Fairbank Arizona, Whitewater Draw, and more birds. Always more birds.

On the way to Whitewater Draw, I stopped in Fairbank, AZ. It's a ghost town that has been stabilized and maintained by the BLM. I didn't stay long enough to hike any of the trails, so this is all you get.

Tin roof! RUSTED!

Lavender Pit Mine, closed when lavender mining became unprofitable. 

Road-non-runner. I think his name is Fresno.

Lee Road:

Back to Whitewater Draw.

Nan had a hard time picturing how a campground could be the way I described it yesterday, so here's a real picture instead of the one in your head.

Nobody move - I dropped my contact.

I KNOW what you're thinking, and I did NOT go into the owl roost area. On purpose.

Disapproving Owl

Why I oughta ...

This Great Horned owl was perched under the shelter, and not in the roosting area. He's no rooster.

"Thank you" to the birder with an excellent scope who showed me where to find him.

Not owl tracks

Tonight it's so windy ... [how windy is it?]

• an owl laid the same egg three times
• tumbleweeds are staying indoors for their own safety
• air traffic won't clear any cranes for landing

Things you already know, or oughta.

• Contessa reports on bottle houses in Mexico.  Very cool.  Better than throwing your bottles under a tree.
• Humanure vermicomposting.  You got poop on my worms!  You got worms in my poop! ... Hey!  It's the Reese's peanut butter cup of doo-doo.   I admire the pioneers and their experiments, so I'm keeping my eye on this.
• Sherry and David, with their decades of medical research experience, give The China Study four thumbs up.  With my little bits of knowledge about how epidemiology ought to work, I have to agree that this study is the real deal.

 

• If you don't want to invest time reading on my say-so, try watching Forks Over Knives on Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon.  A much more modest 1:36 investment.  Then you'll get the book anyway.  
• Roadrunners* do not say "meepmeep."  They say "phbrrrrrrptt!" I can say this authoritatively because I just watched one "phbrrrrrrptt!" past my window.

*Having read this page, I can't decide if I'll call them "chaparral cocks" or "ground cuckoos."  What would you call them?  Cuckoo cocks?