SkyWatch Friday: Hello Snow, Goodbye Flowers!

We were under our first Winter Storm Watch of the season last Friday night, and although it just rained here in town (thank goodness), Saturday's sunrise revealed a dramatically altered landscape in the higher elevations...

We'd covered our herb garden since the temps fell below freezing, so though we lost most of our Italian basil, everything else, including our flowers, was spared. We had several beautiful days this past week, enjoying more long walks with the dogs and even some basking in shorts and bare feet on the patio. But Autumn in these parts is a fickle lass, and so along came Winter Storm Atlas yesterday. Not a mere Watch this time, but a more dire... 

Winter Storm Warning

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BILLINGS MT
405 AM MDT FRI OCT 4 2013

A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW REMAINS IN
EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT MDT TONIGHT.

* TIMING...HEAVY SNOW WITH SOME BLOWING SNOW WILL CONTINUE FOR
  MUCH OF THE DAY. SNOW WILL TAPER OFF BY THIS EVENING.

* SNOW ACCUMULATION...TOTALS OF 8 TO 15 INCHES...WITH THE GREATEST
  AMOUNTS ALONG THE NORTHEAST SLOPES OF THE BIG HORN AND PRYOR
  MOUNTAINS.

* WINDS...NORTHWEST 15 TO 30 MPH. HIGHER GUSTS ARE EXPECTED FROM
  ABERDEEN HILL TO SHERIDAN.

* IMPACTS...SNOW WILL STICK TO SOME TREES AND POWER LINES. THIS
  COULD LEAD TO POWER OUTAGES.

* TRAVEL...THE COMBINATION OF HEAVY SNOWFALL...POOR VISIBILITY
  AND GUSTY WINDS WILL CAUSE VERY DIFFICULT TRAVEL CONDITIONS ON
  INTERSTATE 90 THROUGH SHERIDAN COUNTY. 

Did Mother Nature somehow forget that we're only two weeks into Autumn? She's as bad as Walmart, who started putting Christmas stuff out in September!

The storm started as rain Wednesday night and it rained most of yesterday, then turned gusty and started snowing around dusk. The mountains aren't visible this morning and I got a face full of blowing snow and sleet when I opened the front door, so here's what it looked like from our back door at about 7 this morning...

The trees and shrubs are covered in thick clumps of ice and frozen snow, and I fear we've probably lost our Linden tree (pictured above) and the Amur maple in our front yard. :-( Our two Russian sages are flattened, our Barberry is bar-buried (haha) under a drift, and it goes without saying that our flowers and herbs are history. I think Josie's expression this morning sums up all our feelings about this cruel turn of weather...

But we feel really badly for the folks in Boulder and Laramie Counties, CO, who although they're not getting the worst of this storm, are still getting snow, wind and freezing temps just three weeks after suffering from devastating flooding. And just south of us and to the east in South Dakota, they're under blizzard warnings calling for gusts of 70mph and up to 18" of snow! So it could definitely be worse. 

Aware of what was headed our way, I harvested some herbs for drying, cut some flowers, and took some photos of how things looked when Fall was Fall and not Winter! The trees were only just starting to change color (and some weren't even doing that yet), so we won't be enjoying anything like the gorgeous Autumn we had last year. Anyway, here are some "before" photos to end this post on a prettier, more season-appropriate note!

Our Russian Hawthorne's pretty red berries 

One of our two Burning Bushes in its crimson glory

(A Russian Sage with its lavender flowers is visible in the background)

Portulaca (Moss Rose)

Our portulaca went absolutely crazy this summer, looking more like a shrub than a flower! 

BW's daisies 

BW couldn't wait to plant daisies in our front flowerbed and chose these fancy ones at the greenhouse; next year we plan to add at least one more variety.

Memories of Summer

The lavender, Gazania, Viola, daisies, marigolds and mums 

that I snatched from the jaws of death to enjoy for a few more days.

Enjoy skies from all over the world (as well as all over the calendar!) at...

My friend Joanne is coming from Michigan next Thursday to visit for a few days, and though there won't be any pretty fall foliage or flowers for her to enjoy, we've still got lots planned to keep us busy - including Sheridan's annual quilt show! So I'll be back in a couple of weeks (she said with the best of intentions!) :-) Have a great weekend, everyone!

Nature hike and Mocha howdy

Last Sunday was a perfect June day as well as the last day of BW's week of vacation, so we loaded up the girls and drove to the ranch where Mocha lives to go on a nature hike and then visit Mocha. I took along my easy-to-tote Kodak, so here are some photos from our expedition!

I took this photo of this antelope buck and his posse from the Jeep on our way to the gravel pit road where we hike. I was glad my Kodak has a good telephoto lens, because they had bounded quite a distance away before feeling safe enough to pose for a group photo!...

I don't know if we frightened this little Killdeer from her nesting area or what, but as we walked past a sandy area beside the road, she sort of jumped-flew out in front of us and did a funny little dance several times, then insisted on running ahead of us for the rest of our uphill walk! If we lagged behind too much she'd wait for us, looking back over her shoulder rather impatiently (as she was doing in this photo) till we caught up enough to satisfy her. She wouldn't let me get much closer than 10 yards or so, so I took this with my telephoto and cropped it so she'd be in the bottom left corner of the picture and easier to spot - she's really camouflaged against those beige stones and grasses!...

BW spied this pretty little cactus-looking flower, but I haven't had time to identify it yet. Do any of you know what it is? (Anyone? Anyone?) :-)...

Now this blooming flower I DO know. It's the infamous Crazy-Dog Plant! :-) Josie seems quite pleased with herself for posing so perfectly between these two budding Yucca flowers...

I love this photo so decided to have a little editing fun with it...

Mocha has been back in out in the pasture and reunited with his old buddies from last summer, Prairie and Flame, for for a couple of weeks and is looking great! He's put on weight and is sleek and shiny, and galloped and pranced like a colt when he saw us...

L-R Prairie, Flame and Mocha

He seemed eager to show off his hair accessories, of which he was quite proud, so I told him I'd put a photo of his new fashion statement on the blog for everyone to admire. When Josie overheard this, she insinuated herself into the photo - so please don't fail to admire her, too, 'cause that's how feelings can get hurt. ;-)

Speaking of Josie, for those of you keeping track, her heart function blood work came back inconclusive, scoring fairly near the low (good) end of the "gray area" range between definitely no heart disease and definite heart disease. Since she did well on this hike and on our walks since and has no other symptoms in her heart sounds or on her xrays, rather than running further tests our vet has me keeping a log of our walks - the temperature, distance walked, how far she gets before (and how many times) she demands a break. I call it the "Josie Crap-out Log" and between thee and me, I think Josie's quite pleased to have taken her high-maintenance reputation to a new level! :-)

Random Celebrations (& other stuff!)

This post is all about

starting with also celebrating...

Yep, published my very first blog post six years ago today, and was it ever a barn burner. Took the blogging world by storm. But why take my word for it when you can spend seven seconds reading its ground-breaking and witty insightfulness for yourself? ;-)

And this random post is also about celebrating BW's birthday, which is coming up on Thursday. Just a few days ago, BW could have said this is all* honesty...

*only not quite, since he doesn't own an Etch-a-Sketch, either. But we were out of wine!

But then his birthday present arrived last Friday...

and of course he opened it early (because no matter how old he gets, he's still like a little kid in all the best ways) and it was, of course, an iPad. Which he knew all along, since we'd researched and ordered it together. :-) And on Saturday we finally bought a bottle of wine AND he started a week of vacation, so the stars were once again aligned properly. 

We wanted an iPad to take on our two-week road trip to the Pacific Northwest later this month since we don't have a Smart Phone or laptop. But mainly BW wanted it because let's face it, I monopolize the computer (hey, you don't reach the impressive milestone of a sixth blogiversary without logging some equally impressive computer time!) :-)~ So now he can enjoy his favorite online pastime, looking at boats for sale, full-time liveaboard cruiser blogs, marina web sites, sailing videos (you seeing a theme here?) to his heart's delight. Except for when he's using the iPad to take photos of our dogs and emailing them to me from two rooms away. LOL...

Josie's clearly as unimpressed about being photographed with BW's birthday gift 

as she is about being photographed with mine!

Speaking of the girls, they had their annual checkups, heartworm tests and vaccinations yesterday, and everyone did great. Our vet can't believe Willow is 13 - except for some hearing loss and hazing of her eyes that comes with age, she said she looks like a much younger dog (acts like it, too!) We told her it's because her favorite foods are raw kale and red cabbage! :-) Tess was complimented on her very white, sparkling teeth, while Josie had to have some extra tests (Josie is famous for running up big vet bills!) to see why she's been crapping out on our walks recently. She starts out enthusiastically enough, but after about three or four blocks she starts demanding frequent lie-down breaks in the shade no matter how cool the day is. Since she's always had couch potato (and diva) tendencies and picks up the pace again when we turn for home, it's a bit suspicious - but we thought it best to get her checked. Her heart sounded good and looked good on her X-rays, and she had no radiological signs of arthritis (another surprise to our vet since Josie is at least 10 and probably older, but again I credit their vegan diet). We're having some blood tests run to test her heart function, and the vet said it's possible she has hypothyroidism (she has two or three of the symptoms) or that maybe after all these years, her crippled back leg that makes her work harder on walks has put enough extra strain on her muscles and tendons to cause her discomfort. Depending on what the heart bloodwork shows, we may test her thyroid or try some pain meds and/or acupuncture, but we certainly can't yet rule out a severe case of Couch Potato-itis. ;-) 

So we may just have to get her this collar charm to wear. :-)

In other random news, while running errands last Saturday we spotted this fun car in a full church parking lot (we reckoned for a June wedding, another cause for celebration) and since I happened to have my Rebel with me I took advantage of the photo op. Turns out it's a reproduction (of a Ford Model A), but it's snazzily fun even if it's not the genuine vintage article...

I loved the "ahooga" horn and etched glass side windows, and also enjoyed giving this photo a bit of an old timey feel!

Much less fun lately and has been our very strong and relentless wind. Blowing 25-40mph most days and nights for two weeks, with frequent gusts to 50-60, it has everyone feeling tattered, tired and cranky. We've wanted to get our front flowerbed planted and BW took advantage of a rare calm morning to prepare the soil, but as soon as he'd finished the strong winds kicked back up. We fear if we try to plant the flowers we've bought for it so far we'll just end up looking like Letty, Lillian Gish's tormented character in the 1928 film, "The Wind"....

I saw "The Wind" (and you can too, by clicking on that link) in a silent film course I took in college, and it keeps replaying in my head as our own winds roar around us and rattle, bend and shake everything without mercy day after day. Letty (transplanted to the west from her gentile eastern life and made an unwilling bride) had a lot more to contend with than just the wind. But the wind definitely played a major role in driving her batshit crazy, and that's one of her challenges I'm beginning to seriously relate to!

Quit blowing, dammit, or else!

I have to admit, though, it has created some beautiful cloud art in the skies....

On the rare evenings that it's calm enough to hear them, we've been serenaded by frogs just beyond our back fence. They're very loud, and so between their lusty nightly performances and the wind, we've been unable to sleep with our bedroom windows open. I took this video (for its audio) from one of those bedroom windows a couple of nights ago so you could enjoy one of their concerts for yourselves....

This week is busy with projects, errands and appointments, but mostly with putting the final touches on our big three-family yard sale we're hosting here Friday and Saturday. Let's hope the wind doesn't blow like stink for at least those two days!
Have a great week, and I'll pop back in for SkyWatch Friday before the swarms of locusts - uh, I mean garage sale patrons - descend on us! (I don't know about where you live, but out here the garage salers can be hardcore, voracious shoppers!)

SkyWatch Friday: By the Dogs' Early Light :-)

The dawn's early light yesterday...

bathed Josie and Tessa in its beautiful golden hues...

(Psst - click here for another - and quite amusing - photo of Josie bathed in sunrise light!) 

Tessa and I beg your pardon about the unsightly garden hose, but I feared losing both her enigmatic expression and the pretty light if I took the time to move it out of the frame! 

Our third dog Willow followed me out onto the patio, but slithered back inside through the ajar door when she saw that I was photographing her sisters. I think I heard her mutter something about having "bed head" and that no decent human would be taking furbaby photos at such an undogly hour.:-) She promises to make it up to her fan base in a future post!

Meanwhile, the girls and I wish you a wonderful weekend, and hope that all your sunrises are beautiful and that all your days are good hair days! :-)

Enjoy more of our planet's beautiful skies at...

Boston's pain and the comfort of furry faces

My original plan for today's post was to share some recent photos of our furry-faced family members. But in light of yesterday's tragic events, I first want to say...

My favorite city for as long as I can remember, Boston holds many fond memories for me, and like so many I am broken-hearted at yesterday's awful news. Such brutal acts of violence defy understanding. When I composed my profile on Care2 many years ago, one of the things I listed under their What Scares Me heading was, "Humanity's capacity for brutality," while under the adjacent heading Inspirations, I listed "Humanity's capacity for kindness." That we're so capable of the latter, but too often choose the former, is both frustrating and tragic to me and to anyone who longs and strives to live in a nonviolent world. But although both traits were on full display in Boston yesterday, the vast majority of people were clearly acting on, demonstrating, and inspiring us with their courage and compassion. So while we grieve and try - yet again - to make some sense of the senseless, I think it's important to remember and focus on that. Because Mr. Rogers' mom was right...

(image via Vegans of Instagram)

Very true. (Now if only our species would stop creating so much need for so many helpers!)

☮♥☮♥☮

I find few things as reassuring and full of love as a furry face, so here's my original post, composed at first to entertain but now also offered as a source of comfort to anyone who feels the same...

I've been remiss in posting photos of our canine kids lately, but not because I haven't been taking any. With faces like these, how could I not? :-) I've actually had this post ready to go for a while, except for Josie holding up the show. She's very photogenic, but as soon as the camera appears, Josie does the opposite. But if you're going to be a "wildlife" photographer, you have to be persistent (e.g. more stubborn even than Josie), and finally - for a few brief moments Saturday morning - it paid off. Here's Josie's "I want to be alone" Greta Garbo pose...

Tessa has a face that's made for closeups. Which is a good thing, because the instant the camera is pointed at her, she comes up and sticks her big schnozzle right in it...

After a week of lovely weather, long walks and basking on the patio, I'd just told her that a winter storm was coming the next day. This is her "That totally sucks, dude" expression. 

And here are the two goobers together at the back door, with Josie contemplating making a break for it (which she did right after I snapped this), and Tessa wondering what's going on in the kitchen behind me and what might be in it for her...

This is how our much-easier-to-photograph Willow usually looks: completely sacked out on her bed in the kitchen nook...

.....Zzzzzz.....

Until one of us begins a food-related activity in the kitchen. Then BOOM! She's on instant Full Alert and ready for snarfing action...

This time it was BW cutting up sweet potatoes. Willow luuuuuvs sweet potatoes!

This was the first practice photo I took with my new Rebel...

I put this pretty frame around it using Photobucket's fun editing tools, 

most of which are no longer available since their web site "improvements." Gah.

ABC Wednesday: Buddies

Photos of some critter buddies I took last summer...

Pronghorn

Who says three's a crowd? 

Mule deer near our house

They're not fenced in; the chainlink fence surrounds a golf course behind them.

(Here's a photo of this handsome pair that gives a better - but less unique - view of them)

Field Mice

This is Val and Tino, brothers (we think) who sought refuge in our garage during a blizzard on Valentine's Day six years ago, were given temporary housing in the "Whiskers Inn B&B," decided they knew a good thing when they saw it and signed a long term lease. :-) They live with us still, elderly but still quite active, as well as safe, warm and happy. (This photo was taken before they figured out how their exercise wheel worked! LOL!)

Dogs

Josie and Tessa, taken just after a car ride and before we could remove Tessa's Doggles! Josie looks decidedly unimpressed with Tessa's fashion sense. ;-)

Canine & Equine Interspecies Friendship

Tessa makes friends with a horse during a walk in the countryside.

For more examples of interspecies friendships, please enjoy these beautiful and very touching photos by amazing animal photographer Tanja Askani. I recommend that you view this wonderful slideshow full screen with your speakers on (the music is lovely!)...

 
And for more takes on the letter B, visit

ABC Wednesday: "Joyful"

Judging that examples of Sheridan's street art collection seem Justifiably popular (and are also Judicious blog subjects while life remains a Jumbled Joke of fence staining, landscape planning, unpacking, window treatment shopping, and the unceasing Job of cajoling a Jamboree of contractors), I bring you another, Just in time for J week! This sculpture, titled "Joyful," is an exuberantly Jolly and Jovial piece of art in front of our local YMCA...

Ah, to be a carefree Juvenile again!

Can't you Just feel her Joie de vivre?

Joyful

by Angela Mia de la Vega

With gratitude to all YMCA Staff

for helping raise the children of Sheridan,

including ours: Chris, Brian* and Julie.

Roger and Fachon Wilson

2009

*Brian was BW's pre-loader at UPS about 10 years ago!

Join me in enJoying more Joyful Jays at...

Since I never seem to have the time nor energy to email these days, here's an update for those of you who may be interested...

Last week our cedar backyard "privacy" fence was completed (well, almost - the gate still needs bracing and a sturdier latch, because dang, does it ever get windy here!), our custom stain color was approved by the HOA Landscaping Committee and we've been staining it almost every day since. I spent two full, LONG days staining it by myself while BW was at work, and BW and I have put in a day and a half together, so now we "only" have the inside back portion plus a couple of sections by the gate remaining but have had to quit while they've been hauling and spreading topsoil since Monday. The Bobcat operator hadn't been at it five minutes when he crunched three of the stained boards, which will now have to be replaced and restained (and that has been typical of this whole project, which is why it feels like it will never be finished!) By the way, I put "privacy" in sarcastic quotes, since the HOA rules dictate that any fence in our little row of six houses be a 5' tall cedar privacy fence, and I figure the person who came up with that rule must have been about 4'1" or a child. Because for most adults, a 5' fence does not privacy provide - but it does keep the dogs in and other critters (mostly) out, so though we'd never have chosen this fence style or material, we had no choice. We'd hoped to be able to apply about half the stain using a sprayer, but for various reasons that didn't work out - so it's all been grueling, tedious brush work. 

The topsoil smells suspiciously (and strongly) like cow manure (this area under development and the source of everyone's topsoil used to be a cattle ranch and feedlot, ack!), so the dogs consider it "edible landscaping" and seem quite thrilled with their back yard so far! ;-) Won't they be surprised when they also get their own 3' rock path around the entire inside perimeter of the fence, a yard of Tall Fescue, and a Fat Albert Blue Spruce and Greenspire Linden tree back there! (There will also be a flower bed beneath the breakfast nook and a Renaissance Bridalwreath Spirea in the backyard, but those will probably not get planted till next spring). Plans also call for a couple of varieties of Mockorange, pink peonies, upright rose bushes, Russian Sage, Spike Speedwell, a multi-stem Amur Maple and a Dwarf Burning Bush on the house's wide south side, and another flowerbed in front of the front porch. (If only the actual plants would show up looking like they do in the photos I shared, but I expect spindly sticks instead!) :-)

The post in the foreground with the measuring tape 

marks the future location of the Linden tree, 

while the one in the distance by the new fence 

will be the Fat Albert's new home.

Of course, all of this, down to the rocks and mulch we've chosen for some areas, is dependent on approval from the above-mentioned Landscape Committee, which we're hoping to receive soon as our landscaper intends to start work next week. (I haven't had to ask for so much permission since I was four!!) But anything will be better than our former "landscaping," when this is what passed for a flower garden...

and poor Josie, who loves to conceal herself behind foliage (the spirea we'll be planting is for her benefit as well as for us to enjoy!), had only this for a tree to hide behind! :-)

In my spare time (snort), I keep unpacking, urged on by our next door neighbor who is desperate for my empty boxes as she's packing up her dad's house that just sold. Since I wasn't as diligent as I should have been in labeling the contents, and used a lot of previously-labeled recycled boxes whose content lists bore no resemblance to this move's contents, I keep unpacking stuff I don't want or need while still trying to find things like my dragonfly plate! Thank goodness for the bonus room, where I can see I'll be spending many a winter's day sorting, organizing and repacking stuff for storage and a spring yard sale.

We're still waiting for: a metal book rack to arrive for our cookbooks so we can free up a much-needed pantry shelf, our return address labels that allegedly shipped from Colorado Springs nearly 2 weeks ago, and 10 window treatment samples so we can get our window coverings show on the road. The corbels are up on the front of the house (and look great!), except for the front porch which will have a different corbel style, and due to a builder oversight we're still waiting for the corbels for the back of the house. We're also still waiting for the capstone for the front porch stone bench, and the grids for our garage door windows (supposed to show up next week, but since we've been told that about twice a month since JUNE, you will forgive our skepticism!) Inside the house, much has been taken care of but there are still several things in need of repair, replacement, adjustment, and/or completion, including the tile backsplash in our kitchen. Our garage is a disaster with no hope of parking a car in it in the near future - it's been the fence-stain mixing and clean up area, plus all the house primer and paint along with the backsplash tile we bought is stored out there along with several large cartons shipped by our kitchen cabinet manufacturer that contain replacement drawer fronts in the wrong style and some 96" long trim pieces that no one ordered or needs. Those are all going back to Home Depot today while I run errands!

Which I need to get ready to go do, along with walking the dogs, doing laundry, marinating tofu - because regular life doesn't stop no matter how persuasively I might beg. 

Those of you who are waiting for email replies and/or reciprocal blog visits, thank you for bearing with me and please keep doing so for a while yet! This new home construction process takes far longer and requires way more patience than I possess, but one day it will be more or less finished - and then the cleaning, yard work and regular maintenance can begin! (Why didn't we just buy a yurt?!)

Enjoy the rest of your week, dear friends and blog readers! :-)