The Joys of Country Living

Yesterday the truck would not start. This was not too surprising as it had been sitting for quite a while. This is what I found when I opened the hood to charge the battery. I had already removed quite a few large sticks before I remembered to go get the camera.

So far I have not found any important damage, mostly thermal insulation around the air conditioner and hood liner, but I am still digging sticks and rocks out of various nooks and crannies. The air cleaner box was full of seeds.


Update:
I went out a while ago to finish up removing the debris. The critter had made a good start on a new nest. I removed most of it & then started the truck. Everything seems to work. I moved the truck back to the pad in front of the garage which is much farther from the building supplies. Only a little sadust smoke smell.

First Ride in Tights

Last week I was riding in shorts in the morning. Today I needed tights even in the afternoon. Bright sun both times. Fall is fell!

Fawns in the Morning

The mother deer is a frequent visitor, but the fawns are usually too timid to come up on the terrace.

Quiet Time at the Feeders

I took this photo last month when there were many more hummers than now. It was late in the afternoon, but before the evening rush.

Hungry Javelina

Altho Javelinas are common in this area, this is the first time we have seen them around our property. There were at least two of them on the patio. One came up and looked in the window. There were the usual deer nearby, but they didn't seem to want to mess with the javelinas.

Roadside Roses

I found a nice bramble of these roses today on NM15 near Sheep Corral Rd.
Anyone care to hazard an identification?

Critter Cam

This link showed up on our weather page this morning.
White Signal is about 20 miles SW of here.

Gila Woodnet

I have seen this wonderful old truck many times on my rides up Cherry Creek. Today was the first time I had a real camera with me. The truck's gears make so much noise I had time to get off the bike, take the camera out of the bike bag, then out of its case & still had time to take several shots (this is the second).

The truck is part of Gila Woodnet, which helps thin the forest by harvesting small trees.

Tour of the Gila epilog

Here as a link to a blog by one of the riders

Tour of the Gila - Stage 3

Here come the Womens Pros up the hill by our mailbox.

The leader is the one in green.

Followed by the chaser in pink.

I took a video of the men. It is not very good and takes a long time to load.

Tour of the Gila Preview

Don't let The Tour de Georgia fool you. The Tour of the Gila is the real deal. It starts tomorrow with the Tyrone time trial.
I plan to take some photos when the inner loop stage goes by our house on Friday.

Elk in the Evening

We saw these elk about a week ago. We only saw about a dozen this time, but a few days befor we saw a herd of at least two dozen crossing just a little farther away than these.

I tried to post this last time but had problems.

probably should resize before uploading

Winter

Opening salvo:

Trying this out as Picasaweb does not yet work on my linux box and I want to post some snow photos.