Roaming the ranch

Nice sunny cool day in the 50s by afternoon.  We hung in camp until lunch time then drove north in the ranch to see some things.  We wanted to look at the campground because it was mentioned at Rune last night.  Yup, full as always.  Now don’t picture a commercial  style campground.  This is still a boondock campground.  No utilities or facilities of any kind.  Just a piece of range with a signpost in front of it, like we are on now.  It is almost always full when we come look.  It does have great views of the mountains on both sides, but doesn’t offer anything else better than we have here.

So then we went out another road and parked by the prairie dog village.  There are several more campsites here, some available.  Not moving.  The prairie dogs were not interested in visiting us and definitely didn’t like the dog’s presence!  We walked a mile or two down that road just because.  Nice walk.  Skye found a souvenir leg bone, complete with hoof.  Small, fawn or antelope I’d guess.  She would trot ahead, find a shady  place and chew until we caught up and then go again.  She dropped it before we got to the truck, so we didn’t have to take it away from her.

We checked out a water tank &  pond where we have seen a lot of birds and some deer in other years.  There were Berwick’s Wrens and Black Phoebe’s there today  

Back at camp we see there is a motorcycle camper in a nearby site.  Looks a lot like backpack camping, very small, very simple.

The pond, That pipe is the water source, from a nearby pump

Carlene, bird “hunting”

A couple big Cottonwoods

Carlene saw many interesting “faces” is this big old Cottonwood

Just a road to explore

Thirsty dog.  We carry as much water for her as we do for ourselves

I found a BONE!

The prairie dog farm

If you look close you can see Venus

Wandering the hills

This was a sunny yet cool day, topping out at 55° by late afternoon.  We took a hike in the hills around camp, just to look around.  We’ve done this several times, but the direction we usually go is now burned.  Last month I mentioned the fire last October, burned 1400 acres to the south of us.  So we went north for a couple miles.  Skye always likes to scout ahead and today was typical of that.  Except that being out in the tall yellow grass she blends in, perfect camo.  And she ran out further than usual.  We hung out for several minutes and then began calling.  Carlene has worked on training her for a whistle, so she was whistling away.  Skye came back when she got around to it, all tuckered out, panting heavily, laying down in the shade of a mesquite.  I had gone across the draw to look over the next hilltop when she returned.  Then I heard voices over my right shoulder.  Three people came walking up to us.  It was the AZ Game & Fish Dept. checking to see if we were OK!  They were doing some prairie dog work just up from camp and heard the whistle so came to see if anyone was calling for help.  They had also considered that someone was just calling a dog but had to be sure.  Four of them had come checking.  They were happy it was just a dog and they just had a nice little hike and break from work.

We knew from our previous visits that there are prairie dogs here.  They were doing some survey work, catching some to assess their condition, gathering data and releasing them.  They’d wait an hour and see if they had trapped any more to do it all again.  When we came down the hills to the camp road we happened to come out right where they were parked so we talked some more.  A very nice group of 6 people.

We had some time to sit in the sun in the shelter of the trailer this afternoon until the sun shifted around so there was no more wind shelter except for the shaded areas.  Oh well.  By then it was time to go over to Rune winery for some wine & live music.  We had been there a year or two ago and had followed them on FaceBook, so I saw this event a couple days ago.  It was a good time!  A good glass of wine, some good music and we had a nice fire pit too.  The first 4 people sharing the fire stuck very much to themselves.  A couple from Manitoba came by and chatted for a bit.  When they all left another group of 8 came along.  They were fun.  The women had known each other since Middle School and, as one said, they eventually added men to the group.  Now most (all?) of them live in Flagstaff and are down here celebrating one’s birthday.

This little cactus has a long way to go.

Our AGFD “rescuers”

Lunch time

Mutual support

Rune Winery

Y

Sonoita

For all of you have moaned about my constant “warm sunny day” comment, here is a big change of pace.  It was a dang cold rainy windy day!!!

We stayed inside all morning.  But despite the total cloud cover this morning I was getting a charge from the solar panels.  We had the heat on all day and that has taken a slight toll on the batteries.  But 13.1v. instead of 13.7 at sunset isn’t bad at all.  We did have some sun this afternoon.  But we also had some snow at 11 AM!  Not enough to stick, but enough to see in the air.  

This afternoon we went out to Autumn Sage Vineyards, about 20 minutes away.  We each did a wine tasting so between us we sampled all but two of their wines.   They were a bit pricey at $38 and up.  Didn’t buy any bottles. 

Back at camp it’s still cold and windy.  Walked Skye a bit before supper but that was it. Tomorrow is supposed to be warmer.  

Sunrise in the clouds

The small white dots are snowflakes

After the rain stopped the sun came out.  

The fog in mid screen is water evaporating from the ground

Mt Wrightson now has snow

Looking down on camp while walking Skye 

Sunset

Back to Gardner Canyon hike

We were here on Feb 5, so for the first half of the hike I’ll refer you to the photos I posted back then. Today we wanted to get to Bear Spring, which we didn’t reach last time.  It’s about a mile past the point where we turned around last time.  Most of the photos I’m posting today are from this new section.  It was about 6.3 miles round trip today. Mostly along the contour so it was pretty easy.  The hike reference says Bear Spring is a good place to turn around since the trail goes uphill steeply after that.

It was a windy and grey day at the start.  But we found a lot of shelter from the wind on our side of the mountain.  And then the clouds mostly scattered to let a good amount of sun shine in.

Tomorrow they talk about rain and maybe even a bit of snow in the morning.  Cold all day with a high of 45°. Brr.  But the radar shows the bulk of it passing by noon, showers in the afternoon, just not warming up until Saturday.  No worries, I set up the generator tonight so if we need some extra electricity to run the heater it’s all already.  And there are plenty of wineries around here to keep us entertained!  Sounds like a fine day for wine tasting.

When we arrived and parked the cattle were checking us out

Kind of cloudy and a bit threatening

Nice rock work supporting the trail

This was built long ago as a water supply route to the mine 

This rock looks like it recently came off the ledge

this rock fell onto another and made a mini cave

Sign indicates the horse trail goes down here

It would be difficult to get a horse through that cave

Trees and succulents 

We didn’t see Bear Spring but Skye found the water coming out of it

Back at the truck a cow wanted to get a drink but was leery of us

She did eventually get her drink after we got in the truck

Found some deer on the drive out.