Sunday, May 30, 2010

Holiday Weekend




It was a busy holiday weekend, but the dogs were all settled with their pools
and fresh water and their morning free runs. Some dogs love their pools for wading,
others for drinking, others for just standing , but a few others for chewing plastic.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

summertime easy living






A rare family gathering... fun to be together. Tim put his new sailboat in and took his sister for a sail. The dogs are quite restless with the relentless hot temperatures (87, 89).

Monday, May 24, 2010

Another hot day




Sierra ran to the truck twice today , as if to say, "let's go to the lake", so we did. It was another 88 degree, humid hot day for dogs at SPK. We added more pools and more shade tarps and they were still too hot, and very quiet.

Photos by Katie Richard, thank you, Katie!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

88 Degrees

Enough said, whew!

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Still Hauling Straw

We're not lost, we're here and we are still hauling straw, almost done.
We're into mowing now, trimming, treating for ticks/fleas, repairing houses,
the multitasking of spring/summer. The dogs are busy digging their hideout dens.
Ruthie,specifically, is engineering an escape a day, digging up the largest boulders we can put down, challenging us each time... 'see, I can still get out!'
A few dog health issues and we're hoping for good outcomes from our vet visits coming up.

Wildlife abounds. We have a logger starting on Monday to clean up old /dying trees, etc. They'll be here about one month, so the wildlife will be skittish.

Power is the biggest dilemma right now. He acts fearful, won't go into his pen... am wondering if he has a bit of dementia onset at age twelve.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

"The River"








Today we took Skinny to the river property. I took him out there when
he first came from Alaska. At that time he swam the river then climbed up
on a big rock and sat watching the river. Now his footing is unstable, but he did have a nice time exploring all of the scents. He came back with a ton of ticks, but he had a great time.

In addition, we managed to get the usual work done, along with some long overdue extras.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Black Bear Visitor



Skinny found some mosses dug up on our trail walk this morning and I thought it was probably a black bear visitor. This afternoon I had just fed the corn for the deer and in walked this fellow. He was very much at home and sat right down to eat.
I walked out on the deck to get a photo, however, and he scampered off.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Red in the Morning...




Sailors take warning! We already have about two inches of snow on the ground,
sagging tarps, wet dogs and a little girl's birthday party forced inside.
More snow to come!

Red at night, sailor's delight... maybe tomorrow?

or... "Rain before seven, stop by eleven?"

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Cats


Again today I saw a medium size wild cat. This time it was at the opposite end of the land, coming up from my waste pit. I was hauling waste with the ATV and saw it launch itself as soon as it heard me. It ran fast and I chased after it to try to identify it.... I saw it two more times, first with its back legs extended, 'flying low' through the underbrush... then again 'flying' through the brush headed for the road. I didn't mean to scare it, of course, but I then ran down to the road, of course, to not see it. It was solid gold color, about the height of my Elkhound.
In reprocessing it , it was possibly a young (yearling?) cat (cougar?). I later saw a dead domestic cat, reminding me that the gold one was at least 3x the size of the domestic cat. Tonight I have the field cameras out, just in case we can grab a photo of it.

Photo: an unidentified animal near the front gate, a favorite spot for the wildlife... a trail crossing... a deer? a fat coyote? don't know.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Free Fun Runs




The dogs always love free running but maybe the best time is in the spring with all of the great fresh
smells to chase.   Today was a good day for all and , in the morning, it was beautiful.  




Photos: Apple blossoms, Yo out running the trails, Frita and daughter, Yepa(white) ran with Medio. We did see what appeared to be a large cat
(as in wild with a long tail) in the area that Yo was running... we surprised it and
it leapt the steep hillside in a single bound (like Super cat). Skinny was with me
at the time and he went a bit wild about it.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Still Hauling

Today we kept working on removing doors and raking/hauling straw from inside the houses.  We used
a small bit of it to cover new grass seed where Skinny had dug numerous craters on the front lawn.
Still no rain to measure, but predictions for it in the coming days.   The flowering trees are beautiful all over the trails.

Skinny had his first bath after he madly dug in a ground hog hole and came up smelling musky.

On the cottage front, we put the pontoon boat in yesterday, in spite of high winds.