There's lots of critter activity in the Chiricahuas, Portal, Rodeo and surrounding areas in August.  The birds are beginning to migrate and the arachnids are searching for mates.  Caterpillars are eating their way across the yards and along the roadways.  Wild grapes are ripe for the picking.  They are incredibly small, but tasty none the less.  There's a lot of snake activity, though we haven't seen a rattler in our yard yet, just a small garter snake and lots of alligator lizards.  One in particular had an encounter with a bird or other predator that got all of it's tail.  His movement now is not quite as graceful as a fully tailed lizard, but he seems to be doing just fine hunting among the wisteria vine outside our kitchen window.

We went with our friends Stevie and Greg to Palomos Mexico on Friday.  Bud & I had never been there.  It's a nice drive across Highway 9 in New Mexico as far as Columbus, then just 3 miles south to the border crossing.  In Palomos, we picked up a couple of bottles of antibiotics & a couple bottles of Kahlua, then had lunch at the famous Pink Store.  What a neat place and the food was excellent!  They sell handmade Mexican tiles, so when I re-tile the rest of my kitchen counters, I'll get the tiles there instead of Tucson.

We stopped in Hachita which is pretty much a ghost town and marveled at the beautiful stone church that is still standing but in dire need of restoration.  The old school house next door was probably once the rectory for the church.  New Hachita replaced the old mining town of old Hachita after the El Paso and Southwestern railroad was built in the early 1900s to ship ore to the Douglas smelter in Arizona.  When mining shut down, the railway shut down and the small towns along the route have gone the way of the earlier mining towns of the bootheel and southeast Arizona.

In Columbus New Mexico we passed the Pancho Villa State Park, which interprets the history of the invasion the United States at Columbus New Mexico by Pancho Villa and his soldiers in 1916. This attack led to General "Black Jack" Pershing pursuing Villa with 10,000 soldiers 400 miles into Mexico for 11 months, but they failed to capture Villa.  According to history, it was the first time an airplane was used during combat by our military.   That little known invasion is the last time that foreign forces invaded the Continental United States.  
Another interesting side trip in Columbus is to The Perfect Man Shrine.  I kid you not,  The Perfect Man, Avatar Meher Baba, is honored in the tiny town of Columbus New Mexico and though it is no longer being maintained, there were still pamphlets about the enlightened one who is honored by this replica of his tomb in India.  

New Mexico Highway 9 goes all the way to El Paso and for those who like to avoid interstates, it's a great alternative route to travel.  

Just a follow-up on our story of the "Little Guy" finally breaking down in the Chiricahuas.  Bud, Brandon & Luke went up the mountain yesterday with a trailer and after several hours of exhaustive work, got the Toyota onto the trailer, lashed down and brought it down to Portal where I got to empty the many years worth stuff that had accumulated under and behind the seats.  They were ahead of a storm that eventually dumped some rain on us, but at least they were back on pavement by that time.

Brandon bought the truck and hauled it back to his Elfrida home.  He'll have quite a project on his hands, but we are relieved that we won't have to put any money into getting the truck back on the road. It's a job for a younger person for sure.  The truck looks great!  You'd never know it had a busted lower ball joint.  We know it will be a good truck for Brandon when he gets it fixed.  We're also grateful to Brandon and Luke for their help and hard work.  If not for them, we don't know how we would've gotten it out of there.

So we headed to Long Park yesterday which is about 2 miles past Rustler Park Campground on a rocky mountain forest road.  We were driving our 1995 Toyota Tacoma which has never let us down in all it’s 400,000 plus miles.

This was going to be Bud’s first mountain hike since his knee surgery in July and we’ve been walking every day to get his legs in shape, so we felt good about the day.  We had a good breakfast of bacon, egg & potato burritos and packed a lunch of sandwiches and grapes.

As we slowly made our way up the rough narrow road, we had to back up to a wide spot to let two vehicles pass that were coming down from Long Park.  We passed the trailhead to Bootlegger’s Saddle and about 100 yards beyond that we bounced over an unimpressive rock and heard a loud bang and we stopped dead in our tracks.

We both said “that can’t be good” and I looked out the passenger window and the front wheel was parallel to the axle instead of perpendicular.  Definitely NOT GOOD.

We got out and accessed the situation.  The ball joint had broken and the wheel was still connected, but no way to hold it aligned to roll with the others.  We were sure we were not going anywhere in a hurry.

Bud thought if we could jack it up and drop the wheel onto the ball, it might hold enough to drive out, but after working at it, we could see that once we took the jack out, nothing would hold it together.  So......... plan B, my idea was to take some wire and wrap it around the works and twist it tight to hold the wheel and ball joint together and maybe we could at least get it off the road so other trucks could get by.  I walked down to the trailhead for Bootlegger Saddle Trail with my trusty pliers and cut a piece of old barbed wire (that was not strung to anything important)  and Bud twisted it around the whole mess and when we let down the jack, everything stayed together.  Small success.  

In the meantime, a fellow came up the road behind us and another truck came down from Long Park.  Both were bear hunters who were tracking their dogs, but could not get around our roadblock.  Brandon and Luke were coming down.  They had a dog still out that they were hoping to catch up to as it moved down the drainage toward the Turkey Creek crossing.  The guy behind us backed down to the wide spot and turned around and went back down.  Bud started the truck and tried to go forward, thinking it would be better to go slowly forward to a spot to turn around.  The truck just spun it’s tires, so I found a wide spot behind us about 40 feet and Bud tried to back up.  Again the tires just spun, so I got in front and pushed and we were able to maneuver the truck to one side and leave a wide enough spot to allow other trucks to get by.   As Brandon and Luke came by, we asked if they could give us a ride to Portal and they agreed, so we grabbed our packs, sticks and camera from the trusty “Desert Rat” and left him there on the mountain.

We had mixed emotions over leaving him there. (yes, he's a him!) Bud bought that truck new in 1995 and it has never left him stranded.  It has over 400,000 miles on it and all original parts except for a starter and fuel pump.

The “Little Guy” as Bud calls him, has been a great, dependable vehicle and this event hasn’t changed how we feel about him, but now we worry that this may be the beginning of the end for “Little Guy”.

Coming down the mountain, Luke was tracking his dog with GPS and the dog was staying put about a mile up Turkey Creek, so we pulled off the road and the guys headed up the creek.  Bud & I walked behind them for about 45 minutes, so we did get a little hike in before returning to their truck to wait for them.  It was a busy area.  There was a group of German researchers from the Southwest Research Station collecting or monitoring ants in the smaller drainage just past Turkey Creek and the other group of bear hunters were tracking their wayward dogs in the same drainage.

While waiting there, we had our sandwiches and watched vehicles go by and about 3 hours after heading up the creek, the guys came out with their dog in a backpack.  The dog was alert but he had fallen off a waterfall, so he was pretty banged up.  He did not appear to be in shock or have internal injuries, but was definitely going to be sore for a few days.

Coming down the mountain, Brandon asked Bud “what would you take for that truck where it sits?”  Bud said “if you can get it out of there, I’ll sell it to you for $1000.  Brandon asked for our phone number and said he was definitely interested.

This morning Brandon called and he and Luke were coming out from Elfrida to see if they could get it down off the mountain.  Bud decided if they get it down and want to buy it, he’d sell it for $700.00.

Though it’s been good to us, we can see that once things start breaking, it’s like a job on old plumbing, as you fix one thing, something else breaks.

So, Bud is up on the mountain with Brandon and Luke.  I hope they are successful in getting the “Little Guy” on the trailer and back down here.  

Stay tuned for updates to this saga……….

July has come and gone and left us with a Blue Moon, the second full moon of the month.  My grandmother, mother, and siblings all communicate through the full moon, so it's a special time to remember Mom & Nano and the others who have left this earthly life.  That night the Arizona Banjo Blasters performed at an outdoor venue in Green Valley Arizona, but didn't get to see the moon, thanks to the monsoon clouds & rain!  Luckily a good number of fans stayed around for the entire 2 hour concert.  And the band has concluded that a two hour show is an hour too long!

Bud had been in Tucson for two weeks and was anxious to get back to Portal.  He had arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his knee on July 20th and is feeling 100% better and is able to walk on fairly even ground for about 2 miles and hopefully will be hiking again soon.   It's was torturous for Bud to not being able to get out and walk, so we're both happy to be enjoying the outdoors again.  

The nectar feeding bats are visiting our hummingbird feeders again. These bats are smaller than the ones earlier in the summer and not very cooperative when I try to get photos. 

It's been a fairly dry week and hot in Tucson, but tolerable here in Portal.  We still see the Great Horned Owl fledgling on occasion with his/her Mama.  He's still food begging quite a bit, so he hasn't mastered hunting yet.  The migration seems to have begun for hummingbirds.  We've noticed a few more at the feeders lately and the Black Headed Grosbeaks have returned to the yard after raising their families.  Yesterday a couple Lazuli Buntings visited the yard.

We took a walk the other evening around the block on Cathedral Rock Road and after taking photos of an interesting weevil of some sort, I was startled by the rattling of a large rattlesnake on the edge of the road.  I had been distracted, telling Bud about the bug, and not watching ahead like I usually do, so I was startled and jumped back, tripping over my own feet and falling backward where my elbow landed right on a stag horn cholla joint.  OUCH!  Bud found two sticks and flicked the cactus out of my arm as the snake continued to rattle and flick his tongue to determine what kind of a threat we posed.   I quickly focused and got some great pics of the defensive Black Tailed Rattlesnake.  He was a good 3-3 1/2 feet long and well fed, but he let us know he was not to be messed with, so after a few photos, I lowered the camera and he slid away into the brush.   Of all the rattlesnakes we've encountered on the trails or in our yards, the Black-tailed has always rattled a warning well before we are close and often until we leave the area.  Most of the Diamondbacks we've met, remain still and quiet, another defensive maneuver using their camouflage in hopes of not being seen and molested.  We never mess with rattlers, only taking photos, unless it is right outside our door, then Bud will move the snake with long handled grippers just far enough so our dogs don't stumble onto it. :)

We've had a few house guests the past week.  Friends John and Mary Hunt from New Jersey spent two nights in our Bird Haven and last night Ron & Paige Hinkle stopped on their way home from the All Frets Convention.  Living here in Portal is like heaven on earth and we're so grateful to be able to call this home.