The Wonders of the Mountains

It's the time of year when my gratitude for the beauty of the mountains is boundless.

I spend as much time as I can outdoors, enjoying the wildflowers, blue skies, warm sun, and a feeling of contentment. I can forget all the physical things that have been hounding me when I'm out in the mountains, riding through what feel like seas of wildflowers.

The Columbines are bursting into bloom all over the forest. They love the floor of aspen groves with the sun filtering through the deep green aspen leaves above them.

 It's warm right through sunset. We can linger at our favorite spots well into the evening.

Yesterday evening, as we walked to a favorite spot, I saw a tawny animal sneak up through some boulders and out of our path. I felt sure that it was a mountain lion based on its size and graceful gait. I'll probably never know if it truly was a lion... but there was a reason why I had mountain lions on the brain. I'd seen photos of multiple lions on my trail camera earlier in the day.

Here's one of the photos, with the whole story to come in a future post...

 Happy Friday! Roll around in the grass gleefully like a mountain lion!

Bearly Summer

Today was another glorious day in our mountains. Shyla and I played in the sun to start the day. The highest mountains behind Shyla had a dusting of fresh snow this morning.

Shyla suddenly seemed to notice the Wall Flower that has been blooming on Hug Hill for a few days. She stopped to sniff it.

After our mountain bike ride, I headed out to check some trail cameras. First, I have to tell you that I've figured out that the male bear who has been marking trees in our area this summer is not "Milton". Milton was a big dominant bear with a white blaze on his chest who got injured last spring (2013). I captured video of him marking a tree in mid-June last year, and then I didn't see him on my trail cameras again.

I hoped he'd recover over the winter, and then, a new bear showed up this spring with a white blaze on his chest. I was too quick to declare that "Milton had returned". After comparing video of the original Milton and the new bear marking the same tree, it is obvious to me that the new bear is much smaller and younger than Milton was.

We'll probably never know what happened to Milton. My guess is that he either died or claimed a new, less-competitive, territory. I hope it was the latter.

Here is the video comparison that convinced me. I've decided to call the new bear "Milton Junior", but I'll probably shorten it to "Junior" to avoid confusion. You can watch this video here or at Youtube.

Over the past few weeks, Junior has been in a tree-marking duel with our biggest male named "Tiny". They've marked one tree many many times. I made a video of their most notable visits to the tree. You can watch it here or at Youtube. It's fun to see that, in one of Tiny's visits, he sniffed the camera (and my scent) before marking the tree. I'm sure my scent is becoming familiar to him.

It's a fun time of year, as I watch the bears do their yearly ritual. I have the feeling that mating season is winding down because some bears are starting to venture closer to residences (including our land) looking for food. I think their normal food for this time year, ant pupae, has been slow to develop due to the cool spring. I hope that none of them gets in trouble with humans during this lull until their natural foods are ready to be eaten.

Happy spring and almost-summer!

Wordless Wednesday

Chokecherry Blossoms

Columbine!

Magical

It's a magical time of year where our world seems dreamy because its so beautiful. I soak it up during my morning bike ride with Shyla.

Then, I go about my day, including some very tough new rehab for my shoulder. I found out that the part of my shoulder that had surgery (the AC joint) has become quite unstable. I've had sudden "attacks" of excruciating shoulder pain over the past few days, and I had the shoulder evaluated today. Apparently, it's slipping out of alignment because the rotator cuff muscles atrophied after my surgery. The "cure" is lots of painful strengthening exercises. I started today... I may have some one-handed typing days in my near future.

After that fun undertaking, I took the Duo for an evening walk. It's been a long time since we've had sunshine for our evening walk. The thunder clouds that build up over the Divide usually have completely obscured the sun by afternoon.

I love seeing our Duo together. It's truly heart-warming to see how closely this Labraduo has bonded.

Perfect Time of Year

It is the time of year when mountain dwellers like me know how lucky we are. After a long cold winter, we are reaping the rewards.

The world teems with vibrant flowers. The weather is often perfect, around 60-70°F during the day with lots of sunshine.

Shyla and I start each day with our mountain bike ride. We are including a lot of training during our ride each day because Shyla has recently decided to test her limits with me. I've been calling this phase her "terrible twos" (she's two years old).

I think that, as she found more confidence in herself, she started a phase where she no longer automatically followed my cues. Consequently, I've had to rein her in, making her spend some of each mountain bike ride in a "heel" next to my bike. If she breaks out of the heel, I immediately stop my bike, go get her, and put her back in place.  Then, we do a short "heeling" practice session before we go on. With this program, her behavior is improving by the day.

She's my first dog with a timid personality so it's been a novel journey for me. By age two, most of my dogs have had pretty "stable" behavior, where I could trust them in most situations, and we'd reached "unspoken" agreements as to what was acceptable behavior. So, this little "freedom" phase of Shyla's caught me by surprise. Has anyone else experienced this kind of thing as a timid dog has grown up?

With the help of carrying "better" treats and setting very clear rules about what behavior I want from Shyla when off-leash during a bike ride, we're on track again. But we'll keep at the training, so our rides together are fun and safe.

The wildflowers are on track too. This Columbine is in my garden. It was almost open this morning. I spotted one out on the trail that had almost completely opened!! It's almost Columbine season - yipee!

I don't think that I've ever seen a year like this one for Shooting Star flowers. They require lots of moisture. Many of our meadows still have large areas of standing water (partly due to the floods last fall), and these beauties are going crazy. I get home each day with mud all over me, after getting down on the ground to photograph them.

This is my favorite time of year!

Starry Sunday

I am sharing a star trail photo that I took on our last clear night in the desert. It's actually a composite of many photos spanning 2.5 hours.

We were camped in an alcove among the cliffs, with a dip in the cliffs just about due north of us that allowed the North Star to peek through.

We also had tremendous sunsets at that site, with the red beams shining on us from across the desert floor. I love how confident Shyla looks in this photo!

You can see the red rock world and the blue sky reflected in R's eyes in the next photo.

What a fun trip that was!

Everyone has their challenges...

It's been a tough few days. A migraine hit a couple of days ago and didn't totally depart until last night. I'm now on preventative medication, and these monsters are becoming less frequent. I'm grateful for that although I tend to forget all happy thoughts when one hits.

When I'm not feeling good, this sweet girl likes to rest her chin on my stomach, watching over me. What a sweetie. I feel lucky to have her in my life.

On top of the migraine, I hurt my shoulder that was operated on in February. I believe that I did it yesterday while I was trying to carry Shyla's prized antler home (but the swelling and pain didn't hit until hours later). I know that each and every one of us has our personal challenges to overcome, and I am no different from anyone else in that regard. It just so happens that I have several things all together right now - so I thought that I'd share why I might seem less enthusiastic than usual.

The Runner has volunteered to transport the humungous antler the rest of the way home to save my shoulder and back. I know a brown furry girl who will be thrilled!

Shyla is overjoyed every time she sees her antler on one of our mountain bike rides.  Our escapades with this antler have made me even more impressed with the strength and agility of huge elk who somehow manages to carry the weight of two of these antlers and maneuver through the dense forest with a wide rack.

Although I am mostly using only one arm today, Shyla and I managed to get out together in the forest. It's the time of year that I cannot bear to miss a single day. It's like nirvana at our elevation these days. Sun, warmth, flowers, and snowy mountains to gaze at...

Some of the irises in our meadow were killed by the hard freeze the other night but some others are fine, thank goodness. They are gorgeous, though very short-lived, blooms.

Happy Saturday to all of you. I'm heading off for a rest, hoping to help my shoulder and my brain recover from the past few days.

See Beautiful

I love the See Beautiful blog hop, hosted by our friend Sugar. I love the beauty of our natural world and of seeing my dogs romp happily in it.

In the past month, we jumped straight from snow storms into summertime, with a brief sojourn in the desert thrown in the middle.

In the mountains, summer is to be savored because it is so short. It is a season when the wildlife are abundant and very active, like our bears marking the trees as they look for mates.

Babies are being born and going out on their own. This bear cub is about 17 months old now. She will probably stay in this area for her lifetime, because that's what female bears do. I am loving watching her grow up.

All sorts of flowers are blossoming. It is impossible to be out in the meadows and forests without noticing a new beauty.

Chokecherry blossoms

One of my favorites is blooming in the boggy meadows, the Shooting Star flower. It's so wet here that the Shooting Stars are going wild.

It is so beautiful to be outside without shivering and to relax on a peak with the sun keeping us warm.

We visited the desert in the past month, enjoying its other-worldly beauty.

And R's cute tricks on the red rock.

Before I'd ever visited a desert, I never imagined that it would be a place of such beauty.

I imagined a hot, dusty, and ugly place. I was so wrong.

So, we celebrating Seeing Beautiful along with our blogging friends. I think that living in the moment and "seeing beautiful" is a state of mind that is worth nurturing.


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Fog, Lions, Mice, and Bats

It was a foggy "pea soup" morning, a fairly rare condition around here. Shyla and I headed out into the fog for our mountain bike ride. Soon, we stopped for a quick game of fetch. I threw the toy very gingerly for her, remembering what happened to my spine during our last game of fetch.

One of you asked if there was something special about purple toys for Shyla. The only special thing is that they are bright and cheery. I tend to grab bright toys to take on our ride when the world looks drab to me.

At this time of year, "drab" is about the last adjective that I use after I'm actually out in the world. Yes, it was foggy but the wildflowers shined like flaming torches. And, Shyla loved the cool air so she was feeling rambunctious.

Even when the fog really descended onto us, the yellow flowers still glowed.

As we rode, I had this niggling feeling that a mountain lion had been nearby recently. I probably caught a glimpse of a lion scrape or scat but didn't fully realize it. In addition, the mountain lion activity around here has been extraordinary all spring. I have been capturing as many mountain lion photos as bear photos this spring, which is not normal.

So, after I left Shyla at home to relax, I checked a couple of trail cameras. My niggling intuition had been right. This is in the heart of our little trail system.

The trail camera is pointed at a spot where I found a mountain lion scrape a couple of years ago. It's at an intersection of two animal trails. This mountain lion was intensely interested in the scent at that spot.

He looks so strong and agile.

And then, he rolled over the spot.

I've never read about mountain lions displaying this rolling behavior but I see it fairly frequently in the lions around here. It tends to be the smaller, perhaps younger, lions who do it. The big dominant male lions tend to scrape with their hind paws rather than roll.

Here are a few other mountain lion photos that I haven't shown you yet. The first two are from last Saturday. This lion spotted the camera's soft red glow right away.

And, he walked over to check it out before departing. This looks like a youngish lion or a female to me.

Here's another lion in the same spot in mid-May. This guy sniffed the scrape left by a previous lion, and then he scraped over top of it.

Going backward in time, this was at peak mid-morning hiking time on a beautiful sunny Saturday in May, and this mountain lion was about 30 yards from a "popular" trail (a few people per day travel on it). The lion is looking toward the human trail. I wonder if a person was on the trail?

I have even more mountain lion photos that I haven't shown you yet... but I'll stop there for today. It gives you the idea that there have been many mountain lions nearby this spring.

Just a funny little note for you - I truly don't get scared as I check these trail cameras in places that mountain lions frequent. But, the other night, a bat suddenly started flying around our bedroom, for the first time ever. I completely freaked out - I was terrified of the bat. The Runner had to try to calm me down (and get me out of the room) before he could work on getting the bat outside.

I'm similarly afraid of mice. One time, we were driving on bumpy dirt road while on vacation, and a mouse fell out from under the LabMobile's dashboard onto the floor by my feet. I screamed, and the Runner stopped the LabMobile... but the mouse had already hidden up under the dashboard again. I worried about that mouse appearing again for the rest of our vacation. I had trouble sleeping because I was watching and listening for that mouse.

So, I'm terrified of small animals in tight spaces... but I can calmly see photos of a mountain lion who was recently next to my trail camera without freaking out at all. In fact, today, I took a macro photo of a flower next to a trail camera that had mountain lion photos on its memory card.

My irrational phobias help me to understand Shyla's fears a little better. The animals that I fear are not likely to hurt me, yet I can be completely paralyzed by their presence, just like Shyla gets paralyzed with fear by things that seem innocuous to me.