Critters

We've had a fun time with our "critter count."  All of the little woodland creatures are out and about.

We've seen the baby bear a few more times.  He's always crossing the road.  We never see Momma, just the butt-end of baby as he hurries into the forest.

Today I saw 2 grey foxes.  They crossed the road ahead of me.  When I saw the first one I didn't know what it was because he got into the trees so quickly.  Then just a few feet further down the road was an exact duplicate of the first creature, and it turned out to be a fox.  Must have been a breeding pair as they were identical in size from what I could see.

Yesterday as we walked on one of our trails, I spotted a deer on the ridge just to the west of us.  She was going at a pretty good clip... both running and trotting.  We watched her as she climbed up the hill and casually bounced over scrub oak.  She really was covering a lot of distance and we watched until she got into this little meadow quite a ways away.  She crossed the meadow in no time and disappeared back into the trees.  I assumed that because she was moving so fast that maybe a predator was behind her, but I didn't see anyone.  And she wasn't moving in terror or fear, she was probably just enjoying her young, bouncy life in the wilds of Colorado.

And there was an absolutely gorgeous buck down on the county road.  Must have been an 8 pointer.  Magnificent!

And the roadrunner!  Yesterday a roadrunner popped out of the scrub oak next to the road and crossed just in front of the car.  He climbed up the bank next to the road and posed while I stopped the car to try to get a picture.  Lucy (the huntress) saw the beautiful bird, too.  She stood on the window button and it went all of the way down.  Then she bolted out of the stopped car and flew after that bird.  They both ran into the pinons and I thought for sure I wouldn't see Lucy for a while.  But she came back right away.  I don't know how you can possibly get that chase instinct out of a dog.  I would if I could, but she came to me that way.

It's too bad that I can't get any pictures of these creatures.  It's always a surprise when we see them and they're gone in an instant.

The weather has finally eased a little bit.  Our wet season is the monsoon season, July and August.  The clouds would come, the thunder would roar and the lightning started fires.  But what little rain we had was due to the cloud sneering at us after it past.  Once in a while the cloud would spit in our direction... and that's about all we had.

But the 100 degree weather has passed.  We had 90 degrees last week, but the nights get down to the 50's, so it's not so bad.  If you play the doors and windows right, it's comfortable in the house.