Around This J. T. House

There are still a few desert wild flowers blooming around this little house in Joshua Tree.

I find that the bushy tailed grey ground squirrels do climb trees.

The cholla in the area are full, bushy and abundant.

I'm pleased to see that there are a number of the handsome desert iguana here. They are less trusting than the ones around Camp Thunderbird.

There are some unpleasant little Argentinian ants around and enough goat head have taken root so that going barefoot is discouraged.

I see cottontail nearly daily without looking for them. I have heard dove and a number of song birds this morning.

The Thunderbirds

The thunderbirds are back, but no thunder.

Seems like October. Must be time for Gary's "birthday."

Around Camp Thunderbird

I've been too ill to take care of business around the place as well as I have been accustom. But, I am not dead and neither is my curiosity.
Looking out the window I saw a flock of large whit birds, not something one sees often on the desert, and went out to investigate. I couldn't see a trace of them. This accrued in mid-morning.

After noting that the birds were not to be seen, I saw the two young coyotes which have been spending a lot of time on the property. They were very close to me. They stopped to take a good look at me. Then I watched as they circled leisurely, and not very cautiously, to my left.

I fear for them. Although they are about full grown, they could benefit from a mother's wisdom. I first saw them earlier this year at night. Then I began to hear them them very near at night and to see their scat and their pad prints very close to the house. I saw one or the other of them morning and evenings while the sun was up.

This morning I heard the neighbors small pack of dogs, usually quit and well behaved, barking long and excitedly. Now, I see them moving around man and dogs in the mid-morning light in a way that will attract a man with a rifle.

Around Camp Thunderbird

Felt well enough to do quite a bit of work around the property today. Perhaps a talk with family and friends about taking care of my health helped.

The place is looking so good that a cute, speedy kangaroo rat has moved into the house.

Watched the sun go down as I played with my water and reestablished my play river in the back.

Around Camp Thunderbird

Monsters in the Bedroom

Walked into the bedroom and found a vinegaroon finishing off a centipede.

Gathering my courage I threw a rug over vanquished and vanquisher and trampled them both.

After cleaning up the carnage I decided to watch a bit of TV before going to bed.

Around Camp Thunderbird

The day after I coaxed the red racer to the patio, I found a pair of road runners there. I haven't seen the snake since.

An adolescent cotton-tail has been approaching within as near as 10 feet from me as I water.

Plasters have put the finish stucco on to sides of the house and patio. The color and texture look good. The overall effect is darn good. Very good!

Around Camp Thunderbird

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Its that particular time of year when the evenings are such that the round tails and the lizards go home earlier than usual and the night hawks come out to ear earlier than usual. and one has the pleasure of seeing calm and resting jack rabbits as night hawks gracefully hunt.

The red racer has claimed the area beneath my high dresser as his/hers. She seems to like to watch my toes as I brush my hair and is content so long as no big moves are made over his head.

Around Camp Thunderbird

Animal natives note, but seem little disturbed by, the construction going on.
Right now, there are four ravens drinking at my cooler water drain as they casually keep a persistent half grown road runner from doing the same.
Handsome desert iguanas use piles of rubble or materials as lookout posts during mating season.
Round-tailed ground squirrels use everything for shade or hang outs as though it were made specifically for them.
Jack rabbits check out each change with a concentration that reminds me of a house cat.
Cotton tail hop around in the here and now as though nothing has changed.
Removing a shed discovered snakes and geckos.
A side-winder left its distinctive trail along the berm to which new bit and hunks of broken concrete had been added.
Quail lead their well-grown chicks around seeming to use the changes as a teaching opportunity as they snack on newly uncovered bits.

Around Camp Thunderbird

The shed is raised and the sand raked. The lumber it sheltered and the wood of which it was constructed has mostly been given away and hauled away.

The present generation of round tailed ground squirrels seems to be made up of individuals smaller than those of preceding generations.

Slender alligator lizards are eating voraciously.

Grand looking male desert iguanas are protecting territories from one another.

Around Camp Thunderbird

It is often my knees that have me crippled up, but these days its my hip and thumbs. I guess this pain and stiffness comes from emptying one shed of lumber and other junk, then tearing it down, and going on to clean out the storage garage. Still I crawled out of bed with only mild curses and was out working by 7:30 this morning.
Hadn't been at it long when I heard someone helloing. It was a tall guy of about 50 with a big mustache. He was tracking an old horse through my property. It wasn't his. Seems that last night It had gotten into his young horses feed. His horse had hurt itself defending his feed.

I thought I heard a horse whinny last night, but just rolled over. At one time I might have been out with a gun, but these days neighbors turn their dogs on to the property and others drive around the property like it was a play ground for four wheelers. If I started shooting I'd be in jail before I even began to thin the trespassers out. And then I probably wouldn't have gotten to the really responsible parties.

I am gradually putting up some more fences. The don't slow down the dogs, but the do seem to give horses and drivers second thoughts.

In my wood shed I found two by fours and four by fours so damaged by dogs teeth as to be unusable. Other smaller stuff was shredded and made tooth picks. A dog that will shred a four by four to get at a rabbit, really wants that rabbit.

At Camp Thunderbird

The yellow flowers on the greasewood (larrea tridentata) are being replaced by the usual pussy willow like fuzzys. Haven't seen any of the ant-like insects which look so amazingly like the 'fuzzys.'

But speaking of amazing, I was reminded today of a happening I experienced on the desert sometime about the fourth grade in grammar school. I was a well experience lizard and bug hunter and had caught and kept snakes. However, one day upon turning over a rock I was truly surprised by finding there a creature from outer space. It looked a bit like a lizard, but I knew the creature was unearthly because sunlight passed through its body! and in the place where earthly creatures had claws or talons it had suction cups; suction cups! What good luck for a fourth grade boy.

Well today while cleaning out my woodshed I encountered five more of the creatures. They were of two different kinds. The larger ones were identical to those I had first discovered. The others were smaller and of a darker color. Now I know them as species of earth geckos. Still interesting even if not as alien as I first thought.

All of this reminds of of an experience I had with an eye when I was only a four year old.

Around Camp Thunderbird

The neighbor's dogs have been using my woodshed as a killing ground for rabbits. They have had the good grace to eat parts of the rabbits or are taking them home. Most often the heads are gone;so,they may be taking them home as trophies. I may use this activity as motivation to clean out the woodshed and to perhaps tear it down. I have started by painting a large sign with the word "Free" to put out by the road in an attempt to recycle the wood.

I was looking across the the road just before sun-up this morning and saw a largish mammal that I didn't recognize. Neither it's shape or the way it moved seemed reminiscent of the local for. I could of been of the cat family but didn't move or act like the feral cat I've seen around and it seemed a bit too big to be that rather large feral cat. A mystery.

The large handsome desert iguanas are still around. I see their trails and burrows often, but seldom see them. Most often when I do they are moving quickly away from me. Not easy to get a good look at them these days, but do from time to time.

A large number of broad, black beetles showed up a few weeks back. Now they have become speckled with a green of a little plant that attracts them!

'My' cacti continues blossom. Now the pinks and reds dominate and the yellows are seldom seen. One blooms a wonderful bright orange.

Cactus Flowers

I enjoy my cactus flowers as much as I enjoy certain violin music.



Most of my cactus blossoms are in beautiful yellows.
This "beaver tail" native of this desert shows its own colors.

Natruralists All

Animals may be heading for the high country, but one handsome, little grey desert fox came to visit me this morning. I watched it calmly and purposefully walk across the back yard and up onto my back porch! Perhaps attracted by my cooler. It seemed to look directly at my door knob. It noticed me watching it and made eye contact with me. Then it walked toward me to just under the window at which I sat! We looked at each other full into both eyes.
It walked away with an attitude that seemed to say that it was well past time for me to be speaking and understanding pretty good fox.
It's great that we can interact with these free beings.

I have started reading "Cosmos." What a wonderful human being the Baron was. What wonderful contributions he made to our advancement. He was more than a naturalist, he was a cosmologist. The naturalists of those days are wonderful to read; wonderful, but not easy. I was pleased to get through a couple of works of Darwin in my early teens, but due to my lack of education and experience could not benefit fully.
Steller and Wallace deserve to be included ,with Humboldt and Darwin, among those early giants. Humboldt is still, I believe, included as part of college prep education in Latin America and Europe. Don't here of him being mentioned in High School here. Pity.

Among the natural history sites on line are:
http://www.californiamag.org/ search Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Grinnell Resurvey Project

On the Desert

Many jack-rabbits continue to gather around the outlet to my cooler hose where the flow of precious water is scant. I have never seen so many jacks in so small an area.

I hope they don't get so bold as to enter the patio and eat the cacti there. They did once before. Where marks of their bites were left, it looked like a burro had been feeding.

I couple of years ago the round-tailed ground squirrels became both many and bold. So bold that they not only fed freely in the patio, not only got into every room in the house, but also got into my bed. These animals are not tiny. I wondered how they got into the house.
These animals have short, fine fur of a handsome light tan shading. They have large, round, bright black eyes. Their tail is long and has very short hair. They are capable of giving one a look that seems knowing.

Once, in the house, one of them and I startled one another by both coming around the same corner at the same time from opposite directions. Though I don't remember my own reactions well, the animal's are bright in my minds eye. It leapt into the air so that it was nearly at my eye level (I may have been crouching a bit). Its forelegs extended up and out; its hind legs down and spread, It looked large and its tiny claws shown. Its mouth was opened wide showing white teeth. Pretty fierce for a cute little animal!

Another day, during this time of the round-tails, I covered plants around the place with five gallon buckets in an attempt to protect them. I put rocks on top of and around the buckets. The following day I check my work. The first bucket I picked up uncovered five round-tails and no plant! As I continued checking, It became clear that the were using my buckets as apartments and fast food places.

My cacti continue to take turns blooming. The most recent to flower is a small tame one. Its blossoms are wonderful shades of orange.

Last night I was serenaded, again, by a coyote in my front yard by the mailbox. I trust I won't find it in my bed.

It's the Desert

There are jack rabbits stretched out around by cooler water like they were at the beach.