Fall Scenes From Fenton Ranch

Sorry for the radio silence around here! Turns out this working thing is really, really time-consuming. I know you just cursed my name since we typically only work 6 months out of the year, but my defense is that our environmental educator role at Fenton Ranch has us going pretty much nonstop from Monday at 9am until Friday at 1pm and kids are freakin exhausting.

Enough of my excuses. We are loving fall at Fenton Ranch. There is still a good bit of wildflower ecstasy around the property, and the temps are crisp with late-afternoon thunderstorms that leave smoke rising from the valley above the Jemez Mountains and fiery evening skies. I am eternally grateful that our wandering souls find jobs in such gorgeous locations.

The other news is we are staying all winter! The school hired us to be winter caretakers and I am ecstatic to see what winter is like at Fenton Ranch. Could it be more beautiful than the spring and fall we've experienced? I will be sure to let you know.

Last spring when we worked as environmental educators at Fenton, we lived in a staff cabin. It was very cozy quarters, but it had no bathroom. Now that we are officially the caretakers, we get our very own cabin with a bathroom and kitchen!

Anyway, just thought I'd check in and give you a short snippet of life lately. We have fifth, fourth and then second graders this session, which runs through October. We have completed the fifth grade program, which we both loved immensely. It was all about the seven principles of Leave No Trace. Very fitting since J and I are Leave No Trace Master Educators and in fact, met our Fenton boss Jamie while taking that weeklong course. Our environment needs more protection and if the fifth graders can put just one principle into practice, than we've done our part as stewards of the planet!