Thirty One

Usually when we catch a rock squirrel it's early afternoon and I put it in the laundry room until I feed Kobae and then take it to Dripping Springs. However last night Kobae didn't come across the drive way to eat until 8pm. By the time I got the squirrel to Dripping Springs it only had an hour plus of daylight to hole up and find a safe place. I felt bad about it but got it there as soon as I could. I rarely see a rock squirrel anymore looking out my office window but I hear them running around on the porch so my job is not done.

On Wednesday

While I'm lacing up my boots at 5am Wed morning two baby skunks are running up and down the porch chasing each other. Jax leaves them alone having experienced the not leaving them alone three times. We take the side by side out to The Step on the way to Jackson Hole and then hike out to the long since abandoned lightning shelter at Prommell Oil well.

Then head back to beat the sun to the side by side.

On the way back the Saddle is perfectly sandwiched between the twin towers and we arrive at the side by side just as the sun is coming up the road.

The Holy Books of Tom

Ryan and Chaucie who did an AI book, #1, about developers invading the area and Kobae, Jax, and I fending them off have created a second coloring book. Heather ran across this on Amazon. https://a.co/d/01eMHFcV There's probably a way to highlight it but I couldn't find it. Tom

Cowbirds

The day the red-winged blackbirds leave is the day the cowbirds show up. The red-wings sound like aliens and the cowbirds like R2D2. Life sucks to be a yellow headed blackbird. Once the cowbirds find them they follow them everywhere. Two with such bad luck.

Number 30 to Dripping Springs

Tuesday

When I got the stomach illness last summer I was pretty much bed ridden the whole summer and lost 30 pounds doing so. Couldn't eat anything. After my doctor got it figured out and solved the issue I had lost a lot of upper body strength and conditioning. I was hoping to get better fast enough to get dropped off in town and hike back but I never felt like I regained the stamina to attempt it. I'm gonna try it before the end of the year so better start getting in shape again. Best time to do that is barely daylight before the sun hits. On Tuesday Jax and I took the side by side to the bottom of Hurrah and hiked up to the balance rock and back. I think I could have made it to the top but I didn't want to take a chance on not getting back before the sun hit.

The three fires, west, east, and south are mostly gone now but there is still some smoke drifting in on occasion.

When the dog groomer was out Teresa and I gave Jax a couple of haircuts. When she returned she has to cut his hair real short because we butchered it so badly he didn't look right.

Just the Boys

Teresa left on Tuesday to visit friends and head to New York for the rest of the summer so for the next almost two months it's just the boys. Kobae, Jax, and I.

In Business News

I use a different computer to post things on the blog and am coming across these older pictures. My insurance company sent me a letter for renewal but with some new exclusions. 1. Communicable Disease. 2. A. I. 3. Human Trafficking What, human trafficking is out? One year I had to put up a sign at the river said "No lifeguard on duty." I told Teresa no human trafficking and she said "There goes the business model."

Mother

In the rock squirrel world the problems are mostly solved with the absence of 29 of them relocated to Dripping Springs a mile plus behind the Wind Caves. In the nightly little people feeding, raccoons, gray fox, ringtail, both striped and spotted skunks, and red fox we still have an issue. The issue is the raccoon we call "mother". It should really have one more word tacked on her name but we have a lot of guests come over to watch the nightly feeding so we'll leave it with just mother. The raccoons know they have the east side of the front porch, the skunks the west side and cisterns, ringtails in the rafters, gray fox left side of the parking lot and red fox the right side of the parking lot. It's taken many years and a lot of work but they all know their area. There is a stray raccoon occasionally that sneaks around the lodge and tries to get a skunk hot dog and another that runs out into the parking lot to try and get a gray fox hot dog. Jax usually takes off after them. But Mother, is the oldest and meanest raccoon on the porch and she doesn't think the rules apply to her. Unfortunately she's big and mean and Jax knows his limites as all the other raccoons do. You don't mess with mother. One night I saw a skunk spray her right in the face from a foot away. She calmly took her hot dog, washed it in the water bowl, and kept eating. Nothing phases her. In the early days all the mother raccoons would have four or five babies. Nationally 50% of them die of starvation before their first birthday. Not here, nobody dies. So they mostly have two babies, sometimes three. No point in having so many. They all live. Mother though two nights ago showed up with four. Why? She's the meanest. Everyone leaves her alone. The babies don't know the rules yet so they wandered down the porch in front of the door right as Jax and I were walking out to feed. Jax dived into them and they all ran up poles on the front porch with Jax nipping at their tails. I'm mostly concerned that their is a rabid raccoon out there somewhere with a mental illness. What else can explain wanting to have sex with mother.

Wind Storm Came Through

While I was out feeding Kobae the wind came up and blew through hard. In 20 years I've never seen the wood pile fall over and the telescope stand also though it was fastened down.

The Squirrel Quest Continues

Jax and I took numbers 28 and 29 back to Dripping Springs. I'm starting to feel comfortable about parking my white truck back by the lodge again. I see one maybe two rock squirrels per day but I bet I'd see a lot if I went hiking bac

k in Dripping Springs. We're taking them back about a mile and some change where they can't see the saddle across the river and smell the river water as they are close to water springs and deep into a canyon. I quite painting their tails because they aren't coming back at all.

Twenty Years

Every day a wonderland.

The Days

Still quiet. Haven't had a disc golfer in ten days or so. Most days are 100 degrees and 60s and 70s at night. Waking up some days and going to sleep with smoke from the fires that surround us though hundred miles or so away.

You still want to go hiking it's early in the morning or late evening. However can drive up Hurrah Pass and hike the east side which is in the shade as the day grows long.

Looking up at an area we use to call two trains as there were two rock formations, both looking like a train engine heading towards each other on a colision course. One is still there the other was destroyed in a lightning storm seveal years ago.

Five Days

It's been five days now since somebody came up the driveway. That's unusual even for summer. That will end today as there are a couple of check ins. #25, #26, and #27. I have to say we have a shortage of rock squirrels and the sunflower seed/bird seed feeding each morning is going much further without their cheeks stuffed with sunflower seeds.