Water, water

Here's the river going gently over the rapids, as we lose a couple hundred cubic feet of volume every day.

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This is looking up Bull Run Creek. It's quite placid now; this section is warm and barely knee deep. Some big squawfish live there now.

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And just a nice arty shot. Actually, it came out totally black, but to my surprise it contained a ton of information when I tweaked it.

Snakes on a plain

This lovely King Snake met us on our walk around the property last night. (OK, we were emptying the dog, and she pointed out the crawler to us.) He did the little "hi, I'm a rattlesnake" game, but we were not impressed by the wiggling of his little tail -- nor did his lovely brown stripes cause us to think he was a diamondback. He did entertain all of us, though, especially Stella, who had to be pulled back from a potential snack.

Waist Deep in the ...

Another back yard shot. I've been learning a bit about flyfishing -- not by doing it, but by watching it on the river and in a video a friend is making. It's delightful to watch -- and there's an obvious difference between the skills of the average and the excellent fishers. I can see how it can be a meditative sort of hobby, even without the geeky obsessiveness of fly tying.

More sights along the way

Sugar Pine cone by the side of the road, and ghost oaks
 

Rock Art

and remnant of the Stormy Fire.

Knob, dome, and needles

This view is from NF-22s10, heading toward Johnsondale. The little town of Johnsondale used to be a classic company town; when the logging business folded, Johnsondale turned into the "R Ranch", which basically is a timeshare trailer park around the log pond. If you have Google Earth, you can look at it with this -- let me know if this doesn't work.

Looking down

We went on a little drive up and around the mountains. This is up around 6500 feet; we're looking down on Kern Canyon, near Fairview.

Front Door Bun

This guy was hanging out by our front door (this is a through-the-window shot.) The bunny population here is astounding.

Meanwhile, I'm going to try tonight to get some bat pictures; turns out we have the best place in the universe to watch bats catching bugs.

A nearby friend

This one's not on our property -- it's on the other side of Lake Isabella.

A couple new links

I've added links in the left column to "Nature Alley", a nice Kern County nature site, as well as a third webcam. We're moving them around.

Bear Snax

A few days later, further down Burlando, I find this again.












It seem Mr. or Ms. Bear stopped at this idyllic little campsite by the river for a drink...












after a Garbage Day buffet up Siretta Street and Pine. 

Splish splash

No pics today -- we put on our water shoes and went hiking up Bull Run Creek. Actually, we waded aross to the island, which still has a wee bit of river flowing over it north of us, and walked north over what's river bottom sometimes and island other times, then turned west and walked down to the creek, and then in the creek back to the house -- I guess about a each way, no great distance. The creek was delightful! Warm enough to swim in (but mostly wading depth), crystal clear, full of teeny fish and little fish and a few almost big fish, little rainbow troutfish. We're going to procure a waterproof camera.

The river level is getting lower and lower every day.

The mule next door

Madison has his own paddock; the other mule and the buckskin horse have to share one.

What does the bear do in the woods?

Most of the pics here from on the property, but this one was about a half mile up the road (where Roberta runs every morning.) It's about the size of a woman's size 10 running shoe.

Quail!

A mess of quail today. One particular bunch was right in our front yard -- two sets of parents and babies, one set of 4 babies rather larger than the other set of 4 babies. Too cute. Hard to get pics of, though, because our windows are caked with some sort of residue from an overactive sprinkler system....

Parasites

A few of the trees are full of these parasites. We'll take care of them, but I haven't figured out just what they are -- anyone recognize it?

And we're here...

Feels damned good.

Here's one of our river webcams. When it's up, here's our other river webcam. And here's our Bull Run Weather Station.

Heading back!

We're heading back to K'ville tomorrow. It's hot here in LV, and it's hot in Kernville. The house in LV has great air conditioning. We'll see about the house in Kernville....

We're looking forward to being there, certainly. Coming up: a meet and greet with the other residents of Rio del Loma.

Won't be as wondrous at night, I fear, with the river so much lower.