Shyla's Time to Shine

It's the start of a new year, from my point of view. It's the year of Shyla - a year when I will fully appreciate her incredible sweetness and love.

She and I rode up high first thing this morning, and the sun was bright and warm.

For fun, I tried a backlit silhouette with a rope toy draped over her head. She looks like a creature from outer space! And, I must add that she's incredibly tolerant of my silliness!

Then, she played with her toy. You can see the Divide behind her. At that point in time, it was completely clear of clouds, like many mornings. When I saw the clear sky, I thought that we'd do a short ride and then go hiking up high, to kick off the Year of Shyla perfectly.

Alas, within about 45 minutes, the clouds erupted over the Divide, and the mountain that I wanted to climb with Shyla disappeared into the swirls of gray angry clouds. So, I decided to save our alpine hike for a better day.

Another factor in not doing a long hike was that Shyla is much better in terms of her diarrhea but not completely better. Apparently, the laboratory analysis showed an overgrowth of bacteria that is typical after a stressful time. I guess that, even though she absolutely loves the Runner and R, she missed me while I was away. I wish that she hadn't gotten sick - but it does touch my heart that she missed me that much.

After I left Shyla at home after our ride, I headed out for some more riding. You'll have to forgive me for my wildflower obsession this year. It's the first year that I've had a real macro lens to try to photograph the flowers, and it's fun!

This wintergreen is a plant that K and I stopped to water every single day last year during the drought. It was the only wintergreen plant in that section of the forest that bloomed last year. So, seeing it blooming today made me smile. It's a good memory of something that K and I did together.

Also, while I was out on my bike alone, I checked a trail camera. I discovered that Mabel, our main bear sow, and her single cub had come through our neighborhood the other day. Indeed, I'd noticed the signs that they'd been feeding in the area. Mabel had ripped up a big stump and had also pulled a large log so that it was blocking the trail. An ant colony lived under the log (that's why she moved it), and she'd clearly been chowing down on their pupae. Here's her cub sniffing a spot that many animals have marked over the past several years.

This spot has seen far more bear traffic than in most summers. First Milton went by in the last week of June, and then the new male went by a few days later. Here's the new male. He just walked by without slowing down.

I'll leave you with one my favorite bear photos from my visit to Bear Land. This was a 2 year old male who we saw foraging near the cabin where we were staying. He's still gangly, because he is growing fast. Male black bears don't reach full size until they're about 12 years old.

I love bears, which is why Shyla's nickname is "ShyBear". I've always thought that chocolate labs look a lot like bears!

Here's to the start of my new year! As my friend over at Tales and Tails wrote so eloquently, we don't always get the dog that we expect but, despite the unexpected traits, we often end up with the ideal dog for us. I think that her description fits Shyla and our family perfectly!

Black and White Sunday

First, for Black and White Sunday, we have a new Black Bear who came through the area. This year has not been like past years, where I've photographed as many as 18 separate adult bears by the time bears go into their dens. So far, I've photographed 10 individuals, including 3 cubs (many of them on numerous occasions). It'll be interesting to see what the rest of the season brings.

There's no doubt that we haven't seen this bear previously this season.

I also captured footage of mom and two cubs wallowing in a pool of water on a hot day, which I'll share in video form soon!

Shyla is feeling better, although she still isn't 100%. Our vet hospital discovered that I'd left many messages for them and called me this morning with a preliminary diagnosis. Now, with the right meds, I think that Shyla is on the road to recovery. Shyla is now well hydrated (an issue yesterday when her gums were tacky). She's even playful and happy!

I think that this relatively minor illness upset me more than it should have because tomorrow is the anniversary of K's death. Believe it or not, it's also the 10th anniversary of Acadia's death (she's in the sidebar - she was K's predecessor). So, July 15 has become an ominous and sad day for me.

I'll always remember the rallying of support last year with the motto of the "Power of the Paw". In memory of that wonderful outpouring of support, here is Shyla's paw perched on a rock that K's paw touched many hundreds of times. As I looked at this photo, it hit me hard that it's time for me to allow Shyla to escape K's very long shadow. I'll write more about that in the near future.

Today, I had fun photographing Shyla with a super fast lens loaned to me by a friend. It can achieve an aperture of 1.2, which lets in tons of light but gives a very shallow depth of field. I experimented with having just one part of Shyla's face in focus.

Here is one portrait in color with the focus on her eye. Notice how fuzzy her nose is, due to that shallow depth of field.

And the same one in black and white, in honor of Black and White Sunday.

What a special girl. I'm so grateful that I have her in my life. It's hard to believe that I didn't even know her a year ago.

A storm on the horizon

Our K had a love of rose hips from when she was a tiny puppy. She'd stop in patches of wild rose bushes to munch on the rose hip berries all winter long. Alas, I keep thinking of her this year because there are almost no rose hips in her favorite patches due to our long-term drought - she would've been very disappointed. Here's one of the few rose hips that I found.

I remember when K started nibbling on these berries as a playful puppy, and I asked my vet if it was okay. Her reply was that the only danger was that K would scratch a cornea on the thorny stems. Despite our usual bad luck with vet issues, that never happened! Using a macro lens loaned to me by a generous friend, I captured a close look at the details of those thorns. It's amazing how every thorn is different, and how the stem looks like a intricate sculpture when I look at it in detail.

Whenever I'm going through a rough patch, I think of K a lot. With my neck, arm, and hand pain these days, she's been on my mind. But, I've managed to re-focus on who I have here with me now.

I recently took my first close-up photo of Shyla's eye, like I used to do with K's eyes. I adore Shyla's eyes... they're different from K's but glorious in their own way. Notice the shadows of her lashes on her golden eye in the photo below.

R's eyes are harder to photograph up close because they're so dark. But, I love seeing the reflections of our snowy world and of me in them.

And, I love seeing the Duo together, with R so clearly the big brother, watching over his little sister, even though she's a pest sometimes.

Apparently, we're about to get a big storm, with some much-needed snow - up to 20" - but I'll believe it when I see it after this year of storms just missing us. We desperately need to break our drought so I am rooting for a monster storm. Shyla sprinted through our oddly thin layer of snow this morning.

This morning, the clouds were already hovering on our horizon and creeping closer to us, boding well for snow.

What a beautiful world!

P.S. A few new readers have asked about the origin of my spine problems. It's a hereditary condition that is causing my discs to degenerate at "break-neck" speed. I've had several vertebrae in my neck surgically fused and another few fused in my low back region. I usually can manage the pain through lifestyle adjustments but occasionally I go through phases like this one where the pain is almost intractable. This time, I have some carpal tunnel issues on top of the spine issues (hence, the wrist splints) so my nerves are being pinched in two places. Hopefully, if I'm patient, I'll recover without needing more surgery.

Wordless Wednesday: A sunset hike

Eyes and whiskers

During our morning hike, I had fun playing with my camera, using a very selective depth of field to accentuate different aspects of Shyla's face. Her eyes...

 Her nose and whiskers. She says "I've got whiskers. How about you?"

 And, those glowing eyes again.

During our evening hike, R stood proud atop a boulder with beautiful sunset sky behind him.

I didn't really discover photography until a couple of years ago although my mother was an accomplished photographer. It's so much fun to make artistic photos of my dogs in our beautiful mountain terrain.

Canyon hiking

My internet connection is not cooperating today (my upload speed is officially zero right now) so I'll share just a few photos that I uploaded a few days ago from our next stop in the San Rafael Swell near Temple Mountain. After exploring this area that was completely new to us, we eventually found peaceful campsites surrounded by canyon walls.

It was a land of narrow canyons cutting through great domes of rock. We rapidly learned that the dogs didn't like true "slot" canyons that are just a few feet wide and require that humans give dogs boosts over obstacles. So, we sought wider canyons that we could negotiate without needing to lift the dogs.

As the weather warmed after the rainy and cold start to our trip, we tended to hike in the evening, after the narrower parts of the canyons were mostly in the shade, as you can see in the photo above. But, the wider parts of the canyons were still bathed in sun, producing panting pups!

In this part of the Swell, I found numerous ATV trails that I was allowed to ride my mountain bike on. And, to my delight, I found almost total solitude on them. So, we fell into a pattern of running/biking in the morning, relaxing in shady spots during the heat of the day, hiking in the early evening, and hanging out in camp for the rest of the evening.

R's favorite shady spot was underneath the van. He looked a bit like a Chocolate Lab after lying in the red sand for a nap.

I had brought along books to learn more about using my dSLR camera, and I played with the camera and a tripod as the sun set.

I even experimented with night-time photos. This jagged rock face was illuminated by the moon that shined from behind me. At first, I thought that I hadn't focused the camera correctly because the stars were not pin-point. Then, I realized that the Earth had rotated by enough distance during my long exposure time to make the stars look like short streaks.

This photo made me think about the fact that, although we tend perceive the world as static and unchanging at any instant in time, it is actually perpetually revolving and evolving.

Hopefully, I'll be able to upload some photos for tomorrow to show you more of this beautiful section of the San Rafael Swell!