In March, Gerald's son David visited with his son Aiden and his fiance Ronna. The weather was beautiful when they arrived. On one of our outings, we ran into Paul, who owns a mining claim down the road. He taught us a bit about gold prospecting and let Aiden pose with his pick.

We checked in on Bjorn and Rachel and saw the progress on the house they were building about six miles from us.

Aiden loved playing with their dogs. Here he is with Hunter.

Ronna got into the fun, too. When we left Bjorn and Rachel's we stopped by the Hussens, who showed Aiden and David their horses and mules.

After we visited with the Hussens, we collected firewood. Here's Aiden posing with the chain saw.

Of course, only grandpa got to use it for real. But Aiden helped out by carrying wood to the truck.

Other ranch chores included collecting cow pies for the compost.

When David, Ronna and Aiden arrived, it was about 75 degrees. By the end of the week, we got a spring snow. It snowed about 12 inches. The snow meant we couldn't pan for gold with Paul as planned.

But there were compensations. Like this snowman David, Ronna and Aiden made.

While they were out, David noticed that the big, beautiful oak on our property had fallen across the road. David and Gerald got enough of it cut to clear the road.

While they were working, Steve Hampton, the rancher, came by with some friends. They were out hunting mountain lions because they would be easier to track in the snow. One of his friends agreed to come back and cut up the rest of the oak and stack it at our house. As sad as we were to lose the tree, we were grateful for some very good firewood. Below is a picture of the house in the snow.

In late February, Perfect Power finally got around to installing our solar panels. It would be April before they finally got turned on.

Here's how it looked when they got done.

Creatures Great and Small

 This winter, we saw a bumper crop of babies. These guys are East Fork Ranch horses that were right in the middle of the road leading into Ruger Ranch. I guess this little one was trying to get some shade underneath his mom.

 These young cows enjoyed congregating on our meadow. The rancher, Steve Hampton, hooked up a solar pump to keep our little stock pond full and moved the molasses feeder there, so it was a popular hang out.

Wild Things

 In addition to "our" cows, we continue to see lots of wildlife. This little buck hung around our house for quite a long time and entertained us over breakfast one morning.

 And javelina are just everywhere. Below is a coyote we saw near the turnoff to the Ranch from Highway 89.

Christmas 2011

 Having moved all of our things, including decorations, this was the first year we decorated the house for Christmas. It was fun. We were very blessed to have our friends David and Martha spend their 30th wedding anniversary with us on Christmas Eve. We ate and drank very well during their visit, with Martha preparing an evening-long feast for the occasion, and David uncorking heavenly wines for each course.

Moving Day

 By moving day, we had just finished what we needed to do to have a place to put all our furniture. It was a long day, with the movers arriving in Mesa early in the morning and finally finishing long after dark.

 The first thing we did was put down rugs upstairs to protect our new floors.

 Of course, most of what we had left to move needed to go upstairs. It was hard on the movers, and they were a hard working crew. They'd come out with some enormous, heavy piece of furniture and ask where it went. "Upstairs," was usually the answer. "Of course it does," they'd groan.

 Once everything was moved, we got to work assembling and putting things away. Here's Gerald assembling our Murphy bed upstairs.

Gerald hung most of the artwork, but our friend and neighbor John Hussen came to help with the tough stuff, like this painting.

Giving Thanks

We moved in just before Thanksgiving. It was a beautiful time of year. Here are some photos along Highway 89 around Peeples Valley.

We got our first dusting of snow that November. We thought that getting snow that early would herald a good winter, but after a couple of snows in November, we hardly got any moisture at all.

It was fun to decorate, for the first time, for Thanksgiving. And we had a lot to be thankful for. Our guests included our neighbors Bjorn and Rachel, Ed and Ron from the Yarnell Emporium, and our friends Myron and Betsy Diebell from Wickenburg.

Finishing Up

We had guests coming in December, and decided it was high time to finish the shower in the downstairs master bathroom so everyone could have their own shower. We used the same honed slate as we did on the bathroom floor, and a pebble floor in the shower itself.

J.C. came over to help with a few odds and ends, like hooking up the shower hardware and helping Gerald hang the glass door.

There was also lots of trim work that we now had time to do, like these stairs....

and the toe kicks in the kitchen.

Gerald also traded out the temporary stairs for the wain-edge stairs we wanted.

He used the last of our thin brick behind the stove in the downstairs master bedroom.

Upstairs, he finished out my upstairs laundry closet, adding a hanging rod...

and a folding table. Plus shelves for cleaning supplies.

And installed the last of the mirrors, two in the "summer master" bathroom, and one just outside our closet. He made them all, of course.