Wordless Wednesday

Summertime beauty

Do you remember this guy?

I captured so many photos of him moving around the area over the course of a week that I made a video of them. You can watch it here or at Youtube.

It was an amazing opportunity to see a mountain lion moving around the area where he/she had made a kill. I haven't found the carcass yet but I suspect that I'll find it before too long because it can't be far from where my camera was.

Meanwhile, my K is seeming a bit better each day. She and I have had short early morning adventures, and her energy seems to be rebounding toward normal with occasional setbacks. She has an ultrasound coming up soon to look at her kidneys and see if they are returning to normal.

Although I'm happy to see K getting better, I deeply miss visiting the aspen groves filled with Columbines with her. Those groves are too far away for K to run to them yet. We've visited them together every year of her life. The peacefulness of this aspen grove matches K's sweet and loving soul.

Each day that K has missed visiting the Columbines with me, I take a photo for her. It feels symbolic, like I'm sharing it with her even though she's not there. Today, the wild strawberries had burst onto the scene among the Columbines. I sat and ate sweet berries while I soaked up the beauty. Tomorrow, I plan to bring a wild strawberry (or two) home for K.

Our world is vibrating with life right now. We're getting daily rain showers, and flowers adorn almost every iota of the forest floor. A veritable forest of Twinflowers covered a riparian corridor within a pine forest this morning. These petite flowers stand only a few inches tall with tiny blossoms nodding from their stalks.

I hope with all my heart that K recovers soon enough to visit the amazing groves of wildflowers with me before their blooming season is over!

I hope that you're all enjoying the summertime beauty!

Alpine adventures

Continuing with stories from our camping trip to the high mountains southwest of us in Colorado...

The start of our trip was delayed by K's kidney infection. After waiting for her to "get out of the woods", we devised a plan so that we could take our trip without stressing K. We did a "tag team" approach, where the Runner and R would go for a trail run each morning while I took K for a stroll near camp.

 

When the runners returned to camp, they'd hang out with K in the shade while I went for a mountain bike ride.

I kept running into walls of snow blocking the trails on my alpine mountain biking adventures.

The photo above shows a very small wall of snow that I managed to clamber across. Some of the walls were 50' tall with cornices overhanging their edges. This trail is almost always open, free of snow, by late June or early July. Not this year...

I didn't even try to climb the wall shown the photo above, even though my favorite section of mountain bike trail on Earth was on the other side of it. I saw a mountain biker approach the snowbank from the other direction. He tried to carry his bike down it, slipped, and slid at high speed down into the rocks below the snow. He was very lucky that he was okay.

I knew that my fragile spine would not survive a fall like that one so I contented myself with enjoying the flowers sprouting at the edge of the melting snow.

Old Men of the Mountain...

Alpine Avens...

At one snowfield, a marmot played a funny trick on me. A family of these highly social rodents had been playing on the snowfield when I barged onto the scene. Four of them clambered up a rocky hillside and disappeared into their den. One marmot stayed behind, lying stationary in the snow.

I cautiously inched closer to him, hoping that he'd stir and show me that he was alive and well. He didn't. However, I noticed that he was blinking his eyes, and then I saw the rise and fall of his chest.

I sadly thought that he was probably very sick and dying. So, I turned my back and walked away so I wouldn't stress him out. A good distance away, I took some photos of wildflowers. Then, I heard the shrill whistle of a marmot. I looked back at the snowfield, and the "dying" marmot was gone. Then, I spotted him standing on his hind legs on a boulder whistling at me. After catching my attention, he sprinted up the hill and into his den. I imagined the whole marmot family laughing at the naive human whom he'd tricked!

After my bike ride, I returned to laze around camp with the pack.

The sun shined so brightly that the Duo needed caps! R donned his "Black Dog Tavern" cap and K donned her "Chocolate" cap.

Yellow flowers painted the meadow surrounding our campsite golden. The bumblebees buzzed from one blossom to the next, sipping sweet nectar.

And, we finished our day with a short hike as a foursome in the cool evening air. Ah, I'll never tire of this view.

Several of you have kindly inquired about whether my internet connection has been fixed. It's been sort of fixed. It works sporadically for downloading but not at all for uploading. So, I'm still imposing on friends, libraries, and coffee shops whenever I need to upload anything substantial. I sure hope that it gets solved soon but I'm getting pessimistic that we may be forced to go for satellite internet.

Happy Summer!

Happy Summer, with photos from last Sunday at our campsite!

Bear visit and high altitude adventures

While we were out of town, a young bear visited our clearing to check out our bear-proof bird feeder.

He stood up on his hind legs to peer up at the feeders about 6' over his head.

He changed his vantage point but still had no luck reaching.

He considered his options.

He dropped back to four paws before giving up and moving on.

Usually, the bears who check our feeders appear to be young males, likely on their long travels away from where they were born. They have the disadvantage of not knowing the territories that they're walking through so they investigate all food sources, including those near houses.

Meanwhile, we were exploring up in the high mountains near South Park of Colorado. We encountered the usual stormy weather and lots of snow. This snow bank was at around 12,000' elevation.

Huge snow banks blocked some of my favorite trails but alpine flowers were sprouting at their edges.

 "Sky Pilots", high altitude wildflowers were buffeted by high winds as a thunder storm chased me off the alpine tundra.

I sprinted back to our campsite, just barely beating the arrival of pelting hail and scary lightning.

As the storm started to clear out, a faint rainbow appeared.

As sunset approached, the storms cleared out leaving behind a lush meadow and picturesque clouds.

And then the sun set on our first day in my favorite campsite.

K's mending

I thought that our internet problems might be solved by now... but they're not. Our current company gets two more strikes, and then they're "out". However, the alternative, satellite internet, is not attractive. They get horrible reviews everywhere I look. So, I'll keep trying with our current company a little longer.

I've been worrying about my K, as her recovery from her kidney infection seems slow. She's been on strong antibiotics for about 2.5 weeks but still lacks her normal sparkle. I talked with her vet yesterday who explained that it often takes 8-12 weeks before a dog (or human) fully recovers so she's not too concerned with K's seemingly slow progress. However, we're doing an ultrasound next week to make sure that K's kidney appears to be on the mend. We can tweak her meds if needed.

Given my worries, I love when I capture instants when she romps like this one!

I hope that you're all doing well!

PS The flower from my last post was a Spotted Saxifrage, and Sue T had the right species name in her comment!

Almost Wordless Wednesday from an Internet Cafe

The photos are from home, not from the cafe!

I've named this next guy "Mo", short for "Mohawk". He's been a regular for the past two years.

I have high hopes that I'll be back to visiting blogs from home sometime soon!

Update on K and wildlife flurry

I just wanted to give you a quick update. We still have no internet but I'm at the library. After we received the go-ahead from the vet that K could travel despite her kidney infection, we took a short trip to a beautiful part of Colorado. This was the view from one of our campsites.

K spent most of her days lying in the shade, drinking lots of water, and being pampered. By the last day, she looked almost like herself, standing proud by the mountains. You can see her shaved belly from the ultrasound of her kidneys.

Meanwhile, my wildlife cameras have been seeing a huge flurry of activity from a mountain lion and bears. A mountain lion has been circling a small area for more than a week. I believe that he killed a large prey item and has it cached nearby.

He's been going back and forth in a gully that's seen no human activity in a year.

In the next photo, you can see how full his belly was, hanging down like an overfilled water balloon below his spine.

He's still in the same small area as of today. Believe it or not, over the weekend while I was away, a parade of out-of-town people and very small dogs (off-leash) kept walking through this gully. When I saw the photos, I could not believe the incredibly bad timing. I haven't heard any rumors of missing dogs or attacked people so I guess that it all turned out okay (the people seem to be gone). It's a testament to the fact that mountain lions are not easily provoked to go after dogs or people, even when they unknowingly go close to a hidden carcass.

The only downside to the fiasco was that I had to move my camera because the people spotted it - and that's a recipe for getting a camera stolen. It's now hidden incredibly well and is off the people's path. Maybe it will catch some more action.

We have technicians coming to work on our internet later this week. Please cross your fingers that we get a connection. I miss visiting your blogs!