Simply, Lesa

Ozzie killed his first pack rat last night. Who was it that told me Yorkies were breed as lap dogs? Check breed history. Rodent hunters!  Yes sir-ie! I buried the kill and rewarded with two doggie chicken jerky treats. Why - because rat poison has been in the area and it is known to 'secondary kill' owls and hawks.

Yup you guessed it. I've been slacking - well not really although on the blogging home front I sure feel like I have. Any day I expect a flood of emails asking if I am alive! I'm writing. It is a blog post. I am alive! Yippie. I know. I do this off and on. Especially when I am in a state of flux....yet what part of life's plans is not written in jello? Don't we all have days or weeks when we thought we were going to_____(fill in the blank) and something greater than us had a sense of humor as well as other plans! I had a lovely Latino family (three young kids & a family dog) move into my peaceful hill top campsite a couple weeks ago. After setting up camp by diesel pickup headlights at 9:30 pm, I rather expected bedtime --- errr humour, it was dinner time! The next morning I woke to a young voice saying Daddy, Daddy drive me to the bathroom! Hurry up Daddy..groggy voices. ..diesel engine (really?) 5:15 am. The threee atvs unloaded the night before not good enoug...

and who's tired now!

Not just a walk...on an actual marked trail! Ozzie is such a trooper. The hike was not particularly difficult or time consuming.  It was however in a National Forest complete with wild turkeys, yup we saw the momma and babies.  Two days ago in this general area I saw an elk - wow they are large. On this morning's adventure we did see signs of recent bear activity - which reminds me of my need to be even more allert to help protect Ozzie. On some of my former hikes if I saw signs of some serious thing I would talk to God and the universe until my anxiety passed. It was a great accomplishment and lots of fun crossing the flowing creek with my fur hiking buddy! Oh and yes it rained quite a lot during the night so Ozzie is kinda damp!

Today's class project. Omgosh this is fun!

Weekly updates really show me how quickly time seems to fly past! Ms Cheri and I spent last week in the same area of Tonto National Forest as we did the week before. It has been a lovely quiet area in a pine forest. I continued my habit of an early morning fire since there have been no fire bans in place. I did need to be careful on hot and windy days. It is so easy for a fire to flare up and get out of hand. I'm very careful and all has gone well. I had my first jewelry making class. Yup it's serious fun! Vantucket had some repairs done in New Mexico last October. A rear axle had become so worn that it was not safe to drive. Hence part of the reasoning behind me selling the Scamp. The axle was repaired with a repair kit. I was so happy to have a driving vehicle again that I soon forgot about how serious a problem it had been. Last month when the brakes locked up and the mechanics could not identify the sticky gunk. ..we cleaned it up and went on with life, careful to pay at...