Rick seems to have taken over posting blogs lately. I guess must be lazy, or maybe it's just that I blogged for ten long years in New Jersy on the now defunct "new" Jersey Girl blog. It's nice to sit back and have him take over that duty.

To start off this post I am using a photo of our bench in the little grove of aspens next to the house covered in our first snow from Friday morning. It wasn't much, just a skiff really, and was gone before you could blink your eyes. We went from wearing gloves and layers of clothing to just a t-shirt yesterday as temps were in the high 60's/low 70's with a bright blue sky. Colorado, ya gotta love it! This is not unusual for this time of year, as you can see in this past post. Three years ago, if you remember, we got snowed in while on vacation here. So, like I said, normal!

But, I am digressing as usual when I actually sit down at the computer and get started. Words just dump out of my brain sometimes. The REAL reason for this post is Bucky. A very beautiful 4-point buck mule deer that decided to visit us around dinnertime the other night.

He was right outside our bedroom window munching away when I saw him. So close to the cabin too! Here he is as seen and taken right from our window. (Solar panels in background, sorry, but they keep us in electricity. The other strange looking object in the photo is our aluminum canoe upside down.) And, normally this area is covered in sage and other native plants but it still has not recovered from being dug up when the solar panels went in earlier this year.

He was not bothered by us taking photos or talking just a few feet away from him inside the house. We knew he could hear us because he kept picking up his lovely head and looking right at us. Not bothered by us at all, he stayed for a good hour. (Love his "eyebrow" facial markings.)

Other animals around us have not fared as well I'm sorry to say. We are down by two more pack rats who choose to go into a trap other than the live one. And, we are down by two rabbits which makes me very sad. One was found not in the trap, but a little way away from it, just lying there (not alive). We don't really know what happened to him as he was unharmed in any other way. The trap was tripped. A heart attack? The other bunny made me even more upset. Bella is a bad bad girl. On one of our walks to the top of our driveway she saw something scurry into the woods. We were thinking squirrel and so was Bella because she was looking up in the trees. She persisted in her search for the animal while we continued our walk. We heard a commotion behind us and Bella came bursting out of the woods with a rabbit in her mouth. She had it by the neck and it did not make it. Too sad. How she managed to catch a rabbit we can't fathom. But she did, and she seemed to want us to be proud of her. Now if that had been a packrat ... whole different story.

Bucky was back the next morning. I went to let Destin outside for a pee break and just ilke he did with Big Boy Moose, he just stared straight ahead and refused to get off the porch. Bucky was in the driveway and not too worried, although he did bound off a little distance, stopped and turned around for another look and when Destin started barking his "big boy bark" and Bucky decided to take off.

He'd obviously been hanging around that same morning unnoticed by us at the salt lick because the game camera captured this video of him. He is welcome in our "yard" anytime.