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Today was Thursday so of course (of course?) it was a road work day.

I got out fairly early and knocked out eight miles in just over two hours. It was a very nice hike with a lot of challenging hills along the way and conducted on a coolish, mostly-cloudy morn. Felt like I was finally making progress in becoming more fit. I'm almost back to where I was last September when I caught the bone infection.

Along the way I made this image, which I call "A Shrub Grows In Washing(ton) Machine."

It might be hard to see but the flowery shrub (smooth sumac) is growing in the rusting remains of an old washing machine that some one tipped in the ditch many decades ago. Generations of callow utes have also caused many a bullet hole to appear in the tub of the washer, which is pretty much all that remains of the machine. Nature is cool!

Now one of the things I enjoy about hiking in the twenty-first-and-a-half...thenthury...



...is the clever app I have on my phone. It's called map my hike and it uses gps to track my hiking route. At the end of the hike I can see how far and how fast and how much elevation change and all like that.

In the middle of today's epic hike, however, the phone updated. At least I think it updated. Maybe it was hacked by Lithuanians. Anyway, it must have rebooted and I lost the data that should have been recorded.

Not to worry, though, because I was wearing my gear fit (like a fitbit, only Samsung). It didn't save a pretty map of my route but it did log the miles and elevation change and duration, so that was good enough.

But the damme phone rebooted with airplane mode on, as well as do not disturb, and max power saving. And of course I had phone calls during that time, and messages were left. Took me a solid hour to get the thing sorted when I'd finished.

On the bright side, that's the only time this has happened to me during a hike, so I probably shouldn't complain.

Now here's something I thought you might find interesting. Do you see the little shelf jutting out of the rock wall in about the center of the image?

Well, this is what you find growing on such shelves.

All it takes is a bit of windblown dirt, a seed, and rain.

And this was spilling over the top of the gully wall.

Nature!

I also managed to get a couple of pictures of a barn swallow.

Except of course that's not a barn swallow. I think it's a phoebe. Perhaps a Say's Phoebe. Glad I caught that before posting.

And this short video of swallows catching gnats over the surface of a stock tank may actually be phoebes catching gnats.



No new calves today. Drat! I think some of the cows are holding out for Mothers' Day.