Adventures Close to Home: All But the Pigs

Deeply cut bank of the wash, our trail for the day

This morning we two humans (Therese and I) and three dogs (Buddy, Mollie, and Sarah) explored a different section of the Philadelphia Wash, an arroyo that runs down through our neighborhood from the Dos Cabezas Mountains. The section we visited today is favored by shade on one side if you get out early enough, but the sunny side pictured above glowed red in the morning light, sun already well above the horizon when we set out. 

I have never been in Arizona during monsoon season to seen a dry wash become a dangerous, roaring, life-threatening torrent, but the vertical cut of the bank above gives some idea of what rushing water can do during a summer storm. Here is an explanation of an Arizona wash from the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, and I'll quote from it briefly for those who can't be bothered following links:

Desert washes are also called xeroriparian habitats to indicate their relationship with rivers. Like typical rivers, washes are linear, chronically disturbed habitats that concentrate water and nutrients from a large area, and serve as dispersal corridors for plants and animals.

Netleaf hackberry in wash

Xeroriparian -- dry river habitat -- dry, yes, but a kind of natural highway providing more in the way of nutrition and moisture than surrounding high desert and mountains. Note the advanced spring green of the hackberry tree with its feet deep in the wash. Mesquite too reach deep to find moisture beneath the dusty surface.

Therese, my hiking guide and guru

Love the exposed rock!

These are determined roots!

Something I need to identify...

Buddy likes the shade. We all do.

Another of those DYCs

Tiny but bright

A look back to orient myself to the way we have come

We are making the return trip now

Remember this exposed rock?

It happened right around here --

What happened? The biggest excitement of the morning, more than we really needed: a troop of javelina crossed the wash up ahead of us. Quick, distract dogs! Get leashes on dogs! A little farther along, we looked back and saw the "pigs," as people call them, in the wash behind us! Their eyesight is very poor, and it's not likely they were stalking us, but I made as loud and deep and scary a sound as I could, several times, in their direction. "You're freaking out the dogs," I as told. "I want to freak out the javelinas so they don't come charging after us!" The pigs took a different path, and after we all calmed down, Therese and unleashed our dogs again so that they and we could all enjoy the walk more.

So, no photos of javelinas! Too busy with dogs to bother with camera! And no photos, either, of the mule deer Therese spotted, so high on the mountain that I couldn't see them at all until they moved. No telephoto lens. 

Anyway, as the sun reached even into our shady places, we needed to get back home soon. Midday is no time to hike in southern Arizona.

Sun is reaching for us...

Can you even see Sarah here?

It was a pretty arduous trek for a couple of old dogs like Sarah and me, but she drank water every time I offered it to her (finishing a whole bottle in the course of the walk) and took advantage of shade at every opportunity, so although I sometimes think these expeditions are too much for her, I was glad she hadn't missed another exciting morning with our neighborhood pack. We will be tired for the rest of the day, both of us, but it's worth it to feel we are living life to its fullest -- which isn't easy in these strange times, is it?

Tired but happy dog!

An Exciting Morning in the Neighborhood

Saturday dawned fresh and cool, the world washed clean and clear by overnight storms. Crows brought life to the morning skies and filled the air with their calls.

Sarah's (and mine) were the first tracks on the rain-wet road, other than those made by the tires of a vehicle that passed before we arrived. Some people would never want to track with a dog, I know. Doesn't she mess up the evidence of what's gone before? Sometimes, possibly, but watching her and examining her tracks is a learning experience, too. In the first shot above, the distance between tracks makes clear that she was running, as does the deepness of the front of the print at left. When we returned not many minutes later, Sarah's track (below) looked different. Do you see what happened in the interim?

There was no sign of sandhill cranes on the road, but I kept hearing them and looking up, expecting to see them flying over the orchard. They were in the neighborhood. But where? Plenty to see on the ground, anyway. 

. . . 

And then -- my foot dislodged a rock that demanded to be rinsed off and inspected more closely -- 

Another reminder that not all Petoskey stones are found on the beach. After all, our whole neighborhood was underwater long ago.

But there were those cranes calling again. Where were they? Not in the orchard, not in the corn.

At last, farther than I had thought, at the far side of a field bordering Jelinek Road --

Very satisfying! And then it was time to go to work.

Photo Series: Cow and Calf in Yard

I know. The calf is nowhere in sight. Now look closely at the next image.

Still not a very good look, but he's there, resting in the weeds. You can see how windy it is by the way the cow's ear is blown upward.

When mom wanders off, baby is distraught,

but soon they are happily and peacefully reunited. 

This is one of the things I absolutely love about being in Dos Cabezas: our sweet bovine neighbors and their visits!

Can't Get Enough of October Orchards

Here is the orchard kitty-corner SE from St. Wenceslaus Church.  My neighborhood is beautiful all year, but it is especially lovely right now. Below is the view on the old Lee Mann Road, looking west, where the dark green of the pines between a yellow mass of maples and the more complex yellow of the orchard caught my eye.

Finally, here are two shots of the same orchard on Eagle Highway, taken on the same day, just moments apart, first viewed through a rainy windshield and then with no filtering medium between camera and trees.