Friends, Alyssa and Jessec from LA drove up for the Memorial Day weekend and a good time was had by all.
On Saturday we went to a Condor Recovery Talk at the library hosted by the Nth Arizona Skeptics. The guy from the Raptor Recovery program was very interesting and explained and spoke about the topic very well.
Looks like there is high hopes for the amazing bird.

I took this at the Grand Canyon, was lucky to see about 5 of them roosting and soaring...

One of the problems facing them is lead poisoning from bullets, so the group got with hunters to work together with using non lead bullets and trying to not leave the guts around. Which are very nommy for the savengers but usually have high levels of lead bits. They capture, test, chelate and release the Condors on a regular basis.
Having a good relationship with the farmers and hunters seems vital to the continuing success of the program.


On Sunday we drove down the Sedona which was chocko block of other tourists, but A&J had not been there so its always worth the trip.
We did the short but steep Cathedral Rock Trail. It rained on and off which created the most amazing lighting effects over the valleys and rocks.

Top of Cathedral Rock Trail

The dogs did great, four feet better than two in some stretches, but we had to foil their games. Chasing, body slaming and wrestling on the side of the cliff made us all a bit nervous.
We all made it, nobody fell and the views were magificent .

Rob and Roo on Cathedral Rock Trail

Sometime on Saturday night, Plan B made his own plans by getting out of the cage, which we have put out on the balcony, falling two stories and running off to try to break into Toad Hall and drink all the Dandylion Wine.
Sunday morning before Sedona was spent swearing and roaming the areas near our house....
We let the next door neighbours know and hoped for the best.

Monday, still no sign and before we went to the family dinner, Rob made up some signs and we posted them around. About 8pm he gets a phone call from four houses down saying they had our ferret...YAY! and a mighty WHEW!
The neighbourhood network worked a treat. Even before we placed the signs, our neighbour was talking to the guy across the street and mentioned we had lost a ferret, he said he was talking to the other people down the road and they had caught a ferret.
We have lost ferrets before and somehow always seem to get them back. Demi for a week once till next door found her in a pipe.

Pups and Ferrets

The foster pups are doing really well, getting huge and very playful.

Foster pups