Today is this week’s designated beautiful day!

Right on schedule. Supposed to go right back to thunderstorms tomorrow. Fullscale Walky time!

And may I say right here before I forget that I have a modest proposal: Tobieforchristsakegetoutofthemud is indeed a proper word and should be added to the OED forthwith. It expresses a single coherent concept, serves a useful purpose, and needs to be acknowledged as a full fledged, first class component of the English language. You think it isn’t in common use? Ha, you oughta hear me walking Tobie for an hour and a half, you’d get over that notion right quick.

Speaking of mud…

Mushrooms. Mushrooms in the desert offend me on a visceral level. There, I said it.

But we were discussing walkie time…

After the climb up the ridge there’s 1.2 miles (according to the bike’s odometer) of relatively smooth dirt roads, easy walking.

Sidebar: I get a massive kick out of the new water system the cattle people put in six years ago.

Solar power can be so elegantly simple. Look at this installation:

This is like the Plato’s Cave version of what a solar power system is supposed to look like. It’s so simple and elegant and it works so well, it bugs me that it was put here by such a pack of morons.

That’s the whole control package right there. On and off.

The shaft is 300 feet down and – get this – the pump runs on AC or DC. Please do not ask me how that works because I asked the guy who put one into Landlady’s well to explain it to me and he couldn’t. And they put a faucet on the outlet pipe, because of course they did. That’s the sort of thing that, if I had thought it would be a good idea, it absolutely would not only not work but somehow screw up the whole thing. But they get away with it. Not fair.

And in the midst of such beauty…

Why did they think they were going to get away with running the pipe on the top of the ground? Okay, sure, it’s on the top of a ridge and when you turn off the power the pipe will drain. Yeah – until you get to the bottom of the ridge, where it is absolutely certain you’ll leave a dip in the pipe which will hold water. And freeze. And burst. Which it did, its very first winter.

Down at the watering station…

There has been a well here, seemingly since the dawn of time.

I dipped it once, shortly after I moved here, and hit water at 50′. Which is absurd: The aquifer is 250′ down. I’m told it’s some geologic hiccup that trapped a pocket of groundwater. Anyway, the water is brackish and not really potable and this bunch didn’t want their cattle drinking it so they put in the current modern system. And tried to cheap out on some important stuff…

…like they tried to use the old concrete tank. Which hasn’t held water in who knows how long. It was a comical sight, them trying to fill that tank. It leaks in all the places.

So they dragged in this big old plastic tank, which works fine…

…and feeds this watering trough which is what brings us together today. I used to get some nice wildlife pictures here, before some asshole stole my game camera right off the tree. If I ever get another one, see if I ever put it in such a public place again. Not that this place is all that public, but apparently it was public enough to attract thieving assholes.

(ahem) Back to the walkie. Across the wash, up Landlady’s ridge for some morning chores, and we’re done with the road.

It’s roughly a half mile hike back to the Lair by the most direct route. Down the far side of the ridge…

…across the wash…

Home again to Lair Sweet Lair. Beautiful morning for a walk. I started in a hoodie which was tied to my waist halfway through. And I’m loving this new camera.