Category Archives: Dogs

Dogs, Family, Our Land and Home, Photography

Love is Enough

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Lugnasa                                                                           Superior Wolf (new) Moon

love is enough
love is enough

A gray morning on Shadow Mountain. Cooled down yesterday, feels good. The painting and staining are done. Next up is the downstairs bathroom. Zero entry shower. Some quiet here right now.

Kate finished a project begun after my 2013 trip to the Pre-Raphaelite show at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. This needlepoint came from the museum shop for the Pre-Raph show. When we get it framed, it will have a small plaque that reads, Vega.

Jon starts back to his work tomorrow. He’s the art teacher at Montview Elementary in Aurora, an eastern suburb of Denver. It’s been a summer of lawyers and courts, frustrations and doubts for him. He’s looking forward to getting back to work with his students. The commute from here to his school, we’re some distance west from the west edge of Denver and Aurora’s on the eastern edge, is substantial, but common for folks who live in the Conifer area.

While at the Denver County Fair, I got this photograph of three young Latinas dressed up to party.

Latinas at the Denver County Fair

 

 

Dogs, Garden, Our Land and Home

Work Around the House

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Beltane                                                                        Moon of the Summer Solstice

Low solar efficiency in April
Low solar efficiency in April

Actions have consequences. Putting up the solar panels means we have to pay attention to those things that impair our efficiency. Last month’s electric bill was $10.28, but pine pollen has coated the panels again and is reducing production. No rain forecast, so I’m going to get up on the roof with a hose (what could go wrong?) and wash them off myself.

The rains of the past few weeks have also grown a nice crop of fuel in the back so Kate’s going to take to the lawn mower. We have to keep the fuel mown down to less than 6″. Kate’s also been prettying up the garden beds around the house, satisfying her dig in the soil and make things grow need. Looks nice.

Finding a contractor to wash and reseal the wood siding for the garage and the shed is a next task. Bids. Something I want to get done before the summer is over. And the garage itself needs clearing out, as I’ve mentioned.

Rigel had two teeth pulled yesterday during a dental visit to Sano hospital. She’s doing well this morning although last night she woke Kate up with her barking.

Dogs

Gertie

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Beltane                                                                   Moon of the Summer Solstice

go-go girls: Gertie in the foreground, Rigel in back
go-go girls: Gertie in the foreground, Rigel in back

Gertie. A rascal, a little ornery dog. On Monday, when I went to Littleton to pick up my new reading glasses, I took the go-go girls, Rigel and Gertie, with me. Like most dogs they like to stick their heads out the window, let the wind blow their hair, take in the smell-o-rama wafting toward them. Now that it’s summer we put the windows down for them.

However. Having not yet learned to lock the windows (me), I looked at the right outside mirror while stopped at a light. Huh. Gertie had her front feet draped over the window, hanging on the outside of the car. Then. Huh? Gertie vaulted herself out of the car and onto Deer Creek Canyon Road. OMG! I opened my door to go get her, willing to suffer whatever the folks behind threw at me. Before I could get out, she trotted around the front of the car, came to me when I called her and I pulled her back inside. All this while the light was still red.

She had stepped on the electric window button and lowered the window all by herself. I could have anticipated this. But I didn’t. She’s turned on the air conditioning, set the emergency lights blinking and kicked the car out of gear. Now I lock the windows when the go-go girls are in the car.

Dogs, Family, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Soon, Back to the Marathons

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Beltane                                                                     Moon of the Summer Solstice

Kate at work yellowIt’s Sunday. We’ll head out in a bit for our business meeting, going somewhere nearby for breakfast. This is a routine, weekly. These meetings where we discuss money matters, calendar, upcoming projects, how we’re doing are an important part of our marriage. They prevent issues that could divide us or surprise us from sneaking into our lives. In a sense they’re the board meeting for our marriage in its quasi-corporate aspect, but more than that they are a commitment to open discussion, to mutual decision making, to the sort of hard headed pragmatism I believe many people around the world see in American culture. Thanks to Ruth Hayden.

The sprint that started after we got back from Asia with Vega’s sudden, fatal illness, then the copyright infringement legal problem and the subsequent expunging of images from Ancientrails, followed by three weeks or so of fire mitigation is nearly over. Cleaning out the garage and organizing it, clearing off the swedish shelving in the house and getting the china cabinet upstairs into the guest room will be the last of it. Then I will get back to Latin, to Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf, and reimagining faith. That is, I’ll get back to working on them in the mornings.

 

Dogs, Family, Garden, Health

Kep’s Last Visit to Award Winning Pet Grooming

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Beltane                                                               Running Creeks Moon

ellipticalNo lumberjacking today. This old body needed time to recoup. Back at it tomorrow.

The elliptical we bought has spared my knee the throbbing and swelling of high intensity workouts on the treadmill. I can now do the same workout, but in a fluid, joint friendly motion. The old P90X workouts help round out the return to serious muscle and cardio-vascular exercise.

KepTook Kep over to Award Winning Pet Grooming in Bailey. Bailey is to the west on Highway 285. It’s the big city in Park County at 8, 859 souls. Amanda Gordon has defurred Kep several times as the alternating hotter and colder weather of this year’s El Nino winter has caused dogs all over the front range to blow their coats. This was probably Kep’s last visit to Award Winning since he will head to Georgia, early July. Kate and I both will go.

Kate’s been gardening today. She’s wanted to do some, finally decided to just do it. Her friend Hannah and her husband Seth ate lunch with Kate. They cleared out most of the logs in the front. There are about twice as many in the back, maybe 3 times as many.

Dogs, Family, Memories, Weather +Climate

Shadow Mountain Happenings

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Beltane                                                                          Running Creeks Moon

Gertie after her wound repair
Gertie after her wound repair

A sleety snow this morning, 36 degrees. Will turn back into rain as the day heats up.

Gertie goes in today to get her e-collar off and her drain removed. She’s already back to her energetic self and is eager to run free. Hopefully, not into more slash. We moved all the slash that was close to the house yesterday and the day before, so hopefully she’ll remain unpunctured until we get done.

joe and seoah saying thanksHave spent no time catching up on the Indy 500 this year. I think it was Kurt Vonnegut, born in Indianapolis, who said Indiana living involved basketball season and waiting for the Indy 500. Not far off.

Heard from Joe. He and Seoah are legally married now, having filed their papers with the Korean court system. That means they can now go to the US embassy and begin the visa process. It’s different for a married couple and they had to wait until the legal completion of their marriage. They go June 8.

Dogs, Health, Our Land and Home

Wounded

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Beltane                                                                      Running Creek Moon

Gertie
Gertie

Dogs. Gertie chased a critter yesterday afternoon. Fast. Paying apparently quite close attention to the critter, but not to the downed tree in the way. She ripped open her right side, a good tear. She’s at the vets right now getting sewn up. Again. Wounds are her trademark. Since we’ve had her, she’s been into the vet many times for torn flesh. Part of it is her go for it mentality, part of it’s her bite first, bark later attitude. We’re good customers at Sano.

Spent some time this morning cutting up downed trunks into logs for Seth. Lugging the peavey and the chain saw around wears me out. I’m not as strong as I was last fall. Restarted my resistance work with modified P90X workouts on Monday. Between the logging and the P90X, my strength will improve. Better than what I was doing last summer this time, fussing about prostate cancer.

 

Dogs, Health, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Go-go girls

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Beltane                                                                           Running Creeks Moon

Rigel
Rigel

Rigel and Gertie are the go-go girls. Whenever we leave the house, together or singly, they get big grins, bump us, start moving toward the back door, then back to us, repeat. Into the truck they go, bounding up and into the back. Only to lie down and often go to sleep. They don’t seem to care how long the trip. On the way home Rigel always gets up, starts looking around. They’re having fun, so we enjoy taking them with us.

Dr. Repine sweeps into the room with her white-gold hair. Her examinations are thorough, practiced. She sweeps the various magnifiers over my eyes, the ones that allow her to see the inner parts of my eye directly, dons a headlamp that would not look like out of place on a miner and picks up a thick magnifier. Look up. Look down. Look to the right. To the left. Good. Everything’s looking fine.

Gertie
Gertie

Eyeball pressures are 14. Which is in the normal range. Glaucoma held at bay by Latanoprost. Cataracts, however, are advancing, changing my reading prescriptions. She says if they get much worse we’ll just take them out. Oh. Just? The good news is that cataract surgery often helps glaucoma by lowering the pressure in the eye. Something to look forward to?

Kate went with me. We went over to Whistling Duck, a furniture maker, to discuss beetle kill pine dining room tables. Kate had her measurements. She talked tables while I wandered around looking at the displays. We’re still in the early stages, getting quotes.

And, the sun. The sun. Blue skies. Winter to summer. Down the hill, that is. It was 78 in Littleton yesterday, but as we drove back up into the mountains the temperatures dropped, 54 when we got home. Ah.