Quite a Sunday...

Yesterday our burn permit and the weather finally came together – and we made a great start at taking care of our (giant) brush pile (the result of our pine trimming project of last summer).  We burned more than half of it yesterday, using our little Kubota tractor to move piles of brush to near the burn site, and then the chainsaw and muscles to get the brush onto the pile.  The wood is very dry, so it burned hot and nearly smokeless, giving off huge amounts of heat.  By early afternoon, we could do no more – time to put the fire out, and clean ourselves up.

Then we went out to dinner at Descanso Junction, and had ourselves a fine meal.  They've recently added a new entree to their menu: pork “steaks”, wrapped in bacon, and topped with gorganzola crumbles.  Last night they served that up with homemade chicken noodle soup and sauteed baby spinach.  Oh, my.  That was so good...

After dinner we decided to head up to the Stonewall Mine Road in Cuyamaca State Park.  It's a short drive from Descanso, and we'd seen large numbers of deer there recently.  The deer population has been greatly depressed ever since the 2007 fires, but they're finally coming back in numbers.  Last night's viewing was the best we've ever had in the park.  We spent a delighted hour watching a herd of more than 30 animals grazing in the large meadow just south of Stonewall Mine.  There is more genetic variation in that herd than we're used to seeing; we suspect that the deer have been brought in from various other places to re-establish the herd.  There were very few deer around last year, so it's hard to imagine how the herd could have grown so fast over the winter without outside help.  Toward the end of our time there, the entire herd was within a couple hundred feet of the road.  We drove very slowly right through the herd, deer on both sides of us, some within 50 feet of the car.  They don't seem to be scared of the cars, but they're very skittish when people are walking.

A very satisfying Sunday for us: a hard day's work, followed by a spectacular dinner, followed by a beautiful evening of wildlife watching.  Woo hoo!