Great story, thanks! Slim pickins in tough country; the story of my life, quailwise. But harder on the dogs than on the people, I'm sure.
That stone drinking fountain looks too good to be natural. Did it show signs of grinding? We find these fairly often in areas where I do backcountry volunteer work in Sou Cal, but they are generally by live oak stands and ground into the bedrock. But we find portable (sorta) metates and manos fairly often, too. Our rock art is confined to caves and they are heavily protected by the "powers that be" (sealed up, I mean, not cursed). We do run into a live archeologist now and again, too.
