Desert wanderings

My friend John Hauck, and his Lady Nell, are out for their yearly visit They stopped by for a while, on their way to Alaska. John had bought a new Polaris Razor and of course wanted to do some trips around the area while they were here.

Our first trip was to the Sheepheads in an area called the fingers. My last video featured them when I flew. My reason for going was to see if I could get a line on the Bighorn Sheep that live there. I keep hoping that I will draw one of the lifetime tags before I get too decrepit to find them. Of course they were not at home this time. We took a picnic lunch and had a picnic as far out on the end that I could get Karen to ride without total rebellion. ( She can only stand just so much fun )

Coyote Lake appears to be almost full of water.

Cow Camp 

It was a nice trip but a little dusty. We had a good time and I can recommend smoked Chicken sandwich's on a high ridge as a good way to spend the evening.

We have been having some pretty hot temps for the last two days. Yesterday we had rain all around us. The day dawned nice and cool, and with the rain, the dust wouldn't be so bad. I decided that it would be a good time to visit the Prairie Falcon nest out in the desert on Rye Grass creek. It is seasonal, and there is some erosion that left a small cliff that a Golden first nested in, and eventually abandoned. There has been a Prairie Falcon there for at least two years.

We trailered the Razor out to the dirt road that would take us out there and began a 12 mile trip across the Desert. The storm yesterday that gave us the Red Rainbow wasn't all Verga. It had rained quite a lot on the road that we had to travel. We drove as close to our destination as we could get, then set out on foot to the nest area on Ryegrass Creek. It was a bout 2 miles over some pretty rough ankle turning rock gardens to get there, only to find that Ravens had taken over the nest site. Apparently the Prairies had not survived the winter, and it didn't take long for the Raven to move in.

 The nest is in the head of the little eroded canyon.

Taking a bit of a break.

With the only water around, the Indians apparently had hunted the area quite a lot. Apparently they had sat on the rim to wait for something to come by to drink. Therefore they quite likely spent their time making new arrow heads, or shooting the ones that they had at various game. Whatever the situation, there were quite a few chips and some arrow heads. 

You can see one of the Ravens in the right side of the picture.

John spent his time looking for more Indian bullets.

The old Eagles nest from the top of the cliff.

This is the little water hole at the base of the cliff.

This is the first Barrel type Cactus that I have seen here. Prickly Pear can be found, but I have never seen a round Cactus in this area.

Of course the rain has caused the Desert to bloom. These being some Trumpet type flowers.

Red Rainbow

This evening the sunset took on some colors that are even pretty remarkable even for here. As usual the storms circled around us. Rain every where except here at the house. The sunset was our compensation prize apparently. Verga ( rain that evaporates before it hits the ground ) was surrounding us and a rainbow formed within it, but was only blood red. None of the photo's are enhanced other than a bit of "sharpening" of the image. They were taken with between one to two F stops lower.