July 2025

Our ranch manager Guilmer had a noteworthy 50th birthday this month, and the whole crew celebrated with thousands, or perhaps even millions, of calories. Guilmer and his team make the ranch go round, and they burn up a lot of energy in doing so. And anyway, birthdays come but once a year, so they can splurge a little.

We were given three desert tortoises - siblings - recently that were hand raised by a long-time desert family. These are small ones, about as round as dessert plates, but each is estimated to be about 25 years old. They like iceberg lettuce and juniper tree leaves, but we're trying to wean them onto what our original desert tortoise seems to enjoy; viz, broccoli and cucumbers. Anyway, that brings us to four with ample room and opportunities to dig their little hearts out all over the place. Unless something drastic happens, they will all handily outlive us.

Another mid-summer surprise was our ranch hands finding an abandoned bobcat cub in the middle of our road. The cub was only a few weeks old and very thirsty, so our guys gave it some water and released it back where it was found. It was never handled by bare hand, so with any luck momma was able to locate her missing offspring and move it out of harm's way. Neither one has been seen since.

To the great delight of our menagerie of dogs, our ranch crew just completed a rock fountain that is serving to keep the dogs cool this summer. Our array of pooches don't seem to like the sound of running water, but they'll happily soak for hours during the heat of the day. Our youngest livestock guardian is Romeo, a Great Pyrenees with longer than usual fur, and he's taken to soaking for long stretches at a time. It's about the only time of the day when he's not covered in mud.

We are hugely excited about the pending relocation of the Southern California Miniature Horse Sanctuary to our middle ranch region, and we've taken the opportunity to improve our landscaping in that area. It's all low-water desertscape with a carpet of mulch to hold back the weeds. The plants all come from a local nursury and grown from seeds. If you're ever inclined to join one of our tours, you'll see for yourself how nice it looks.