Birds and lions... oh my!

Gerald's son, David, flew into town the following week. He's a musician and sound engineer, and Gerald asked him to come out and wire the place for sound. They got most of the work done in a day.

After the last inspection, we needed to visit the planning office in Prescott, the last time, our inspector promised. The meeting with the plan reviewer went very well. We added the woodstoves that weren't on our plans, and he reviewed some items that were of potential concern to the inspector. He didn't seem particularly concerned about them, but we would need to get a letter from concerning the safety of a missing I-joist the framers had not installed.

We found that the window from the master bedroom gave us a great view of our newest neighbors.

Through the window, I was also able to get a better picture of their mom.

The porch turns out to be a great place to watch birds. They get fairly close and don't seem too concerned that we're there. Here's a scrub jay that was making a fuss.

And one of several finches that were flitting around.

I took David on a couple of short hikes to show him some of my more interesting finds: the old car, which, after David did some sleuthing, declared as a Buick truck; the mica mine, the strange coffin-shaped holes in the ground of a neighboring parcel.

The area had gotten quite a rain storm earlier in the week, and there were tracks everywhere. We saw what  could only be a mountain lion track, as large as David's hand. 

On June 3, "The Yellow Sheet," which passes as a local paper of sorts, said the Arizona Game and Fish Department had received numerous sightings of mountain lions near Yarnell, one of which resulted in the demise of a pet. We had seen tracks before, but not for some time.

The tracks were in an area that was covered with tracks of all kinds. Along with the large mountain lion track, there seemed to be smaller cat tracks. We thought they might be bobcat, but after re-reading the Yellow Sheet, there was a separate article by a resident who had seen a mountain lion and her cub. So maybe we were visited by mother and child.