{"id":3148,"date":"2014-11-29T11:03:44","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T18:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/?p=3148"},"modified":"2014-11-30T09:13:02","modified_gmt":"2014-11-30T16:13:02","slug":"stuff-just-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/stuff-just-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Stuff. Just Stuff."},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving is over and it’s\u00a0time to catch up on a few things that have happened since the end of our Florida trip. None is of great import but (cumulatively) they do reflect on our daily lives.<\/p>\n

The trees have dropped all their leaves, except for a large branch\u00a0on our cottonwood tree. Several days’ chores have included raking leaves, mulching flower beds, and generally cleaning up for winter. One surprise came to light when a neighbor’s tree became bare: A large hornet nest.<\/p>\n

\"Bee's<\/a>

Hornet’s nest in a neighbor’s tree<\/p><\/div>\n

The nest\u00a0is large enough to be seen\u00a0from our house — and there is an empty lot between us. I haven’t\u00a0noted any activity, the hornets\u00a0are probably bedded down for the winter, but this may explain the lack of small nests around our eaves\u00a0which has been common the last few years: all the hornets\u00a0are now concentrated in this one large colony.<\/p>\n

I enjoyed\u00a0a local\u00a0ATV trip near Palisade, about 22 miles from our house. I’d\u00a0heard about this trail, named Chalk Creek, but the only sign I saw indicated the creek’s name was Rapid Creek. In any event, the trail is a loop road that mainly services two large power lines in the area. It is not very scenic but does offer a few views of Mt. Garfield, a local landmark.<\/p>\n

\"Mt.<\/a>

Mt. Garfield from Rapid Creek ATV trail<\/p><\/div>\n

Since this trail is at a lower elevation, under 5,000 feet, it is passable when higher trails are closed. It is also short – 19 miles – which makes it a good choice for a ride in this time of dwindling hours of sunlight. Although\u00a0not a difficult route, it\u00a0has quite a few rocky stretches which makes for a fairly slow ride. \u00a0I was pleased to finally have a chance to explore this area.<\/p>\n

The last bit of activity includes a day-after-Thanksgiving\u00a0trip to The Lot. In addition to checking the storage shed and general fall wear-and-tear on the driveway, we wanted to get some fresh evergreens to add to our outside holiday decorations. We drove up to the lot and back in a day trip, with the dogs. I\u00a0knew from checking local conditions there would be some snow, very little in Elkhorn Ranch, and the temps would be in the low 40s.<\/p>\n

It turned out to be a pleasant mountain\u00a0drive, and I enjoyed being in my \u00a0mountains again. We arrived early in the afternoon, cut the\u00a0greenery from the lower edges of some trees (we will need to trim them more fully\u00a0next year), walked the lot for a while, then headed home. It did seem\u00a0odd not to have the RV trailer parked at the top of the drive, and, of course, no toilet facilities.<\/p>\n

\"Late<\/a>

Late November on The Lot<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Bare<\/a>

Bare trees and snow-capped peaks = winter<\/p><\/div>\n

Bare trees and light snow made it clear winter has taken over the high country. We did see one issue; it appears an animal, probably a deer, had tangled with the dog run fence, tearing it away from the gate and bending up a section. We’ll have to fix it next spring, but for now I\u00a0just rolled up the twisted portion, leaving a gap in the enclosure.\u00a0Hope the animal wasn’t injured – we didn’t see any hair or hide on the fence.<\/p>\n

Otherwise life has returned to its normal routine. Later today we will go grocery shopping and start putting up outdoor Christmas decorations. I’m pretty much done\u00a0with yard work for this year and our wood cutting ended before our Florida trip, so there will be fewer projects going on in my evenings.<\/p>\n

Except — Pam trapped 3 kittens last week that had come to our back deck feeding station\u00a0with their feral moms. They look to be about 6\u00a0– 7\u00a0weeks old and are wild, but are getting used to the idea of humans taking care of them. Two of the three can be handled; the third one is getting used to being petted but not yet picked up. Pam hopes to get them to the vet and then off to a shelter for adoption after the new year, which means\u00a0they will be with us for many weeks to come.<\/p>\n

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!<\/p>\n

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:<\/p>\n

This little wild litter is foster litter #25 for me. \u00a0And I thought long and hard about bringing these kittens\u00a0indoors, as they were still with their\u00a0moms. \u00a0If it had been summer, I \u00a0might have left them outside to live or die as fate dictated. \u00a0However, it’s\u00a0cold here now and small kittens\u00a0have a very low percentage of making it through the winter outdoors [especially on the mean streets]. \u00a0Plus, IF\u00a0they can be domesticated, kittens need to be handled by humans before they’re two months old.<\/p>\n

Not\u00a0my\u00a0only cat issue this week. \u00a0Soot has a draining\u00a0puss ball on his rump, the second in as many weeks (the previous one was on his neck, maybe\u00a0he’s learning to run?). \u00a0He’s an indoor-outdoor cat, and apparently neutering hasn’t greatly diminished his testosterone output because\u00a0he has to mix it up with other cats when outdoors.<\/p>\n

Always something at The Ark. \u00a0The vet pretty much sees me on a monthly basis for something or other.<\/p>\n

You \u00a0may wonder why we didn’t cut a Christmas tree at Sanderling, in addition to bringing home greenery? \u00a0I don’t think there’s\u00a0a nicely-shaped\u00a0potential Christmas tree — of the appropriate height — on the entire seven acres.<\/p>\n

Happy Trails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanksgiving is over and it’s\u00a0time to catch up on a few things that have happened since the end of our Florida trip. None is of great import but (cumulatively) they do reflect on our daily lives. The trees have dropped all their leaves, except for a large branch\u00a0on our cottonwood tree. Several days’ chores have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3148"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3163,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3148\/revisions\/3163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}