The Holiest of Nights- Christmas in the Desert

Christmas Eve with family in Arizona is our tradition. An ironwood (Palos fiero) campfire blazes, Lorena McKinnet sings her Celtic Christmas carols and the dogs lay around the camp dreaming of tomorrow hunts. Ellen fixed us a standing rib roast this year to make up for the traditional fruit cake she passed on. We are not complete and we feel not whole with our Catherine “Kate” away at studies in far away Oxford England for the year. She moves us to get going and even the boys miss her jabs. Ellen sunbath with her in the arroyos when we are quail hunting and this year Ellen will just read and think about her statistics.

The dove flights again are awesome and the desert quail coveys the best I seen in twenty years. Multiple coveys with 20 or greater birds are common. We are having a great shoots starting a 28 gauge double that Ellen bought me years ago. I move within several days to my beloved bar-in-wood Damascus side lever Thomas Turner, on to my true and tried 1876 W&C Scott & Sons Premiere hammer gun and to finish my shoots with a top lever 1893 Stephen Grant. The Grant seems so personal being struck a small firm and Stephen being alive when the gun came to life in London.

My eldest son Nick has his gentleman limit first within twenty minutes while my youngest, Thomas, a fast growing senior had to adjust to his 1963 Holland and Holland 20 bore that he uses every year. The gun has remained the same, he has changed and Tom pays for not going to the range just down the road to readjust fit. He is done within the hour. I direct the dogs to blinds and Fe our pointer is wonderful in marking excellent retrieves. The lab, Senora Belle will let Fe get all the birds the boys shoot but never will she allow Fe close to mine.

We clean the harvest and are back for Christmas dinner that Ellen has prepared and the Christmas Eve dusk in the desert bring us to recall the birth that changed the world beginning in a simple stable. The Arizona eve is cold much like Bethlehem 2,005 years ago.

The boys fine some fireworks and celebrate Christmas. We look forward to sharing some gifts with are host in the valley tomorrow.

December 18, 2006 On our way to the Desert Hunting Grounds

The snow finally made it over the Sierras and left a 2" blanket on the valley floor. Reno is ready for the Christmas travelers and the neighborhoods are blazed with Christmas lights. I watch Rick Steves Christmas travels in Bavaria and wonder where is my daughter, a serious student at Oxford is these days. Cate wirtes in depth about the moral teachings of Agustine, Aquainas, Plato and Moore with such eloquence. She is an intellectual and the Oxford teaching one-on-one a very tough school forces her to write and write.Cate is either in Florence, Dublin or Paris with student friends from the University of San Francisco. She doesn't use her cell phone outside the British Isle and her emails are sporadic. We are sure she is having a wonderful adventure. She will miss our annual camping trip to Arizona and Mexico.

As a family (n-1), we travel this season with selected friends who camp, hunt and love to explore the Indian ruins and find a seclude arroyo with plenty of wood and stay there for 2-3 weeks. We avoid the hideous commercialization of the season and celebrate the joy of Christmas day in the Sonoran deserts with daily hunt, raging camp fires and soaking in hot irrigation waters

Winter Fly Fishing at Pyramid

December can bring the big Lahonton cutthroat trout inshore and range for fly fishers. Water temp is around 52 and the bait fish are starting to show up. We spent the night on the beach and in the morning landed three trout ranging from 3- 6 lbs