The warmer weather has brought changes not only in the landscape, as it turns greener each day with new grass, but changes in the wildlife patterns as well.  For the time being it would seem that the elk have moved on, having been replaced with mule deer and a small population of whitetail deer.  Thanks to them we have been finding shed antlers everywhere.  The antelope have returned and can often be seen hanging out near the horses, halfway up Running Bear road.     Our daffodils are in full bloom and the bees have emerged from their hives, buzzing around to search for the first signs of nectar. This will be the week we start feeding our hives to give them a good start until more flowers emerge.

The ponds are now completely unfrozen, and Stephan managed to land a beautiful 24 in. fish behind the cookhouse on Sunday with his fly rod, quite a catch for the first of the fish right after winter.  In honor of St. Patrick’s day Deanne made wonderful lunch in the cookhouse for ranch staff and guests consisting of an Irish stew, soda bread, and even chocolate cupcakes made with Guinness.  A big project for this week has been staining and sealing the cookhouse deck furniture, the results of which look very good.  By the end of spring all of the teak outdoor furniture for the cookhouse and the cabins should be looking better than new.

Maytag Mountain Ranch will be hosting the 2009 Division of Wildlife Landowner’s Meeting on March 17th at 6:30 pm in the Cookhouse Lodge. This will be an open forum for local landowners to discuss their concerns and needs with the Division of Wildlife.  Let your voice as a concerned owner be heard by attending this meeting.  For information contact Montana at canterbury@maytagmoutnainranch.com.

As our current grass-fats continue packing on the pounds Montana has been busy with follow up calls to last year’s beef customers.  The reviews have been unanimously positive and many customers have already planned their orders for our first crop of organic beef this summer.  We also had a chance to meet with FlyWater consulting, a fishery management and improvement company that specializes in managing and creating river systems to give the best habitat for the fish, the surrounding wildlife, and of course the anglers! We feel that their knowledge and skills will be quite an asset to us this summer.  After completion of his big tack room reconstruction, this week Jake will take on his next big challenge of re-doing the cookhouse floors.  The Hughes family has been very kind to let us borrow their unique wood floor cleaning machine, and we expect the results to be as good as refinishing.

Our gardener, Joe, was able to stop by this week and give our fruit trees a good watering.  He also checked on our bee hives to make sure that honey supplies were adequate to keep our insects happy and healthy through March.  Local beekeeper Mike Anaya will be visiting our garden on March 15th to give Joe and Jen a lesson on beekeeping, bee feeding for spring, and advice on splitting hives, building hives, and caring for hive health.  We still have room for last minute garden requests, so if you have any particular sunflowers, lettuces, or tomatoes that you just can’t live without this summer get your picks sent to Jen.  In addition to keeping our budding garden weed and pest free, our chickens have been laying rather well so we now have 36 new eggs in the incubator.  Hope for more chicks in 21 days!  Our ranch horses Otto and BJ received their new shoes this week from our farrier Mike Wolford; they will be ready to try them out on a trail ride this weekend.