Congrats on the new job, Ian.
Keith--that shop is TRULY coming together now. Thank you for the photos--worth 1000 words.
Marie and I got outta town today, and headed to the Imperial Valley. 83* at 11 A.M., Bret don't hate us for being warm and comfortable.
I thought of Bret and others in our northern tier of states today. Agriculture really never stops in the Imperial or Coachella Valleys. Late January, and strawberries beds are opaque-white-visqueened over a couple square miles of fields just south of Mecca. Alfalfa is coming up all over the Imperial Valley, and A BUNCH of water is being drawn off the canals right now. We saw a BIG-AZZED catfish sunning in about 4 feet of water this afternoon, it was 2-1/2 feet long at least. Didn't bring tackle along on this trip. This particular section of the East Highline Canal is known for BIG flathead catfish and striped bass, and Marie never fails to remind me of getting FARMED HARD by one such fish (or maybe a Los Angeles-class submarine.....) a few years back in this same area. Trout tackle doesn't meet standards here--you WILL GET FARMED using knitting-needle rods in this water.
The Salton Sea and the wetlands surrounding it are a huge waterfowl wintering area. Duck season is still on, and quail/chukar are fair game for another week or so. We saw a bunch of egrets and a few mallards loafing around the Wister Area ponds, but on warm calm days like today the big flocks raft up on the open water where no one bugs them. If you are hunting, you hope for wind to roughen the Sea and get the birds out of the stratosphere. Rain and low clouds help with that, but any rain at all turns the silty soil around the Sea into dust-seasoned Vaseline. We managed to stay out of most of that today. Today wasn't a hunt day on the Unit, but there were still several dozen parties camped in the extended stay area waiting to bid on blind sites to hunt Sat/Sun/Wed until the seasons shut down early next month.
There is still quite a bit of baled alfalfa hay stacked near the fields it was cut from in late Fall, much of it on banks of side-channels that irrigate fields all across the Valley. These stacks get tarped over in open silage, then hauled to the several beef feed lots still in operation around Brawley and Calipatria. Mice and small varmints chow down on this hay, a set of facts not lost on the burrowing owls who co-reside nearby. The owls evict the vermin from their burrows and eat them, then take up residence in their vacant homes to plan further depredations. We saw several of these owls today, and--for the life of me--they look and act like little East Los Angeles vatos standing on their front porch staring at you and daring you to stop or mess with them. WHAT? You want some? Come get some! Too funny, they just make me laugh--which probably makes them even madder. They are The Best.
It got dark, we drove home and got dinner at a place we like in Banning. It is almost time for bed now.