Morning meditation at Scullbinder Ranch. How lucky am I to live here? Did you know the name of our ranch is a mix of our last names Scully and Fassbinder? Thank you so much to my ridiculously talented and handsome husband for building this sacred space for us. No matter how challenging life gets, you are my favorite person. And you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. @republicofdoom
hey y’all thanks so much for your help and supporting this little sweet girl. She’s gonna go to her mama this week. And thanks to you. All she will be just fine. I think we’ve raised 4300 so far. That should definitely take care of getting her leg, either amputated or fixed, plus shots, getting her neutered, the x-rays, everything. Y’all saved this little girl’s life.❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️Me, Roo and @republicofdoom and @rebeccalouzan are you sending you all heaps of love and hugs.
Good morning. Sad news. The puppy who showed up at @scullbinderranch two nights ago, now named Roo, has a broken femur. We took her to the vet yesterday. It’s an old injury. So that means someone kicked a 6 to 12-month-old puppy, let her suffer for a few months, and then dumped her in the wilderness down Weber Canyon with a broken leg to leave her to starve or be eaten?! WTF, right?
So it would cost $5k to have the leg fixed. But the Denkai Animal Sanctuary, says they can amputate it for much less, around $1500. We will still look into options for saving her leg, but that seems out of reach.
We have a lovely sweet mama who wants to adopt her already @rebeccalouzan 😍. But neither her new mom nor Steve and I can afford this right now with taxes due, so we’re asking for help.
We recognize this is a challenging time to ask for money. I don’t know about you, but our taxes sure as hell didn’t go down. Neither did our insurance, groceries, or gas. It’s tough. But it’s also tough to know what to do in this circumstance. Denkai said they would also help raise money, which is amazing❤️. Thanks for any help you can offer.
Link is in my bio❤️
Our Mnt lion is back. Treed right by the house. I’m feeling like we are just completely lucky to get to witness this animal so close up. Also ready for it to move on!!
Recently I wrote a blog post to entitled, “Scullbinder Ranch: To Stay or Not To Stay? That is the Question.” I am going to share it in a four-part series with various photos and videos, as the namesake for this Instagram Page is actually Scullbinder Ranch :-). Today’s photo/video theme is winter and snow, something we have barely any of this year😬😞. ~Lizzy
Part 4: Where We Are & What That Means
And all this is 11 miles from town, with off-grid with solar power and a generator for when we have little sun. We haul water, use the tractor to maintain the driveway and landscape when floods would wash the culverts and gravel down canyon (which happens every year). And we work constantly to make the place welcoming and amazing for our friends, family and guests. It’s not a place most people could or would want to live. It’s a challenge daily, especially when Steve is gone on long-term guiding or personal adventure trips. I get really tired sometimes. But when he’s gone, we also have an incredible community of people who help us with everything from dog care to moving the cabin when the river nearly washed it downstream. It takes a village.
I started writing this as an instagram post. But it’s turned into something more—our philosophy for living off grid, I guess 🙂 Or just me saying I wouldn’t change my life right now for anything. It’s good, hard, challenging, amazing, fun, beautiful and full of incredible people. You’re welcome to come share it with us sometime, if you are so inclined. I hope when we pass on to other realms that this place remains a gathering spot for people who love nature and the outdoors.
#ranchlife #ranchliving #scullbinderranch #meetmeinmancos #mancoscolorado
Recently I wrote a blog post to entitled, “Scullbinder Ranch: To Stay or Not To Stay? That is the Question.” I am going to share it in a four-part series with various photos and videos, as the namesake for this Instagram Page is actually Scullbinder Ranch :-). Today’s theme is the cabin🏡. ~Lizzy
Part 3: What’s In a Name?
The name is a combination of our names: Lizzy Scully and Steve Fassbinder. Mike Curiak coined it one day over beers. And it makes a lot of sense. We’re bound on this special, ancient landscape by marriage, by the founding and running of our business (and we actually get along really well doing it). Plus, we’re bound together by and within this incredible Southwestern community of adventurers, healers, artists, musicians, mechanics, grocery store owners, anglers, hunters, trackers, writers, and more.
And while I wrote The Bikeraft Guide (it’s on sale for $31 at Kokopelli right now) during the pandemic, Steve crafted our beautiful house out of 70-80% repurposed materials, with his usual precision, care and incredible creativity. He worked my old climbing gear into all parts of the structures, and wood from the house I grew up in on the ceiling, a fancy kitchen from a rich person’s remodel in Telluride, a floor made of oak from another rich person’s basketball course, also in Telluride, the floor upstairs from Johnny Cash’s mom’s house, and so much more. He learned to weld so he could build the stair cases, wood burning stove nook, the ladder to the loft and the railings there and on the porch, among other things. And he likewise built the outbuildings, gardens, cabin, sauna and bike shop with the same reduce, reuse, recycle mantra.
#ranchlife #ranchliving #scullbinderranch #meetmeinmancos #mancoscolorado
Recently I wrote a blog post to entitled, “Scullbinder Ranch: To Stay or Not To Stay? That is the Question.” I am going to share it in a four-part series with various photos and videos, as the namesake for this Instagram Page is actually Scullbinder Ranch :-). Today’s theme is the house. ~Lizzy
Part 2: Scullbinder Ranch Logistics & Its surroundings
The Ranch lies at the confluence of two canyons, one with Weber Creek, which runs through Weber Canyon, and the Mancos River, which flows through Mesa Verde National Park (our neighbor) and is the only riparian area in the entire 81 square miles of the Park. Those canyons and rivers come together and form a larger river flowing through the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Park. All canyons are lined with steep sandstone cliffs, and there are dozens of side canyons, many of which show signs of the 1000s of years of human engagement, primarily the Ancient Puebloans. The Tribal Park and Mesa Verde are chock full of ancient sites, while we’ve found pottery, petroglyphs, pictographs and stone tools on the BLM land in Weber.
The canyons have also been migratory corridors for birds, wildlife and people for centuries. In the spring, tens of thousands of birds fly through the canyon. And as an avid birder, I revel in their short visits and long stays on the property. On Cornell’s National Bird Count Day May 2024, I saw a record 24 species (I am an amateur!), in just a few hours, many of whom stayed all summer. The black-chinned hummers number in the dozens, though really come out in force in the summer. We have rufous and broadtail hummers as well. Plus, Say’s Phoebe, Cassin’s Kingbirds, Cassin’s Vireos, Clark’s nutcrackers, blue-gray gnatcatchers (all summer), evening and black-headed grosbeaks, tons of spotted towhees (they come first!), yellow warblers by the river, lazuli bunting, western bluebirds, and this year, I saw a very special black-throated gray warbler (a lifer) for the first time. And my favorite black-billed magpies, who incessantly torture my dog🤣
And Scullbinder Ranch Ranch sits in the heart of all this.
#ranchlife #ranchliving #scullbinderranch #meetmeinmancos #mancoscolorado
Recently I wrote a blog post to entitled, “Scullbinder Ranch: To Stay or Not To Stay? That is the Question.” I am going to share it in a four-part series with various photos and videos, as the namesake for this Instagram Page is actually Scullbinder Ranch :-). Today’s photo theme is fall and the land we are caretaking in this lifetime. ~Lizzy
Part 1: The Money is Not the Point
A lot of people ask about the stay at Scullbinder Ranch. A few of our key team-building courses include multiple nights and food that I cook at the Ranch. Some of these include the Level 2 Women’s Expedition Course and the Level 3 Expedition Course, along with all our Tribal Park Bikepacking Tours. And we sometimes invite other course participants to stay at the Ranch, generally May and June or sometimes in the fall. We don’t advertise that much, so you have to ask about it. Or we sometimes put in an offer to stay on the registration page.
Many of our clients have been following us on Instagram, Facebook or in our emails for years and want to see the basecamp we have built at the southern tip of Weber Mountain. Others prefer staying closer to where the action is. Either is fine with us. We charge $150 per night, which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus a cozy shared stay in either a glamping tent or our really lovely cabin, which is like a small version of the amazing house Steve built. But the money is not the point. While it does pay for insurance, food, my work cleaning, setting up and maintaining the cabin and glamping tents, the point is what it means, how you feel and what it’s like to stay down here.
#ranchlife #ranchliving #scullbinderranch #meetmeinmancos #mancoscolorado
Hey ladies! Who wants in on the Women’s Week Of Rivers in Alaska?!! 🙋🏻♀️🙋🏽♀️🙋🏼♀️
Want to explore more rivers in Alaska with one of the most experienced guides in the world, Jule Harle? Jule will be joined by Four Corners Guides owner, Lizzy Scully, to lead 6 lucky women down five different rivers. So if you aren’t ready to hit Class II and III rivers on your own in Alaska and need more guidance & instruction, consider this course of a lifetime. This course is for women who don’t know where to go and who are looking for new runs and new friends to paddle with. The @alaskapackraft school Women’s “Week of Rivers” offers a blend of exploration, skill progression & confidence building with a team of supportive female paddlers. Meet & connect with other adventurous women who love packrafting!
#womenwhopackraft #thisispackrafting #alaskapackrafting #womenwhopaddle @scullbinderranch
It’s strange going from the constant noise of México City to the near silence of the Ranch, where all I hear is water from the Mancos, birds and my crazy dog running to catch the frisbee. Hopefully we get more moisture soon. It may be a very bad fire year 😬
