Many times as I have wandered around the Ranch and seen many interesting things that I would like to know about. I have sometimes mused thinking if this place could talk I would be very interested in listening to it's many fascinating stories.

I have camped many times under a line of tall Poplar trees that were planted very precisely in line probably over one hundred years ago. Who planted them and where did he get them? Across the creek there is the remains of two old Lime Kilns that were probably used by the same man that planted the trees. Then I let my imagination take over to tell me the story.

A young married man probably with two or three wives came to settle in Pacheco and searched out an Ideal place to build his home. He found an Ideal spot by a clear cold stream of water that came from some springs about a mile up the creek. The spot was at the foot of the Continental divide where it would be protected from the fierce winds and yet receive plenty of rain as the clouds drifted over the high mountains turning loose the life giving rain.

Here he put up his camp and went up the canyon in search of lime rock that he could use to help make his living by burning lime for the mortar that would surely be needed to set the bricks in the many brick homes that would be built in Pacheco and near by Garcia. The lime would be needed to make the beautiful white plaster for the Church house and the homes.

He found an outcropping of blue white lime rock the best kind for burning. He carried a few samples down to his camp and looked around for a good place to dig his lime Kilns. He found an Ideal place just across the Creek from where he intended to build his home. He dug two pits about six feet in diameter and about eight feet deep and faced each pit with rock and mud making the pit a little narrower at the top to facilitate covering the pit when the time came.

He took his pack horse and with some heavy bags went after several loads of lime rock while his ovens were drying. He also went after some dry white oak wood, cut it and piled it up near his ovens. Then he found a big dry Juniper tree and cut plenty of red Juniper and stacked it beside the Oak. He would need it to make the oak burn brightly and produce the heat he needed to heat his lime rock and change it into un-slacked lime.

He built a fire in the bottom of each oven and filled each kiln with loosely placed oak and juniper wood, interspersed leaving a a small draft hole in the center from top to bottom. Soon it was burning brightly with plenty of flames and heat roaring out of the tops of the ovens. As the wood burned down into hot oak coals he added more wood keeping it very hot for most of the day. Finally when his ovens were glowing red with heat he added the lime rock dropping each rock carefully so that it could receive the heat from the oven. He quickly covered the top of the kilns with lumber that he had prepared and hurriedly covered the lumber with plenty of dirt sealing each oven so that the heat could not escape and the air could not get in. He probably had a couple of teen age boys to help him in his work. They would also learn the trade of making lime.

After two or three days they would open their ovens and find the rocks inside too hot to handle so they would let them cool down until they could carefully take them out. The rocks would seem solid enough but they knew that they had been changed into un-slacked lime.

They took a big rock to test it to see if it had been changed into lime. They placed it on a lumber platform and brought a little cup of water from the creek. They dropped a little water on the seeming solid rock and immediately it began to fizz and crumble into white powder seeming to boil and get very hot. Soon that solid rock turned into a pile of white lime and was left to cool.

This white lime would be sold to be used for mortar and for plaster. The mortar and the plaster would be made by mixing the white lime with sand and then with enough water to make it into a thick paste or mortar mix. Then it would be heaped up in pile to cure for a few hours. Then it would be mixed again to use for mortar for bricks or for plaster inside the house. When this mixture dried it would be hard like cement and could be smoothed into smooth white plaster on the ceiling and walls of the houses.

I can imagine our family building their home on the west side of the Creek up on a flat bench above the flood line of the Creek. The Poplar Trees would have to be brought from Utah or Arizona and at the same time he would bring in the Blackberry plants that he planted in his garden. They planted their poplar trees in a line in front of their new house and their vegetable garden and black berry bushes across the creek to the east where they could bring the water from up the creek in a little ditch to water their Vegetables and all of their garden stuff for food for the family. I am sure they had a few fruit trees to supply their families with the fruit they needed,

Surely the lime for building the combination Church House and School House would be donated by our family as faithful members of the Church. Some of the lime would be traded for lumber and other materials needed for their home. They could even trade some lime for a cow or two and some pigs and chickens. That would certainly help to provide eggs and milk for their food. Some of the pigs would be killed in the fall to provide bacon, ham and the Lard for cooking and for making soap. The milk would be set for the cream to raise and make butter and whipped cream for pies and desert. When they had enough milk they would make cheese and cottage cheese for their food.

I can imagine the man and his wife sitting on the front porch in the evening to watch the moon come up like a big yellow cheese slowly rising over the pine covered ridges in the east. They would feel satisfaction as they looked over their garden growing in the east. They might look through the Poplar trees at the clear flowing stream and hear the running water as it ran by, providing water for their use in the house and for all of their needs.

On Sunday they would rise early and with everyone bathed and wearing their best clothes they would hitch up the wagon and go over to Pacheco to spend the day in church. This would be a good time of worship and for visiting with their friends and neighbors. They would pack a lunch just in case they would not get invited to some friends home for dinner. They would drive back in the wagon in the cool of the evening to take care of the Pigs and the chickens and milk the cows and feed the calves.

All that remains of this home is the line of Poplar trees now grown tall and part of the lime Kilns that are left since the creek has washed away the bank which has caved in to the flood waters exposing what is left of the Lime Kilns of long ago. Their are still a few blue white lime rocks that would not fit in the last batch to be burned. A few of the old Blackberry bushes remain to mark the spot where they were planted over a hundred years ago. As I view these relics of the past I wonder and ask myself, "What were their names and where are their posterity"? I wish they had left a written history to let them live for us in their histories.

As we were gathering truck loads of rocks for building the dam at the ranch we found it easy to pick up and use the rocks that had been used in the wall of the ancient buildings that have crumbled into big mounds of rock and dirt. I began to wonder about the lives of those ancient people. On the Ranch there are four big ruins denoting big families or small settlements scattered around the area.

When we needed good Adobe dirt to make the Adobes for the ranch house we hauled it from one of the mounds near the road. When the men were loading the truck with the dirt they uncovered a Skeleton of a man. They came to ask me what to do with it and I told them to bury it in the mound away from where they were taking the dirt.

I wondered why this man was found a few feet under the dirt of the mound. If he had been buried in a room of his house he would have been found much deeper. It is a mystery to me why his skeleton was found so near the surface of the mound.

I realized that these walls had been made by mixing mud and pine needles or straw and putting it into a form then adding rock into the mud in the form and left to dry until the forms could be removed. The mud and rock was left to dry until it was hard enough to support the next layer. This process was used almost universally in that area. After the big adobe dried another form full of mud and rock was placed on top gradually raising the wall over a period of time. I really don't know what the roof was made of since there are no remains of any poles or anything to indicate how the roof was made. .

Many illegal pot hunters have dug in these mounds, apparently with success because of the amount of digging. I went down into one hole where they had dug down and uncovered an inside wall of a room. I marveled at the smooth clay plaster and the paint that was still visible on a piece of the plaster that was still intact. The paint was a dull red color which could have been part of a painting or the color of the walls of the room. The man that put on that plaster and paint was a skilled craftsman and the house must have been beautifully done inside and out. For it was made with patience and skill. That plaster was very smooth and even and whoever did the work knew well what he was doing.

There are many of these big mounds of ruined houses all over the Corrales and Pacheco area. I would venture to say that more people lived in this area than lived in the famous Paquime ruins in Casas Grandes. They were skilled farmers because of the great amount of terraces all through the mountains.

It must have been a great drought that made them abandon their beautiful homes and fields and gardens. It seems that the whole northwestern part of the country was abandoned at the same time. I have not been able to find any evidence of a great war. These were a peaceful people. In all of my wanderings in the mountains I have not been able to find any arrow heads or spear heads etc. Metates and Molcajetes abound and can be found in almost any ruin. They must have been a happy and industrious people living off their crops and trading for their other needs. I wonder how they cooked their Tortillas that they must have made from the evidence of the Metates everywhere? Did they make a clay Comal by adding thin layers of Clay to a dried Clay sheet? I have seen evidence of such a device to place over the fire providing a smooth flat surface for cooking. Did they use their big clay Ollas to cook their corn adding ashes to the water to remove the hulls? Did they raise beans to eat as they did in the tribes to the south? I am sure they used all kinds of Herbs for cooking, teas and for medicinal purposes because the Tarahumaras still have knowledge of many herbs and their uses.

Without a written history all we can know about these people is what we can guess at from the ruins of their houses, their pottery and their implements of stone.

I hope that I can leave a little more to my posterity than the ruins of an empty house that was abandoned leaving only things that could not be carried away easily.

If those mounds could talk surely they could tell us of their lives, how they lived and loved. It could tell of their dances and ceremonies at planting time and harvest time. They could tell us of their customs and dress and their musical language. Their history would be of each person and his accomplishments his journeys his influence among his people. How he treated his wife and children. The details of their lives would be much more interesting than just the facts that we know. We know that they began to build their houses around 900 A.D. and they left mysteriously around 1200 or 1300 A.D. They probably traded with the people of the coast and to the North and to the South.

There are other more recent ruins on the ranch and I am sure that if a stranger came to view them he could not tell what was there only a few year ago. He would see a cement floor and suppose that it had been a home. He could see a large area surrounded by a rock foundation and wonder what the large building was used for. I will take the place of the ranch and tell the story of those ruins as I saw them when I visited that place back in the days when I was in high school.

We came to Pacheco with a Band and Chorus Concert from the JSA to present to the people. My Cousin Ben Taylor was the band and chorus teacher and he delighted in taking our Concerts to the Mountain Colonies. We were met by many of the townspeople of Pacheco and were taken to their homes to rest and get ready for the concert. Knolton Martineau was in our group and he asked me to go with him to his home. We went over to the Martineau ranch where his family lived and operated a big Sawmill.

As we approached we could hear the whine of the saw and the noise of the big motor that ran the mill. I was not prepared for the busy scene that met my eyes. We walked along the well traveled road into the Sawmill area. There were two big trucks being loaded with lumber from the high stacks of dry lumber. In a big shed against the hill the men were at work sawing lumber. One man the sawyer was riding the carriage that ran swiftly back and forth on rails in front of the big saw. Each trip the saw would whine and cut off a wide board from the big log. On the return trip the man would work a lever and the log would move a couple of inches closer to the saw to be ready to cut off another 2x10 or 2x12 or whatever they were sawing at the time. As each board fell from the saw it was carried away and stacked in a three cornered stack in such a way that the air could circulate and dry the lumber. Men were busy everywhere each doing his assigned job.

On the right, near the creek there was a big building that housed the tools and a place to repair the trucks and the machinery. There were a number of lumber buildings and a couple of Log Cabins that housed the regular workers at the mill. It was so big and scattered around the area that I could not take it all in as we walked to the house. Knowlton was greeted by his mother and his little brothers and sisters. I was welcomed into their new Adobe home. I don't remember how many rooms it had but I do remember the bright kitchen where we sat down to a very good meal.

The life of the Marineau family was much like the life of many Latter Day Saint Families of that time. Plenty of work for the parents and all of the family . School for the children with plenty of chores before and after school. Church on Sunday for the whole family and the families that Brother Lee Martineau had worked with and brought into the church. The boys of the family took after their father who could install a Sawmill and keep it running taking care of it and making all of the repairs. Many times making the parts that were broken or worn out. It would take too long to go and buy them in the faraway United States. The boys helped keep the big Lumber trucks running. Later Reed and Ray who were twins put together a stripped down car from parts from the junkyard. After they moved down to Colonia Juarez I saw them buzzing around town in their odd contraption.

Many years later after we had traded for the old Martineau Ranch I would go over and ride around the site of the sawmill. Back then there was still some ruins of a log cabin and a good lumber building. The Adobe house had mostly fallen down because someone had taken the roof off to use on his own house probably in Pacheco. We could see a piece of the remaining wall of the big bodega and repair shop. All of the rest was gone not much left to tell the tale of a busy working Sawmill and home of a busy happy family. I rode on across the creek to the south where Lee had planted a big orchard of Red and Golden Delicious Apples. Down at the east end there are still some trees that bear a deep red round apple that has a very good flavor. We still have some apple juice that we made from a van load of apples that we brought down each year for two or three years.

Up to the head of the apple orchard I found the remains of a big dam and where Lee had piped the water in clay pipes from up the creek to store the water in the dam to water the orchard. Now all that remains is the old dam and a few pieces of the broken Clay pipes scattered around. Those old Apple trees are gradually dying out. Especially in these dry years that we have been having the last ten years.

Up in the camping area there is an orchard of ancient Crab Apple trees that were planted around the turn of the century at least. They are over one hundred years old and still produce apples whenever the frost does not come late in the season after the apple trees bloom. I have camped under these old trees around the last of April and have been showered with apple blossom petals the come down like snow.

I read a history that someone wrote of three young men that came back to Pacheco in the fall of 1912 after they had left in the Exodus. One of the young men was a Martineau boy so they camped in the Orchard by the Creek in the Joel Martineau ranch. They hunted Deer and when they had killed their meat they loaded up what apples they could carry and took them back to Juarez with them. If those trees were bearing in the fall of 1912 they must have been planted at least 10 or 12 years earlier and probably before the turn of the century. I was up in that orchard just the other day and those trees are alive and their leaves were a bright green. I could not see well enough to tell whether they had any apples on this year but Naoma tells me that she saw that she saw they had many little apples on this year..

One year Hilven Cluff asked permission to use the field on the ranch and planted a big field of Oats in the field at the bottom of the ranch. He harvested a big crop of Oat Hay and stored it in the old Martineau home in Pacheco.

Again if the Ranch could talk it would tell us of the Deer that came carefully down in the night to feed on the delicious Oats when the grain was sweet and in the milk. I can imagine one big buck especially proudly coming down with a few Does to eat the sweet grain. Then I can imagine that big buck returning and jumping the high four wire fence and trotting off into the night.

One night as he was returning he had eaten a little more than usual and when he proudly jumped the fence, instead of going through like the Does probably because of his big horns, he jumped over easily but his hind feet did not clear the top wire but went through the gap over the second wire and under the top wire. He found himself hung on the top wire by his flanks with the second wire imprisoning his back legs. I can imagine his desperate efforts to free himself but it was impossible for the wire was new and to strong to break. The more he struggled the more the pain increased. How long he hung there only the nearby trees could tell us. As he grew weaker and probably bleating in agony the coyotes would begin to gather. I imagine they began to tear at the helpless shoulders and throat while the once proud buck weakly swung his big horns in defense.

In the day time the buzzards and crows would come to pick at the meat and the bones until all that was left was the greasy skeleton hanging on the top wire of the new fence. My heart was grieved when I came upon the tragic scene of the painful death of that proud Buck. His proud horns were shiny but all of the bones were dark and greasy. There was not even any hair around or pieces of skin only the bones of the skeleton were left hanging there still imprisoned over the top wire. That complete Skeleton told the tragic tail of missing that jump by just an inch or two.

Again if the ranch could talk it would tell of another tragic event that happened in the dark of night. Rafael Garcia who owns the San Juan Ranch above three rivers on the Arco River gave me a beautiful Grey and white Pinto Mule. She was tall and long legged and could really travel. We used her quite a few years in the mountains and she was a favorite among those that got to ride her. She was on the ranch with the other horses and mules waiting for the next trip when the Tragedy happened. I would like to know just how it happened but I simply cannot know except in my imagination.

Some young hunters were out hunting on a dark night with a light to shine around and locate the Deer they wanted to kill for meat. As they were going along the lane that goes by our ranch they were shining their light into the night on both sides of the lane. Suddenly they could see something Gray and White in the bushes and two big eyes shining in the light. I can imagine their excitement at seeing what they thought might be a big Buck Deer.

Aiming carefully they shot and hurried into the pasture to collect their meat. When they came to find their big Deer they found to their surprise and shock that it was a big Pinto Mule they had shot by mistake. . I can imagine their guilt feelings as they hurried away.

When we went up to get ready for another Pack trip into the mountains we could not find our prized Pinto Mule. Finally after searching all over the ranch we found the Skeleton of our Pinto Mule with a bullet hole in her skull right between the eye sockets.

Yes, if the Ranch could talk it could tell us many stories and things that we can only wonder about. Maybe someday that little piece of beautiful mountains will be able to show us a video of it's history letting us know of the people it has had live on it, enjoying its beauty and feeling of home. It might even show us the Girl's camps we have had there and the many Turkey hunts that we have enjoyed camping in the shade of the old apple trees. It might even show the grills full of Turkey breast frying for breakfast.

For now I can only record my version of what might have happened on the Ranch in the days that have past and gone and were not recorded.