My trail

I was surprised to realize that I did all the building on my trail from mid-May through June. (Hottest June on record, no less.) No wonder I got early morning starts before it got too hot. Today I finished repairing the trail after the summer monsoons. It should be good to go until the next monsoons. That's a relief. And to have the house work done too! Maybe the weeds at the oasis will freeze and I won't have to pull them. I'm exhausted. Today was worse than the day before yesterday. For one thing, I didn't take enough water. Drank the last of it on top and had to descend all the way down without water. Didn't eat breakfast, not recovered from day before yesterday, went all the way to the saddle, which was one-third farther. Then I decided to bring the pickax down that I had left there in June. That was about the straw that broke the camel's back.

Here is the oasis from the upper landing. Not bad for mid-November.

This next photo is of the trail where it crosses the ridge. The left pic is from June and the right pic is from today. You can see, with the ground wet, I was able to get that big rock out and use it for a step. It's level but for some reason the camera angle, or lens, makes it look tilted.

Here's an interesting flower that I saw near the "corner" atop the ridge. Don't remember ever seeing one like it before. No idea what it is.

This afternoon I worked on making hoods for a couple feeders. Got one done just at dark and couldn't figure out how to make the flash go on my Lumix (Consulted the manual now and know how), so not a good photo but I like the way the cover turned out. Tomorrow before banding I'm going to do another one. Gonna solve the rainwater getting into feeders problem (except I won't be able to cover one of the feeders that goes into the trap for banding). The cover I made today is a round cookie sheet or pizza pan. The top side is painted red now. I only have one more, but ordered a couple of red feeder covers online. That should be enough what with the two new stands Mac Womack is making me that he'll bring in March. Then I'll be all set.

Will take better pics tomorrow. For now I'm going to check out the moon. It's the biggest it's been since I was 6 years old.