Bouse Like House; Not Boose Like Moose

It's Bouse, like "house." It's a thriving metropolis a few miles away from Brenda. OK, it's a large city near Brenda. No? OK, a huge town near Brenda. Oh heck, it's a tiny little village but it really is only a short ride across the desert by atv from Brenda- about 18 miles, and we made the ride a couple days ago to take in the Bouse Christmas Bazaar. And it was- bizarre so to speak, but well worth the ride which included a side trip following Dandy Don back in to the hills and a canyon we call "Sheep Canyon." It's a beautiful piece of real estate and while many others have reported sheep sightings in the canyon, I personally had never found one back in there. But on this day, they were pretty much everywhere. A single ram as we headed back in, then an old boys club with four more rams and then a group of four ewes. We had plenty of time so we took plenty of time to just watch what these fine animals were doing. Many were eating- browsing on creosote bush, Palo Verde scrub brush and small mesquite trees. Nearly all of them seemed intent on doing some head rubbing against the saguaro cactus, and we couldn't be sure whether they were just scratching an itch or whether they were removing spines so they could take a bite out of the water storing capabilities of this mighty cactus. Our visit to Bouse included a visit to the assay office and an old pit mine where we mined a few old metal relic pieces to bring back for the "desert junk" garden I'm starting.