My favorite place to stay on the ranch has always been the Lakeside Log Cabin. Built of logs that were hand hewn by settlers here in the Ozark area of Eminence, it was fun to reconstruct it from its old Courthouse lawn location to our lake back in 2008. Shown here is the cabin as it was before we dismantled and moved it.
If you have a sincere desire to experience and learn about life on a working ranch, you may wish to consider an intern position at Crystal Creek Ranch. Pleas check out our website info here crystalcreekranch.com/about-us/internships/ Thanks!
AAAhhhh….frozen pipes this morning from 6 degree cold and the failure of both my heat lamps in the well house. Folks that have city water probably don’t appreciate the fact that they don’t have to maintain a complete water system from well to house! But the water sure tastes good….as long as I fix the water heater element every 6 months because of the lime [and we don’t like the soft water systems]. Gotta love country living!
As I basically stumbled around the kitchen, preparing my coffee in the early morning glow of a new day beginning, a significant flash of white in the corner of my vision caught my attention. It came from a small little meadow of sorts that is in front of our house. Four deer were waking up to an early Spring morning, just as I was, and stretching. Now I’ve watched deer quite a bit over the years, but had never seen this particular behavior, to which I could easily relate, as I did my own stretching along with them. The white of the underside of their tails was so visible because as they extended their front legs in a stiff sort of bow to the ground, their tails remained high in the air for what seemed like a very long time, even though it was only measured in seconds, i’m sure. They could also see my presence in the half lit kitchen, and were observing my movement at the same time as I did theirs. A nice start to the day.
And this is almost two years after the fact. A piece of property the Ranch has on the Jacks Fork river was buried in twisted metal and wood from over 2500 horse stalls from the trail rides upriver from it. It was a slow and expensive process to get it all out, and a lot will still be around for years, but things look much better now. The river itself still needs more cleanup all over it, but little by little its getting done…mostly by private individuals, as the Park Service has not worked at it very hard. Gotta love the rivers….beautiful peaceful places!
And that beginning starts every day when we wake up. By it’s very definition, we are not going to be in eternity, we are there already, and I need to be thinking about what I am doing. I find it so very easy to be caught in the flow of actions that I have put in motion already, and can spend my whole day there, unless I make a conscious time to think about my Spirit, my God. The time I set aside to meditate, to pray, is the most necessary time I use all day, even if it’s only for a few minutes. It’s a time I use to refocus on what I feel is important to myself and others.
