Wordless Wednesday - A Glorious Sunset

Looking to the west

Looking to the east

Sunset silhouette

Beauty and Smiles!

In exposed areas of our world, hoar frost had formed on plants and trees during a minor snowstorm last night. I loved looking closely at the tiny spikes of frost formed on dried plants in the meadow.

And, I gazed at some pine trees with a touch of frost covering them.

The world was beautiful today, after the sun finally burned through. But the highlight of my morning was watching Shyla's crazy enthusiasm when I tossed treats to her.

Thanks for making me smile every single day, Shyla!

A Winter Day in the Mountains

The sky was heavy with clouds at sunrise today although the rising sun brightened the clouds fleetingly.

This was the last bit of brightness we saw this morning...

Then, we were plunged into a world of gray.

It was the kind of day that can make me feel sleepy and lazy. However, a near-miss with three moose spiked my adrenaline. We were riding along just like usual when I heard rustling and grunting from the hillside above us. I saw three moose, who seemed to be fighting among themselves. I couldn't see much detail through the aspens except that the moose were moving fast, back and forth, perhaps charging one another.

But then I did see detail as the mother moose ran toward us from 75 yards away with her head down. I've never had a moose care about our presence at such a long distance. We could head downhill so I took off on my fat bike with Shyla ahead of me at top speed. After a little while, I looked back, and Mama Moose was returning to the other two moose, who were now also further down the hill toward us.

I grabbed my camera but my hands were shaking so I got only one decent photo before Mama Moose looked over her shoulder to give us another warning "look". That made us depart for good. The one decent photo shows last year's calf, with his asymmetrical antlers. I wonder if he tried to rejoin Mama Moose and her new calf, but Mama Moose was rebuffing him.

It was the only time I've ever heard a moose vocalize (the grunting when I first saw them). I wish I'd had a chance to record it.

Shyla and I were more than happy to completely change our planned route to stay away from the crazy moose. We went up high where the sparkling white mountains jumped out from the gray sky.

It was windy up high, as you can see from the snow blowing off the ridges.

It looked less windy more to the north, where the clouds hugged the mountain that Shyla and I like to climb in the summer.

On our way home, we saw no more moose but we saw a flock of robins! I'm guessing that means it's spring, right?

Happy Martin Luther King Day!

Bear Activity at the Den!

Today is an exciting day - the first bear den update! You might remember that I found a bear den 6 years ago that was occupied by a sow and her two yearling cubs.

That den remained empty until this year. There is a smallish bear occupying it. I do not know if she has yearling cubs behind her in the den or not. However, my guess is that she doesn't.

That opens the possibility that she might give birth to cubs in the coming weeks. Bear cubs are usually born in the second half of January in our area.

Here's a wide view of the scene. The rocks form a cave, and the bear had her head up and almost outside the den.

Here's a close-up of the bear. She was eating snow and has snow on her nose.

One camera was recording video, and it captured the bear eating snow for more than a minute on a warmish day. It's perfectly normal for bears to be awake on and off throughout the winter. The last time this den was occupied, the sow came outside to eat snow and urinate about once every three weeks. This bear hasn't walked outside the den yet.

Here's a video of her activity!!! Enjoy.

I can't wait to see whether this bear has cubs this winter!!!

Winter Beauty

It seems like we've had a long cloudy stretch but, this morning, the sky was clear and the sun was bright, bring happiness to my heart. It was extremely cold and windy. However, Shyla and I don't mind because our bodies are used to it by now.

The angle of the sun at sunrise has already changed substantially since the solstice, even though we've only gained a few minutes of daylight. Shyla and I follow the sun so its rays hit us as early as possible. I'll never stop being in awe of the red glow of sunrise and sunset.

Perhaps due to the cold or due to being in a great mood, Shyla was in high speed mode this morning.

She did everything at warp speed. I had fun trying to keep up with her with my camera.

And I loved seeing her shadow move with her. It was able to keep up with her!

When we are in the heart of winter, I actually love weather like this. The snow-packed trails stay smooth and firm because the temperature is well below freezing. Most people don't go out on the trails so the forest is quiet - all except for a few hearty birds who I heard chirping and cawing this morning in the snowy aspen groves.
After suffering a migraine yesterday afternoon/evening, I truly appreciated the winter beauty this morning. I have to laugh that I thought that I'd totally figured out how to prevent migraines (by getting enough sleep). If nothing else, these monster headaches keep me guessing because life grinds to a halt when one hits. I think that a few stressful things (like figuring out R's surgery situation, etc.) this week made me more susceptible to a migraine. Today, the headache is gone but I have the "hangover" - that tired and subdued feeling after the storm.

I hope that all of you are enjoying your Saturday!

Moose Artwork

Have you ever seen moose artwork before? This piece was done by our moose calf, who used her tongue as the brush and road dirt/salt on a metal car as the medium. She and her mom made art like this on all three of our vehicles.

A mama moose and her calf spent the night just below our deck. They licked all of our vehicles but somehow avoided every trail camera in our clearing. Darn!

We saw the huge cavities their body heat melted out as they slept by our house. We also saw our few deciduous shrubs decimated, presumably by our overnight visitors.

Fortunately, they'd moved away from our house before any of us needed to go outside in the morning. I can just imagine having to cancel something because "there's a moose and calf between our house and the car". I think the recipient of that excuse might not believe us!

As you can see from the moose photo, we've had a couple of grayish days. We Coloradans are so spoiled by our almost perpetual sunshine that we get depressed by a gray day. So I brightened up a recent morning with Shyla's favorite hat. She looks exotic in it, I think!

She let me wear it once recently so I think it's really "our" hat!

Then we watched a pair of female Downy Woodpeckers who seemed to be having a territorial squabble.

They followed each other from tree to tree until one finally backed down from the battle and flew away.

It's a fascinating world out there! I hope that you get out this weekend. Happy Friday!

Thankful Thursday

I am feeling bogged down by life's travails today so it's a good day to take notice of what I'm thankful for. I feel so lucky to head out for a little afternoon walk with our dogs and to see a herd of elk.

Here's a closeup of a few of them.

... and here's a view of most of the herd.

One of the things I'm emotionally bogged down by is the fact that someone shot one of these beautiful animals today. They didn't get a clean shot so the injured elk ran into the forest, and I happened upon the trail of blood. It hurt my soul to see it.

I also feel lucky to be getting to know moose, even though the mother moose terrify me. Here are some recent views of relatively docile moose. A cow...

.... and another cow moose, relaxing in the "warm" snow on a frigid day!

A calf who watched me go by and looked cute with snow on his/her lips.

And I am grateful beyond words to have a bear in a den that has trail cameras monitoring it. The bear has been sticking her head out lately to eat snow. If I were picky, I'd ask for better light at the den so the photos would turn out better but I'm not picky ;)

And, of course, I am thankful for our Duo. Sweet Shyla makes me smile daily.

And R... He is the most intense dog I've ever known. I wonder if he's the first dog ever to decide that his "alert" to a scent in nosework should involve taking a bow and resting his snout on the "hot" box containing the scent! He just started this habit the other day, and it makes me smile!

I am thankful that we can get surgery to try to fix R's elbow. We are lucky to have such incredible vets on the case.

That's a lot to be thankful for!

Update and Fiery Sunset

The good news is that R is probably a candidate for CUE surgery although his elbow is in very bad shape. The main decision is whether to go straight to the CUE surgery or to do an exploratory (and bone fragment removal) surgery first. I'll write more after I have time to process all the information in my brain. One more note - the expert from the east coast who invented the CUE surgery may fly out to help on R's case. That would be great!

Last evening, I was already stewing about R as we walked out of our clearing toward higher ground (with the dogs on leash). We ran into this very protective Mama Moose. It took a long time to find a way out of our clearing that didn't make her look angry at us - she seemed to be shadowing us for a while. She scares me.

I was glad we made it up higher. The sunset was fiery and glorious.

And Shyla looked beautiful, atop Coyote Rock.

I think the Mama Moose and her calf are still nearby, and it's time for a dog walk. Wish me luck!

Thanks for all the good wishes yesterday. They made such a big difference in my mood, changing it from mainly worried to hopeful. Now I'm hopeful although I wish the optimal route to reducing R's pain were completely obvious, and it's not!

R's Elbow

We have R on our minds because we meet with a surgeon tomorrow about his bad elbow.

R has probably never known a time in his life when his elbow didn't hurt. He was born with a congenital defect - elbow dysplasia. He had his first surgery on his first birthday. It was an arthroscopic clean-out of the bad cartilage and the bone chips floating in the joint space. That surgery gave him an excellent five years, within the perspective of a dog with elbow dysplasia.

Then, his limp became worse again, and he had another arthroscopic clean-out a couple of years ago. That one wasn't as helpful as the first one. After it, the surgeon told us that R had "end-stage" osteoarthritis in his elbow. Essentially, that meant that the weight-bearing surfaces had almost no cartilage left on them. Nevertheless, that surgery bought us a couple of years of R being very active and not showing too much pain.

I like to think that I understand what R is going through. My spine degeneration started in my teen years, and I now have several vertebrae that are bone-on-bone because the disks have degenerated away. It's painful but I choose to be active and live the way I love to live even if it hurts.

R is intense and adores romping in the forest - we share that trait for sure! So, based on my experiences and our gut feeling, we've allowed R to remain active within reason.

But now, we are all worrying about R. When he can, he hides his limp except when he's in the privacy of our house with only us present. Recently, he can't hide it anymore - so we feel that we have to do something.

Tomorrow, we'll be discussing a very new surgery that can be used on "older" dogs who have end-stage osteoarthritis from elbow dysplasia. Very few vets know how to do the surgery. It involves inserting metal implants that will be the new weight-bearing surfaces within the joint.

I hope that the surgeon feels confident that R is still a candidate for the surgery. I also hope that we feel confident that the surgeon is experienced enough to do it. He's the only one in our area who has ever done the "CUE" surgery. The alternative would be to travel someplace else to have the surgery done but that's not easy, especially since we feel that R needs surgical intervention soon.

I'm sorry not to be more upbeat today but I couldn't fake an unworried post (I tried, and I failed!). I always feel it's best to be authentic - so I shared what's on my mind.

A Stupendous Snow-covered Day

The day after our last snow storm was a stupendously beautiful day.

It was very cold, but we're adapted to that by now. In the morning, the sun rose upward toward some clouds in the sky. Shyla and I had only about 5 minutes of the reddish sunrise light.

Because it was so cold and the air was still, the trees looked like snow sculptures, with a coating of snow and frost covering them.

It wasn't just the twigs but every part of the trees, as you can see behind Shyla in the next photo.

Then, a bank of clouds swept up a valley in front of the sun. It made a fiery sight.

I couldn't take my eyes off of it because it looked surreal.

Although life is tougher in the winter with the frigid air and snow, it's an incredibly beautiful season.

Silhouette Sunday

I love when the sunset sky lights up, and Shyla stands tall and proud in front of it!

I will always think of the boulder she's standing on as Coyote Boulder. We once spotted a coyote standing upon it and looking out as we hiked up to the upper meadow near us. Shyla likes looking out from it too!