Spring & Snakes

Well, all week I have been trying to catch up. Still not there-----------but I can smell Spring in the air. This week is the Sand Hill Crane Festival. I do enjoy it so much. The cranes have been flying overhead for a couple of weeks now.

On the negative side I have once again found snakes in the house...........or perhaps the same snake twice, I don't know. Luckily (praise God) they are water snakes BUT I still do NOT like finding snakes in the house. They were both about 2 feet long. The first one I threw in the mud out the back door. About 2 hours later I found the second one...........they were both up on the landing one in the bathroom & one in the hallway outside the bathroom. The second one hit the snowbank next to the mud. Perhaps he or she got the correct idea that I do NOT like snakes in the house. We'll see. I still have a hole in the wall where the water pipes froze behind the drier. I have a man coming next week to hopefully fix it. I'm wondering if that is where they came in. I hope so because if I get it fixed then they will not appear again!! We'll see.

Snow

It's days like this that Dennis is foremost on my mind. FOURTEEN INCHES, yes that is 14 inches of snow since yesterday at noon. Dennis would have loved it. He loved the snow & he especially LOVED being able to move the snow.........clean up the driveway.........work on the road out front........go over to Freda's & do her yard. He would get the ATV out with the plow on it & off he would go. He loved every minute of it. Well, today he would have loved even more because he would have had to have used the TRACTOR with the BUCKET on it.

There is toooooooo much snow to even try & use the ATV. I got the battery charged up & off I went. Well, I ended up getting the ATV stuck at least 3 times. Luckily I was able to get it out each time. Personally I prefer to look at the snow from inside the house!! I like to keep the fire going & watch................but not today.

Willie & I have plowed out by hand with the snow shovels all the way to the girls shed & then both the other sheds where the boys are. In fact it was most interesting when I was shoveling to the girls. Cinnabun finally started out to meet me. She walked almost halfway to the gate through the snow plowing her own path. I guess they were most anxious for me to get there & feed them!!!

Snakes & Snow

Well, I'll cover the Snakes subject first. There are a lot of water snakes around here in the Spring, Summer & Fall. Typically I pick them up & throw them across the road. Sometimes our Youth Pastor, Josh drops in & picks up a couple for his aquarium/terrarium. Well Tuesday evening we brought in a lot of wood to totally fill the wood box. About 8 pm I went to fill the fire & turned around -------- there in front of the fire was a SNAKE!! Quite a shock, especially since it was about 6 inches long & thinner than a pencil. Big head though. Yup, it looked like one of the water snakes. I was not happy about finding a snake inside the house in the dead of winter!!! I picked it up & tossed it outside. The weather took care of it by morning.

Snow, snow, snow.................we've not had a lot of snow here in the ground this winter. I think the most was about 2 inches & it melted. We did have a sideways snowstorm one night (with major wind). Who knows how much we had then since it was headed to Kansas. Today the second storm from California made it here. Started snowing at noon. Hasn't stopped. I haven't seen Monte since about 1 pm & usually I can look out the north window & see Monte day or night as it is only 4 miles away. Maybe about 3/4 an inch on the ground now.

I have alpaca friends who live over the pass to the west near Ignacio. They had 10 or so inches on Tuesday. I just called them & they have another 10 or 12 or 14 inches. Hard to say exactly how much. Wolf Creek, the pass to the west is being closed now due to the snow.

Bob, my hay man was suppose to come tomorrow & get two loads of hay........I emailed him last night & ask if he had happened to look at the weather as it was suppose to start snowing here this evening & snow through Friday. So I'm keeping in touch with him, but do not anticipate seeing him before Saturday at the earliest. I'm glad I'm in my house warm & cozy.

Happy New Year

Well, here it is 2010 & I haven't posted in over 6 weeks!! I've thought about it, but everything has been crazy. So I'll do some quick updates.

My Mother's memorial service went very well. It was good to see so many relatives and be able to visit with everyone.

I had another felting workshop with Lois. It was great once again. Poor Lois didn't make it home Saturday evening as they closed Wolf Creek Pass & she had to stay an extra night. But we had fun.

On a sad note the weekend of the felting workshop Firecracker got sick. We managed to get him in the back of my Edge & to the vets. He died early Sunday morning. On the necropsy they found he had a large abscess outside his stomach and a number of small ulcers starting. So he apparently had an ulcer that abscessed through. Not a lot of hope with that. Plus he didn't show symptoms until the end. This is typical of alpaca.

In the meantime we have been trying to change out some of Willie's seizure medications due to side effects that I have been trying to ignore. The first switch did not go well at all. I'm hoping to get him up to Denver to see what we can work on next. Prayers in that aspect of life please.

Christmas was good. After Christmas my siblings & I got together to work through items at Mom & Dad's house. We didn't have near long enough, but got a good start on doing things. I had read 2 or 3 books about how to do things & how everyone turns out to be awful. BUT in our case we devised our own way of picking (thanks Jim) and had wonderful time. I could spend hours telling you how wonderful my siblings are..............but I won't take the time. We worked well together & had a great visit on top of everything. Mom & Dad raised good kids!!

Now it is on to the New Year. I'm truly going to try and post more & post more pictures.

Onward we go.

One Year

It's been a year, a year since Dennis passed away. A year of learning, growing, grieving and just being. It certainly hasn't been an easy year. I have missed him terribly. I think about how he would have done this or that differently than I have done it. Or just things that he could have done around here that I cannot do. He was a big presence.

I'm thankful for friends and relatives who have been so helpful over the past year. It is interesting those who have remembered the day & mentioned it or sent a card. Those who perhaps remembered but didn't mention it..............and those who have no clue when it happened beyond the fact that it was in November.

Thank you to all my relatives & friends who care & who have helped over the past year. Praise God that He is with me & guiding me daily.

Busy busy

I know, it has been a month since I have written anything. It has been a very busy month.

We had our first snow. It was beautiful, but I'm glad it melted.
Willie totaled his car a week ago. Luckily he was ok as were the people in the car that he hit (or that hit him, although he got the ticket).

Mom was growing weaker & losing a lot of weight over the past month. Last week was much worse. She passed away early Tuesday morning. My sister from Gunnison came over Monday night & we spent the night with Mom. The funeral plans are not final yet but we are looking at Thanksgiving time.

Hopefully within the next month I will be able to post on a more regular basis.

Mice again

I have found the answer to the "mice" issue. A friend told me to get a live trap so they are trapped live. I wasn't much interested because then I would have to kill the mouse (strange isn't it when I'm still killing it with a trap). Then my mind cleared & I got the answer. I went to Co-op & looked at their live traps..............I found one -- Havahart ex-small traps with 2 doors!! I bought two and tried one out the first night. A FROZEN mouse!! That worked.

Last night I tried both traps. TWO MICE, one alive & the other well, perhaps frozen, at least it was dead. I took the traps out in front of the house & brought out Jamie & Malen. Jamie handled the first one just fine. She doesn't eat it, just takes care of killing it. Malen's was already dead, but she got the feel.

So redo the traps this afternoon & I'm sure I'll have two more every night until all of them are gone (and then put them out again when they repopulate & return).

I really like these traps & am very thankful that Jamie & Malen will take care of the rest of the problem for me.