We’ve officially entered my favorite season here in Northern Nevada. Chilly nights, light breezy days, trees starting to turn colors, leaves falling and no shame in replacing my occasional Guinness on the porch with a cup of warm cider.
I walk outside each morning and I’m swept away by the beauty, the crisp air and the smells of the season. We’ll finish branding calves in the coming weeks and get everyone exactly where they need to be until winter comes.
Right now, our brood mares are nursing some seriously fat, spunky foals who have grown like little weeds all summer and are just starting to show some personality and independence. They are just about the cutest things I’ve watched in a long time. Likewise, all our cows are home and they are packing some of the biggest, healthiest looking calves I’ve seen in years. It’s been a year of abundance and it shows.
Even my dogs seem to know that our season is changing. They are bulking up for winter and taking every opportunity to frolic and play while the weather stays nice.
If you’ve never taken a drive through the local mountains, you owe it to yourself to pack a picnic and go. With the Aspen turning colors, driving through them feels like a scene out of Camelot. It’s simply spectacular. The drive over Hinkey Summit out of Paradise Valley in Humboldt County is gorgeous. I’m afraid our friends at the Forest Service didn’t get the road graded this year so it’s more than a little rutted; but, that’s a great excuse to take it slow and enjoy the views. It’ll take you less than an hour to putter on up and over Hinkey summit and into Lye Creek campground from Paradise Valley. A perfect day trip if you ask me.
Don’t forget that picnic or your binoculars as this is a great time of year to watch bighorn sheep near the summit and giggle at all the rock chucks poking their heads up to say hello. If you’ve never heard the hauntingly beautiful whistle of elk, sit quietly at the campground as you eat lunch and you are likely to hear them. You might even see a few. Truly, listening to elk in the fall while a breeze moves through golden, red, orange and still green Aspen, and warm sunlight makes its way to your face and shoulders is one of the most beautiful and rewarding experiences I’ve ever had.
Fall in Northern Nevada…nothing better. Get out and make it your own.
Kris Stewart is a rancher in Paradise Valley, Nevada.