May snow

Unexpected twists and turns characterized my day yesterday. I woke up to a few inches of fresh snow in what is supposed to be late spring! The layer of snow was thin so K and I rolled out for a trail mountain bike ride. K looked so chocolate and beautiful in the snowy world.We were having a peaceful sojourn in the forest until we crossed paths with a coyote. These tracks were left by a fast trotting coyote who stayed nearby while K did a sit-stay. You can see her shadow over the tracks.The coyote displayed classic luring behavior. He briefly disappeared into the forest and then bounded back into view ahead of us. When K didn't chase, he disappeared again but for only for a minute. Then, paralleling our course, he galloped into view again. K resisted all of his attempts to lure her into a chase. A classic coyote strategy is to lure a dog into the midst of a coyote pack by having a lone coyote act playful. The dog chases the coyote into the trees only to find the pack awaiting her. Based on K's good behavior today, I think that my girl has finally learned her "coyote lesson"!

After our coyote encounter, I pedaled through the sticky as mud spring snow up to Hug Hill. K led the way. The sky beamed an endlessly deep blue color with stark white clouds and mountains below it. Although I still maintain we shouldn't have real snowstorms in May, it was gorgeous.
And we basked in the snowy and sunny beauty atop our little trail system. K gave me her serious camera posing look.
As I rumbled down the rocky and snowy trail, I spotted some Pasqueflowers who looked completely unscathed by the onslaught of snow. My amazement at how strong our flora and fauna must be to survive crazy mountain weather never wanes.
We negotiated one more trail before heading home. To my amazement, over the course of about 15 minutes, the clouds burned off the mountains, and I glimpsed them through the boughs of the pine forest.
I spent the rest of my day dealing with health issues... getting spine treatment and getting a suddenly inflamed eye examined. Unfortunately, we were planning to start a desert trip today but my doc doesn't want me to leave town until my eye improves. So, we're in a holding pattern, possibly staying around for a specialist appointment on Monday.

If you have to be stuck someplace, a place with sunsets like this one isn't so bad!
The final unexpected twist in my day was that when I hit "Publish Post" in Blogger on Friday evening, my computer replied that the internet connection had "timed out". It stayed "timed out" for 15 hours, and I lost a lot of the final changes that I'd made to the post. So, this post is actually about Friday, and today is Saturday. If I have time, I hope to put together a short montage of the wildlife visits to the now-empty bear den before I leave on vacation (tomorrow if my eye improves).