| This is an aerial view of the Little H-Bar
Ranch, taken around 1990. The oak tree in the center of the pasture
has since fallen down. |
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Little H-Bar Ranch
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In the spring of 1999, we planted two Cecile Bruner climbing roses on an arbor we had built
around the front door. They have now grown up and covered the entire
arbor, and look and smell great! At the side of this picture, you can
also see some of the iceberg roses and the pink jasmine.
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Welcome!
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| In the summer of 2015, our friend Georgia McDaniel redesigned our
landscaping in front of the house. Our neighbors, the Malones, helped
by removing about 8 poplar trees with their backhoe. Sarah Malone
picked out an Arbutus Marina tree, and her crew planted it for us,
while Ken Peter did all the planting and new irrigation as designed
by Georgia. We are really enjoying the new look (and so did Nugget)! |
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The House
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| This is the barn in Little H-Bar Ranch. We have 8 stalls, a hay room and
a tack room. Two of the stalls are filled with hay and junk, but the
others are available for use by the horses during the rainy season. Our
goat Nina shares a stall with miniature horses Jhett and Peggy Sue, and another one is reserved
for the barn cats. |
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The Barn
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This is our new chicken aviary. We built it on the site of our former vegetable garden, which was built by frequent ranch visitor and good friend J. Robert Dobbson. It was already fortified from beneath with gopher wire and had 'no-climb' fencing for sides. Then Garrett arched hog wire panels over the top, and J. and Garrett welded them together. Then the frame was covered with chicken wire. We hope that nothing can get in here to get the chickens!
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Chicken Aviary
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This is Garrett's tractor. It comes in very
handy for piling up poop to make compost, mowing the fields, and tilling
the pastures. He also uses it to pull fence posts up, level the driveway
and carry around loads of rocks. |
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The tractor
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This is a closeup of our "Mini-Cooper" chicken coop, built by the wonderful folks at myurbanfarm.net: Michael and Dana Yares.
The chickens knew instinctively to walk up the ramp the first night they arrived, even though they had never been in this type of coop before. It also has a handy egg door on the back side, which you cannot see in this photo. |
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Mini-Cooper
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| These are a few of the rose bushes and fruit
trees growing along side the number one pasture. The roses include
Pascali, Mr. Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth and Stirling Silver. |
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Roses
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| This is the persimmon tree that grows next
to the number one pasture. In the fall, it produces loads of sweet
orange fruit, but not until after the leaves fall off. Then they look
like Christmas ornaments hanging off the bare branches. |
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The Persimmon Tree
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| Naked ladies are a type of lily that emerge
all at once, and don't have any leaves. |
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Naked Ladies
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| This is the radio antenna that was built by Garrett and Kevin Zack to communicate with SSU's
first orbiting satellite, T-LogoQube. It is a Yagi antenna that operates in the "ham" band,
at a frequency of 437.465 MHz. |
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Radio Antenna
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| The summer project for 2015 also included the construction of a new
patio to replace the one that came with the house. We also got new
furniture and a firepit, which comes in very handy for the foggy
summer nights in Petaluma. |
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The New Patio
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