The Pumpkin Cheesecake Diaries: 2-29-2020

Leap Days and Turtle Turds

This will be a brief blog..or an attempt at one anyway. I have to get stuff ready and be up early in the morning to get to the Winter Range shoot at Ben Avery. The blog won't do the day justice. I will post more pictures with it since, after all, pictures are worth a hill of beans more than anything I could come up with verbally.

Patty and I saddled our horses, Mocha and Jack, for a ride behind Eagle Eye Mountain with the intent of checking on the hobo camp to see if anything had changed. We trotted up the deep sand of the big wash to power-line road and headed east. Not far up power-line, we spotted a freshly cut saguaro with a neon orange mark of spray paint. I still don't believe the “Vegetation Management” guys I ran into a few weeks back when they said they were marking vegetation to be cleared that would interfere with the power lines. Nothing this side of the red woods grows tall enough to come anywhere near those power lines. Whatever – this is supposed to be a short blog so I will try to stay off my soap box. Suffice it to say, it was kind of sad. I snapped a few pictures, grumbled and moved on.

The power-line road forks before it ascends through a saddle. We took the right hand fork following a
less established road. We didn't get far when I looked down and there in the middle of the path sits a turtle (technically a desert tortoise) about the size of a small dinner plate. I have never seen a turtle in the wild and sure as shit didn't expect to see one in Arizona! I dismounted and checked him/her out. If I moved...it moved toward me. It ambled over to a flower and snapped it off, then move on to the next. “Don't let it grab your finger!” Patty laughed. We took turns petting and feeding the turtle. I snapped a bunch of pictures and got out my can of Beanee Weenee's for a Beanee/Turtle photo op. How could I not? I could dedicate an entire blog to that one turtle. To hell with Javelina....we saw a freaking turtle! We took care to get the horses around him without stepping on him and went on our way. I could have stayed there and played with it all day.

We passed by the Hobo camp on the other side of the fence line. We would come back to it later. The road curved around to the south through a thick forest of Saguaro. Do they call a whole bunch of Saguaro a forest? It was about the prettiest area I've seen since being here. I did not want to turn around. I'm riding between giant saguaro, blooming ocotillo, teddy-bear cholla and a plethora of other desert flora at the end of February in a T-shirt. I must have lived in the desert in a previous life. Maybe not in the summer...perhaps a migratory nomad.

Another dirt path led toward a box canyon of sorts. Definitely can't leave without seeing what's up there. Large rock formations rose around us. Mine tailings spilled forth from a small mine opening on midway up a mountain to the south. A little farther up the path and a several rock structures nestled into the canyon begged exploration. I asked Cindy about it later and she said it was a sheep camp. That makes sense...there was traces of rock walls used as fencing scattered about. The entire camp was protected on all sides with a good sized ravine that would carry run off and dump it into a sizable reservoir. It would be cool to see running with water.

We looped back and crossed the fence to hobo camp. Nothing had changed...same garbage scattered around...minus the bible I picked previously. I pray that the people who stayed there have found a place to stay out of the elements. I had a gut feeling from the items left behind that a family had stayed there; from blankets and small mattress pads to a pair of pajamas belonging to a child or young adult. Dog toys and a box of empty propane bottles were among the items. The discarded debris didn't suggest it was a weekend camping trip. But why leave it all behind? What happened to them? There was other garbage along the power-line that was obviously dumped out of laziness and disrespect...this seemed more desperate.

We were back in the big wash. The horses got a little antsy as a man in a white shirt, light colored horse and towing another horse, appeared and disappeared through the mesquite and grease-wood bushes. Range cattle did the same all around us. Patty pointed at the bushes lining the wash. “A SNAKE...it's a big one, too!” I got a glimpse of the thing as it slithered through the bushes...for a long time. It was a big one. The rattlers were out. Maybe it is time to head north after all.

A bit of the old Jack appeared under my saddle...on the muscle and gnashing his teeth. The guy towing the horse was talking to another guy on a four wheeler out checking on the cattle. He didn't know we were there. The four wheeler roared to life and started across the wash. I was afraid he was going to cross the wash where Jack pranced and chomped at the bit. Fabulous...I would get bucked off AND snake bit. I stepped off before I got dumped. Four wheeler guy made an abrupt turn when he noticed us and crossed in a different spot. I climbed back on and we were off...rather quickly. Jack didn't quit prancing and gnashing until we got out of the wash and in the open where he could see around him. New Jack kicked back in and we were good to go.

We made it home without getting bucked off, snake bit or turtle attacked and saw some amazing country to boot. I gave the horses a bath and turned them out to graze on what green grass they could find. Day's like today should definitely come around more than every four years. Happy Leap Year!