Friday, March 22, 2024

Empire Ranch 4

 This was a nearly cloudless morning, and it stayed that way.  There are some thin clouds now as we approach sunset.

This morning we had another visit from the cattle.  Skye approached to see if they were friendly but when one of them was friendly she scooted back quick!
The Oregon folks left by noon and now we have 3 neighbors.  One couple are out beyond us in a pick-up with a top side tent (a folding tent on top of the truck bed).  They moved to Tucson from Washington DC 2 years ago.  We had a quick chat as they walked by Skye went out to greet them.  We haven’t met the others.
After lunch we walked out across the flat land south of us and up onto the hill beyond.  Out there we discovered a prairie dog town!  We had seen one 5 miles north of us but didn’t know of one right here.  Skye kept them in their holes so I only saw one, but that one was up and chattering away before Skye went over.
We found another one of those woven spine pineapple cactus in flower.  We only found one so we’re pretty lucky to see it in flower.  Then Skye found an antelope horn!  She was thrilled to have that to chew on.  I was happy too, it’s a very rare find.  I let her keep it because she had found it and wanted it very badly to chew on.  Mistake!  She kept it for a mile but then found a cow pond, a muddy hole of water, and went for a dirty swim, and apparently dropped her (our) prize in the muddy water.  She came out quite a mess.  So much so that I took her .6 miles back to another cow water hole that is fed by a pump, so it’s cleaner.  She got another swim to clean up a little.  She still came back to camp dirty, but less so.
I stopped by the other camp (the Tucson couple, Chris & Steph) to tell them about the prairie dog town since they had asked about it earlier, before we discovered this group.  Now it’s about an hour before sunset.  Carlene has brushed Skye and she’s a bit better than before. 




Cows?



Prairie Dog Town

I saw one, briefly

They leave their mark at the door







More cows, with the one white calf







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