Just Daisy and Me Hiking

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I awoke Saturday morning to Daisy's mournful howling and barking. Since she refuses to ride in the truck, Mark had loaded Brou up, put Daisy on the lead and then departed on his mission of the day. Daisy was not in the mood for any sort of consolation so I pulled the Dakota out of the barn and slowly headed East. As always, she fell in behind at a trot. If she starts to overtake the truck, I speed up since I don't want her anywhere near the wheels, just in case I have to take sudden evasive action. She was still game for the hike, even after following along for a mile. These pups aren't suburban couch wimps by any means.

Our mission? I had been looking out the window a few days ago near dusk and saw the sun play on a fascinating rock formation about 3/4 of a mile east of here and on the far side of the creek. The sun and shadows are forever revealing things you had never noticed before. Today was our day to satisfy my curiosity.

I pulled in to our ranch's farthest well site east of here. It is not far from the creek and, as you can see in the above photo, the large cottonwoods along its banks were in the late stages of Fall color. Just two weeks ago, they were a uniform brilliant yellow. If you want to find water out here in the desert, look for the cottonwoods. What you see in the foreground is the usual mix of sage, chico and grass. The practical part of my mission was to survey the grasses. Between the more plentiful rains of last year and this year, they were starting to recover from the decades of year round raiding by the stray cattle from next door. Our program of patiently herding them back and their owner's help in replacing the fences across the washes after the rainy season has made the world of difference in the grass recovery in just two seasons. Grass is cattle feed and our main source of income is cattle grazing. This inspection trip was heartening.


Daisy and I found a way down the banks to the creek and crossed over to the far side. It took a while to find a way up the far bank however. It doesn't matter, the walk is always enjoyable, with or without detours. In this photo, you can see the wide zigzag and erosive path of the creek. In this case, it was stopped from taking further liberties by the hard sandstone base of the mesa. Our concern is the eroding away of our access road which is often built on deep deposits of silts, part clay and part sand.

Without the influence of the bounding Brou, Daisy was actually a very good hiking partner, never more than 50 yards away at any given time. She was there within seconds when I called and often pointed out navigable paths through the boulder outcroppings ahead that I might have missed otherwise.

A delightful find was a piece of petrified wood sitting by itself. Above, you can plainly see the original form of the bark as well as a healed over branch knot. The iron minerals lent it the russet color and the tiny white spots were dazzling crystals flashing in the sunlight. This tree had been laying in state at least 200 feet down in the sedimentary layers before it had been exposed by ancient flowing waters. Now it's sum parts are scattered irretrievably by time like so many artifacts out here.

Pay dirt! We had hiked back towards the Rat about 1/2 a mile when I came across this huge billboard quality rock with a rich iron water patina, a former part of the mesa which had broken away and fallen to the base many hundreds of years ago. What looked like faint scratches became inscriptions as we drew closer. Some were still legible such as "Je M.U.F - o4", "Benino Gonsales - 1911", "Dona Cian" (who was likely Benino's gal back home according to the similar undisciplined etching style). Above Benino's scrawl was a weathered script so flourished and perfectly genteel but I could not decipher it. Some of these inscriptions might have dated back to the first Spanish incursions into the region over 400 years ago. The first two dated to just before New Mexico became part of the U.S. Remember that you can click on any of these photos for an enlarged view. What wonderful finds for one day's hike!
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