BMN Wind River Ranch tour.

Brian’s Morning Newsletter for March 2nd 2009


Wind River Ranch

Good Morning
I’m trying to get rolling here this morning after spending the last hour and a half working with the new http://outfitnm.com web site which uses WordPress › Blog Tool and Publishing Platform which in turn I will use to compose the BMN. I still think it’ll work, but I couldn’t get the TinyMCE word processor to act exactly like I am used to, so instead of letting it drag me down, I worked it for a while and decided to do this newsletter the old fashioned way, with Mozilla’s Thunderbird email client. If this’ll get the ball rolling, then this is the way I do it this morning. I’ll go back to the site and familiarize myself more with this blog style of writing a little later today.

Why start the BMN with a picture of Wind River Ranch? Glad you asked. Lee setup a tour of the ranch as a part of the Water Harvesting class I’m attending on Saturday mornings, that right, instead of watching Captain Kangaroo. Sheesh right? What’s that all about anyway? It is all about Permaculture and growing and learning. What does Wind River ranch have to do with Permaculture and Water Harvesting? As we learned from our tour guide the founder of the the ranch is a Nature Preserve. Check out their Mission and Goals page Also the Denver Zoological Foundation is considering interacting with the ranch foundation who were also there.

Richard Reading and Brian Miller

Rich Reading, Conservation Director at the Denver Zoological Foundation (www.denverzoo.org) and Board Member of the Southern Plains Land Trust (http://www.southernplains.org) with Brian Miller.

The Permaculture Institute from Espanola uses the ranch for one of their Permaculture Design Certificate Courses Lot’s of connections here and I hope you have time to follow some of these links.

It was a very interesting tour and a gorgeous day, and yes, I took some pictures so that you can come alone for the tour as well.
Let’s get started then. Get your walking boots on.

After the short ride from Las Vegas to Watrous, we turned west and drove for five miles and turned again onto the dirt road that is the main entrance to Wind River Ranch

They call this Frog Rock. At this point we were already down on the valley floor still traveling on by car heading for two holding ponds they recently build near the Mora River, coincidentally similar to the pond I am building down by our river.

I asked what kind of permits they needed to build these ponds and they told me it was completly condoned by NM Fish and Game, and the only permits needed were for the over-sized track-hoes they used in close proximity to the river. Interesting.

The Mora River was looking very nice as it meandered through the valley.
Next we headed back out through the entrance gate and then swung around on the pavement to another side of the 5000 acre property.

We took a short hike over the hill to see some rock dams built across arroyos. In the foreground you can see some of the erosion which needs to be addressed at some point. The grasses are returning now that the ranch isn’t being over-grazed by cattle. In a minute we will see the bison.

Above Lee explains the purpose of the rocks in the waterway, "These rocks are not meant to stop the water, only to reduce its velocity so that the runoff can release the topsoil it has gathered on the hillsides."

You know me, I’m a sap for nice rock-work. They need a hell-of-a lot more of these around this ranch. Yeah, this inspired me. I’m ready to volunteer the soil conservation techniques my father taught us kids, and maybe even a few days work, if that helps out.

Here is Lee’s Water harvesting class above a beautiful water hole in the otherwise arid environs.

Finally, on our way out we found the bison. At present theye have a herd of about 35 bison from the Jicarilla Apache Cultural Affairs Office plus a few of their own (the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative has donated four bison to the Wind River Ranch). They began grazing bison in June 2007 as a result of talks with several tribes about sharing a herd. With enough partners, that herd could be moved from place to place to more closely mimic the historic movements of bison.

Neat huh?
I got more, much more, but no more room, sorry. The rest will need to wait until tomorrow.
We’ll see ya then, k?
Brian Rodgers