Hiking

Jax and I are out hiking and I'm pretty sure we found the place where the cows bedded down each evening before they got pushed down Lockhart Basin. I'm not going to miss tamarisk. If someone could teach cattle to eat tamarisk it would solve two problems.

The cactus which only bloom for about seven to ten days each year turn pink in the winter.

Later in the day I'm filling the water tanks right to the top so I can yank the hoses and extension cords so we have about an hour or so and take the fire road above the house and hogans.

When we picked up mail in town the other day there was a letter from a guy that said he stayed here back in the summer and owed money when he left and said he'd send it to me. There was a check for $200 enclosed. Pretty cool. Years ago I had a couple stay here for a week or so and about three days in she found out she lost her job while she was gone and two days later he lost his job. When they checked out they told me they had both lost their jobs and it was going to be very tight going and I told them they were fine just do what they can. About six months later I got half of it and was probably a year or so after that they sent me the rest. It's such a good feeling.

The ravens are on a tear. They've figured out how to open the trash cans at Last Hurrah and since I have the same can everywhere there was a lot of picking up going on today. They raided the male, female, and both hogans trash cans. I was rationalizing not being mad at them because I've only seen two hawks intermittently at the lodge so there are a lot of happy songbirds. After I'd picked up all trash littered around we drove back over to the lodge and there were three hawks between the well house, dead cottonwood, and the lodge roof. The cans were mostly empty and the only things in them were small pieces of trash I'd found while cleaning but they yanked them out again.

I haven't seen any activity across the river at Caveman Ranch or Tangren-La, whichever it's current name is and it's been under contract for probably close to a year. As Jax and I were wrapping up extension cords and hoses a helicopter buzzed Caveman for five minutes flying in real low and looking around from just a few feet off the ground and then headed off towards Canyonlands Field.