Pictures from Christmas in Colorado

I spent Christmas with Andria's family, Nick, and Elaine in Colorado Springs. Gail packed me off with many holiday touches that elevated my status significantly.

 Nick and Soren totally into Mario Brothers

 I took a short hike with Dave and Nora.  Don't be fooled by the sunshine, it was probably around 15 degrees!

 Susanna delivering Christmas cookies to the neighbors with Andria.

 I took Andria shopping at Cavenders, a large western wear store.  

 Dave is missing from this picture because he had to work most nights I was there. He was helping to keep us all safe, though, monitoring missile movements and launches around the world.

Susanna, Nora, and Soren, Christmas Eve.

 Here I am as Santa, and Nick is my helper.  We read The Bird in Santa's Beard, a story about a bird that was left behind in the cold. Santa gave the bird a place to live in his beard.

 Nick did a great job as narrator, making the bird sounds hilarious.

 Nora getting into the act.

 Susanna loved the Elsa pony tails Gail gave her.

The two snakes that Gail and I made, the left one for Nick to guard against wild yeasts in his fermentations, and the other, patterned after the book character Verde, for the Johansons.

 Andria modeling her throw blanket from Gail.

 Christmas day even had a brief snow flurry.  Did I say it was cold?

 The other pony tail.

Stella got a Grinch mask, but we put it on all wrong.  The holes were for the ears, not the eyes!

 This is better, although it looks like Stella is thinking, "You have two seconds to get this stupid thing off my head before I draw blood!"

 More gaming!  That poor couch sure has taken a beating over the past few years.

 The popovers turned out perfectly!

 On Sunday, Nick and I had a pleasant hike around an area south of Garden of the Gods.  It was great to get outside.  The day before had wind gusts to 39 mph, and a morning temperature of 7 degrees.

 Father and son selfie.

The bat house I made for the family.  I will have to wait until next visit to help put it up, as the ground seemed frozen and we ran out of time. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Cuyamaca Rancho State Park

I had never been to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, so looking for somewhere new to hike we headed there Thursday morning.  Cuyamaca is in the mountains south of Julian and northeast of San Diego.  After two hours of driving, we parked at the Sweetwater River trail head. Our goal was a loop that went to Dyar Spring.

 It was calm, sunny, and cold.  All the puddles were frozen solid. The elevation was over 4,000 feet - not your normal San Diego conditions.

 Much of the trail was very muddy, the upside being we had good animal tracks to ponder.  This might be a skunk track - my best guess using my tracks ID book.

 As we got closer to Dyar Spring we entered the area known as East Mesa, which looked a lot like our last big hike on Sunday.

 I saw movement under a distant oak tree which turned out to be a large wild turkey flock.

 Turkeys!

 We passed by these rocks with morteros in them. Upon finishing the Dyar Spring loop, we crossed the highway and did another loop that went to a mysterious point on the map - Airplane Monument.

Tucked off the trail was this plaque and monument.

That is the airplane engine of the fallen plane.

 We followed these tracks for a few hundred yards on the trail.  My best guess is gray fox (using Scats and Tracks of the Pacific Coast).

 The whole region was burned by the Cedar Fire of 2003. This was the largest California wildfire in history, burning over 280,000 acres.

The possible gray fox tracks led to this scat, deposited in a little scrape.

Quail tracks corroborated by the sounds of nearby quail.  We finished off the hike logging 11.5 miles.

Bobcat at Calavera Preserve

At 8:34 this morning, Gail and I spotted a bobcat walking across the dam at our daily hiking area, Calavera Preserve.  The picture from my phone is poor, but this is the first time we have seen a bobcat at Calavera.

Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve

Sunday, we managed to leave early for the hour drive to the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve. We arrived at 8 am hoping to see wildlife still out in the open.  The morning was clear and sunny, but there was still frost on the ground.

The reserve covers approximately 8,400 acres, with the majority off limits to bikes, dogs, and horses - yeah!

Right away we heard and saw a Red-shouldered Hawk being mobbed by crows.  Next was an awesome California Ground Squirrel. Did you know that adults have varying degrees of resistance to rattlesnake venom?

As we got further back into the hills we heard the most beautiful chorus of meadowlarks.  They were gurgling all around us!

Gail spotted this coyote hunting for breakfast.  It didn't seem too concerned about us.  Coyotes are quite special when you see them in the wild (as compared to one walking down the street in the middle of the morning with a cat in its jaws).

Something under the ground!  We saw it pounce, but it came up short.  It then trotted off a little, lay down in the grass, and rolled around on its back.  It also yawned a few times and seemed to relish the warmth of the sun.

A few minutes later, I spotted this one.

Hi there!

Moving on, we spotted one of several Say's Phoebes we saw this day.  They perch a little off the ground, then fly off and grab an insect out of the air, often returning to the same perch.

At the old ranch house, we saw White-crowned Sparrows...

and a few Acorn Woodpeckers.

We had lunch near the old adobe ranch house.  That's the old barn and stone corral in this picture.

Near the barn were some wild squash commonly called buffalo gourds.  They are edible and their tap roots are high in oil.  We have seen them out in the desert!

The old ranch house.

The reserve seems like my idea of what California used to be like - at least this part of California.

There are prairies, oak forests, and sycamore studded creeks.

On the plateau, there are several large vernal pools.

Sycamores and sky.

Gnarlness!

So long, SRPER!  We will be back to see you in a couple months when you're grass is green, your pools filled, and your streams running.