No mosquitoes yet

I know they're coming any day, probably tomorrow when the workshop photographers start arriving. Bad timing. Anyway, I spent all afternoon out by the ponds enjoying the lack of one single mosquito. Great temperature too, between 80-88.°

Of course there'll be a better assortment of dragonflies when there are mosquitoes for them to feast on. Today I just photographed the same old common species. Here is a Variegated Meadowhawk and Thornbush Dasher.

And here's an Elf Owl hiding in a mesquite.

And in the butterfly department, here's a very worn Goatweed Leafwing. There are very few butterflies around but once things start blooming from all the rain I expect it to pick up. Nothing blooming now.

This morning I killed myself working on the trail. All the dirt is washed out and it's tough walking. I made it to the corner above the lower and upper landings, but I'm in pain. As bad as it is, it's still easier to take the trail, now "primitive" trail, than to go up without it.

And while I'm renaming the trail a "primitive trail," now that I have bunks in the guesthouse finally, I'm renaming it a bunkhouse. I never liked calling it a guesthouse. It implied something much fancier than what it is. And here is a photo I took from the trail's upper landing of the oasis.

You can easily see the big concrete tank toward the center of the photo. The stucco tank is the white strip between the rock cabins and the big tank. You can't see the water in it from this photo, but you can see the water in the lower dirt tank in front of the cabins. It looks brown in the photo. I could pump it into the stucco tank but it's supposed to rain all week so I'll just wait a while. The stucco tank isn't down enough to hold much of it anyway. I put gambusias in the dirt tank to help with the impending mosquito problem.