Morning In The Canyon

I told Annette about this tree, a Cottonwood that died during the drought. As did the tree next to it, where now only a piece of the trunk remains. So the Cottonwood was dead, no leaves except it grew suckers. Then it rained and  rained and the tree came back to life. Not only that, it came back so much healthier and better than before.  I had wanted to find a leafless picture of the tree to see how many actual branches are left. I think there may be quite a few, but I'm not sure. Since Google just changed the blog format this will have to wait until I figure the new format out. Or until the tree sheds its leaves this fall. 

Half-grown coyote puppies have come by to visit for several days, usually in the early morning or a dusk. Faith has chased coyotes before, but she always comes back when called. I was a little worried because there were so many of them, which may have been too much of a temptation for Faith. I worried she would chase them right back to the pack, which may have ended badly for her. So I took the Jeep and drove it around for a while. Driving the Jeep around also keeps up my off road paths. 

I haven't taken a shadow picture of myself for a long time. So here I am with several camera angle pounds added, but who cares, it's just a picture after all. 

I wanted to take a picture of this weed that has popped up everywhere. It's all around my gate and on my road, so I will have to clean it up soon. 

This is my demolished old shed. Some guy was going to come and cart it away, but he didn't want to take it. So Mark said he'll take it to the dump. I don't want him to do any more work here in the heat, so we're looking to September.

Faith found mice or ground squirrels inside it and was fascinated. This is the first time she has shown any interest in catching anything. Basically, she's in love with the chase, not the kill. Good retriever that she is. But both the vet and I think there's some terrier in her. Her strongest drive is to retrieve and she has webbed paws and a Lab tail, but she has a terrier personality. And she can jump straight up, very high, like a Jack Russell terrier. 

Junipers, so many junipers. So many berries/cones the ground below them is lavender blue.  All animals around here, from bears to birds, love to eat the juniper cones that look like blue berries.

After all the running and hunting, Faith is tired. She's also gained weight, so I'm cutting back on her second meal of the day. She won't even notice it. 

I read something like this about Labs: We love to run around in the rain and mud, we love to jump in the lake and swim, we love to run up and down the hills, but if this doesn't work for you, we really don't mind just lying around all day, being your best friend and companion.

And after reading that, I feel guilty every day that I don't give her the best life of running free all across the land.