Moo. Who knew?

This week, was [the story] of two young daredevil "influencers" who climbed to the tippy top of the Empire State building, unfurled a banner, got engaged, etc. They were arrested afterwards.

I found their instagram profiles. Apparently, this is just what they do. In this case, it brought felony charges. An engagement to remember. 

Now, had they been cows...

These 50 acres we recently purchased? It's in some foothills above town, surrounded by other similar parcels. Some neighbors live up there year 'round. Our spot has a decent shed, but really, no other structures. Purely recreational. 

On our initial visits, we had a curious discovery: cow pies. Not lots of them, but a few such adornments that left us scratching our heads. 

This week, the online chat helped clear up that little mystery.

So, we learned that livestock owners can just let their cattle roam and graze wherever they please except for state land. Private land is open for all-you-can-eat buffet. It's up to the property owners to keep them out. This herd comes up from the valley below. The discussion thread included different fencing strategies, where to get materials, etc.

We have no fences, and I like it that way. It's not like we have a garden or anything I'm worried about being eaten - now that I know we don't have a marijuana stash as far as I've discovered. Go for it, cows. Still, that's quite a lot of cows.

In similar boonie news, there are many reports of this ursine family, romping and playing. We have yet to see them. So far, we've just seen deer.

We did mount a trail cam, so we'll see if anything fun/cute/ scary/ paranormal... shows up on video.

Mom and two cubs. I wonder what they think of the cows.




Today begins a long weekend for the 4th of July, which always feels to me like the "start of the end" of summer. 

The summer session at the college is past its halfway point already. So much material crammed into 10 weeks. 

Three of my current tutees are enrolled in the course which has the esteemed rank of "Most Failed And Retaken" among all courses in the catalog. At this point, I'm thinking two of the tutees are going to help the course retain its title, but the third one might actually pull through. 

But speaking of sightings, one of the potential fail-and-retakers does have an observant eye and appreciation for aesthetics. As we were packing up yesterday, he told me he liked my chrome calculator keys. This was after I had already stashed my calculator away. 

I never really noticed, so afterward, I took out said calculator - just a handy go-to that fits easily in my backpack. They cost ~$25

No doubt, some industrial designer said those right side keys should be shiny. Difficult to see in this photo, but they are in fact, chrome plated plastic - a finishing touch that adds nothing to functionality. 

It was my first ever calculator key compliment. I'll take what I can get.

make like a tree

 Wham! This week went by fast, although I can't put my finger on anything in particular that made it so. Oh well, here we are, Saturday. Not complaining.

The semester is winding down at the college. Less than one month to go, and one of those weeks is fall break. I've had a few tutees jump ship from their math classes already, realizing they can't pass even if they pull wizardry on their finals. I'm a little mad at the advisors who allowed them to sign up for classes they clearly weren't ready for, but sink-or-swim seems to be the strategy.

We survived the first week back to standard time. It is now dark on my bicycle commute home, and I'm decked out with lights and reflectors again. There are three busy roads I must cross to get to and from the college, and I found a route that uses the lesser of the evils for all three crossings without being too much of a detour. 

A little photo dump from the week:

• One of my fellow paint-n-sippers shared some pics she took of our get together a couple of weeks ago. Here's a group photo:

Our artistic leader is 4th from the left, next to me, in case it's not obvious from her Best-In-Show painting.

• I came across a few deer during one of my early morning jog arounds this week

There were about five of them hanging around together, but the others went and hid in the trees as I got my phone out. These two seemingly couldn't care less. 

It's gotten chillier, and we've definitely had our first freeze, but still no snow for the season. Any day now. I avoid politics on the blog, but I gotta say, this government shut down is getting old. 

Rant over. 

 

antlered things

We took a day trip to Estes Park yesterday. Nothing particular in mind, but I was in need of a getaway. Estes is about an hour's drive away, so easy to leave our pets to fend for themselves until our return.

One thing Estes Park is known for is its hefty elk population, and yesterday provided the full experience. We went for a nice walk on the waterfront path, stopped for lunch, and on our way back to downtown, we noticed more people along the path than had been there earlier. 

"It's almost like there's some event going on", I pondered.

As we got closer, we saw that there was a sort of event. At some point during our walking and eating, a huge freaking herd of elk had taken over the golf course.

Where had they all come from?

So we hung out for a bit and gawked at the wildlife along with the other humans. None of the elk seemed to give a crap about any of us, and, thankfully, no stupid people tried to go into the herd for a social media op.

These two big guys put on a nice play fight show for a good while

Their womenfolk paid no attention, having seen it all before, I'm sure.

And so begins November.

Our Halloween "bash" was pretty mellow. I counted 5 groups of Trick-or-Treaters, but may have missed a couple. 

The next day, our Ring®  notifications featured several user complaints and video evidence of stolen bowls of candy that had been left out. That's the world we live in - put a bowl out under the honor system, and it really just serves as miscreant bait. 

We get off our butts and answer the door. I'd say most of our visitors were "older" kids - middle and high school aged, by the looks and sounds of them. I used to think that kids that age were too old for it, but I've grown to appreciate them. All had put thoughtfulness and work into their costumes, and all were polite. I think this whatever-it-is skull guy was my favorite (captured from our aforemention Ring®)

I'm thinking there's some character - video game, most likely - depicted here, but am clueless as to what. I doubt it's an homage to Georgia O'Keefe. And I'm not sure what the companion is dressed as. 

I checked the front camera footage to see if I could figure anything out, but no. Maybe some other video game reference? 

She does appear to be toting both candy bags while skull guy is unburdened. 

So maybe that's the costume: groupie

hunting and pecking

I was on a darkish walkabout this morning - a lazy fog making things seem somewhat middle earthy. 

I didn't come across any hobbits or elves that I know of, but did encounter this gaggle of turkeys. I've seen them around before, as have others who chime in on Next Door, Reddit, etc. Is it the same wild group moseying all over town or is there more than one gang?

They look healthy and happy enough, to my untrained eyes.

I recall a boy I knew many years ago, a country boy, who told me how difficult it was to track and nab a wild turkey at hunting time. He told me this while showing me, with pride, one of his turkey feather trophies.

So my first experience of spotting these wild turkeys had me thinking back to that, making the event all, "Wow, a rare sighting!". But now I'm starting to wonder... is it really that difficult?

Recall a while back I admitted to having the odd thought that I would enjoy birdwatching. Now I'm thinking about that again after coming upon this group in the business park. The real appeal to me is to be out in the boonies with a purpose. Hunting has always sounded fun to me - all except the killing part. THAT doesn't appeal to me at all, despite my being a failed vegetarian.

I feel in need of a nature fix, anyway, in the midst of another semester of dealing with students barely keeping their heads above water (how did they even meet the prerequisites?!). I mean, it's only the strugglers who sign up for tutoring, so it's the nature of the beast.

So no nature getaway today. But at least I had wild turkeys by the dumpster.

paparazzi life

 

This past week, we were dog sitting Chaco's dog, Ella, while Chaco was out of town. I'd say she and our dogs have become pretty comfortable seeing this as Ella's home away from home. She settles in well with the daily routine, and Chaco gets majorly cheap dog boarding.

Even the cat, with whom Ella cannot be left alone, tolerates her presence for the most part.  He hangs out in his room of choice while being separated from the dogs and lets us know when he'd like to change his room of choice. His humans are well trained.

Chaco checks in on her occasionally, and I try to send him pics when he does. Clearly, though, Ella doesn't seem to like having her picture taken. She'll be sitting in picture-perfect form or outside basking in nature, but as soon as I get my phone out, *zhoop* she turns around or dashes off.

One evening, while out for a walk, I was able to capture her standing still. Well, it was the back of her head, but at least she was still. I knew if I went around to her front, she'd pull a blur move. But we managed a temporary sit still moment. 

The bunnies understood the assignment.

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Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:

5. Show us a recent photo you took and let it inspire your blog post.

furries

I was enjoying an indulgent bicycle joyride earlier this week, rounded a corner, and oh deer. 

She decided she didn't want to socialize with me and left, but not before I was able to snap a quick pic.

I'm done with COVID, or it's done with me as well as the rest of the family. Because of the 4th of July holiday, I only missed one day of work. My coworkers expressed their appreciation and bestowed this card upon my return.

Inside says "Mew got this!" because we're all a bit crazy cat people.

They joked that the original intent was to mail it to my sick bed, but since I survived, they just handed it to me.

Boss said, "We talked and realized: you ride your bike to work, exercise, eat healthy foods, and you're the first of us to get COVID. So yeah, we're not gonna do any of that stuff"

Meanwhile, we also had three dogs for a week. Chaco's dog stayed with us while he was out of town, so some extra walking time. Ella's a good pooch, and I think Merlin was mildly depressed when she left to go back home.

Speaking of pets and crazy cat people, coworker Party Girl got a cat for her cognitively challenged dad. He loves the cat, but isn't so good at taking care of her. In the meantime, Party Girl has one dog, and her husband had made it clear from the get go that he doesn't want any more pets.  

He's smart enough to see that this is Party Girl's backdoor way of getting a cat. The plot thickens. Who will prevail?

Oh... the drama.

Haz lo tuyo

A couple of weeks ago, a coworker, "Martha", took a vacation to Mexico.  We had a less than springlike weather forecast for the day of her return, and I texted her a heads up    ➡➡

She replied a short time later:

Well, they didn't get covid, but apparently contracted some other "bug".

Upon her return to work last week, Martha put in her notice and announced that she and her husband are moving to Mexico.  They plan to become permanent residents.

So THAT was news! I haven't really had a chance to ask her how long it took for them to make this decision.  I knew they were both close to being ready to retire, but I don't know if they'd discussed moving out of the country, or specifically to Mexico before their week long vacay.

Martha and her husband don't have kids. Both Martha's parents are deceased, and she has a "high maintenance" mother-in-law who probably motivates them to create more distance.

So they're selling their stuff, working to re-home the two dogs, and heading south.  

More power to 'em, I guess.  I'm assuming they've thought this through.  Thankfully, Martha gave a full month's notice, and hopefully Boss can fill her position soon 🤞.

And I'll miss working with Martha.  There are only six of us at the center including the boss, and she's probably my favorite to work with (don't tell the others). Laid back, good work ethic, well-organized, often brings muffins...

She was part of our recent united front against Nurse Ratched. I changed her name here to Martha so as to not confuse her with Betty the blogger.

Party Girl and I got to talking about where we would want to move to if no limitations. I never really thought about being an ex-pat. There are places I'd like to visit, but I dunno about totally pulling up stakes like Martha.  

I'm actually quite happy in Fort Collins, thanks.

More waterfowl friends

In the meantime, know someone who needs a house in Colorado? Some housewares?  Coupla dogs?  A part-time job?  Hit me up!

you had me on the sunrise

 My days off are Fridays and Saturdays, so Saturdays feel like Sundays to me.  I was gonna say Happy Mother's Day, but nope, not officially there yet.  Not that I'm big into Hallmark holidays anyway...

I enjoyed a leisurely day yesterday, starting with a lovely morning run where I passed by this wholesome couple performing their morning preening.  

The male didn't seem to want his pic taken, but at least the female was quite into it.

I've never seen ducks nesting like the geese do around here.  Nevertheless, little ducklings seemingly pop out of nowhere each spring.  I'll keep watch.

Later on, I did some shopping.  I needed some shoes for work, and Sierra did me a solid once again.  I like to wear good quality running shoes at work since we're on our feet so much.  Good quality running shoes can be expensive, though, but I found these bargain basement pups for the ridiculous price of $15.

They felt super comfy in the store, but I was all questioning on account of how cheap they were.  I looked up online reviews when I got home, thinking maybe they're on par with grocery store sneakers,  but sure enough, they're legit.  

In fact, one of my favorite youtube shoe reviewers recently posted a favorable review, so I'm currently basking in bargain hunting success.

Later, I swung by Wolfgang's to look after his cat Maisey for a while.  Wolfgang and a couple of friends partook of some mountain biking fun in Utah and Colorado last week, so Magnum and I were on Maisey duty.  She is basically a sweet giant fur ball.

So far today, we've had a bike ride, a quick check in with Wolfgang, and a coffee outing - lovely day out that it is. 


Snow is forecast for the upcoming week, but I don't even want to talk about it.

Until then, there's a few other things to check off the to-do list, but I think I'll go look up duck nesting first.

welcome to the club, Travis

It was as if the world had stopped in that moment.  I went from enjoying a lovely morning like most others to suddenly becoming aware of my mortality. Was this really how my life was going to end?

The beast charged me with a focus I can't put into words.  I hardly had any time to react, and he was on me, plunging his teeth and squeezing his vice-like jaws of death into my flesh.

As the blood drained from my body, Good-bye... good-bye... I'll miss you all...

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But I survived.  Miraculously.  My will to survive was stronger than anything that ferocious beast had for me.  Yes, I am one of those rare people who've been attacked by a wild ferocious animal and lived to tell about it...

...like Travis Kauffman, that guy who killed a mountain lion with his bare hands while out trail running a few weeks ago.  I think his story made national news, but it was pretty big around here.  Like many others, I found myself imagining what that must have been like.  Like many others, I like to spend time traipsing around in the boonies.  Like many others, I've been in the area where the incident happened.

But hey, I don't have to just use my imagination.  The exact same thing happened to me!  I blogged about it, even!  Right [HERE]!

And yet, no news outlets wanted to hear my account.  No memes were made about me.

SOURCE

Fine. I don't want the attention anyway.  But I just thought I'd post this reminder to myself.

Wilderness /suburbs, mountain lion / Lhasa Apso .  It's all pretty much the exact same thing, right?

humidity, carnage, anxiety

*FOOM*  It's Wednesday, already!

• It's been a busy few days, but all good.  On Monday, we had a whole house humidifier installed and I feel better already.  Who knows, maybe the thing isn't even doing anything and it's all placebo effect.

I know that, in some states, DE-humidifiers are the thing, but here in Colorado, the air can get very dry - especially indoors in the winter.  I declared myself done with putting up with stand alone 1-room humidifiers.

I'd been thinking about it for a while, and a couple of weeks ago, we had our furnace tune-up.  I'd planned to ask the tech about a humidifier.  Magnum was home for Thanksgiving break, and almost on cue, he got a bloody nose, which made for a nice segue to begin the humidifier discussion.  Now we own one.

• We were watching Ella, Chaco's pooch, last weekend.  We took her out for a walk and came upon an area where a bunch of geese were hanging out, not far from a road.  As we approached, the geese began to disperse from the sidewalk by waddling off to the side, HOWEVER, two of the geese decided to TAKE OFF FLYING across the road.  

What followed was not pretty.  They were taken out by an SUV that was going over the speed limit, especially dangerous given the fact of all the geese hanging out by the side of the road .  The sound was awful - imagine taking a big grocery store chicken and throwing it full-force at your car - accompanied by a flurry of feathers.

One goose was injured and able to scamper back to safety, but I don't know how bad its injuries were.  The other one took almost a direct hit and lay twitching in the road for what seemed like an eternity before it stopped moving altogether.

I felt bad because I'm pretty sure the geese were wanting to move away from the approaching dog.  We were just walking, though, not moving fast.  And Magnum reminded me that that SUV driver was going too fast.  But sorry, Mr. or Mrs. Goose.  RIP.  I've found "comfort" in this story to assure me that geese aren't always angels...

• Busy times in the tutin' world currently.  Semester finals and such have these students on edge.  I'm hoping to be a calming presence.  Well, one can hope anyways.  Colleges around here have winter breaks that last an entire month, so there will be plenty of time to shut the brains off soon.

Honestly, I used to think that "test anxiety" or "math anxiety" were just terms for people who didn't want to put in the work.  But I've met a few people for whom their anxiety is a real obstacle despite their best efforts.  Wish I had a fix-it recipe.

fat and happy

One of the nice things about being an independent contractor is having no set schedule.  One of the difficult things about being an independent contractor is having no set schedule.

I was feeling like I was putting myself last, so starting today, I'm attempting to be more organized with my time and giving myself scheduled work hours sort of.  My "shift"doesn't start until later, and already I've stopped myself several times this morning from doing work related stuff. I actually don't have any students scheduled for today, so it's a good day to start this endeavor, and I think I'll be more efficient now

And it's nice too since it's on the heels of a nice Thanksgiving.  Dinner at the sis-in-laws was a good time with about a dozen of us.  SIL and her husband really did the lion's share of the cooking and presenting, and it was all very good.  I like to think that they enjoy doing it, so as to not feel too guilty about our family taking up half of the seats and eating the most?

Magnum and I took Meego back to school yesterday for the final push of his first semester. We arrived early in the afternoon to a very sparse campus despite the dorms opening up early that morning.  So it was nice to be able to walk around and have Meego point out various things.  I think we encountered more (very fat) squirrels than people.

Not my photo,
but a pretty good representative

Anybody do any Black Friday door bustin'?  We did our usual trek to Best Buy, only because it's a short walk from our house and a recreation after all the eating.  I'm in it more for the people watching, not shopping

Friday we ventured out to Bass Pro Shop only because Meego needed a jacket.  They were doing a healthy business that day.  As I walked around, I was thinking that the typical clientele of Bass Pro would probably do quite well in an apocalypse as they seem a pretty self-sufficient bunch.  I didn't get much of a vegan vibe either.

It was a successful trip, and on the way home, I picked this up as a Black Friday Haul

Again, I was NOT actually Black Friday shopping.  Y'all read me say that I was going to set up a new aquarium after the evil one finally bit it.  I just hadn't gotten around to it (see paragraphs 1 & 2), and my inefficiency paid off because I got this lovely 20-gal hexagonal tank at a bargain price.

So far, it has water in it and is pulling electricity.  It's a start.

plumbing appreciation day

As expected, the call of the wild took hold on Friday with the pooch.



It was a lovely day out, so it was easy to give in to Ella's suggestion to go out for a proper hike.  She and I headed out to a fave spot of the locals that is a bit off the beaten path from the touristy types - no offense to the touristy types, but... well... y'know...





I am a bit wary at this particular area because of rattlesnakes.  We've seen them on a few occasions, and a woman was recently bitten and had to be airlifted out.  BUT what's an adventure without a little danger?

It was nice to be out with such a youthful, agile companion.  We've only recently had our old lady dog, China, before she went to dog heaven, and she hadn't been up for all this scampering in a long time.  Ella was eating it up.

We traipsed around for quite a while, and thusly satisfied, headed home.  

I was looking forward to getting cleaned up before a couple of tutoring appointments, and I went to the sink to fill a bowl of water for Ella before heading to the showers.  

Nothing.

No water.  

Just that eerie sucking sound the faucet makes when there's no water.

I'd passed a crew working on our street.  They had a big chunk of road torn up from where water had been seeping the day before.  Water main break.  Oh goody.

Thankfully, we've got a bit of prepper mentality in our household (who goes by the name of Magnum) since ya never know when the zombies will take over!  I went down to our crawl space to bring up one of our several jugs of water.  They hold 5 or 7 gallons.  Here's your question of the day:  how much does 5 to 7 gallons of water weigh?

It's about 40 to 60 pounds, but I got it lugged upstairs to the kitchen so I could pretend we had a sink.  And it wasn't so bad.  Like camping, except in a house.  

Bottom line, I did not get a proper shower after our avid hiking and before the tuting.  I'll just say it's a good thing that both tutees were online and not in person!  I managed to make myself appear presentable enough.  I think.

It's rare that we lose our running water, so this little episode was a good reminder of how much I appreciate it.  I was also glad to have those filled jugs sitting in our crawl space, regardless of how cumbersome they are to heft around.  

The water was back up and running by the early evening.  Have you hugged your pipes today?

terror on the doorstep

A pleasant bug man came a-knocking a few nights ago.  He gave me the old, "Hi, I'm here in the neighborhood killing bugs over at Vic's house, and I can give you a deal to kill your bugs too since I'm already here 😁" bit.

And I was thinking, "What makes him think we have bugs?"

Actually.  No.  I did not think that.  It's obvious, especially from where he was standing.  Our front porch...

Let's get a close-up, shall we?  Of one of the many spiderwebs full of bounty that adorn the front door.

I spray them. With water.  I spray them goooooood.  I spray them because they are so strong, a broom doesn't really hack it.  I spray them on full hose pressure with the nozzle set on JET.

The spiders laugh at me and rebuild within a day or so.

No, I didn't take the bugman up on his offer, mainly because I don't give in to sales people who come a-knocking.  But... should I have pest control come?  What all do their materials do, anyway?  Bugman says he can kill existing bugs and repel future wannabes.

I've pondered this before, when my spraying can't match the spidery zeal.  Wolfgang was my voice of reason last summer.

"They're doing you a favor."

"How's that?"

"See all the bugs they catch in their webs?  If it weren't for the spiderwebs, those bugs would be inside the house."  

So that can be my excuse.  Our front porch spiderwebs are not unsightly, unwelcoming, creepy things.  

They are the moat to our castle.  

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Linking up with Mama Kat this week for the prompt:

2. Write a blog post inspired by the word: dirty

a mountain, a sweatlodge, and a sacrificial deer

First, we had to wait for Wolfgang to run up a mountain...

FREE official photo

Last Saturday was the annual running of the Pikes Peak Ascent.  Thirteen miles up the mountain.  (The marathon - up and then back down - was run on Sunday).


This was Wolfgang's third time doing the race, and he managed a new PR of a very respectable 3 hours 15 minutes, being the first of his buddies to finish and taking 6th in his age group











Eventually, his two friends crossed the finish line, and they all got off the mountain.  In the meantime, we'd been packing up the van for our trip north to the eclipse.  We made it out late Saturday afternoon, arriving in Chugwater rest area late that night.  Good ol' Chugwater.

It wasn't much further to Manters Camp, so we had most all of Sunday to play around and explore after we set up the large tent and got our campsite humming.  All of us except for Chaco, who somehow managed to get a decent sleep at Chugwater, needed a siesta.

We napped in the tent, not realizing that we hadn't removed the outer coverings of our windows, so the breeze did NOTHING.  We awoke in pools of our own sweat.  I just decided to refer to it as Sweatlodge time rather than naptime.  Supposed to be healthy, right?

Thusly refreshed, we trekked out to the surrounding boonies and found a real pretty getaway spot.  As it happened, Wolfgang had a gimpy foot that he'd injured while training for the Ascent, and the foot was really whining after running the thing.

As such, we didn't traipse around as much as we might have so as to not "leave the cripple behind".  Still, Chaco got in a bit of a climbing fix

Spot him?

That tippy top scared me, but I got close.


We were in an area of national forest and  broke out our camp cookware and ended up having our dinner there and just hanging out.

By the time we'd cleaned up and packed up, it was nightfall...  *foreboding music goes here*










Chaco was driving the country road back to our campsite, about 10 miles away.  Suddenly, a deer went scampering across the road in front of us.  Immediately, I thought,

"Hmmm, usually where there's one, at least one more is behind it"

Yup

We got him.  The sound was horrible.  I was pretty sure he was dead since we hit him just as he was emerging onto the road - in the head.  Chaco pulled right over to inspect the van and to make sure the deer wasn't suffering.

As expected, it looked like the deer had died instantly - hardly any blood.  His body lay "peacefully" parallel to and alongside the road, facing behind us.  I'm pretty sure we hit him in the head, and he spun around.

He took our passenger side headlight with him, but didn't damage the engine and only left a couple of small dents in the side door.

A clearer view in the morning,
after the late night duct tape job

We'll have to have the panel surrounding the headlight fixed before we can repair the light, but all in all, the damage was pretty minimal.

After we returned home, I took the van to the shop for an oil change and a once over.  As I explained the deer incident to the service guy, a young man in the waiting area chimed in.

"That happened to me once!  I wasn't sure if it was an elk or a moose, so I called it a 'melk'!"

So I replied, "Oh.  Yeah?"

I mean, what else do you say?

the bees knees, NOT

I got stung by SOMEthing today while out on bicycle Alice.  I'd been doing so well when it came to bug stings lately too.  When was that summer?  When I got stung three times in two weeks?  I'm too lazy to look it up, but I remember the experience well.

Neck.  Hand.  Chest.  In that order.

This time, it's the inside of my thigh.  I'm hoping it was just a glancing blow, an inadvertent collision.  When I felt it happen, I immediately stopped to check for and remove a stinger, but didn't see one.

Of course it has now also begun to swell.  I'm hoping my right leg doesn't eventually take on the appearance of a fully grown adult manatee.

nice rack!

Isn't it neat how neat nature is?  On Easter Sunday, Chaco and Wolfgang came over, and we ended up going for a nature hike at one of our neat hiking parks - Ute Valley.

Beautiful day for it.  The park is pretty popular among the locals for hiking and mountain biking, but far enough off the beaten path to not be too much of a tourist trap.  It's not huge, but it's big enough so that the hiking trails don't ever feel crowded.

Anyway, we enjoyed our neature walk.

You all know how the family typically refuses to pose for any photos, so I just snapped covertly away.

We thought we might try some geocaching, as there's got to be some in Ute Valley, but we couldn't get the information to load, so we just didn't.  We did come across a cache of weird rock formations that we still have no explanation for.  They looked like fossilized coral or other marine invertabrates, but could just be mineral deposits or petrified poop for all we know.  

Then, this morning, I got even more neat nature.  

I was out enjoying a run in about 50 degrees.  I can't remember the last time it was 50 degrees before the sun came up!  Anyway, I wasn't far from home when I was running  along this weedy, woodsy area.  The road was on my left, a weedy woodsy ditch on my right.  I heard a ruckus to my right.

It's common to hear a ruckus in the weedy woods.  There are plenty of bunnies and birds and other varmints around.  But this was BIG ruckus!  I saw three  large, startled deer in the ditch weeds.  Their antlers looked particularly huge, so I decided to just keep on a-runnin'.  

Two of the giant deer headed off down the ditch in the opposite direction of me, but the third ran along side me.  I was a bit worried that he would become enraged and run up and gore and trample me to a dead bloody pulp run by me onto the road, but thankfully he stopped and turned around to join his weed buddies.  

Oh, and Reese the King snake has awakened from his brumation.  He shed his skin, we fed him a mouse.  Apparently, spring has arrived.

.

do you feel lucky?

First, by way of introduction...




Meego came home from school today and said those words every mom wants to hear.

"There's a dead rabbit on our picnic table"

What?

"Well, not on the table.  On one of the benches"

Oh, well that's different then.

So, if I had to look at it, so do you:

• One dead bunny (what remains)
• One (full) killer cat
• Meego's size 10.5 feet for scale
  

At least Napolion left me one foot (upper left).  

For luck.

Friday! Not that it matters what day it is...

Happy Friday, but it's my second or third official day of break, so I'm not really paying attention!

Wednesday night, we got a dusting of snow, and yesterday morning I was out in the backyard with China when I noticed a bunch of critter tracks like this:

Cute huh?  About three inches long and all over the place.  The photo was taken next to China's food dish.  Note:  China was an outdoor dog when we first got her.  She and our other dog, Domino, had a barn and a dog run.  She has since become a lazy indoor dog, but she won't eat inside.  Against her religion or something.  Anyway...

These tracks, I wasn't sure what they were.  Fox maybe?  I googled and have narrowed it down to two possibilities:  raccoon or big skunk.  

I sure hope it's raccoon.

Unless it has rabies.

Now I'm off to run a few errands.  Good news - my leg warmers arrived this week and were bestowed upon me on Wednesday!  That was quicker than I expected.  I'ts fun to win stuff!

Gonna go road test them now :D.

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UPDATE:  I'm back.  

CO-ZEEEEEE!!
free legwarmers!

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under a buck

Okay, show of hands.  Who carries a hankie?  Anyone?

*raises hand*

I do, so there's a piece of worthless information for you.  Now I'm kind of wondering how common it is. The reason I bring it up is that it's really annoying when I can't find it.  Like a little while ago and up until now.

The hankie is typically on my person at all times.  It's like my phone.  In fact, I usually carry the phone and hankie around together.  They're kind of joined at the hip, like phoneandhankie, much like hamandcheese.  "I'd like a grilled hamandcheese, please.", "Where is my phoneandhankie?"

Do many people carry hankies?  I guess it's not something that comes up in conversation.  I've seen the old movies where the weak woman starts to cry and the strong man hands her a hankie.  When renting tuxedos for prom, the hankie is color-coordinated with the bow tie and/or vest, but strictly strictly as decoration.

As for my phoneandhankie, I have a special pocket in my purse for them.   I have a special pocket in my bicycling backpack for them.  I have a special pocket in my tutor bag for them.  Sometimes I misplace them, but when I locate one, I locate the other.  Feel a need to blow my nose?  Reach for the phone...

Anyways, I got home a while ago, and eventually, I had a hankering for the hankie.  I just don't like kleenex... or rather... facial tissues.

So there I was, retracing my steps, wondering where the darn hankie was.  To make the situation worse, I found my phone easily enough, but no hankie.  Now this was definitely a strange prospect.  I was beginning to think, poltergeist activity!  It must be!

So I thought about where I could have misplaced it, especially since it wasn't with the phone or any of the usual pockets.  Then I remembered, on my ride home, I came across this hungry mob:

I couldn't resist stopping to take a photo.  Without taking my eyes off of the mob, I reached behind me to my phoneandhankie pocket of my bicycling backpack, took the photo, put the phone back, then continued on my merry way.  Is my hankie on the side of that road?

Oh deer.
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Silver Liningness Sunday

Greetings, Civilization!

Magnum, Meego, and I just got back from a techno-free wilderness weekend at Lake Isabel, one of our favorite techno-free locations.

It was nice to get away and commune with nature.  The weather was very welcoming, and we got in a fair amount of hiking, fishing, splashing, chopping, fetching, etc.

 

Chaco and Wolfgang both worked on Saturday, so they didn't join us.  While we missed having them around, it was nice knowing that someone was back holding down the house and giving the pets their needed affection.

And in the  meantime, we had some camp visitors from the animal kingdom so we wouldn't feel left out.

I awoke last night to see Magnum sitting up, unzipping the tent window and peering out.

"I heard a bear or something scratching on the bear boxes", he whispered.

"I didn't hear anything", I whispered, so as to cancel out his hearing a bear.

"It was a few minutes ago", he shushed.

A little while later, I heard what sounded to me like something scratching on a bear box farther away than our bear box.  Ah well...

The only furry critter we saw in our camp this morning was this one

  

He/she is going to be a nice big butterfly (moth?) soon, I think. 













So a good way to wrap up an otherwise nice week - communing with nature and carrying stuff, and stuff!