September 2025

So just like every year, September is monsoon season here in the desert foothills. More unusual this year was a flash flood warning that gave us a 10-minute heads-up before a deluge of mud from the San Bernardino mountains rolled down the hill and filled up our two ponds. Both were filled to the brim, flat as two little football fields. And since some of our heavy equipment was down for repair, our ranch hands got to work the old-fashioned way: with shovels and sweat. It was backbreaking work but after a couple of days the ponds were back in operation supplying us with water for the ranch.

While it was a relatively mild summer, September was hot hot hot with an unusual degree of stickiness for about two weeks.  Fortunately, we're at 2300' above sea level and thus generally about 15 degrees cooler than the desert floor. We managed to catch the milder weather just right and squeezed in some hiking tours with the Squires group from @cvhomebuyers and the Lasters from @laster_ranch_ animal rescue. Very fun!

This was exciting. Bears are regular visitors here, and this one was sitting 20 feet away on the side of the ravine watching our ranch hands clear the pond. As for the cow - and we have lots of those too - it was hanging out on the road watching the hikers as they went by. There's no shortage of wildlife sightings up here at Lost Creek Canyon Ranch - even some up-close and personal ones.

It was time once again for the horses to get their nails done, and our farrier was back to give them pedicures. Some like it more than others, but Olive (our senior rescue horse) is finally getting used to having her hooves trimmed. As an inducement, we even offered to powder her nose, but she refused and settled for a little bit of extra dinner.

Up near the main house is our old-growth orchard with about 120 producing trees of all kinds.  It turns out that one of our old walnut trees has had a beehive in it for many years. For the most part, the bees haven't bothered us and we've been careful not to make them mad. However, the bees went nuts a few weeks ago and stung everything in sight. Nobody was badly hurt, but a few of our crew had long nights with swollen body parts. With that, it was time to remove the hive and process the honey. The bees were professionally relocated, and our tree now has wire mesh over the hive hole. If there was a bright spot, the tree yielded plenty of honey and we shared the bounty with our visitors and ranch hands.

Birthdays on the ranch are always a calorie-infused time, and our senior ranch hand Don Joaquin saw his calendar turn last month. Nobody complained when Linda brought out lunch and a huge carrot cake to mark the event. No doubt there will be more of the same with many birthdays yet  to come.