The Little Rascals

I'll start with the little rascals. I spent a lot of time trying to squirrel-proof our bird houses, adding sheet metal so that the squirrels couldn't chew through them and adding hole-guards so that the squirrels couldn't enlarge the holes. However, despite my efforts, I was puzzled to notice that there seemed to be no birds in the houses this year. Then, I saw this.

Grrrrrr. Doesn't he look self-satisfied? He's even sticking his tongue out at me! Here's another angle of the rascal. He looks like he might be stuck in there, like Winnie the Pooh got stuck in a hole after eating too much honey.

 

On a different topic, although K has been doing a million times better than I expected, I've noticed how much the heat slows her down. So, I decided that it was time for me to fight my natural night-owl tendencies and get up really early to walk her around sunrise. We didn't quite make it out for sunrise this morning but we were out in the cool air. K was happy! She led the way happily up a hill in the reddish light just after sunrise.

Then, K paused in the dappled shade of an aspen tree.

It was really worth getting up early because K was so much peppier in the almost nippy air. I'm going to try to get out early consistently, even though it's incredibly hard for me to be awake for sunrise at this time of year. I wish that I were a natural early-bird.

It would be fun to see both sunrise and sunset when the days are so long. K and I consistently see the sunsets. They've been incredible due to the smoke and the thunder clouds. It makes it look as if the Continental Divide is on fire (it's not).

As I took these photos of the sunset, I didn't try to deter K from her job. She covered my back. I realized that protecting me is an important part of who K is - even if she makes me worry that she might get hurt protecting me.

After the sunset, we spotted two male Western Tanagers nearby. They are the most colorful bird in our pine forests. Some summers, I never see one. This year, I've been lucky to see several. I wish that I'd see one in full light so that I could get a photo that really showed his brilliant colors. You'll have to take my word for it because this photo was at dusk and from a long distance.

On the fire front, everyone is still on high alert, and it's nerve-wracking. We have a pile of things right next to the door ready to be whisked to a vehicle if we have to evacuate, and our van is packed with the things that we'd need for living while evacuated. Moreover, our most precious things, like the incredible painting of K, are now stored down in the city and will stay there until the fire danger moderates. Thank goodness that the weather has been good to us in recent days with little lightning. Now, if we could just have days and days of rain, we could relax.

I hope that you all had a great weekend!