Springtime Adventures

Heading up Lookout Trail in Montreat!

It's been a delightful spring here in the mountains, despite the fact that of course, the Luckster Boy is deeply missed. I've been so busy with springtime activities, I've not spent any time blogging. When I turned on my home computer this morning, it opened to a page I was looking at two weeks ago! I had to stop and think - "Had it really been two whole weeks since I last sat down at this computer??"

It's time for an update! My last blog post was about Lucky's passing, so I don't want any of his friends thinking that we've gone into a cave to mourn. No, he would not want that, he would want us to enjoy every minute of spring, and that is exactly what we have been doing.

Springtime means spring cleaning = doggie bath time! Lady and Katie were good sports and tolerated their spring baths well. Of course, Katie adopted a posture of utter martyrdom throughout the process, but otherwise she managed just fine.

After the dogs were squeaky clean, it was time to wash the bed covers. The beds were piled and propped along one side of the living room as the covers dried and were put back on in stages. I got such a chuckle out of the scene below when I passed through at one point. Looks like the baths wore everyone out! 

In the mountains, springtime also means visits from the local wildlife. The bird feeding oasis I got for my birthday lasted about one day before the bears discovered  it. :-(         I was saying very unkind things about the bear population that day. Fortunately (miraculously) it was not destroyed, and everything has now been put away until the winter. Sometimes you can wait a few weeks until they move on, so I may try again toward the end of June. But they'll probably find it again. More likely than not, I'm going to have to be patient and wait until winter.

I need one of these signs that are on the dumpsters in the neighborhood. 

Mama Fox has had another litter of kits this spring, and they have been a joy and delight to watch. This year there were five! They play like puppies, chasing and jumping on one another. Mama's lame back leg makes her easy to identify as the same fox who was seen with kits in this area last spring. It doesn't seem to slow her down at all; she hops along on three legs as easily as if she had four. Almost all the photos I've taken are very grainy, because the family tends to show up at dusk, and I seem always to have only my iPhone with me. I got these pics one night about a month ago when I was driving up the hill back to the house, and oh how I longed to have my Canon Rebel! The kits were fearless and practically posed for me.

Several times during the last week, the kits have passed by my home office window, one or two at a time. I was on a phone conference on Tuesday when one ran into view and pounced onto the dirt near the Mexican sunflowers I've planted. Then it jumped into the air again, spun around, pounced again, and ran off. Maybe it was after something I couldn't see, or maybe it was playing. They're usually moving through so quickly that by the time I get out of my chair and over to the window, they're gone. But a few days ago I got lucky and captured the photo below. I was so excited to finally get a decent shot of one of them! As you can see from the photo, the youngsters are getting bigger.

So that's the update from here. We hope all our Blogger friends are having a great spring too. I'll set aside some time this evening to come visiting, get caught up on what's been going on!