Miracle of life

I had a wonderful early evening hike with the Duo yesterday. As you can see, K was zipping around and romping like she'd never been sick!

R showed his trademark, lead with the teeth, recall!

You might be able to see in the photo above that R's fur is changing color. It started while he was sick with a nasty infection after he shredded a toenail but that timing could be purely coincidence. Since then, the fur all over his body has become peppered with brown and white hairs. We felt a little silly about it but we took him to the vet. It turns out that R either has a very very rare gene that will cause him to become a "brindle" (mixture of black, chocolate, and white) lab over time OR he has a different gene that is causing him to get "color dilution alopecia", a disease that causes him to turn brindle and gradually become bald.

We could do fancy tests to find out if he has CDA but, since there's no treatment, it seems better to spare him the stress and take life as it comes. I keep wondering, however, why our little family gets so many odd veterinary issues. We're like a real life "case study"!

On a lighter note, about a week ago, I found a nest under an overhanging boulder.

It had three hatchlings and one unhatched egg. A Townsend Solitaire sat in a tree and chirped while I looked at it.

I worried about them during our torrential deluges of rain over the past week. Five days after hatching, all four of them looked very strong with huge beaks waiting for food from mom and dad.

One of them gave me the evil eye. Don't worry - I stayed less than a minute.

Today, 8 days post-hatching, they were feathered and much more camouflaged. They didn't open their beaks during my 15 second peek.

The miracle of life astounds me!

These Fairy Trumpets seem to be bugling out the message that life is a miracle! I associate them with my dog Acadia who died exactly eight years ago today. Her photo is in the sidebar.

I miss her but I always smile when I think of her. She taught me about the depth of the human-dog bond.

P.S. One of you asked if I've seen signs of the sow and her two cubs. I captured video of what I believe to be the "rebel" cub licking and sniffing one of my cameras yesterday. I expect that the family is still together because the cubs usually don't leave their mother until they're close to 18 months old. I'll upload the video when I have a fast internet connection. Another example of the miracle of life...