After Comanche was sure the interloper meant no harm to his girls, he returned to the trough for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggg drink of water. 🙂
I sat uphill from the trough to stay out of the way and had to get the camera low to see any of his eye (the eyes make the photos, they say, but even so, only part of his eye is visble) below the evaporation cover. That’s why there’s a soft layer of unfocused vegetation in the lower foreground.
The black square-looking thing in the center of the trough is actually a long rectangle made of steel mesh on a steel frame. It’s a critter ladder that provides a perch for birds and little beasts to get a drink without drowning. The stacked wood outside the trough slightly to the right is where the pipe from the tank comes out of the ground and into the trough. It’s filled with dirt to insulate it in the winter (when the water is turned off).
