While we have had some success with FedEx deliveries, over the past few days they have regressed.
If you recall, we get our USPS mail as well as UPS deliveries to a row of mailboxes at the Wooden Shoe Ranch close to the state line south of Laramie. That is going very well. Sometimes a package is too big to fit in the mail box or package drop boxes, and we have to meet the UPS driver or pick up a package at the post office in Laramie. But, most of the time the deliveries are available for pickup at the mail boxes.
FedEx delivers directly to our door--or, has so far while the weather has been good. But, sometimes if a package is routed through Cheyenne, they think the address is not valid. Somehow, they come up with an alternative address often using our physical address in Red Feather Lakes. This results in phone calls from the FedEx delivery guy in Red Feather Lakes asking how to find us. Lengthy and sometimes multiple conversations occur until we convince them to just send the package to Laramie and it will find its way to us.
This photo shows the results of one of those recent conversations. It is on its second "corrected address" label, correcting it back to the original address.
Yesterday, something from Amazon got rerouted and we finally got on the phone to FedEx to try to straighten it out. We'll see if we get a package today!
The other day thanks to high winds aloft, the clouds were pretty spectacular.
I have been just posting my photos to Facebook without doing an OtG entry for them, but then you blog readers and non-Facebook folks never see them. So today begins the change! If you don't mind too much, will you please leave your comment on the blog instead of Facebook? That way we can keep track of comments, whereas on Facebook it's transitory. Mind you, you don't have to, it would just be nice.
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.
We caught a pack rat in the live trap on Thursday night. That's one down, not sure how many to go. They are too cagey to get caught in the kill traps. I baited them with apple slices and some rolled up aluminum foil. They just steal the apples, trip the trap, take the foil to decorate their nests, and go on their merry way. For some reason, I seem to have better luck with the live trap (also baited with an apple slice and foil).
The dogs went crazy when they saw the pack rat in the trap. Barking, growling, pawing, and the showing of teeth was in order.
Now, if I were to release the rat from the live trap, somewhere like this seems to be a nice place:
This is along Sand Creek at the base of Chimney Rock (aka Camel Rock) on the Wyoming side of the border. I could just walk the trap down by the creek and release the rat. It would be a nice place for him, and far away from the cabin.
But, I'd probably get caught. I would not have the required permit to release an animal into the wild. And, on top of that I'd also probably be guilty of transporting said animal across state lines. I could spend the rest of my life in jail.
It would be a nice place to release the rat, though.
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