Yesterday morning took us up into the low mountains north of home. A dry, rocky place (hence the broken truck), with plenty of dust.

A chance to drop in on an old friend.

I was surprised to see the large limb that broke over a year ago still had a few green boughs on it.

Says something for the tenacious nature of these old survivors that sap can carry life forward through just this thin strip of bark.

Now, if she can just survive the disease that's been killing so many of her species further north.

As we stepped out to the edge of the nearby limestone dropoff (not quite high enough to be a "cliff"), being leary of getting the masked heeler too closen to danger with her vision problems, I was startled by a scrabbling of dirt, and a flash of tannish-white butt bursting over the crest below.

No idea what we spooked, but there was little or no tail on that butt, so it was either a huge jackrabbit, a bobcat, or a coyote with tail tucked tight. Heelers heard it too, the little maskless one leaping up on the cliff beside me. Her sister disappeared into a crevice on our left.

As I stood on the edge, unsuccessfully scanning the slope below with binocs, I became aware of another face emerging from the cliff below my feet.

Our supposedly-becoming-blind masked heeler.

"Hey! I found a tunnel!"

"Wanta see?"

Of course, it was on the return leg down the mountains that I hit that same waterbar that I hit on the way up, which made me stop and see what that new banging noise was in the back end. From then on, we went slooow and gentle. About as smoothly as the river when we reached the asphalt.