Coyotes, fire, and eclipse

Our K is continuing to feel pretty good. Her leg doesn't seem to hurt much, and she's enjoying life. At this stage in her disease, that's a victory worth celebrating. We had a gorgeous sunset hike yesterday.

Unfortunately, it included a scary coyote encounter. Since K has started all these pain meds, her responses to my verbal commands have slowed... as if it takes a moment for her brain to process what I said. Well, yesterday evening, four coyotes appeared out of thin air very near us. R was on leash but K was off-leash because I can usually trust her with wildlife. Not yesterday. She chased the pack of silvery coyote ghosts, either not comprehending my calls or choosing to ignore them. When she decides to run, she can be an intense dog, as you can see in the photo below from early May.

Fortunately, K ran out of energy very early in the chase. R and I ran over to save her when there were four coyotes circled around her but still a fair distance from her. I used some evil language as I snarled at the coyotes, saying that they were not going to kill my K. My tone did the job, and they disappeared into the brush. It's amazing how my fearless "Mama Bear" persona can emerge when one of my dogs is in danger. I think that I'll be using a leash with K a bit more until her brain adapts to the new meds.

Back to our trip... Two days ago, I had told you about the morning in the Abajo Mountains when the bear-hunting hounds chased a bear past our campsite to start the day. A little later, I headed out on a solo mountain bike ride. I kept smelling smoke as I rode. At times, it was a strong smell, making me think that it was not just a campfire but rather a forest fire. Because I was riding in canyon country, I usually couldn't see very far to know if a plume of wildfire smoke was visible anywhere near me. Then, I glanced over my shoulder as I descended into a canyon and I saw the scary plume.

I was in a canyon that had only one road in and out of it. Moreover, it appeared as if the fire was between me and our campsite. I turned around my bike and started hammering on my pedals to try to get back to camp. I was seriously scared. The last time that I saw a wildfire plume, it turned into an unthinkably out of control and damaging wildfire. I took this photo on Labor Day 2010 during a mountain bike ride near my house. Believe it or not, the fire had just started. Now that I compare our local fire to the fire in the Abajo mountains, the Abajo fire was tiny by comparison. But, I think that I'll always panic when I see a smoke plume after going through that Labor Day fire, no matter what the size.

As I arrived back at camp, I could see that the fire wasn't far from camp. Yet, in the little clearing where the Runner and the Duo were hanging out, they couldn't see it. I investigated a bit more, and I discovered a "prescribed burn" sign on the 4WD access road. It seems that the Forest Service put up the sign right before starting the fire without warning the people already in the vicinity. Crazy.

Soon, there was ash falling on our campsite. We decided that it was time to leave, especially if we wanted any view of the solar eclipse that was due to start in the next few hours. We drove downward toward the desert, hoping to get below the plume of smoke. At first, it didn't look promising with haze surrounding the mesas.

But, as we arrived on the desert floor, the air cleared. Eventually, from our eclipse viewing site, we could see the fire up on the ridge where we'd been camping but the wind was carrying the smoke away from us. Whew!

We all enjoyed watching the eclipse.

It was an "annular eclipse" so the world didn't become dark at totality. But, to our surprise, it did become cold. I donned a heavy fleece jacket when most of the sun was covered by the moon.

And, it was most gorgeous when the golden sun set behind a ridge with the black moon taking a bite out of it.

We ended up staying in the Abajo mountains for a couple more days, before moving along to a red rock canyon that I adore. K and I relived our "glory days" when she was a one year old dog just learning what it meant to "mountain bike" with me. I'll tell you more about that canyon and our fun there in a future post.

K gave it "one ear up" and a bow of thankfulness that we were given the gift of one more visit together to this beautiful spot!

Venus, but not cancer?

I'm saving two more chapters from our trip for future days so that I can tell you about some things at home first. K had her first acupuncture treatment yesterday to try to help her leg pain. It's hard to say if it helped or not because we've changed so many things simultaneously in a vigorous effort to prevent her pain from escalating. She's taking new pain meds, she's less active, and now she's getting acupuncture.

Regardless of which thing is making the difference, her limp is becoming less pronounced. That makes me feel very good because it means that the pain is receding. Even though her lung mets are beginning to slow her down and limit our hikes, I feel happy that her leg isn't hurting much, except when she first gets up from a long nap. A sparkle is back in her eyes.

In the photo above, she was bathed in sunset light just after a thunder storm. The sun barely peeked through the gap between the clouds and the mountains at sunset, shining directly on my sweet girl with yellow flowers blooming behind her. Despite the ravages of cancer, K is still beautiful to me.

The ensuing sunset was magnificent as the sun's rays beamed upward from behind the Continental Divide.

We sat and gazed at it, listening to the birds singing at the same time. My favorite singer, the Hermit Thrush, has recently arrived so his flute-like song wafted down from the treetops. Then, we noticed a graceful and long-winged bird, perhaps a Swift, playing in the sunset light.

K has lived, so far, for 5 months with osteosarcoma. Every day has been worth living, precious and love-filled. Even if we haven't been able to slow her cancer down very much, we certainly have extended this high quality phase of her life. That's been worth every penny. This sunset felt symbolic of our journey.

I do find myself wondering why humans precisely understand the movements of faraway planets while we haven't figured out how to defeat many cancers that kill humans and other animals. Very odd. I'm guessing that biological systems are constantly changing and adapting, making understanding them much harder than predicting a planet's movements.

We watched Venus transit the sun the other afternoon, using precise predictions of exactly when Venus would pass in front of the Sun. Here is a series of photos that I took over several hours of intermittently cloudy weather. The clouds barely parted enough to let me see the sun as Venus first appeared in front of it, at the very top of the orb. It looks like a mouse took a nibble out of the sun.

Then, the black dot moved inward and to the north in the spooky cloud cover.

Much later, the Labraduo and I headed out to find a view of the sun because it was no longer visible from our house. Now, Venus was well within the Sun's orb, in the midst of clouds and some tree branches.

A little bit later, the color of the sun became more orange as it began to set. The other dark spots aside from the big one (Venus) are sun spots.

Then, the sun set below the clouds. This was my last photo before Venus was covered by clouds. None of us will be alive the next time that Venus appears in front of the sun.

The Labraduo was there with me the whole time while I photographed the Venus Transit. I think that they were confused about why I wasn't pointing my camera at them! So, I took one photo of them so they didn't feel left out.

Tomorrow, more about our Utah trip because there were a few more exciting events plus a stay in a Mars-like canyon that holds great sentimental meaning for K and me. It was the first place that we ever mountain biked together years ago...

Almost Wordless: Sunsets on Red Rock

Sunset on first night in this campsite

K in sunset light

We are so small in this world (see the human and dog at cliff base)

Sunset on our campsite

The Duo, forever more.

A bear adventure

Thanks to every one of you who sent me supportive comments yesterday. It means so much to me as we muddle our way through this very tough time.

There was good news this morning. K's limp is less pronounced today. I think that her new pain meds are starting to work. She was thrilled to go for our hike this morning. "Hike" is probably an overstatement. We wandered around the meadows and forest, stopping frequently for photos and hugs. It's a far cry from our former morning mountain biking routine but I'm very happy just to be with K.

Every single day counts. That's true for all of us but seeing the end of K's life hurtling toward us at warp speed makes that message very clear. Her lung "mets" are reaching a size and number that will make exercise hard in the near future. So, no matter what, she and I will enjoy our hikes for every day that it's possible.

And, in the evenings, we'll enjoying hanging out with the R's in our pack as well!

Today, I feel like I am accepting where this is going. But I find myself wishing with all my heart that we could stay in this stage for a long time.

Before everything went crazy in recent days, I promised to tell you about an exciting day of our trip. We were in the Abajo Mountains in Utah between 8-9,000' elevation. We arrived after dark on a Saturday night, and we just pulled off a forest road into a clearing to sleep with little notion of what was around us. The next day included three extraordinary events. I only have space in this post to tell you about the first one.

The next morning very early, the Runner was just outside the Labmobile, and I was still asleep inside. I jolted awake as the Runner threw open the door and dove in, slamming it behind him. He said "It's a bear, it's a bear, it's a bear, and he's being chased by a pack of dogs"! I sat bolt upright and stared out the window to see a sight that was very sad to me. A trained pack of 6-10 bear-hunting dogs were on the heels of a cinnamon colored big bear within about 30 yards of our van. The bear occasionally stopped and turned to face his pursuers, taking swipes at them with his huge paws. The dogs would back off to avoid being smacked and scratched by the bear. Then, the bear would start running again with the dogs on his heels. The cycle kept repeating.

Our dogs, K and R, heard the baying of the bear-hunting hounds and started barking like crazed canines. Their barking distracted the bear-hunting hounds, and the bear-hunting hounds surrounded our van, baying at us. But, one hound stayed on the bear's heels, and his baying soon called the wayward hounds back to the chase.

Since the hounds so clearly had this bear on the run, I figured that they'd tree him soon, and we'd hear  the fateful gunshot when the hunter shot him out of the tree. I was fairly certain that I'd cry when I heard it. But, as the morning went on, no shot rang out, and we got started on our day, still wondering what had happened with the bear. I have no photos of the bear chase - it happened too fast. I do have a photo of a bear footprint from near our camp. No doubt, this was great bear habitat.

This was a big paw print from a big bear.

After the excitement ended, the Runner and R went for a run down a canyon filled with aspen trees while K and I went for a short mountain bike ride in similar terrain. It was gorgeous. Look how small K appears among the aspen trees.

When we all met back at camp, the Runner had one of the bear-hunting hounds with him. Apparently, the Runner had found the hound down in the canyon, and the hound, who we called "Huckleberry", followed the Runner back to camp.

As you can see from the photo, Huckleberry had all sorts of locator collars on, including a GPS collar and a radio collar. He was a friendly dog so the Runner leashed him and waited for the owner to show up (we had no cell reception so we couldn't call the owner). I took off on my solo bike ride. While I was gone, the owner tracked down Huckleberry using the GPS collar. He picked up the sweet hound, loading him into one of two truckloads of bear-hunting hounds. He told the Runner that he didn't have bear tag this season so the hounds had been doing a practice run that morning. That's why we didn't hear a shot.

I have to say that, after seeing the bear being chased by the hounds, I am very glad that Colorado outlawed the use of dogs in bear hunting and eliminated the spring bear hunt due to the cruelness of orphaning young bear cubs if their mother was killed. On that morning, I kept wondering if the bear we'd seen being chased was a sow with cubs, and, if so, what happened to those cubs.

As many of you know, I love bears so I am biased in their favor. I set up my trail cameras to to emphasize bear photos. I am gleeful every time I find bear photos on my cameras.

Many of you have asked if I am scared of running into bears when I'm in their territory (which actually includes our land)... and I can honestly say that I am more afraid of mice in my house than I am afraid of bears in the forest. Bears want to avoid running into people, and they probably furtively watch me pass by on many occasions. Moreover, mothers with cubs are very predictable. If you move away from their cubs, they won't hurt you. They might vocalize, air snap with their jaws, slap the ground with their paws, and bluff charge but they are very unlikely to do more than that.

Some of you might remember that I encountered a sow protecting her cubs last summer. She appeared ferocious but didn't even come close to me as she postured to send me away.

I do always carry a large can of pepper spray, which I could use if any animal was truly threatening to me. I've carried it for a decade. The only being who I've sprayed is myself in my face! It wasn't fun (it was an accident). You can barely see the red on the pepper spray can that's hooked to my left hip in the photo below.

So, that was the first chapter of a very eventful day during our vacation!

I must say that I am grateful beyond words that we took our vacation as a family, especially knowing now that K's cancer was still moving so aggressively. It might have been K's last trip with us, and we savored every day.

Update

The news today wasn't good. In fact, I'm not sure that we've had a single oncologist appointment that has involved good news. K's lung tumors are growing fast. Her leg is very swollen and sore but the oncologist isn't sure why. It could be that the bone cancer is stirring again (but it's not obvious on x-ray yet) or it could be tissue damage.

We're taking what the oncologist calls a "shot in the dark" and trying a new drug that has worked to slow tumor growth in some very aggressive cases of other canine cancers. As the oncologist put it, "we have nothing to lose". I hate to admit it but she's right.

Despite K's pain when she walks around the house, she ran like this in the meadow yesterday. She looked almost like a puppy.

She has the strongest and happiest spirit that I can imagine.

I'm letting myself fall apart for today... but tomorrow I'll pick myself up and find the spirit to make the best of the days that remain.

An update and some wildlife

I don't have time to write the next chapter of our trip today so I thought that I'd tell you about a few odds and ends. First and foremost, although K's health has definitely taken a step in the wrong direction, she's still having fun in life.

She and I take a hike in the woods each morning. Although her limp can be incredibly pronounced around the house, she forgets about when she's outside. She runs around having fun, with barely a hitch in her stride.

Some may disagree with our approach but we've decided to give K the freedom to have fun and do as she likes during our hikes. We realize that there could be bad consequences that could shorten her life. But, we think that it's better to live fewer days with joy than to live more days without the sparkle. I like to think that K agrees.

I do have to admit that I'm sad that I believe that, barring a miracle, our mountain biking days are over. I took this photo on our last ride up to Hug Hill about five days ago.

Ah, what adventures K and I have shared on our mountain bike rides. I am so grateful for every single one.

During the day after that bike ride, it seemed like something "happened" to K's formerly cancerous leg. Our regular vet thinks that it was a microfracture. We'll see what the oncologist thinks tomorrow. I am still holding out hope that K will be able to walk up to Hug Hill at least once again. However, it feels like too far for her right now.

But, I still revel in what we *can* do together. We take our evening hikes, usually with R and the Runner. I shall never cease to love the red hue of K's fur at sunset. I also love the sensitive side of R. In this photo, he gave her a long and searching look. I'm sure that this is a confusing time for him.

On the wildlife front, I captured some hilarious video of bears marking a tiny tree but I'll have to collate it into a presentable form for another day. I find that editing video is SO time-intensive.

Although I hesitate to call them "wildlife", we've been having a mouse issue in our house. I can't bear to kill any living thing so we capture them alive and take them into the meadow for release. I'm sure that some find their way back to our clearing. Here's one right after I released him.

My wildlife cameras have shown me that our bobcat is helping out with the mouse "issue"! Here, he arrived in our clearing, just outside our bedroom window.

One minute later, he departed with a mouse in his mouth. You can see the mouse tail hanging out of his mouth. I guess that the bobcat isn't squeamish about mice like I am!

He must have devoured the mouse in one gulp because he was returning to our clearing within another minute. Go Mr. Bobcat, Go!!!!

As a final note, tomorrow will be a long day with K's oncologist appointment and hours of driving. I'll try to post but please don't worry if I am delayed.

Oh, how I love our K. I think that tomorrow will be a tough one but I'm holding out a glimmer of hope that the oncologist will have a trick or two up her sleeve to keep K comfortable for a bit longer.

Canyons and mountains

K is still feeling under the weather. We're taking short walks on the trails near our house in the morning and evening. She perks up, follows scents, and runs around during our outings. They are, beyond a doubt, the best part of our days. This morning, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and K was trotting through an aspen grove. For a moment, everything felt right with the world.

Don't worry - K is still generally happy and comfortable. We have the pain from her leg under control. I think that I'm feeling worse than she is because cold hard reality is setting into my heart. This is real, not some theoretical scenario being spun by a vet. We see K's oncologist at CSU on Monday so we'll learn more then.

Back to stories from our recent trip, our bipolar switching between the mountains and desert came to the forefront again, just 2 days after we arrived in the La Sal mountains. We awakened to much colder weather (too cold to sit outside in the mountain air), and I even wore mittens on my bike ride! So, we enjoyed the mountains for the morning, and then we decided to head back to the land of red rock desert. It was storming down there as we descended in the LabMobile.

We drove south, gradually moving ourselves toward a good position for viewing the eclipse in a couple of days time. As we drove south, the sun started to shine again.

At about dinnertime, we arrived at an area that is a huge plateau that overlooks Canyonlands National Park. We never go into the National Parks since dogs can't do much in them, aside from ride around in a car. But, we thought that a view of the canyons, from lightly-regulated BLM land, would be fun. We arrived at one overlook around sunset when the rock glowed like honey.

Then the sun set in a brilliant light show with cliffs and mesas in its foreground.

We found a spot to camp, and I noticed the incredibly dark sky with a zillion twinkling stars. So, I set up my camera for a very long exposure of the stars circling the North Star. The funny part was that the Runner decided to take the dogs for a walk while my camera shutter was open. You can see his headlamp's path in the bottom of the photo.

The even funnier part was that we thought that we were camped in a discrete and legal spot. In the dark, we really couldn't tell exactly where we were. When the Runner looked around in the morning, he came back to the LabMobile in a hurry to say that we needed to move pronto. Apparently, we weren't legal, and we weren't discrete. That's a perennial problem with our habit of wandering around and not choosing a campsite until after dark - although it's a lifestyle that we both like.

So, we quickly evacuated our campsite and headed back to the overlook above the canyons where the sun was still low in the sky. K looked sleepily at me as I took her photo in the morning sun.

Then, I took a group portrait, with R on the left, the Runner sitting, me standing, and K sitting next to me.

R looked gloriously handsome as he stared adoringly at the Runner with the canyons behind him.

We didn't stay very long on this plateau. The stormy weather had passed, and the stifling heat of the desert had returned. K and I took a short mountain bike ride in the early morning heat.

By evening, we were back at 9000', now in the Abajo Mountains of Utah.

K looked much happier in the cool mountain air! Little did we know how much excitement the next day would bring, including a bear being chased past our campsite, a nearby forest fire, and a solar eclipse.

The heart of a dog

I wonder what K was dreaming of yesterday evening as she cast her eyes toward the heavens.

 Perhaps she was remembering those days of bliss in the La Sal mountains.

Despite it being only mid-May when we were there, I climbed high in the mountains, crossing a pass as high as 11,600'. Usually, this pass doesn't melt out until July. The drought is intense. If K does rebound, perhaps we'll take advantage of it for one last short foray up into the high mountains.

Perhaps, as her eyes searched the sky, K was imagining floating like an angel through the meadow, just as she did a short time ago.

Whatever she dreamed of, she seemed to smile. Ah, the heart of a dog...