Ravine and Perched Rock

More scenery pictures. This one points to the west and was taken from the ravine that crosses our lot. We can look straight out onto this tree from our dining room window.

This is part of the next canyon to the south of our lot, maybe 600 yards away. It's really pretty and Alice walks the dogs over there most mornings. The picture is deceiving in terms of scale... that rock is at least twenty feet across. I'm not sure what keeps it perched there but I make it a point not to walk under it.

Cattle Ponds and Tadpoles

Ranchers used to build cattle ponds out here by mounding earthen dams across washes. This one is about 500 yards south of our lot and due to the monsoon rains now has standing water in it. After the first really heavy rains of the summer, we can hear loud croaking all night as the big toads come up out of the mud to breed. It's quite amazing that they survive the rest of the year deep down in what is by that time mostly dry cow poop.

Here is the result. I took this picture in the shallow fringes of the pond but it was like this all over. There are probably tens or even hundreds of thousands of these tadpoles in there right now. With a little luck the pond will stay wet long enough for most of them to grow into snake, lizard, roadrunner, and raven food. It will take a lot more luck for any of them to survive until next summer.

Grass Growth

These pictures were all taken on our lot. All this growth happened in less than six weeks and although the green is pretty, it will soon all be brown and I'll have to hack it down for protection against grass fires next spring. I've been told that the grass down here is mostly not native ... supposedly there are about four major species that were imported decades ago from Africa by cattlemen. Some of it is higher than my waist and still growing. (Note: it ended up being literally chest high that year). It's also really tough stuff and we had to buy a commercial weed whacker to cut it. Beats me how the cows are able chew it, or why they would want to.

White House, Deep Blue Sky

This picture looks straight south at our house from the road leading up to it.

This picture looks north at our house from the southern edge of our lot (across a large ravine). 

This side of the house has the master bedroom (left) and the dining area (right). At the middle under the overhang is a side entry with sort of a mud room entrance.

Notice how blue the sky can be ... one of the nice effects of living at 5,000 feet elevation. Sometimes the color is so deep I just stare at it..

Hillside Greenery

After one of the driest winters in history, we've had possibly the wettest summer season ever recorded down here. My unofficial tally so far, as measured on our lot, is well over twelve inches of rain in just a few weeks. That may not sound like a lot to most people, but down here it is a lot and it causes a lot of damage. The Coronado National Monument, about two miles southwest of us, got eight inches of rain in a day and a half and the road damage alone is being measured in the millions of dollars.

Anyway, here is an updated picture of our place on the hillside showing all the greenery. Our house is the white one -- at least until we get it stucco'd -- in the center.

This picture shows the southern third of the Huachuca Mountain range, which really is quite pretty. We live on the lower slopes of Bob Thompson Peak at the left, but Miller Peak at the right is actually 2,000 feet taller (about 9,500 feet elevation). There are excellent National Forest hiking and mountain bike trails throughout the range.

Hike up Bob Thompson Peak, part 5

Here's another picture of Montezuma Peak, just west of Bob Thompson Peak. Again, you can see how steep and rough the terrain is. Pretty country, though.



One last picture of the hike. This is Eric grabbing a snack, with Arka hoping to get some of it. It was pretty warm by the time we headed down the mountain and the dogs would move from tree to tree ahead of us looking for shade. They drank almost as much water on the hike as we did.

Eric is 13 1/2 years old and average size for his age ... so yes, Arka is a large dog.

Hike up Bob Thompson Peak, part 4

This view looks westward from Bob Thompson Peak to Montezuma Peak about a mile away, and a ridge runs northward from there to Miller Peak. Just a few hours after we took this picture a fire started on the other side of Montezuma Peak and the high winds pushed it along that ridge. National Forest Service Trail 103 runs along that same ridge and is heavily used by illegals and smugglers. There have been at least five man-made fires in this same spot in recent years, all caused by camp fires they didn't bother to put out. The fire didn't reach Miller Peak, but it dipped down into Ash Canyon and threatened several homes there. It took almost 500 firefighters and half a dozen helicopters three days to get it under control.



This view looks southwest from Bob Thompson Peak toward the San Jose Mountains in Mexico. You can see how steep the hillside drops off. My GPS said that we climbed 2300 feet in about 1.1 mile, but most of the actual slopes were about 40 degrees with lots of loose rocks. It was easier going up than it was coming down.