Your guess is as good as mine as to what the name of today's hiking spot means. I get the whole "red" part, and perhaps if you call a stream a draw, that makes sense, too. Oh well. At least it was a fun hike.
There wasn't much in the way of a trail, though. Which meant that most of the hike involved navigating our way over large river rocks and underneath/around/through assorted prickly things. Lots and lots of prickly things. Everything we encountered seemed to be armored with some sort of burr, prickle, thorn, spine or dagger. You'd think we were living in a desert or something.
But the dogs were having a great time playing in the stream and running around on the sandstone formations.
Sonja even found an old bear skull that Luna seemed to like the taste of.
So I dared Sonja to try a bite.
It was really cool to see the contrast between the flat, red sandstone and the round volcanic basalt. We were hoping to find some petroglyphs that are supposed to be down in that area, but after two hours of hiking in we decided we'd try again some other time. And rather than bushwack our way along the streambed and risk a sprained/broken ankle, we opted to climb up onto the ridge and take the "easy" way back to the car.
Ok, so let's just say we didn't think this plan through all the way. At least by the time we got back to the car the dogs had learned the fine art of cacti maneuvering. Well, sort of. But it only took us twenty minutes to pull all of the spines off of the two of them.
We also took part in the
Great Backyard Bird Count today. We missed a few species I was hoping for (like a Greater Roadrunner), but overall not a bad showing for only a couple hours. No lifers, but it was fun to keep track during our hike. Here's our list of the 23 species we saw, in roughly taxonomic order:
American Coot: 6
Hooded Merganser: 1
American Widgeon: 32
Ring-necked Duck: 2
Red-tailed Hawk: 2
Cooper's Hawk: 1
Northern Flicker: 1
Ladder-backed Woodpecker: 1
Gila Woodpecker: 2
Common Raven: 2
Mourning Dove: 3
Western Bluebird: 6
American Robin: 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet: 1
Bushtit: 3
Bridled Titmouse: 2
Canyon Wren: 1
Rock Wren: 2
Northern Cardinal: 1
White-crowned Sparrow: 3
Dark-eyed Junco: 27
House Finch: 8
Lesser Goldfinch: 6
There's still another day and a half if any of you are interested in participating. All you have to do is watch birds anywhere you want to for at least fifteen minutes before the end of tomorrow (Monday). Record the species you see and the number of individuals you can identify for each.
Go here for more detailed info on the rules and how to submit your list. And happy birding!
The New Arrivals: (L to R) Spanish Bayonet, Autumn Sage (Salvia greggiai), Thompson Yucca, Arizona Firecracker (behind the yucca).
The Culprit: a rotting cow-tongue prickly pear that had been run over by a truck several times and been frozen quite solid from some pretty heavy frosts. It was now oozing a nasty orange liquid. It was time for it to go. So I dug it out and chucked it.
This is where that prickly pear used to live. It's right on the corner of our yard, so it's the first thing anyone who visits us sees when they arrive. It took me a couple hours of hauling rocks, moving dirt in a wheel barrow with a flat tire, removing prickly pear spines from my fingers, and digging holes...but I got it done.
Voilà! Didn't turn out too bad, if I do say so myself. I even worked up a good sweat, something that I am sorely in need of doing more often. I was able to salvage a few paddles from the rotting prickly pear. Hopefully they'll take root and we'll have a nice cactus growing there now. 
Here's a more artistic view of our little cactus garden. Quite satisfactory.
