Rowdy dog frolicking

The winds ravaging our forest relaxed today. On cross-country skis, the pups and I headed up to see if the mountains finally glowed through the clouds. The pups zipped around me like high octane turbo charged dogs. It's a joy to watch R, a dog at his absolute physical prime, romp through the forest.
As the duo sprinted, their floppy ears flapped in sync.
When we arrived at a lookout, the sparkling mountains shined on the horizon for the first time in almost a week.
The crazy pups managed to calm their nerves for long enough to let me take their photo. R appears to be pondering something far too sophisticated for me to understand.
Then, we headed back to shelter of the forest, where snow drifts rather than scoured earth, dominated. Snow drifts are far preferable for skiing!

K and R continued their raucous frolicking. I love seeing them so happy.
Then, a lone dog named Pepper appeared on the trail, with no humans in tow (unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence in the rural mountains). R led his canine buddy to me for a greeting. I've been told that our dogs and Pepper play well together so I thought that I'd lead Pepper back to my house and call his humans.
Along the way, R and Pepper played endlessly and mostly looked like great buddies. But, I noticed a few times that their body language escalated in a way that concerned me. Below, they faced each other and snarled directly in each others' faces. Pepper looked very assertive and R looked uncertain, with a lowered head, lowered body, and his body weight shifted backward.After that snout-to-snout exchange, R turned his back and tucked his butt, seeming scared.
He remained subdued for about 10 seconds. Then, he rapidly turned toward Pepper, taking the offensive, and Pepper rocked his weight onto his back legs. Pepper seemed surprised by R's comeback.
K acted scared by the boys' rowdy behavior and trotted along just behind me, keeping me as her shield.
Just before we arrived home, R performed an amazing spin move as he played with Pepper. He started to spin clockwise with all four paws on the ground.
A quarter second later, R was airborne and spinning like a top.
Then, just another quarter second later, R landed on all four paws facing Pepper. What a move!
It was a blast watching the boys play and trying to pick out body language signs about their states of mind. Pepper definitely needed to be the boss most of the time but R was prepared to cede the top position as long as Pepper kept playing with him. R seemed very good at calming Pepper when the play started to escalate out of control. When I see social skills like that, I realize that the huge amount of time that we spent socializing him to other dogs when he was a puppy was worthwhile.

After our ski, I headed out onto the dirt roads for a studded-tire mountain bike ride. The continuous spinning of the pedals relaxed my lower back to a greater degree than I've felt in days. Moreover, I could tell that the steroid injection to my neck helped at least a smidgen and perhaps even more. Aside from evaluating how my spine felt, I vowed not to think about my longer term medical plan - and that vow provided a nice break from the haze of confusion that's enveloped me lately.
As I gazed at the view in the photo above during my ride, I spotted a coyote in an expansive meadow who was hunting rodents. Sadly, distance and backlighting made photos impossible. He slowly stalked, lifting each paw high and placing it softly on the ground. Then, he stood stock still staring at the ground with his head cocked to the side for more than ten seconds. Finally, he pounced almost vertically, dropping onto his prey. Based on his behavior, I think that he caught breakfast. As he carried his breakfast toward the privacy of the forest edge, a raven started following him, perhaps hoping for leftovers. I wonder what he caught?

Funny, as I stood watching, transfixed by the drama in the meadow, cars zoomed by oblivious to the predatory show underway. Being on a bike makes me notice things that I'd probably zoom past if I were in a car. All the more reason to keep on pedaling!

Battered by winter

Winter is battering our mountains, forests, and spirits. When daylight broke, the air had warmed to positive 3°F, but the winds buffeted the trees with soul-breaking force. Even a century-old ponderosa pine's trunk, probably 5' in circumference, swayed at its base, rolling with the aggressive punches of wind that attacked its towering canopy. The wind warped every nook and cranny of the forest. It even took down our internet connection for the entire day.
The stream of air from the west scoured some patches clean of snow and piled the snow into huge drifts a few feet away. I decided to cross-country ski with the pups, skirting the wind-scoured patches and following the drifts. Cross-country skiing hurts my back but I need my 'fix' of time in the forest with my dogs each day.
The pups' nerves seemed on edge as they sprinted furiously through the drifts, perhaps trying to outrun the plumes of wind-driven snow.
Although most people would say that today's conditions were unpleasant or even horrible, I enjoyed the eerily surreal atmosphere. Sun rays almost parallel to the ground accentuated the stream of snow whisking across the trails and sometimes organizing into spindrifts hovering over meadows.
After a tough few days, I badly needed to smile - and my pups kept me grinning. When the going gets tough, my dogs have an uncanny ability to lift my spirits. Last night, I simply hugged K, burying my nose in her sweet pine-smelling fur, and life looked a little more hopeful to me. During this morning's ski, the canine enthusiasm for life started to melt my frozen shell of emotions.
Here, my wildly exuberant duo almost bowled me over at the end of a recall!
By sunset, the wind had calmed, and the mountains felt serene.
The setting sun painted them pink.
I'm no closer to figuring out my plan for my spine today than yesterday. But, I do know that the recent moratorium on anti-inflammatory drugs for me (due to stomach damage from at least two decades of taking them) is exacting a painful toll. Prior to this hiatus, I had no idea how much they were helping my spine pain. The doc is having me take a true 'pain-killing' drug during the day now, and it addles my brain. That feeling is no fun if I want to fully experience life. The pain and my hatred of the new medicines might push me toward surgery more quickly.

Thank you all so very much for your supportive words. They've bolstered my spirit more than you can imagine.

A murky path ahead

Yesterday morning dawned crystal cold, -7°F. Gray clouds engulfed our world, giving it a monochrome hue. Aspen branches looked like intricate lattices of ice.Although the dogs hesitated at the door before joining me for a ride (an unprecedented event), they romped with abandon once they plunged into the deep cold. They rapidly grew icicle beards as their breath froze to their snouts.
Eventually, K's 'beard' oozed up to her forehead!
The snow biking conditions were stupendous. After days of riding our trails, my Fatback tires had packed them into dirt-like hardness. I forgot about the cold as I hammered around our trail network. And, in snow biking, there's absolutely no chance that I'll go too fast for the dogs so I can ride at my limit as they lope along easily matching my pace. They can even stop for a wild game of 'stick' and then catch up with little effort.
Alas, my snowbiking escape from reality had to end earlier than usual so that I could drive through the forecasted snow storm to my surgeon. I know him well by now, after he fused my lower back a few years ago. He expressed surprise that I'd been able to stay away from him for so long! Unfortunately, the light-hearted banter ended there.

The big problem is that so many things are simultaneously falling apart in my spine. Undoubtedly, four neck discs must be removed and their joints fused in the foreseeable future. To add insult to injury, one low back disc needs the same treatment, extending my existing fusion one joint further. In a flash of brilliance (ha!), I thought that maybe we could do everything in one surgery. No such luck.

So, the devilish question is where and when to begin? The surgeon candidly said that he looks at MRIs and does spine surgeries full-time yet deciding how to proceed in my case is almost impossible. I'm 'young' in years compared to the degeneration in my spine. If the surgeon is too aggressive about fusing joints now, I'll likely pay a heinous price later in life because the remaining discs will be under intense pressure and will degenerate.

My neck situation is most dire. I could: 1) try to wait a little longer to 'buy some time' for the other discs in my back, 2) have the worst joint fused (its disc has caused me to lose sensation in part of my hand plus lose biceps strength), or 3) have all four joints fused in the near future. At first, I kind of liked choice #2, but the surgeon then said that he'd almost certainly have to fuse the other 3 discs within a year or two after the first fusion. The specter of a series of surgeries truly intimidates me. I felt baffled about the best choice.

Then, after dealing with my neck, we need to deal with the ruptured disc in my lower back. I'm dragging that foot when I walk, not a good sign for the long term, and the pain has grown more insistent almost daily. The surgeon suggested trying some steroid injections around my low back disc to buy us time to treat my neck. At that point in the consultation, I felt like a walking disaster.

To try to help us chart a path, the surgeon finally put his advice into personal terms. He echoed my non-surgeon spine doc almost identically by telling me what he'd do if those MRIs were from his own back or a family member's back. Both docs said that they'd fuse all four neck vertebrae sometime soon and then later extend the fusion in the lower back if they were making the choice for themselves or their family member. But, if I take that course, both docs said that they'd fully expect even more spine surgery later because I'd start wearing out the remaining discs almost immediately.

So, I didn't post anything yesterday because medical issues swirled around my brain, leaving me confused beyond words. I felt deeply dejected about the tough course ahead.

At least my wildlife camera provided some distraction for my muddled brain yesterday evening. During yesterday's sub-zero temperatures, a coyote hung out under our birdfeeders for hours. He must have been desperate for food because I've never known a coyote to be so bold in broad daylight in the past. He looked nervous for almost his whole visit.
As always happens, no matter how much our personal worlds are rocked, a new day dawned today. It was my only day this week with no doctor appointments. I planned to have a fabulous snow bike ride. I hoped that my decisions would be clearer at the end of the ride than at the start.
The start was gorgeous with sunlight filtering through a front of clouds sliding toward us from the west. It felt warm at +2°F and only a light wind, despite a forecast that included wind gusts of 60 mph. Although the early morning wind wasn't fierce, it had already filled in my snowbike tracks from yesterday. Below, the glowing chocolate K galloped along one of my snowbike trails. The only sign that it's a trail was a slight depression in the snow and her pawprints.
We headed straight for a lookout point, thinking that perhaps the clouds had cleared for the first time in days. Alas, we saw no mountains but the winter scene still resonated with beauty.
We continued on, across a high open plateau, and the air remained still.
K and I had a relaxed ride, and I made some progress toward repacking the snowbike trails. I dropped her off at home in an eerie bubble of calm air and headed out for more riding.

I pedaled through the forest, past where I'd seen the mountain lion tracks the other day, and emerged on a small dirt road. My plan was an easy spin along the road and then to return home. Alas, my plan was blown to smithereens when the first gust of wind nearly knocked me off my bike. I put down a foot to save myself, and looked toward the hills to see great billows of snow flying to the east. The snow sped toward Kansas, looking like plumes of smoke from a forest fire. My fingers almost froze to the camera as I took this photo.
Immediately, I knew that I was in trouble. I could barely stand up or look into the wind- and I was standing in a forested area! Ahead of me, I had huge open meadows to traverse to get home. I put my head down and started pedaling. When the ice pellets bombarded my face, stinging so intensely that tears came to my eyes, I'd stop and turn my back to the wind until the gust passed.
I was fruitlessly trying to ride directly into a wind and ice pellet tunnel, and I decided that I needed to get back in the forest. Even though my house sat less than a half mile away by road, I couldn't fathom riding my bike through the open meadows for that distance. So, I took the longer wooded route home.

The wind had resculpted the forest trails in a few minutes. It erased all evidence that I'd ridden on the trails so recently. I kept trying to get back on my bike to pedal home, but I'd founder in the deep windblown snow, leaving tracks like those of a drunken cyclist.
So, I trudged next to bike. When a promising patch of snow appeared, I'd pedal a few yards but soon I'd be back next to bike, pushing. I met a woman on the trail who said that she thought that the end of the world had just arrived. I smiled - she does tend to exaggerate but I'd been having parallel thoughts. I wondered where the animals hid from the wind and how they possibly stayed warm. I honestly cannot imagine how they do it in wind-blown snow.

Finally, within ten minutes of home, I had no choice but to emerge from the scanty protection of the trees for a brief distance. I took a photo, which does no justice to the horizontal stream of ice pellets that flew from right to left ahead of my bike. Then, I put my head down and finished my journey.
Whew, what a ride. I didn't figure out a single thing about my medical decisions because my focus became surviving the wind and trying to stymie the devious blowing snow that was infiltrating my layers of warm clothing.

Perhaps it was good for me to be so completely distracted by trying to survive. Certainly, I proved that I am foolhardy, ignoring the warnings of the weather forecasters, and riding anyway. That might be lesson from the ride, not to ignore the sage advice of spine experts. If only they would present a obviously optimal plan - I'd follow it. But, sometimes the optimal path toward home is obscured by blowing snow.

Tracking a lion and my steroid injection

We visited our friends last night, including JB, K's handsome chocolate lab boyfriend. JB and R have become fabulous play partners. In fact, they played so intensely that they fell asleep together later in the evening. What a fun time for all of us!

This morning dawned gray and -7°F, with mist floating among the eastern hills. Despite the cold, whose sneaky fingers found every crevice in my armour, the day was beautiful.

R wanted to play from the outset of our snow bike ride. Here, he eyed K who is just behind a rock, trying to engage her in a game of chase.

He didn't succeed until he dug an irresistible stick out of the snow. Then, they frolicked like puppies, play fighting for the stick while kicking plumes of fresh powder into the air.

It's amazing how much dog play can resemble the scripted professional wrestling that's on TV. If one dog wrestles the stick into his or her sole possession, the winner then makes the stick easily accessible for the other dog to steal. By play-acting like this, the duo keeps the game going by preventing either dog from becoming frustrated.

On my solo ride with the pups safely at home, I pedaled through our daily allotment of fresh snow on my Fatback, and I spotted humongous feline pawprints traipsing across the trail less than a half mile from my house. Not only were the tracks the right size and shape for a mountain lion but they also showed a distinctive tail drag. As a lion walks, its long and lithe black-tipped tail swings from side to side with each stride, leaving drag marks in its path.

Compared to the recent tracks (here and here) that I spotted of a mother lion and an almost-adult kitten, these tracks looked giant. The measured at least 4" in both dimensions. My chemical handwarmer is 3.5" long and is in the photo for scale.

In the fairly clear track below, notice the four toes pointing toward the top of the photo. Then, there's the large paw pad behind them. I had the good fortune of finding a track so clear that the two cusps on the front of that paw pad were obvious. If you look at your dog's rear paw pad, it's shaped like a triangle, with a single cusp pointing forward. The 'double cusp' is unique to felines, making me completely certain that this is a mountain lion track.

For some inexplicable reason, my photos are now refusing to enlarge if a viewer clicks on them. However, you can either save them as a jpg or copy them to a photo program. Then, your program should let you zoom in on them.

Based on the gigantic paw size, I'm guessing that these tracks were made by a large male lion. I'm told by a mountain lion expert that our county, which measures about 740 square miles, only harbors a few dominant male lions. These cats are the kings of the forest who control which mountain lions can reside in their territories. I can't be certain that this lion has risen to the level of a dominant tom cat but his paw size certainly makes him eligible to join that exclusive class.

Interestingly, these tracks followed almost exactly the same path as the mountain lion tracks that I saw last winter, suggesting that they were left by the same cat. That piece of evidence supports my notion that a dominant male cat left these tracks. Younger cats don't have established territories and would not patrol a repeatable route. Moreover, female cats would have smaller paws and kittens with them. So, by exclusion, I'm leaning even more strongly toward this route being part of a dominant male cat's territory.

I backtracked him through a boulder strewn ponderosa pine forest. In the photo below, he gracefully walked between the tree trunk and the pile of boulders. I hoped to find some fur scraped onto the pine bark (if he'd brushed the tree while walking past it) but I didn't.

Most of the time, he walked slowly and deliberately, carefully placing his rear paw exactly into the track left by the front paw. However, at one point, he descended a small hill and moved faster. On the steepest part, his paws slid downhill in the snow with each step. When he stopped sliding, I could see that his rear paw landed ahead of his front paw's track. This pattern is typical of a lion's fast walk.

While following his track, I found a spot where he had laid down for a while. The snow had melted under him as he hunkered down behind a pine tree. Amazingly, this spot was within 5' of where I recently found an 'animal bed'. Based on today's observations, I bet that it was a lion's hiding place.

No doubt, today's tracks were left in the wee hours of this morning after the snow had let up so this lion probably wasn't sleeping. Radio collar studies show that, while hunting at night, lions will hide, lying still, in deer territory for an hour or more, patiently waiting to ambush hoofed prey. In the photo below, the lion walked close to the tree trunk in the right of the photo, and then laid down in the brownish spot where the snow had melted down to pine needles and cones from his body heat.

Then, after watching and waiting, the lion continued in the same direction as he'd been traveling when he laid down. His tracks indicate that he walked slowly and carefully as he departed from his hideaway. I wonder if he was stalking a deer at that point or if he'd given up. In the photo below, his bed is in the lower right and his tracks leave along the middle to upper left of the photo.

As I looked at his departing tracks, my heart leaped out of my chest as a brownish-tan large animal moved about 20 yards ahead of me. After my initial fear, I realized that it was a deer.

Then, another animal stirred, moving toward the deer. My heart accelerated again out of fear that the lion lurked nearby but then I realized that it was another deer. The second deer is barely visible to the right of the obvious one.

I know from my daily jaunts that a small herd of deer browses in this area almost daily. That's why the lion hunted here. The presence of the deer made me feel more confident that the lion had departed (based on the shaky logic that they wouldn't hang out near a lion). However, I decided that it was time for me to depart as well. The cover was thick, with lots of downed trees and boulders that could serve as excellent hiding places for predators, so I didn't want to wade into a bad situation.

Finding evidence of our fiercest predator so close to home completely distracted me from worrying about my epidural steroid injection. A good thing - because these injections scare me. Just having a needle so close to my spinal cord gives me the shakes.

I wrote most of this before the injection late this afternoon. It went fine, although I'm having my usual immediate reaction of increased pain, including intensely aching legs. The next few days will tell whether the injection helped or not.

The most surprising thing was that my doctor called my awesome spine surgeon, and I now have an appointment for tomorrow. My doctor must have made some compelling arguments because that's a full 5 weeks sooner than the surgeon's receptionist told me the 'first available appointment' was. Now, I just hope that the predicted snow storm isn't too big for me to drive 1.5 hours to the surgeon's office tomorrow.

Winter wanderings and my spine history

It may not 'officially' be winter yet but a peek out the window or a brief foray out the door says that we're in the depths of winter. R decided that a stocking cap would help him stay warm.

Our pack meandered around our woods last night at sunset. The wind had died down, and the forest was silent except for our footsteps. The approaching storm streaked the horizon orange and pink, with a black roof of clouds.

As we descended toward home, our small glimpses to the west showed that the sky had grown more brilliant.

When we trekked through the meadow where my second wildlife camera is hidden, I spotted purposeful tracks of a bobcat. This track shows details more intricate than I've seen before, especially in the largest back paw pad. It shows that the front of that pad has two cusps, unlike a canine. And, the back of the pad has three cusps. The bobcat had strutted close to the camera site so I was hopeful that I'd captured a photo. Alas, when I checked this morning, only rabbit photos greeted me.
With the temperatures plummeting after the sun had fallen, I noticed Pygmy Nuthatches climbing into a hole in an aspen tree that was used last summer by Northern Flickers for nesting and by Williamson Sapsuckers the previous summer. I took the photo below in June. Check out the green leaves!

The diminutive nuthatches live in our forest all year long, and survive the sub-zero nights by crowding, wing-to-wing, into a cavity. They'll use nestboxes or natural tree holes, like this one. I love pygmy nuthatches because they're not flashy but very handsome nonetheless. Moreover, their tiny size makes me think that they're fragile but they must be very tough to survive our winter weather. The photo below is from the Idaho Fish and Game website.

Overnight, the storm moved in. A brave coyote prepared by eating seeds and hunting rodents under our bird feeder.

This morning dawned gray, snowing, damp, and frigid. I wore as many layers as on my recent snow bike ride in -10°F weather but I was never truly comfortable during my snow bike ride. Despite my chilled core, I enjoyed my time with K. She grew a frosty beard.

One of K's most heartwarming habits is how she guards me when I stop to take photos or work on my bike in the forest. Today, I had to stop to fiddle with a cable, and when I turned around, my faithful sentry sat a few yards behind me. K's undeniable feeling of responsibility to watch over me makes me love her even more.

When I had a multiple discs removed and the vertebrae fused in in my low back, K was a two-year old puppy. Labradors are known to remain puppies for a long time but K grew up at warp speed during my recovery. I had 3 months when I wasn't allowed to do anything except go for short walks. No driving, no sitting in a car, no nothing. I spent innumerable hours in the company of K and our recently departed S.

When my friends asked what they could do to help me, I requested that they take K for a run, to give my high energy puppy 'fun breaks' during the day. Much to my surprise, when the first occasion arose for her to go for a run with my friend, K refused. At the outset of the run, K was off-leash and refused to budge from our house. Then, my friend put her on-leash for the start of the run but, at the first opportunity, K turned around and sprinted home. You can imagine my surprise when K's sweet face appeared at the door, all by herself. I rescinded my request, realizing that K didn't want to leave me, no matter how much fun might be in the offing.

During that time, I trained K to pick up things that I'd dropped, to put her paws up on a bench or on my knees so that I could pet her, and to lift a front paw whenever her leash got tangled (because I couldn't reach down to untangle it). She still loves doing all of these 'tricks'. If I drop something, she still comes running, enthusiastic to have a job to do!

When my vet has watched the two of us in her exam room, the vet has commented that she wished that K would allow herself to go 'off duty' sometimes. Apparently, service dogs have an 'off-duty' cue, and most of them really relax when given that cue. But, K never stops quietly watching me.

Some of you have asked how I 'injured' my spine. I never had a single event. I started having generalized back pain when I was a teenager but I assumed that it was 'normal' to have an aching back. Then, I started getting severe shooting pain down my arm, and I had my first MRI when I was very young. The doc's first question upon viewing it was "So, when was the car accident?". There never was one... 'degenerative disc disease' was my genetic fate. Sadly, both my brother and mother suffer(ed) from the same condition, although neither seems to have it as badly as I do.

In my early twenties, my lower back started sending pain down my legs. Another MRI, this time of my lower back, showed the spine of an elderly person. The docs told me to never run again, and I absolutely loved long distance running. It was then that I became a cyclist.

The doctors have told me, repeatedly, for more than 20 years that the future of my spine was very uncertain and that surgeries were probably inevitable. However, they've stressed waiting as long as possible before each surgery, and I've had at least a dozen steroid injections to reduce my pain and delay surgery. One doc said that, as soon as I had the spinal fusion surgery that he saw in my future, the adjacent discs would become like 'time bombs' that started ticking, just waiting to explode. The recent finding of a huge disc rupture in the disc adjacent to my low back fusion attests to that. Despite the risks, two years ago, the pain triggered me to schedule a fusion surgery for my neck but I ended up backing out. I decided to keep 'managing' the pain for as long as I possibly could or until paralysis risk became too high.

The bottom line is that nothing that's happened recently should be a surprise to me. However, somehow, it still is. I had held onto the tiniest spark of hope that my spine would stop degenerating, and I'd be able to keep doing what I love. That hope is now officially extinguished - but, I must admit that I still hold out a wisp of hope that I can delay surgery even longer. I can deal with the pain - but if the surgeon thinks that the danger of paralysis is too great, then I'll go for it.

One very kind reader asked what I wished for at this point. Funny, that question caught me off guard because I've spent my recent years learning to view spine pain as an intrinsic part of me. I accept that I have an irreparably damaged spine. I do wish to put off surgery for a few more years. But, a realistic wish is for the strength and flexibility to adapt to whatever my future holds. To paraphrase a famous philosophy: we all face obstacles and challenges in our lives but our lives are mostly shaped by how we respond to those challenges. That leads me to wish for the strength to adapt in the face of challenges, even if I lose the ability to do some of my favorite things.

The kind and warm comments of support from all of you have buoyed my spirits immeasurably. Thank you so very much. Here's to happy times and strength for all of us.

The photo below (taken in July) sums up two of my favorite things - our mountains and my dogs - and I know that I'll find ways to enjoy them no matter what.