Wildflowers of the Sage Brush Desert

I took a drive up to Cow Camp for the Stoddarts this afternoon to see if I could capture some of the beauty that this unusually wet spring has given us.If you want o know what the individual flowers are named I invite you to look them up, because I am not going to. It has taken me at least an hour and half to shrink all these  small enough to be able to get them on the computer. :-)

The desert is as beautiful as I have ever seen it in the 14 years that I have lived here. There are 37 pictures here and not very many are duplicates. Click on the first one and they will go full screen.

Yanking and banking!

I took a flight yesterday and took a lot of footage where I flew. There was one part that I particularly wanted flying below the cliffs down into the Crooked Creek drainage. Unfortunately my camera was pointed too far down, and I was unable to turn it upward so that you could see some of the sky as well. The creek is about 30 feet or so below the surface of the rest of the ground. I kept trying to peer up at the top of the screen to see more, so I finally scrapped the video and made a new support for the camera that is a bit taller. Here is the result.

https://vimeo.com/340501352   password-   owyheeflyer

I get information from Vimeo about how many times my video's are watched and whether they are watched to the end. I will repeat as in most years-  If you are not interested in getting the blog or the video's kindly tell me and I will gladly remove your name from the list. I do not monetize it and the last thing I want to do is to bore someone with my ramblings. No harm, No foul, no hard feelings.

Sheepsheads

Wonder of wonders today dawned calm and clear. Its probably one of the few mornings that the ground wasn't wet from rainfall the night before. The wind wasn't blowing either. That was really strange. I woke up at 0530 and the temperature was already at 56 degrees. 50 degrees is my cut off for flying, At that temperature I am quite comfortable with just a jacket. I have been a bit shy about flying since Karen's death. There is just something about not having a radio back up that makes one a bit more cautious. I leave the door open for the Dogs and Cat, just in case I don't come back.

I have a couple of friends coming and they expressed an interest in seeing some of the feral horses that infest this country. (There are just too many) There was about 1400 of them in the Sheepshead's last year, so I wanted to check the roads to see if it was possible to get up there. There is no excuse for tearing up the roads, so it was best to check, besides it gave me a mission for an excuse to fly.

It didn't take all that long to decide that I wasn't going to drive up there, besides I didn't see any horses. They were hanging out on the side hills along Hwy 78 going towards Burns. I saw a couple of Antelope that had survived the drought and the Horses that kept them off the waterholes last fall.
I flew for an hour, burned 4 gallons of fuel. The plane performed perfectly and best of all, I had fun.

  https://vimeo.com/339877641    password    owyheeflyer

Stormy Weather

"The only thing that stay's the same, is that every thing changes"!

This is my 13th spring here, and all have been different.  Most were dry, but not this year. We have been in a nasty drought for the last three years, with last year being the worst. Almost all of the springs and ponds back in the Sheepsheads dried up. We lost Bone reservoir. When the drought started there were trout in it that were several pounds. It went totally dry. We really didn't have any moisture during the winter, but this spring it has RAINED! I believe our average rainfall is about 4.5 inches. I cannot tell for sure but I think we have gotten more than two inches in the last two weeks. Perhaps more. It has rained at least twice a day every day, for the last two weeks. Highly unusual in this part of the desert, but it is nature's way to make up for past dereliction. 

It has been so dark and gloomy that the sun cannot break through for either Sunsets, or Sunrises, so the chance for pictures has been pretty bleak. It was windy with a big storm brewing, so I decided to get some firewood to take the chill off. I didn't see anything of interest when I went out to chop wood. When I loaded the wheelbarrow with wood, I was able to look East, and there was a peculiar light show going on in the sky. I dropped the wheel barrow and ran for the camera, but I missed the best part anyway.

I took several bracketing shots and put the camera up, so that I could put the wheel barrow in the wood shed. Then I noticed the sky in the west. Another run for the camera.  

Looks like rain!

Sunrise this morning

It did of course rain a bit last night. There is a temporary upside to all this water however, and that is the plant life. The weeds are growing like crazy. I have never seen them so high, I can hardly wait till the sun comes out and they really take off. Naturally most of them are noxious, but hey, nobody's perfect. I did get lucky this year and I managed to lay down some "ground sterilizer" at just the right time and weather. It has to be applied so that the rain can soak it into the ground. I put it down in a drizzle that continued for a day and half afterward. It is supposed to last for 5 years. We will see.

The Mallow is coming up in profusion this year. When the pictures were taken the blooms had not opened up yet.  Mostly it is one or two plants here and there, but this time they are in big bunches. The bloom is just beginning, and things are likely to get really pretty for a while soon as the rains fade and the Sun comes out.

 The first Night Hawk this year.

 This one has a "seed" called a Goat head. I think it
was the pattern for a "Caltrops". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caltrop

Mallow and Foxtails

 This is what they do while I am getting my exercise- dig for Squirrels

The runway looks nice doesn't it. I am so pleased that I won't be spending all my time digging weeds out of the runway.