Guarding the Territory

  Lori caught 2 coyotes getting close in the back yard.  The dogs were baring away, but the coyotes seemed to know that the dogs wouldn't go beyond the "Invisible Fence", and didn't seem too concerned, which is a little troubling.  They back off with humans around though.  The coyotes parked themselves a hundred yards away and watched Teddy guard his terrain.  Interestingly, when we let Max out, who isn't constrained by the fence, and when he when down into the valley behind the house, the coyotes got up quick and took off.  Max isn't inclined to go chasing after them, so things seem comfortable enough as it is.

  This morning I took the dogs out back for a hike.  The coyotes seem not to come round when the "pack" is out.  The dogs won't walk with me through the barrier, and I load them all up in the Landcruiser and take a ride to the end of the driveway, and off we go.

  Lori also got a nice shot of a doe eyeing the bird-feeder again.  We've kept the back feeder empty to discourage them.  It may end up that we simply will have to cage all the feeders.

  Last weekend we had some great weather.  At the local ranch store where I get our birdseed, they were selling outdoor benches, wood and wrought iron, that looked attractive and I thought would look good in the back.  Of course, assembly was required and Lori caught me working on a Sunday.

Some new visitors to the back yard.  We hadn't seen this pair before

Winter Maples

We got a little bit of snow last night, about an inch or so.  It sure helps to keeps the dust down.  It's a lot better when Tucker ends up rolling in the snow instead of thick clay dust.  Although, mud isn't the best either.

Mom brought us some maple seedlings when they visited from Chicago last year.  A few got planted in the landscaped areas and didn't survive the transfer.  We had five remaining seedlings in a pot filled with the worst Colorado clay I think that she could find.  We were keeping them out in the garage, which is heated but not much light and so I brought them into Lori's "greenhouse" area in the basement, which they seem to like rather well.  All of a sudden we have leafed out plants in the middle of February.  We still have to transplant them into decent soil and individual planters soon.  I think we will leave them indoors, or as patio plants, for a few years.  Hopefully they can survive the altitude.

We also transplanted some of the lavender from the old house, as it seems very hardy and spreads nicely.  Those plants also like the heated floor of the greenhouse, and have new shoots and leaves.   The orchids probably won't go into the outdoor landscaping.

We've been Organizing

  No, not stiff arming fellow workers into joining a union.  Not the kind of organizing that's intended to launch a political career either.  I bought a bunch of shelving and cabinets and spent a couple of weekends clearing out a lot of the scrap wood, tile etc that was in the garage and moving it to places either for long term storage, or in the case of the slate tiles, close to the back patio where they will be laid on top of the concrete for the future grill area.

  In the garage, we bought metal "gear" cabinets from Lowes.  Unfortunately, these came unassembled and came with an awful lot of screws, bolts etc.  Not hard to do but tedious, even with the power screwdriver.

(I should have taken a picture of the unassembled parts for effect!)

The two cabinets have five shelves each.  There are two base cabinets with a hard top that I originally was going to place between, but we were in Costco and they had this great maple top work bench, 8 foot wide and coated with polyurethane that was a great price.  Looks good enough for inside.  The base cabinets had a good spot underneath the window.  I bought mounting racks to go over the bench, on which will hang a couple of wall mount cabinets and other storage units.  Whenever I feel like dealing with all the screws and such again.

The floor is still somewhat messy, even though I used that monstrous shop vac there in the picture, there is a lot of drywall spackle on the concrete, and the cardboard is for oil pickup.  The back wall here was filled with leftover wood from the trim work.  That all made it down to the shed.

  We'll probably move the stuff out again to paint the walls, when it warms up. Then I can put up the wall mounts.

The cabinets had to fit around the control boxes, on the left for the Invisible Fence and the right for the sprinkler system.

I'm still working on snow-blower parking.  It's  a big piece and seems to fit here alright, but Lori's car is parked outside at the moment while I did the garage rearranging and we'll see how maneuverable everything is once the car is in.  Won't do to pull the car out without being able to clear off the snow.  Shoveling isn't a good option anymore, because I don't want too.

We had a number of stainless steel racks/shelving already.  Those were working out well, particularly with the rolling casters.  So I bought seven more units of various sizes.  For now, they are in the "secret storage room", located behind the bar through the hidden passage.

It's hard to tell from the picture but there are five racks in here.  Another was placed in the garage, and one in the under deck  "shed".  The garage and shed units are pretty solid, holding 600 pounds per shelf, with the large unite five feet wide and 2 feet deep, 6 feet high.

The shed was initially a four sided retaining wall that was to be filled with dirt, but we had an opening cut and put in a garage style door in the front.

The shelving on the right has been in here for awhile.  The wood fits nicely on the top, Lori's pots and gardening stuff on some of the other shelves.  A lot of that will come out during planting time. The slabs in the back are leftover marble and granite.  Hopefully we'll find a use for it..

 The left side has one of the new shelves, and Lori's gardening bench which can be wheeled to where it's needed. 

   The room is well insulated, as the back and right wall are underground and the left wall is foundation wall for the house.  It makes for a decent cigar smoking room, hence the chair and the heater.  The atmosphere isn't great inside, but the view out the door is.

Lori didn't get her green house with the landscaping.  With the concrete heated floors and wall of windows, I expect that the downstairs great room will be put to gardening use as a starter site.

Howling at the Setting Moon

I was up and getting ready for work. Sunrise occurs after 7:00A, and as I was sitting down to check the latest spam in my Email in box I saw the moon getting ready to set in the west just as the mountains were catching the early rays of the rising sun, giving off a pink hue. I whipped up the tripod and caught the last of the moon.





The coyote came around, at the back of the house, and was howling up a storm. A couple of the dogs from the horse ranch were wandering around the area where he must have a den, and scared him over towards us. Those dogs a biggies, Kangals from the looks of them, and probably weigh more than 120 pounds. This guy and 3 of his friends wouldn't want to mess with them. He seems a loner, and we catch him going off to hunt cutting across the back area by the barbed wire fence fairly regularly. The dogs bark and keep him away usually, but he got pretty close here.

I forgot this one

I went in to Petsmart for supplies, and Santa was there getting "his" picture taken with dogs. I was walking through the store and Santa called out to me by name. What a surprise. It was somebody who recognized me from the office. She was working with Every Creature Counts, the organization that we adopted Tucker through. Now, I happened to have all the dogs in the Landcruiser, and they were willing to try getting all of us in one picture. It wasn't as easy as it sounds, because all of the dogs got pretty excited being in the store with all their buddies and all the other dogs. Several shots were required and these were the best we got. We couldn't get all the dogs to look at the camera at the same time.
Since it was somebody that knew me, I was extra generous with the donation amount for the pictures. We got a nice framed shot, and they were nice enough to email me the set.

We've been Busy

The Holidays are over and Lori has taken down the decorations. I've been busy with work and have been getting home pretty late in the evenings. For the past several days I've been putting together chrome shelving to help organize in the basement storage area and garage. We also bought garage shelving, which happened to come with a trillion screws (the number might be inflated, but it seemed to be close to the number of dollars in the national budget), and putting those together has occupied the last 2 weekends, in between watching football. Breaking down the boxes for recycle hasn't been a quick task either.
Lori decorated for the Holidays. Our outside lights are still in storage and we didn't get those up.

Lori put up a couple of trees, one in the great room and one downstairs in Mom's sitting room. I think she wants to leave that one up year round.

The mantle looked good and a couple of reindeer are up in the "art nooks".


If you look close at the foyer walls you can see we replaced the "light bulb fixtures" with new sconces. I'll need to get a close up. They look very rustic and fit well with the chandelier.

Mom's liking the kitchen again. She made some pecan goodies.


We all had a great time opening gifts, and the dogs joined in on the fun.




Aunt Mary sent us some cool ceramics. The eagle was my favorite.




All the excitement wore Mom out, but here she is back to her usual active self.


Lori's birthday comes quick after the holidays. Unfortunately, our favorite restaurant closed down. We found a new place closer for us, with sushi and chinese. Who could ask for more?






There's been plenty of wildlife around. The bird feeders and heated baths have been very popular.



There are 5 seed feeders and a caged suet feeder in various spots. Even then, occasionally there aren't enough open slots.

The birds hang out waiting for their chance to get in.


The bluejays don't usually wait, and just rush in and chase off the little guys.

She's not interested in these guys


Flickers like the baths, and will go for the suet usually on the colder days. We've heard them rattling on the spark arrestor above the fireplace chimney several times, unfortunately usually early morning.

Plenty of goldfinch, although they aren't as colorful this time of year.

This little falcon comes round once in awhile. His colors are great even in winter.

A flock of starlings will drop in now and then. I had to cage the suet feeder to keep them from devouring 2 cakes in half a day. They like to make it fun with a hot tub party.




This guy just likes to hang out in the study.

A couple mornings I was surprised to find the birdfeeders completely cleaned out even though they were filled the day before. One evening the dogs alerted me to what was going on. 3 deer were coming by for a snack and tounging the seed from the feeders. Lori caught this doe sneaking up.

Lori also found this neighborhood dog eating up the fallen bits from the feeder. Needless to say, Max wasn't happy about his visit.


These guys have been hanging around for a few weeks. I shot this at sunrise while they were atop a ridge out back. They haven't been in our yard yet, and I hope the dogs are enough to keep them away. A neighbor had several new pines stripped out by these guys, and caught them red handed (hooved?) in the back yard at 4:30 one morning.