PPR Tour, part 2

As we continue our tour of the ranch, let's follow Sam and Dingus up the hill to the well house. Sam's using his "new" power grader for the first time. And (on a different day), Dingus is exploring as I reintroduce the cats to walking on a leash, wearing their harnesses. We're probably taking them on vacation with us next month, because our teenage cat sitters moved away and boarding is expensive!

The well house area holds many treasures, including this iron piece that sort of looks like it could be used to tether a horse. It must belong on a ranch!

The well house was the first permanent building on the ranch. Sam built it by hand in 2007 and 2008, with help from friends now and then. Over 10 years later, it's still solid and strong, even the roof tiles! It holds a 1,600 gallon water tank (and other stuff), and you can see the well itself on the front left corner.

Around behind the well house is the electric transformer for the property. Sam and I dug and leveled three pads by hand in 2007. It was harder than you might imagine!

East of the well house are more treasures . . . lumber, pavers, pipe, fencing, swamp coolers. Someday we'll clean it up, but much of it has come in handy over the years.

Also near the well house is our storage trailer, an old military trailer that's insulated and pretty indestructible. It was given to us for "free" -- we only spent $1,000 on tires and transport! It holds building materials, furniture, household goods, and many, many more of Sam's treasures. Priceless, indeed.

Now that you've seen all the buildings, I'm going to take you back down to the main road.

At the northeast corner of the ranch is a much neglected drive that leads up the east side, giving access to two unoccupied properties behind us.

We have a few ocotillos and this one has leaves and is about to bloom at the tips.

At the southeast corner is a gate into the neighbors' property. From here you can see our little spread, and the homes west of us.

Back on our main driveway, if we take the right fork, we're on the old ranch road.

It's not maintained either, but as you saw earlier, Sam and his tractor are working on that!

This western side of the ranch has a nice grove of mesquites and beautiful grassland. The distant fence post you see in the middle is part of our neighbors' fence and is our western boundary.

Hey, here's a sweet flower we've never seen!

And this is the view from the southwest corner back towards the road and buildings. We're over a little rise, so we can't see either!

Right beside the old ranch road is our original pile of colorful rocks, which we started collecting when we bought the property in 2005 and there was nothing else out here! It reminds me of how far we've come, even though it's taken 14 years.

From here, we can take the old road back towards the well house and home.

And check in on Sam's garden, which is shaping up quite nicely.

He even installed an automatic watering system last weekend. Yay!

Have a great weekend, everyone!