The new Blacktail Hill

Mornings are getting cooler, too cool for some to go on an early bike ride so we opted for our usual winter exercise routine of hiking around Blacktail. This is part of the foothills of the Dragoon Mountains that had forest fires in early June. From our house we look out on Blacktail and were relieved that, at least from a distance, life reappeared soon after the fire.

It was a somewhat sad hike as a lot of the juniper trees had burned and stuck out in the landscape, but I would have been more devastated had the cause of the fire been man made, rather than lightening strikes. Some of our trails were still visible but the largest change was in the washes.

In July we got good rains, enough water to fill our pond, and a lot of that water had come off the mountain. Where we normally crossed a dry creek 2 feet deep there now was a chasm 6 feet deep and half again as wide as before. It made the landscape hardly recognizable.

We usually have a short break at what I call Happy Valley, right under a large, old, ocotillo for whose survival I had feared but it still stood in all its glory. The view into Happy Valley was not so happy, but Mom will restore it. Signs of new life are everywhere.