Heaton Ranch 2012

We got to spend a week at the Heaton ranch this year, but this time there were only 5 of us. There was a forest fire just down the road this summer which has caused a lot of flooding and has changed the landscape of the ranch but it is still a wonderful place to relax and have fun. This post is going to have quite a few pictures and some videos. These first ones are just landscape.

 The creek beds are not large enough to accommodate all of the water they have been getting so the water is just ripping up trees and bushes in its way.

And tearing out chunks of ground

This is uncle Robert plowing out the parking area that became a stream.

This is probably about a mile down the road from the Ranch. The fire extends for miles and miles. 

Hopefully these videos work, this one is of our friend Bryce who was riding his bike back and forth while we shot at him with his own paintball gun.

What used to be ponds are now just big mud holes. We had a blast playing in them and I bet our skin was really soft afterwards too :) 

My brother Zack got the biggest and toughest quad up there stuck in a huge puddle of mud. We broke 3 straps trying to pull it out.  (Shh, don't tell Grandma)

(Zack likes to tell people he did it himself)

Zack is practicing using his faith to prepare to leave on his mission.

We also worked while we were up there, trying to dry out the parking lot and get the pipes to the ponds unclogged.

We had to keep chasing some horses out that kept trying to get in and eat all our grass.

This picture speaks for itself.

Plenty of wild animals around, two pictured here.

Plenty of mud to play in with or without quads.

This is a view of the ponds and the area behind them, there is no more greenery to be seen.

And last but not least, Ryan also had fun getting out truck as muddy as possible.

A lot has changed and it will be years before the ranch is back to normal but at least it was safe from the fire.