Visiting a neighboring farm

On Monday afternoon, we drove out to a neighboring farm to learn about their use of "hoop huts" for growing vegetables and flowers.

They started with one, and have expanded to 5 and will soon put in a 6th.

Beautiful views from their property

The resident cat helped on our tour

Strawberries blooming

The water jugs inside the hoop house help to keep it warm overnight, releasing the heat that they gain during the day to the plants at night.

They also have covered the plants in the past few nights as it was getting well below freezing. I think she told us that they figure the inside will stay 7-8F above outside temperature.

Sheep in the neighboring field

Flowers

Eucalyptus

Windbreak formed by straw bales for outside plantings

Our hostess and tour guide

At the far end of this hoop hut are "indeterminate" tomatoes which means they keep growing and growing and growing - so the framing at the top is for them to grow up to and sometimes over and back down!

Some of the outside plants and the kitty prowling around

View of the mountains

Their son was planting, I think, broccoli? in the outside garden.

Another view of the sheep. They have a creek that flows between the barnyard/hoop huts and the pasture, so there is no need for a fence to keep the sheep in!

Pretty flowers by an outbuilding

We drove back along Starr Valley Road.

Such beautiful views

It appeared that this farmer was dragging the pasture -- I don't know whether he was distributing manure or raking rocks or ... ?

We are hoping for a clear day with bright blue skies behind these beautiful snow capped mountains.

Wildflowers along the road

A bull either checking us out or checking out what was across the road -- this is looking north (the other mountain pictures were looking more south/southeast).

There were a number of calves on the south side of the road...

Some momma cows and calves

Irrigation... I think maybe on an alfalfa field?

Much of the ranchland we drove through was signed by Schaad Ranches.

We passed a ranch with a For Sale sign on it... I think I found the listing for it: 3494 acres (plus or minus) -- in case anyone is interested in moving to this area!  https://www.clarkcompany.com/properties/north-starr-ranch/