Monday Morning Hike

Monday morning Jax and I hike around the property.

There's a mule deer over by Hull's Place in the shadows and later tracks show seven or eight total.

Jax and I visit the boat ramp.

We walk up to the main house and the hogans where we had a check out this morning.

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Kobae, Jax, and I are all sleeping on the front porch when a white-tailed antelope squirrel sounds the alarm that a predator is coming. I assume the fox has returned but none of the white-taileds are looking up the road where the fox approaches from. They are looking at the dead Cottonwood tree. There's the sharp-shinned. It's a male, smaller than the female, and looking for a Colorado chipmunk or songbird meal.

The Gray Fox

The first leader I remember of the gray fox was One Ear. He was beat up bad when we met with an ear missing and the other one with a bite in it. He could barely walk, couldn't smell, and couldn't chew without food falling out of his mouth. After a couple winter months of hamburger, hot dogs, chicken, and fish he was magically healed and ran the parking lot show after dark when the fox gather for their hot dogs.


The second leader was the fox "Who's Eyes Don't Reflect." It was eerie. I'd walk out at night with the headlamp on, shine it into the parking on dim and have as many as 11 sets of white eyes staring back at me. Even though they might all be sitting patiently within 40 or 50 feet of each other the first hot dog always went to he who's eyes don't reflect. Hit him directly with the headlamp and nothing comes back at you. In time he would pick up the first hot dog, nod as in thanks, then wait, and I'd throw him a second. Nobody tried to get either of them from him. It wasn't until he would slowly trot off that all the other grays felt comfortable coming to get the next hot dog. He was the most dominant I've seen and led the rebellion when I interfered by accident with a rabbit kill at the bottom of the driveway but he is also the one who returned after three days of all foxes being absent and sat in the parking lot one night staring at me until I finally understood what I had done wrong. He told me through his eyes, that don't reflect. I nodded, he nodded, picked up the two hot dogs I had thrown him and the following night all the foxes returned.

For awhile there was a fox that sat on a rock part way up the hill right at sundown each evening who was in charge for awhile but leader's don't seem to have long life spans. Now the Day Fox who comes mid afternoon and again in the evening runs the show. I'm glad. The veteran fox know there will always be a hot dog for them and have in fact learned to sit tight after the first one to get a second one. This year there have been a lot of newbies. Throw a hot dog and three or four foxes run for it and the winner takes off with a couple of others chasing it. It's after the rookies are gone that the veterans take over. They know and Day Fox knows better than them all. He gets in front of the other foxes and sets the example. I throw him a hot dog, then a second. He doesn't even leave. He just sits sometimes as close as 15 to 20 feet from me even with Jax on the porch and slowly eats his hot dogs. When he's done a few more will come forward and do the same thing.

On Friday night with three guests sitting on the porch with me Day Fox came and just 20 or so feet from us took two hot dogs, then one more. Suddenly he looked up to my right on the river side of the lodge and stared at something for ten or so seconds without flinching. I could feel it. He saw something in the eyes of whatever he was looking at that he was in a place he didn’t want to be and he walked off. When he left all the other foxes did to except one rookie who made two quick runs for hot dogs and then realizing he was alone also took off. No foxes came back the rest of the night or did any of the other little people. When Michelle called at 6am Saturday morning and I walked out into the dark to start up the Jeep and go find her there were six gray fox sitting in the parking lot who had missed their meal last night and missed being a meal so there went a quick 16 hot dogs.

Kobae

It's been cold. Down to 10 degrees a couple nights but the next two weeks look good so instead of taking him to San Diego around Halloween I've held on to him for the second year in a row to get some hiking in with him. I think it was Tuesday when it was the coldest and he came outside, checked the temp and went back in to the laundry room. He never moved from that spot. I checked on him four or five times a day and he was breathing but his eyes were closed. I've read that African Spurs (Sulcata) never learned to hibernate because it never gets under 50 or so degrees where they are from in Africa. So while he may not hibernate he does know how to sleep. Each day I'd leave the laundry room door open for awhile but he'd feel the cold air and never budged. Today Michelle went in the laundry room looking for cleaner, couldn't find it, just kept talking and talking about where the Ajax might be and after 98 hours of sleep Kobae came out about three minutes after she went in. This is what a tortoise looks like after 98 straight hours of sleep without moving even once.

Sunday Morning Hike with Jax

We hike up to Doug's hogan and he's modified and added to it quite a bit.

The river appears to either be rising as the sand bar on the other side and the beach on my side are both shrinking though it could just be that current in the river is wearing them both down.

Jax takes his customary lead position.

No idea what created this.

Not much trash for having not hiked the area for nearly two months.

Saturday Morning 6am

Michelle left on Oct 15th to go get Jax. Several times she text, emailed, called to say she was on her way back. Saturday morning, Nov 2nd, the phone rings. Michelle says she doesn't know where she it. She can't see in the dark very well. I said "What can you tell me?" She says she remembers crossing over a cattle guard. I ask if it's in the valley or Hurrah. She's not sure. I tell her to stay where she is. I get in the truck and drive up Hurrah. I don't see tire tracks going off to the mining road that was closed 50 years ago. I ask her to honk her horn. I don't hear anything. I ask her to turn her lights off and on. I look down to the valley floor and see lights going off and on by the Ledges campground and tell her she's in the campground and to turn right, then left to get back on the road. She says no there's a big drop off. I start to head down the other side of Hurrah to see if she took an overlook by accident and see tail lights in my mirror. I turn around and head back up Hurrah and she is way out there on the mining road on the east side of Hurrah. She turns around and we meet at the sign. Jax jumps in the truck and almost seven weeks later Jax has returned.

Saturday turns out there's a lot to get done so I can't go hiking in the morning but in the afternoon we take off on a short hike up to the tee on #14 and not far from where the balanced rock fell over last month. There are some disc golfers playing.

They hang at the basket on #13 for quite some time and every one is staying still. Nobody is moving. It's hard to hear but I believe he just ask her to marry him and she said yes. There is applause.

Sorry about that. I labeled the video Proposal but this is the playing disc later.

Once Upon a time, In a galaxy, far, far, away.....

I was cleaning one of the houses next door and came across a Wall Street Journal someone had left. I remember I use to read the Wall Street Journal everyday. Shocked at the amount of money that would change hands in acquisitions and mergers and the like but a little excited by it also. In time I had my own decent size company and morning reading was the Wall Street Journal. I haven't even thought of the Journal in the 13 years I've been out here.

I remember in the business world flying from Denver to Anaheim one day probably in the 90s somewhere to look at an acquisition and looking down from my seat on the left side of the plane I saw the Pot Ash evaporation ponds which are straight across the river from Base Camp. As far as I could see in every direction there wasn't anything. Couldn't see any towns or any signs of civilization anywhere. I remember thinking "What kind of moron would live out in the middle of nowhere?"

Years later I and others in the company needed a place to unwind. Driving to the Boise facility one day many miles or so out of town I see people walk out of their house and get in their canoe and get in the Snake River and I thought to myself, "I need a river."

Driving through West Texas from the Permian facility I saw people walk out of their ranches, get on ATV's and dirt bikes and take off down the dirt roads and I thought to myself "I need dirt roads."

The list of what I needed and what I was searching for got longer every time I'd go out and visit all the indoor soccer locations.

Fast forward ten or so years later and I was in Moab going out to look at a boonies property and I tore the BMW all up on Hurrah Pass in the days when the road use to be a nightmare. That's how I met Nations Towing. Four tires and four rims.

When the real estate agent took me out to look at the property as the Beemer was in the shop we got to the top of Hurrah Pass and I saw the Pot Ash evaporation ponds across the river I thought "I am him. I am the moron." But in truth I was a different person then the guy on the plane from years earlier. Now, if I had unlimited wealth, this is where I'd live.