Welcome to Our World

8:00 AM temp: 59
Yesterday: 63/45
Normal: 73/45

The neighbors

We finally saw a fawn yesterday. I’ve been watching for weeks, but apparently they come later in the spring than I expected. This one was born next door, on a fenced lot of nearly an acre. The fawn is out of sight in the brush most of the time, but ventured out with mama this evening. Mama comes and goes, but the fawn will be on that property until it is old enough to jump the fence.

Last year a fawn was also born on that property, and one evening later in the summer we saw several adult deer on the outside of the fence and the fawn frantically running the fence line but unable to get out. It was hard to watch, but it is probably actually a safe place for a young deer to grow up, out of reach of neighborhood dogs.

Tough Birds

8:00 AM temp: 49
Yesterday: 62/46
Normal: 66/39

Spring green

I heard some noise this morning and went outside to shoo away any woodpeckers that were attacking the roof or exhaust vents, as they occasionally do, and saw two flickers sparring. Ah, Spring.

Someone is excited to have plants and flowers on the deck this summer. But mid-May is still a bit early for potted plants in this climate – a low of 30 is forecast in a few days. I’ll have to baby them.

I’ve recently returned from the red rock country of southern Utah. Arrived home at night and woke up to Spring, definitely with a capital ‘S’. The view out the window has turned aggressively green. The aspen are especially vivid.

Fortunately the male robin who was valiantly conquering his reflection last Spring, and making a mess of the windows on one side of the house, has not turned in a repeat performance. I was in the process of buying the house at that time and it was vacant, so he was free to bully his reflection undisturbed. Hopefully having residents in the house will dissuade him from picking up the gauntlet again.

 

Bear Stories

8:00 AM temp: 24
Yesterday: 41/24
Normal: 56/31

We watched as a black bear walked through the yard one night in November. It left these tracks next to the house.

The bears are out and about again. According to the paper, a turkey hunter in the southern part of the valley was charged by a grizzly that was, along with her two yearling cubs, feeding on a deer carcass. A motion camera subsequently placed near the spot filmed a large male grizzly feeding on the carcass the same evening.

Closer to home, it would be surprising to see a grizzly in the neighborhood, but we did have a black bear scavenging for garbage here in the fall. We came home from a weekend of camping to find a bag of trash (not ours) strewn around the back yard along with several piles of bear droppings. While on our walks over the next week or so we occasionally saw garbage cans knocked over. Then one night around 2 a.m. Steve happened to get up and look out the window, catching sight of the bear walking up through the back yard toward the house.

As the bear walked around the side of the house we ran to a glass door and pulled up the shade, and the bear was standing just a few feet away from us. It ambled on around to the front of the house and across the street. When it started checking out garbage cans we decided to try to scare it off, waving flashlights and yelling from our front porch. It wasn’t too worried about us, but eventually did shuffle off.

There was a skiff of fresh snow, so in the morning we followed his tracks around the neighborhood. He was obviously looking to strike it lucky with an unsecured garbage can. It didn’t look like he found any that night, but sadly people seem to be quite casual about leaving the cans outside with garbage in them.

Lunch time walk

8:00 AM temp: 30
Yesterday: 40/26
Normal: 56/31

There’s a cold wind blowing today. Even Tess decided it was too cold to swim. She thought it was a good day to work on some of her other jobs, chasing sticks on dry land and rolling in the grass. She works hard at
keeping her skills current.

Seasons, cycles, and change

8:00 AM temp: 39
Yesterday: 52/22
Normal: 55/31

Spring visitors

The deer are back. And so am I, after travels south to find the sun. The grass is starting to green up, but there is snow in the hills and the forecast calls for an inch or two of snow here in the valley today. The fluctuations of spring.

There is something comforting about watching the ebb and flow of the seasons. It feels eternal, timeless, certain. Yet, this is an illusion. The earth bears the marks of historic variations in climate, from ice ages to warmer periods. But no change has occurred as rapidly as the one that we are currently in the early stages of. What will spring look like here in 10 years?