Back on the illegal trail

It finally began to drizzle last night during my American history class. Winds were strong driving home and have persisted overnight. It's still howling outside and raining.

We needed this rain! I don't care how violent this storm gets, I want to see the forest saturated with rain. We can't become another California.

I took the dogs on the same illegal trail yesterday that they were on a few days before. They were excited about getting out again. Sara even took the initiative and sat in the front passenger seat, right paw over the arm rest as she sat upright, staring at the road in front of us. Normally she's pushed to the rear of the truck by the two alpha dogs.

They all remembered the trail and walked on ahead of me. This time I made it to the edge of Ramsey Canyon, owned by the Nature Conservancy. The trash I saw along the way got more voluminous the closer I approached Ramsey Canyon.So much of it had been there for so worn, the weather-worn debris simply faded with terrain.

I was now on a northern slope, a wet, damp slope where the oaks were covered in lichen and the red manzanitas arched downhill from the unstable mountain slope. I had entered a micro climate of coldness. It even smelled of a damp forest much like Washington state's western forest. The dogs loved that part of the slope and frolicked in the sand along the way.

We could hear the residents below us; we were near their property lines. How many times do these people get harassed by the illegals coming through?

I was out longer than expected. I policed up some trash on my way back to the truck, and noticed that the USFS had not picked up the older bag I had left behind by the dumpster. The older bag was opened and the plastic trash dispersed across the picnic area. Again I policed all that up and placed it in and around the dumpster. Trash inside the dumpster was overfilling by now, and there was more trash inside the dumpster that clearly had originated in Mexico.

Apache's vet called me on the way home. His neutering was still slated for tomorrow. I was able to drop him off last night since I have to work today. Poor guy had no clue what was happening to him as he sat up front with me in his carrier, meowing softly. The last two times I drove with a cat to the vet's office it only brought sad news with the deaths of Vinnie and Reina. This time all we are losing are Pache's nuts. I can live with that; I sure hope Pache can, too!

I was packed with my book bag and ready to drive to the campus from there, looping around Old Bisbee on my way to Sierra Vista. Snow still lingered in Old Bisbee's northern mountain slopes, but the roads were cleared from felled trees that had fallen earlier from the overnight winds.