The last few days, we've been treated to a ribbon of fog along the course of the Chowchilla. It sure is pretty to look at (but not drive in, evidence my trip home tonight.) It's fascinating to see this obvious delineation right at the river. This photo was taken early Sunday morning before it warmed up.We are pleased to announce the arrival of the aforementioned 84th bird species to our ranch list. A few days after Christmas, we identified a Hairy Woodpecker. They look a lot like the Downy, but are larger. If you want to know the truth, getting us to actually place the binoculars on woodpeckers is a mini-miracle because we always think it's another Acorn, of which there is no dearth of supply. Anyway, we looked and were glad for it. If you know why they're called Hairy, that will win extra points, because I don't have a clue, they looked normally feathered to me.
Now that we have the building parts safely stored, we can work on other items on the task list. We've been figuring out an orchard, with special emphasis on yumminess. So far, we've picked out: 2 apples, 2 figs, 2 cherries, 1 quince, 1 pomegranate, 2 almonds, 2 plums, 1 mulberry and 1 walnut. Hoo boy, we're going to be busy in a few years when all these trees get going. We paced off the designated area the other day, and staked it and Dino's now busy prepping with lots of tractor work. We've scouted out a couple of local nurseries for the varieties we want, and the Honeycrisp apple bareroots are coming in sometime this week; the others next month. We lost a couple of cherries we started a few years ago to that awful grasshopper plague, and a quince this year to fire blight.
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