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.

Every Silver lining has a Cloud

I am sure that I have mentioned the lack of rainfall here in the desert many times before. I mean after all it is a desert, but every thing can be overdone. With an average of 4.5 inches it doesn't take much variation to be noticed. In 2006 when we arrived here, it was pretty green outside. Of course that green was primarily weeds, but what the heck, it was still growing and green for a while. There were plenty of game birds and critters. It has slowly been drying up. Last year all the ponds and springs back up in the hills totally dried up to dust.

Our winter precipitation was a total of 1.25 inches from October to the middle of May. Between the fires and nothing growing it was looking pretty bleak. The patterns here are really quite interesting. You know they always show precipitation in percentages. Well if you lived here you would understand completely. It of course means that the rain will cover a certain percentage of the area. Most generally what that means for us is that it rains 6 miles north of us for about a square mile or two, and the entire visible desert about 15 miles south east. Nothing here. It is apparent that some formation to the south of us splits the clouds and moves part of them to the North West and the rest of them to the South East and comes back together about 15 miles north East.

Last week something weird happened, and it rained on us. A lot! Almost 2 inches of rain fell on our little bit of Desert over a week. It was a nice gentle rain for the most part. No real flash floods or other destructive behavior for a change.

                                           Note the Patch of Prickly Pear in the fore ground.

 This is about as high as I have seen the creek.

 It soaked in, and refilled some of the little springs back in the hills. We even had a little bit or run off as well. All good!

https://vimeo.com/128531834     password - owyheeflyer

Of course with such a rare phenomenon, things were bound to happen. Spade foot frogs came to the surface, to make their calls for mates. Flowers grew like there was no tomorrow, and the weeds again dominated the landscape. Russian Thistle ( Tumbleweeds) and Yellow Mustard being the dominate species. The air of the evening is fragrant with the subtle perfume of the Evening Primrose calling any and all to pollinate. Pack rats and Mice have flourished, and all come visiting.

The first flowers that came up was the Mallow.

                     The silver lining there is that Josie has come into her own as a Rat killer.

 Jessie has discovered that Rats and Mice are tasty. The rabbits and game birds seem to be taking advantage of the windfall. The Cloud is that the food is so good that Jessie has made a scrape and has a brand new egg in it. The only bad part about that is that it stops her molt dead in its tracks.

Of course now with all that growth the fire load will be out of sight when the lightening flashes in July and August.

As a precaution I went over to the ranch and borrowed a tractor with a brush hog on it and mowed our weeds far enough back to give us a fire guard in case the worst happened.

                       If we can keep from burning up, it promises to be "A very good Year".

2015 trip to Leslie Gultch

Sandy Morrison stopped by on her way back home from visiting her son in California. She had never see Leslie Gulch, so a trip was in order.

It was a cloudy day that eventually went in to a light drizzle. My only disappointment was that it didn't rain hard. We had a good day in spite of the weather. Both Sandy and Karen are rock collectors, so the car was quite a bit heavier going out than it had been.

This entry is mostly pictures. So click on the first one and each click will bring another pile of rocks for your viewing pleasure.

The lighting was a bit washed out and I had to really "saturate" this photo to enable us to see the Steen's. The light got better as the day wore on.

I liked the Juniper growing out of the soil that had blown in to the rock.

These are Choke Cherry bushes

The Indian Pain Brush is a little darker red this year.

Their were Chukars every where.

A Kestrel was sitting on the highest perch he could find.

This rock reminded us of Jeff Dunham's dummy Walter.

This poor rock was only a shell of its former self. Apparently a victim of drinking too much.

The lake is starting the year as low as it normally is in the late fall. It is down to 29 % of its normal level. This is the original stream bed.

We looked in this hole twice trying to see what if anything was nesting in it.

 With a bit of manipulation you can finally see Mama Horned Owl and a nestling in the back.

The rather amusing part of these trips into Leslie Gulch is that one never sees it all. There is always a new feature to the rocks. Its never the same.