Waking up to this

Hiking with Jax

I've had no shortage of medical issues this year but it feels like it's getting better overall. I had my colonoscopy last week and it's all good. Jax and I's hikes are getting a little longer as the healed continues.

Other days we go down to the beach and play stick.

Life

Each time it rains the trees which use to be on top of the upper land is getting further away from the banks.

The monsoon season is coming and each evening has clouds in it and we got four days of rain but so far nothing serious, but if it comes, as it did twice last year we're pretty good at getting through it.

Kobae comes to the porch evening around 5pm to eat. Any day now he will head down the driveway and want to go hiking. I put my pack together today and i'm ready for him.

The Critters

Jax and I hit the beach a couple days ago and as soon as we rounded the corner at the boat ramp I saw Jax take off up the creek bed chasing a deer. About 30 seconds later he came running out of the creek bed with the deer chasing him. When the deer rounded the corner and saw me it changed direction and took off back up the creek bed with Jax chasing it.

Find a place where the water is not moving much and it's pretty warm.

We went down and visited the other beach and it has a sort of grass beginning to grow on it.

Kobae has gotten a little weirder also. Hard to do. He is always hungry. Now some feedings he just quits eating in the middle of a cucumber or romaine and walks across the drive way to his house where he retreats into his hole. When it gets dark he comes out.

Just as I was tying the last paragraph I hear a noise in the hallway leading to my office and walking into the hallway there is a raccoon and Jax getting ready to square off. I chased it back outside with a broom. Getting a little daring. There was no shortage of raccoons tonight. At least 10 or 12 and same for foxes.

It's Quiet

Reservations are down quite a bit at Base Camp for the summer. It's the same in Moab. Through May 31st I thought it was going to be a record year and then June, July, and August just crashed. September and October look ok but not as good as last year. At Mad Bro the other day they said they went to order lunch and the first three restaurants they called were all closed for August. Even in the summer I'd get at least one disc golfer vehicle a day pull up and now I get a couple a week. Even those wandering up the drive way lost or looking for a bathroom is almost none existant.

It's been a weird year in a lot of ways. When the snow melt ended and the river went down usually the next three or so weeks are mosquitoe season until the bats and swallows polish them off. This year I saw three mosquitoes total. This is the time in August where the temps usually drop five or so degrees into the 90s but that doesn't look like it's going to happen so Jax and I are spending a lot of time at the Wind Caves and the beaches.

The main beach at the boat ramp is more like a little paradise with streams running through it here and there and twenty degrees cooler.

Really unusual the other night at the little people feeding in the evening no raccoons showed up. None. I don't remember such a night. The foxes got a lot of hot dogs. Next day at the beach Jax and I discovered why no raccoons showed up. Lots of tracks and fish bones laying around.

The Property

Without having to go anywhere just hiking the property is pretty spectacular.

Hiking with Jax without smoke

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Hiking with Jax in Utah and Arizona Smoke

Kobae Damage

Surgery

So the hospital called and my cat scan is back. My gall bladder has infection and they suggest removing it. First they want me to do a colonoscopy and then ten days later the gall bladder surgery. I should probably schedule all this in August as Kobae usually starts hiking the end of August and if we're going to get a monsoon flood this year will probably be in September and I'll need to have recovered by then.

About a Week Ago

Kobae finished his 6pm meal on the porch and instead of walking back across the parking lot to his house he went inside the lodge into the laundry room and didn't come out. In time I close the front door and Jax and I went to bed. At some point Kobae decided he wanted to go home but the front door was closed. He rammed it over and over, broke the frame even. Knocked all the vacuumn cleaners in the corner over, moved a couch around, knocked the lamp off the table, and knocked over a five drawer cabinet. I pulled him away from the front door so I could open it and he went across the parking lot to his house. So the next night he slept in the front door so I couldn't close it. I came out at 2am and he was gone. I walked over to his pen and he somehow in the darkness of night found his way back over to his house and was sitting outside. Now I leave the front door open at night. I use to leave it open anyway but the baby raccoons, there are eight of them between mothers tip the bird baths and trash cans over every night. I put four of the cans in the garage and bring one into the kitchen. I sweep Kobae's walkway so I can see his tracks when I come out in the morning and know he's gone back in his house. Then I lock his gate but three days ago he escaped and I had to shore up his fence with more poles. He's a lot of work and expensive food wise.

Now we're getting smoke from fires down south.