“Prairie Sunset #1″

I had my first encounter with what the locals call gumbo today.  I was sent to clean the ATV we have out here on the ranch and found it to be caked with this stuff.  I can’t imagine what the person who had driven it last must have looked like.  I spent 2 hours cleaning the 4-wheeler until it was in good enough shape to run again.  We need to be careful about how much water we use and how fast.  There is an artesian well here that fills up the house’s reservoir at a rate of 1 gallon per minute, but if you are washing a bunch of cars or ATV’s you could use up the supply quickly.

I also learned the fine art of lawn mowing today.  Using the ranch’s large John Deer I mowed a large swath of land around the house.  We also did some basic ranch repairs, including fixing a few doors on the large equipment stores.  It seems that out here the day starts early and ends early as well.  I was up at 6:00 am and we headed out to work at around 7:00 am.  If you hit the sack at 10 or 11 this is no problem.  The workers out here move from one task to the next without much pause in between.  I am eating well, and based on the two large refrigerators that are completely stocked with food, I will continue to do so.

I went on a little photo safari tonight after all the work for the day was done.  I have committed myself to a new goal while out here:  To photograph as many different species of plant and wildlife as possible, and be able to recognize each species; a regular Audubon goal.  I was able to get quite a few today.  Please check out the new page entitled species checklist to see my progress.  If there are some animals that you would like to see me photograph, please let me know and I will add them to the ever expanding list. Oh yeah, and my sister scored a hat trick in the regional semifinals.

Thank you all for reading!

         – Keith -