It was a good day today. I spotted my feral cat Willie sunning himself in the front yard this morning. He's a kitten I volunteered to foster from the Bisbee Animal Shelter, along with two other kittens last year. The other two kittens tamed down and were adopted out, but Willie never overcame his distrust toward humans. We agreed to keep him. He was neutered and had his ear clipped slightly to reveal his feral beginnings. Last year he stayed inside most of the year, but with two new dogs that like to chase him, he's opted to remain outside rather than put up with Zeke and Minnie.
I now only see Willie once a week or so. I'm always relieved to see him. Cats don't live long in the desert with great horned owls and coyotes hunting them. Willie still meows when I call him, but runs off when I get too close.
Today was our first freeze of the season after a storm that blew through Friday over Saturday with a cold front and high winds. I had taken the citrus trees inside last night but forgot about the tomato plant. Oops. It was 63 degrees inside the home this morning but my feet and hands were cold. I had no desire to hike in this cold and putzed around until the early afternoon. I knew if I didn't leave by noon for my hike, that I wasn't going to hike at all.
I opted for another quick hike up Carr Peak with Minnie and Sadie. The peaks didn't looked snowed over from our vantage view in the valley. I didn't bring gloves or a hat. I wore a medium layer of polypro under my bright yellow sweater and orange wind jacket. That was ideal for today, although my bare hands got chilled near the peak where the frost also was rather heavy. We started the hike at 1:26 from the Old Saw Mill trail, the same trail we took last month. I kind of like this trail to the top. Today's theme was ice. There was frost and ice in the northern corners of the trail. The flower are all dead, except for a few isolated survivors whose colors shimmer in the waning sunlight. The few remaining colors glistened in the sun: some reds, greens and yellows remained that created nice photographs. But this month's primary color scheme was shades of brown.
A man wielding an airgun came down. A few minutes later my colleague Carl and two women came down, along with a Weimeraner who spooked my dogs. Both Minnie and Sadie listened to my commands to "Be Nice!" and didn't run off barking. Other than that, the trail was my own all the up and back. Ideally I should have started an hour earlier for better sunlight. Once I reached the lower aspen grove I was in the cool shade. A mile from the peak I began to hear crashing noises, like the noise I hear when squirrels drop nuts from high branches. But instead of nuts it was falling ice I was hearing. The southwestern sides of the higher elevation trees had ice melting and dropping to the ground. Despite the cold there were flickers and a few other birds chirping. A young hawk flew near me but I wasn't able to photograph it.
We got to the peak at 3:12, almost 1:50 hours from the start. What took so long? We didn't even stop for water breaks along the way. Did I really stop that much to take photographs? I gave the dogs water, fed them some canned dog food, and we quickly departed 12 minutes later due to the cold. There was no wind at the top, just lingering cold. We were barely off the peak trail when the sun finally set to our west, now adding a deep, cold shade on the way down. At least we were on the descent and had nothing to slow us down. My hands were cold as I kept them in my pants pocket to stay warm. Minnie is catching on to proper hiking etiquette. While she prefers to hike ahead of me, she doesn't chase things as quickly as before. She minds my commands. And her stamina is getting better.
We made it to the truck at 4:50pm, making this a 3.5 hour hike. We got home at 4:20pm. The dogs rested but I changed my clothes and took Eric out to eat tonight at Chili's where I enjoyed a free Cajun Chicken pasta meal for Veteran's day. (Despite my free meal the bill was still $31!) I'm glad I was able to get a November hike for Carr. The current cold snap will last all week. I'm glad there was no snow this time. That's something I expect for December.
If all goes well tomorrow, I'm hiking up Mount Wrightson with Ellen and her friend Jon early in the morning. I plan on taking Sadie with me. '
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