Summer 2019 Events at Everson Ranch

Ever wondered where all the water goes after you soak in it at the hot springs? Well, this is the summer you can see for yourself! The Everson Ranch, part of the Orient Land Trust, is a working ranch just a few miles downhill from Valley View and it is here that we can show you.

Summer is the best time of year for visiting and experiencing life on the ranch and we are excited to announce our plans for 2019!

Thanks go out to the Board of Directors, staff, and dedicated volunteers who have been brilliant in developing the perfect mix of fun ranch activities and hands on experiential learning! Exploring Orient Land Trust now engages all five senses with the following activities.

Ranch Tours

Guests of Orient Land Trust are welcome to visit the ranch, farm animals, observe wildlife, and walk to the reservoir. Guided tours are offered daily 10am-2pm. So on your next visit to the hot springs, dry off for a bit and see what the ranch is all about!

Ranch Camping

Experience the feel of being on a working ranch with an overnight visit! Camping is now an option that includes a nice grassy tent spot or easy pull in vehicle site. Camping also includes the use of the (straw bale) bath/kitchen house. And best of all, it's clothing optional! Campers pay a facilities use fee of $15 per person.

Bird Watching & Photography Workshop

Long time land trust member, Dr. Daniel Fleming, will be at the ranch of May 18, 4-6pm, as part of his amazing Bird watching & Photography workshop that he offers at no cost. Participants will want to wear good walking shoes and bring water bottle, hat, and binoculars. Long lense or zoom cameras are helpful but not required to enjoy this workshop.

Everson Ranch Market & Grill

Memorial Day Weekend will kick off this season's Everson Ranch Market & Grill. This first Market Saturday, May 25, will feature a Plein Air Painting workshop with Salida artist, Carl Ortman. He will work with guests from 10am to 1pm and asks that guests bring their own easel and supplies.

The Market & Grill events will be held every Saturday and Sunday 10am to 2pm. A simple menu of our fresh farm foods will be offered and will vary depending on what we have on hand. There will be juicy meat dishes from the barbeque, grilled vegetables, fresh eggs, garden salads and smoothies made to order. Note: The Market and Grill will be unavailable for the month of July. July is the month we have the Science Camps for children, quarterly Board of Directors meeting, and Member Appreciation Weekend. We will continue to schedule Volunteers working in the garden for the month.

Mid-September will wrap up the season with our annual Harvest Celebration TBA

New this year!

Free Garden Classes with Sabine

New faces at the ranch this summer are Sabine Borchers, garden manager, and her assistant, Macon Terry. Sabine can guide you through a short meditation which will open your senses to set the tone for your experience in the garden. So that when you visit or volunteer even just a few hours you walk away inspired. She can direct you to different tasks in the garden as a learning experience or just for relaxation. She will be so grateful for busy hands wanting to help with high altitude gardening. Once upon a time she was a psychotherapist in a hospital where she also provided stress management. According to her picking spinach is definitely a form to manage stress. Come try it out. Sabine is aiming to take Wednesdays and Thursdays off. Check with staff if you want to take advantage of her inspiration on those days.

Front Porch Pickin' and Grinnin'

The idea here is to create a fun place for musicians to connect with other players, hone skills and make friends! We hope to attract musicians with diverse backgrounds to showcase their own style. Come and bring your instruments, singing voices or just your listening ear. The jam sessions will take place during the Market & Grill and begins when the first player starts!

Sheep Series with Amber

Amber Shook moved to the San Luis Valley 37 years ago. Newly married to Jeff, their dream of homesteading began. Her passion for fiber has been cause for owning angora bunnies, many types of sheep, and llamas. Harvesting wool, cleaning, spinning, dyeing, weaving and felting have been her focus. Whether you are interested in owning one fuzzy friend, or a flock of woollies, Amber's introduction to animal fibers will answer your questions.

Sheep Series (and other critters)

1) June 8 2-3:30 Raising Wool Producing Animals
 Rabbits, Sheep, Llama, Alpaca, Goat, Yak, Camel, Dog

2) July Sheep Shearing (all ages)
 Culling, butchering, shearing, and processing fiber

3) August 10, 2-2:30 Fiber Use
 Home, sale, natural/dyeing, spun, knit, crochet, felt

Everson Ranch will be closed for private events July 1 – August 11. Volunteers in the garden can still schedule. We appreciate your help!

You will notice some postings about the drinking water. Orient Land Trust has revised our application for pre-treatment of the drinking water. We were directed by Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to install filters at the beginning of each of our five treatment systems. They required that those be installed by the end of March. We are still waiting for approval of our revised application and have not installed those filters. Because we missed that deadline, we are required to post a letter informing you, the guest, that this has not been done. We have complied and the letter we posted has been written with language specified by the state and reviewed by the state. This is not an emergency, the water is disinfected and tested daily. We hope to have approval of our pre-treatment components soon and we will be buying and installing the necessary additions to the drinking water systems. Thank you for your patience.

Every year a devoted group of hardworking volunteers participate in our annual Weed Pull! Volunteers arrive on Tuesday, June 4th to set up camp and enjoy a day of relaxation at Valley View Hot Springs. Workshop begins early on Wednesday, June 5th, meeting at 8 am in front of the main bath house. Volunteers are trained on what invasive weeds we are targeting (Houndstongue, Bull Thistle, and Horehound) and how to mitigate them; then work in teams until noon. The same schedule applies for Thursday, June 6th. Volunteers have the rest of the afternoon to enjoy the springs before departing. Overnight admission passes for the springs and a tent site are included for Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

We are still looking for 8 more volunteers! Email or call 719-256-4315 and ask for Rosie to get signed up.

The Sangre de Cristo mountain range received well above average snowfall this past winter. That could mean increased water flow from the springs. In late March, the volume of water from all the springs was significantly less than normal and far below what we enjoyed last year. We are eagerly anticipating the recharge from this winter's snowfall. While it will probably cool down the top ponds, a pattern we have observed most years, we should have more water for generating electricity, which will mean a return to normal temperatures for the heated pools. Because the winter was cold and snowy, there were fewer visitors than in recent years for the months of January, February, and March. This could mean that there will be an increase in demand for the coming warmer months. Be advised, think ahead and call for reservations. Reservations may be even more important for achieving the access you want this year.

We are calling for volunteers for the annual weed pull. We are again asking for help to pull several species of invasive weeds at the hot springs. The weed species we are targeting are: Houndstongue, Bull Thistle, and Horehound. The two days will be June 5 and 6. Contact Rosie at 

The first Saturday in May is World Naked Gardening Day. This year It falls on May 4, 2019, and if you're thinking of celebrating, make sure you consider joining us at Everson Ranch for a day filled with special activities, gardening fun and delicious food!

According to Wikipedia, World Naked Gardening Day (WNGD) was introduced in 2005 as a nudist movement to discourage body shaming and encourage acceptance of all forms of the human body.

But you might argue that naked gardening has been 'a thing' since the garden of Eden.

The gifted team of body workers offer an array of integrative therapies focused on well being. Relax, Rejuvenate, Release

PRESS RELEASE: February 28, 2019

Rio Grande National Forest Again Sides with Developer in Wolf Creek Access Issue

We'd like to engage you the reader in a project that we are sponsoring. Orient Land Trust resides in Saguache County and the trash and recycling that is left with us by our guests ultimately ends up at our County Landfill. Currently, last year's recycling has backed up to a very large degree. The main reason for this is that the market for recycling has rather quickly dried up. China is no longer taking or buying our American-generated debris. As a result, our refuse has "stockpiled", without a market and is in need of a solution.

We would like to congratulate Mark Cunningham on receiving the honorable title of NASA Solar System Ambassador! Mark has been the lead astronomer at OLT since 2014 and was an integral part of the installation of our new telescope and training of volunteers to operate it.

Mark received his first telescope at the age of 12, which began his lifelong love of astronomy. He is an Astro-photographer with over 20 years of experience, has had his photos, and articles published in Astronomy Magazine. His photos have won several awards, including Best Solar Eclipse Photo of 1991, and have been published on SpaceWeather.com where they went worldwide, presented on the London evening news and published in the England Royal Geophysical Journal. Mark is a featured artist in several art galleries, including Paragon Art Gallery in Crested Butte, Colorado. He is a dedicated volunteer doing research work for several organizations. Mark photographed, documented nightly observations for the International Halley Comet Watch, his data being published by NASA. He was the first astronomer who photographed the tail forming on Halley's Comet and has done extensive comet research for CU in Boulder, studying Hale Bopp, Ulysses, and Hyakutake. Mark was the first astro-photographer to discover that the nucleus of comet Hale Bopp had split into two pieces and was able to capture the photograph. Awarded time on Denver Universities Meyer-Womble Telescope with Dr. Roger Stensel, he spent a week on top of Mt. Evans doing an independent study on colliding galaxies. Mark has worked with Galaxy Zoo online doing a galaxy classification project and super nova search.

The Solar System Ambassadors program is a public engagement effort that works with motivated volunteers across the nation to communicate the science and excitement of NASA's space exploration missions and discoveries to the people in their communities. It is a public outreach program of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. More than 700 volunteers in all 50 states as well as Washington DC, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam share information about exploration missions and recent discoveries to their local communities. The program is an extension of the original Galileo Ambassadors program created to share information about the Galileo mission.

Mark joined OLT's volunteer program in 2007 coming from Missouri with his own telescope and offering astronomy tours in the summer. He moved to Colorado five years ago and has been a dedicated volunteer since that time, offering his expertise year round. He was instrumental in OLT building the current astronomy pad, building and acquiring the new scope. Mark has been an integral part of our kid's science camp, giving tours to youth and sparking their interest in science. In 2018, we offered 139 astronomy tours attended by 2,693 kids, adults and seniors, our highest attended educational program to date! Mark worked with other volunteers and astronomy enthusiasts, training them to operate the telescope adding to our pool of qualified tour guides. Our goal is to have the telescope available with a guide every night, spring through fall. Every year we move closer to that becoming a reality.

Orient Land Trust attracts great volunteers! We are fortunate to have Mark Cunningham leading our program and sharing his expertise and experiences with our guests. We are proud to acknowledge his accomplishments and congratulate him on becoming a NASA Solar System Ambassador. Thank you Mark for all that you have given as a volunteer at Orient Land Trust, we are so grateful to have you leading our astronomy program!