Q 11/14

Here is the picture again that I posted in the last blog entry where the snake was living. It looks totally different in the second picture. Dan waited a few days then set to work on getting this big snake away from our area. He dug out the old pack rat nest and raked away all the sticks. The snake had gone away, thank goodness. I'm sure you'll have to click on the first picture to see the pack rat nest really good. All the other pictures show how far the hole is under the tree where the snake was. We think he was just passing through as we had been to the tree many times in the last three weeks since we've been here and never heard it hiss.

After Bella seen the snake she became really jumpy. I'm thinking she sensed that it was bad news for her. She almost tiptoed up to the tree. She was very skeptical about going near it. When we're out walking shes been approaching sticks sometimes, checking them out, then jumping back from them. I think seeing the snake scared her. I'm thinking that she finally went back to the tree is because there is now a kangaroo rat using a hole in the tree. In the pictures below shes looking at it inside the hole. She could see it looking back at her. I could see it looking at me also. I can't ever get a picture of them. They are too fast and they are mostly out at night.

You can google Kangaroo rat like I did to get a picture and read about them. Bella sure would like to play with one. When we take her out for a night walk she'll see them and try and chase them. Her leash only goes so far, so sometimes she takes me or Dan on quite a chase!

We are parked right over the white quartz circle that I made 8 years ago. Inside the circle is says D+P. I've gone to google maps and can see the circle of quartz. Pretty cool.

I finally happened to catch Bella jumping from a tree limb into Dan's arms. She does this all the time. She'll jump to me or Dan. This time she was only about 8' from the tips of his fingers. Most of the time she'll jump from 12' to 15' up. One time we estimated that she jumped about 20'. Shes very trusting.

Here is one of the chores that you're required to do when living off the grid. We had just gone to get water. There is 60 gallons of it in the water bladder. The bladder has a pump on it and Dan just pumps it from the bladder right into our fresh water tanks.

Our home way off in the distance. This is looking kind of southeast.