An Interesting Week in the Forest....

Well the BEST news is that Susie's (she WAS mine BUT SHE chose Susie), 22 year old mare, Kat, is STILL with us. She was scheduled for ah, "termination" last Wednesday. The vet arrived but the grave digger had a broken hose and couldn't make it till later.  In the mean time I started giving her extra large doses of pain meds and she seems to be MUCH better. the PROBLEM is that the pain meds are like aspirin and will eventually cause other issues that will kill her. BUT she's good for now..... I did take a few pictures Wednesday morning I'll post at the end.

Kats Eye

The mama doe that's been hanging around, I call her "Notch" because she has a rather large notch in her left ear, has FINALLY exposed her fawn.  I saw it once several weeks ago, just a fleeting glance.  Subsequently we've seen Notch all the way up into our "yard".  She's been acting very strange, we thought that perhaps the fawn had died, but Susan saw the fawn (Spot) out playing and eating with mom. Sorry no pictures, well Susie may have one or two but Spot's nearly impossible to find...  Pictures of "Notch" will follow.

Notch

So I get up this morning to 50 degrees. That's right, heater weather in July.  It's suppose to get up to a glorious 64 degrees with "flash flood" warnings from noon until Sunday Evening..... Hmmm more rain...... Well at least the grass will grow (if it warms up) to feed the equine. Guess I'll just have to stay indoors and watch NetFlix....

I'm a little concerned with our garden, because it's been so cool this "summer", all the plants are rather stunted. The Daisies are just starting to open, the Sunflowers are half as tall as they need to be before they bloom. We are getting plenty of Basil and Chives and ONE(1) of the tomatoes is starting to produce "licopene" (what makes them red).  None of the squash plants or melon plants has even produced a flower yet. The shiny garden spot is the Cherry tree we planted last year. No Cherries just yet but it's gotten MUCH larger and has a lot of new growth, I thought it froze to death last winter, all last years growth had been killed but the root system survived.... This year I'll use Solitares solution and put a plastic trash can over it, well her, I call her Virginia, she still has all her Cherries. lol.... (how stupid)!

Cats, six, yes six cats live in the house full time, one lives in the house when the weather is bad, but stays outside when it's nice.... I finally had to run them ALL out of the bedroom at night to get sleep.  If they stay, they play.... and play....and play, inevitably one of them offends another and they start a fight.... this went on night after night until I got the can of "air" (compressed air for cleaning the cameras and the computer), they simply haul ass out of the bedroom with one TINY squirt, then I close 'em out.... Hmmm.... a good nights sleep at last.

So we go to the farmers market in Monument and the sun comes out for a beautiful morning, still only 61 degrees, but sunny is always good.

When we get back, Susan decides to take some "slash" (branches and limbs) to the slash recycling center They grind it into mulch and essentially give it away.... Well you can load it yourself or pay a skip-loader dude $2.00 per bucket, BIG bucket....

In any case I'm working on other things and Susie is loading the truck with the slash.

Clearly one can see the slash pile BEHIND Susie. She's loading the truck from about 30 feet. Hmmmm....

NOW, I am NOT "making fun" of Susan, this is a serious matter. I'm wondering why it SEEMS like MOST  women would rather walk the 30 feet than take the 20 seconds it took me to back the truck up to the pile.  Personally I admit I'm way  to lazy to walk the 30 feet.

For further clarification, Susie cut the branches off the tree, made the pile and is OBVIOUSLY loading the truck while I'm taking pictures.... 

It just seems to me that in the name of efficiency backing the truck... well.......

 I did find a shot that Susie took of Notch and Spot. It's hard to tell from the full frame photo, BUT through the magic of photoshop and the really high pixel rate of Susan's camera, we could crop out all the extraneous stuff and zoom right in.

You can see more photos including Notch and Spot

Some days it just doesn't pay | and to our Military Heros

So this has been a VERY annoying month. (well June and so far July).  First the Red Dodge Ram finally died.  The fuel transfer pump was bad, several hundred dollars. and subsequently caused the injection pump to fail (diesel stuff), Over $1,700.. just for the pump.  One of the back windows is ALSO broken.

Then the White Dodge (Susie's truck) had the transmission rebuilt for $3,500.00+, BUT it runs real nice though.  NOW the brake caliber on the right front side hung and destroyed the rotor.  Figured may as well replace both calibers, at least the destroyed rotor (probably both as it'll be all new) and obviously the brake pads.

So what am I doing on our 4th of July holiday weekend, replacing the brake components on the white truck, a little over $400.00 so far, just in parts. 

GggggRrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Well I suppose the good news is the brakes on the white 3/4 ton are MUCH easier than on the red 1 ton....



On seconds thought, I suppose it could always be worse, think about and pray for the Soldiers, Sailors and Marines in afganistan, iraq and around the world.... Hmmmm Much much worse for them. I (and I hope you too) thank them  for thier service and sacrafice.....