Most folks, including me, use the label "Red Desert" to refer to a huge chunk of our state. But in reality, the desert that is red is only a small place, covering about two townships, or maybe three.

Clay soils high in iron. Even the water turns red.

Our route home last Wednesday took us through this stretch of land. The road was solid, although it often isn't in the spring, but lined with standing pools of recent snowmelt in the barrow ditches. With this deep, soft clay, you don't dare veer off the hardened track, or you might be there a while.

But we were due for a break, so I parked in the middle of the road, and we took a short hike. Partly to admire the patterns in the drying mud...

but mainly to give the heeler sisters a break. A place to run without having to worry about cactus or sharp rocks. A place where, if it weren't for their orange bandannas and white blazes, the heeler sisters could just about disappear.