I was finally able
to sleep in this morning. I scrounged through my cupboards and fridge
to find any perishable food that might spoil. I had eggs, milk and
bread: French Toast it is. I like my French Toast with cinnamon and
sugar. Unfortunately, the sugar I bought happened to be sugar cubs.
Oops. What is the purpose of a sugar cube anyway? I tried to crush
them up. They are sturdy for no bigger than they are. The best I
could do was add a little water, butter and vanilla to them and make
a sort of syrup.
Today was the
warmest day since I've been in Arizona; 71° and not a cloud in the
sky. I saddled Jack and ponied J'Lo and rode South
toward the mountains. We hit the power line road and turned East
toward Eagle Eye Peak. It does look just like an eagles head with a big eyeball overlooking Aguila...which means "eagle" in Spanish.
We took it pretty
easy. Jack is still haired up like a wholly mammoth and I didn't want
him to overheat on the first warm day of our trip. I let him pick his
way through mesquite, grease wood and mesa verde trees. He took to
the washes when accessible....climbing in and out when they weren't.
I think that horse is impervious to thorns. I'm guessing chaps were
invented in Arizona. I was wishing I had worn mine.
We road as far as
we could before hitting a fence. We turned south up a draw I that
looked inviting to explore. I tied the horses where they could get
to what little grass is available. I hiked to the top of Saguaro
covered ridge that overlooked Aguila to the North and a whole lot of
big country to the South. I spotted what I assume are Javelinas
tracks. I was hoping to spot some (called a squadron) but from what
I'm told, they are mostly nocturnal. They also smell slightly like a
skunk – which might explain the musky odor I smelt later on that I
mistook for somebody smoking weed.
Somebody was spray
painting neon orange on the vegetation along both sides of the power
line, including large saguaros. They had done it in the time I'd been
having lunch in the draw. Weird. I saw a truck up a head. Jack honed
in on the human with the paint can 100 yards from his truck. We were
almost to him when he jumped in the truck – drove a hundred yards,
stopped, and commenced to spraying more bushes.
I beat him to the
truck this time. A “Vegetation Management something or other”
magnetic sign stuck to the side of his truck. He didn't seem to have
time to chat but I asked him what the markers were for anyway. He
said he was spraying the vegetation that would later be cut by the
sawyers. That seemed odd to me. I asked what the point of that was –
there isn't a plant in Arizona that would come within 50 feet of
those power lines. He said it was an overzealous government thing. I
left it at that.
A quarter mile
down the road, another man dressed in the same outfit and carrying an
orange spray can was doing the same thing. They were leap frogging
along the power line. This one was enthralled on his cell phone. I
asked if they were going to cut the big saguaros down, too. He said
they would top them, yes. I asked if it would kill them (just curious
since from what I understand, the saguaro is protected.) He said he
didn't know. He wasn't even sure what he was doing here. I left it at
that.
Jack is a
bloodhound. I let him pick his way back to camp. We had made a loop
and weren't going back the way we came, but he zeroed in on home like
a four legged GPS. Does not take after his rider.
I did a little
research on Javelinas. They are sometimes called “Skunk Pigs” and
put off an odor similar to a skunk but not as strong. Either I was
close to a squadron of them today, or the “Vegetation Management”
going on by our illustrious government employees had little to do
with pruning trees.
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