Animals and adventures

It's been awhile since I spent time outdoors on anything but work projects, so this morning I went for a walk, looking for beauty in the winter landscape. There's always some to find.

One thing we have around here is rocks, and I found our original pile of colorful rocks that we collected when we first bought the land and nothing was here except natural beauty. We had hoped to use them in building our house someday.

There's still snow on the distant north-facing slopes of the Santa Rita mountains.

The mesquite trees have lost almost all their leaves, which means spring isn't far away. They only go dormant for a few weeks!

The creosote are still green. They're an evergreen bush.

The ocotillo, in the foreground, are barren, but the yucca are still green. Those ocotillo thorns are sure healthy, aren't they?

One of my last stops was at the base of the largest mesquite tree on the ranch. It's down closer to the road, and it's where we buried Sylvie and Pumpkin, our two former cats. When we moved here in June, Sam encouraged me to go down and tell them we were here for good now. It's kind of emotional, because when they were with us, we promised they would live at the PPR someday. And in a way, they are.

Speaking of critters, we had a few adventures this week. Last weekend we smelled skunk from inside the house several times, and figured there might be one taking shelter inside the flooring insulation. Sam borrowed a trap from our good friends, Dennis and Joni, and set it up under the deck. Fortunately, no skunk so far, and we're rather relieved!

Meanwhile, we're moving ahead with the mini-split installation.

Sam and I both experienced the adventure of crawling under the house to run refrigerant and electric lines. What a joy!

Then last night we tried pulling new electric wires through 60 feet of conduit buried several feet underground. We had some success, but ended up spending the night without electricity, and will finish the job another day. This morning Sam was able to temporarily hook up the electric again, so our refrigerator could be turned on and our food won't spoil. We have priorities!

I hope your weekend turns out as well!