Pushmi-pullyu

Yesterday afternoon, as I sat quietly taking photos of our Abert's Squirrel, a mountain chickadee wanted to make friends with me. Here he is, so close that I wondered if someone had fed him by hand in the past. He's a year-around bird here but a favorite of mine.

Shortly later, I took the Duo for their evening hike. Because our world has been enveloped by storms lately, darkness fell early but the dogs still had time to romp to their heart's content.

Although K rarely beats R in a race anymore, she knows  how to strike a dramatic pose on a boulder. It's her favorite evening activity!

As the sun set, three Robins sat on the pointy tops of Douglas Fir Trees singing their spring songs with full hearts. I love the sounds of spring in the forest almost as much as the flowers. The Duo and I sat still and soaked up the beauty and music.

This morning, K and I headed out for our morning mountain bike ride. More trails are melting out since our 15" of snow last week, and we had fun exploring for rideable terrain. We climbed up to Hug Hill where the view of the snowy mountains, normally shining brightly behind K, was enveloped in clouds.

K has astounded me daily with her verve. She's taking antibiotics for her UTI but they don't seem to bother her in the least. She is bursting with enthusiasm and happiness during our rides.

As K and I explored a range of trails, some snowy and some not, we discovered the route that the mountain lion took into our trail network a few days ago. He came from the west, using a trail for part of the trip. He appeared to be circumnavigating the usual elk grazing grounds, perhaps looking for a place where the herd was vulnerable to a sneak attack.

However, in the photos that I captured a few days ago, he looked very well-fed. So, he may not have been very hungry during his journey toward my camera. I'm assuming that he's a mature male based on his body shape which bulges with muscles. By contrast, look at the body shape of another lion who visited the same site in December. It's in flip-book video form, and if you cannot view it embedded in this post, then you can go straight to its Youtube location.

You can probably see from the December photos that, in contrast to the recent visitor, that mountain lion was long and lithe. That lion might have been a female or a younger male. He/she certainly wasn't muscle-bound like the recent visitor.

After dropping K at home, I headed out to try to find more melted out trails. It was a magical day of seeing elk and deer at close range, none of whom seemed spooked by me. This pair of last year's deer fawns reminded me of a deer pushmi-pullyu, like the two-headed llama made famous by Dr. Doolittle.

After leaving the south-facing sunny meadow areas, I headed toward home on a shaded and chilly trail that is frequented by large wildlife. Sections of it were lined by moss-covered rock walls and covered in soft spring snow.

These sections often make me nervous about wildcats lurking at the top of the rock walls but today, the mossy walls caught my eye. They are like miniature forests, complete with grass (moss), flowers, trees, fungi, and lichen.

One plant grew out of the moss, with its bright green leaves covered in a rust colored fungus.
Although new life sprouted from the moss everywhere I looked, icicles still hung from it. It was an amazing example of plants who could flourish in the most difficult of habitats.

Enjoy your weekend!