Near Sheep Rock in the John Day Fossil Beds there’s an old homestead with a funny name, the James Cant Ranch. Poor James. Maybe it just wasn’t his calling.
I stopped there to get a new angle on Sheep Rock and found a whole riverside neighborhood instead. Western fence lizards, garter snakes, and robins who were doing a better job of making a home out of the place than James apparently did.
I never figured out whether the nest was just scrappy or whether the egg had been left behind. Either way, I knew it was the shot. The browns of the nest against that green-blue June sky are as close as I can get to showing what spring feels like in the high desert. Everything is in a hurry, and everything is hoping.