter and her boyfriend have been living and working here as well.  For the past 3 years I have had an intern during the summer months( May through mid Sept.) for help with general ranch work and the market garden.   My mother is 88, I am 54, and my daughter is 30. We are three generations of women living and working here to make this vision into a reality. 

      What we do have is a very beautiful piece of land that is free and clear.  We are debt free and plan to remain that way.   The ranch is long  but fairly narrow (2.5 miles by  approx.  1/2 to 3/4 of a mile wide…it varies).  It is contained in a valley that has been collecting river sediments for millennia, so there is lots of topsoil.  It can be very productive, even at 6500 ft. elevation, under the right conditions.  The soils are predominantly volcanic, heavy clay loam,   there is some sedimentary, sandier soil on the north side of the river.  We have 5 perennial springs, two of which keep a mid-sized pond full of water, one which supplies all the drinking water for the two houses that are currently occupied, and two others which have never been put into use.   The Dry Cimarron river runs the length of the property and we have the right to  irrigate from it, but can only do so when there is high flow.   There is a ditch system running the length of  the property that was engineered very well and still flows efficiently.  The head gates are in disrepair or non-existant now though.   There are  irrigation wells (7) that have not been used for several years and are not currently functional.  There are two fields that used to be alfalfa which I have interseeded for two years with native grasses, oats, and wheat so they can be safely grazed as well as cut for hay if there is irrigation water.   There is a lovely “Vega” (vay-ga) which is a field of native grasses that when irrigated in the spring, can be cut for hay.  There is a small field of “Jose wheat grass” which is a perennial grass that can be cut for hay when it is irrigated.  There are nine ancient apple trees and one pear tree that produce about every three years.  We have a large garden, about an acre, but a very short growing season!  The livestock currently includes a herd of milk goats of various breeds (50);  50 laying hens; one cow; about 2 dozen ducks and geese; three guardian dogs, two breeding Sheltie dogs, four “freeloader-charity case” dogs, six llamas, three house cats, and as many barn cats as we can keep around.  We also have two tenants, one of whom rents the “bunk house” and the other rents the east wing of my mother’s house.  They provide a little bit of income, but very little.  In the “good” years that I spoke of earlier, we pasture up to 75 cows during the summer months and 35-40 through the winters : it is usually one or the other, not both seasons.  There are three houses and a bunk house (which is an apt. over the small garage).  The original portion of my mother’s house is over 100 years old, stone and frame construction.  There was a wing built on to it in the 1950′s , also rock and frame construction.  It is a big old drafty house.  My house is a double wide trailer that we put here in 1998, it is actually the most energy-efficient dwelling now.  The other house is in a very sad state.  It hasn’t had occupants for 20 years.  It is in such bad shape that I don’ t know if it is worth the trouble to refurbish it.  It might be more cost-effective to tear it down and start over at this point.  There are also several barns.  There is an old concrete block barn with a hay loft that is about 30 x 80 ft.  It has three tack/feed rooms at the back but only two of them still have doors.  It has electricity and water.  There is a “sheep barn” that is very long and narrow about 20 x 120 ft.  It is post and beam construction and did have an adobe chicken house on the east end which has collapsed.  The most recent construction is a “hangar shop”.  It was built by my father to house his airplanes and is 50 x 100.  It is a “quonset type (semi circular, and is 18 ft at the highest point), it has a grease pit (which used to be the basement of another house), a 12 x 10 garage door on one end and  a 40 ft. bi-fold door on the other.  It has electricity, but not water.  We have a backhoe, a skid steer, and a very old David Brown tractor.  The haying equipment consists of a swather (the cutting machine),  a baler that pulls behind the tractor (when it’s working!), a very old seed drill, a land plane, a drag blade for smoothing the roads out, a harrow, and a small off-set disc plow.  We also have two small stock trailers that are of the 60′s vintage.  That’s about the jist of it.  This is what we have to work with.

Next I will explain more about energy and resource use, what the consumption is now and what we would like for it to be……..stay posted for the next segment….

I have been thinking about this a lot lately because the job that pays my bills does not pay me through the summer months.  (I’m a school bus contractor.)  I have to either save my pennies for the rainy days from May to August or find seasonal or temporary work (no doubt not very rewarding) that pays enough to live.  So, how do we live in this beautiful place, working in ways that are rewarding, and actually “make a living” without those external sources of income?  That is the questions…not “why are we here?” or “what is life?” or “what happens when we die?”  That is what we are all doing at the ranch trying to answer. 

Tomorrow we’re headed to Clayton to spend some of my nest egg to buy a few new goats.  We’ll have plenty of milk, cheese, butter, soap and goat kids for years to come for that purchase - but alas…no vegetables or laundry soap (unless I learn how to make goat milk laundry soap in a hurry.)

It’s a beautiful day here at the ranch; warm and sunny and WATER EVERYWHERE!  We had our spring snows this last week and boy were they good ones!  Nice and wet and now melting, providing irrigation water and LOTS of MUD!    This moisture will assure the pastures a good start for the season.  In between feeding the animals and getting the vehicles un-stuck, we have been directing the water in the ditches out on the hay and grass fields.  The ditches have been running full for three days now.   We,ve has some lunch and now it’s back out to play in the water!