Antlered Triumvirate

Lurking about they are.

the youngling

snagglehorn

brickshithouse

They better drop an antler again in the yard or I am taking up mule deer noodling/wrassling/shooting.

A payment of sort

The mule deer left a nice antler in the yard for us. Sort of makes up for them taking out the aspen, eating all the fruit trees, the grapes, the tomatoes, pooping everywhere, etc. etc.

I have tolerated the mule deer as they are too big to do anything about short of shooting them or building a really tall expensive fence. I am no longer contemplating taking up bow hunting. For the time being.

A normal summer morning in our yard:

Be vewwy vewwy quiet

Seen, found, got

Seen in the yard:



Odd crustyness found on the trail



Pugsley bits about to be got:


From the Mellow Velo, photo from
joel

Words falling out of favor.

Riding a bit, baby wrangling a bit, insurance and contractor wrangling a bit, working a bunch. Too pooped for words. I assume short updates with pictures is better than no updates at all?

This view used to be on my "the long way in" morning commute, that slowly became the default way in.


This is on a fairly regular after work short loop (for the where do you ride pool), quemazon-pipeline-home



I am not sure I will ever get used to seeing this first thing in the morning:


Seen at the Los Alamos Rodeo Parade:

Not pro the subject matter, just the best picture taken, the rest here

The view from the living room

Taken a few weeks back.


In case you can not make out the critter:



I think it is one of Wink256 larger horned relatives.

Racks racks racks

The rack revolution is going strong. Check out the work at this past weekend's insufferably cool Oregon Manifest - alex w's photos here among others about the net. Almost every bike there seems to have some sweet custom racks. Maybe I will go there next year.

Some other nice racks I have seen of late.

From suckapants.com, a great blog (often not safe for work ) running the gamut from music to bikes to exploring the abandoned margins of the american urban experience or something, I saw this very sturdy looking rack probably used originally for clearing cows off railroad tracks:

Click for source post and original image "Punk aint dead, it just rides a bicycle now"

From my bedroom window yesterday, I spotted this rack:



Not a rack, but I wanted to install this very cool narrow basket on my bike:

But elena made me put it in the bathroom:


Yes Jill, racks are the new chickens.

Mule Deer in the Yard

In the predawn hours of yesterday morning, I was awakened by Elena mumbling about pachyderms in the yard. I mumbled back that it was just a truck passing, but then I heard it to. The soft landing of a heavy thing in the yard. And then I woke up fully and thought, hot damn, Blog gold!
So for you, dear reader, I went and got the camera and crept around the house in my boxers when it was 17 degrees out to get these pics. I was really hoping for some elk, but alas, just 10-15 mule deer eating frozen apples from the snow. Some of them were bucks, but you could not tell from the photos...



If you don't know what a mule deer is, think about a normal deer with a big butt and really long mule like ears and then you have mule deer.

The rest of the photos of these charmingly reflecty eyed critters are here/

Creatures I saw last week

Due to the long drive up to Colorado and back I was able to see many a creature. In rough order of appearance:

On the way to Crested Butte:
1. Two Bald Eagles (individually, north of antonito)
2. A fox
3. Millions of fat telephone pole perching hawks
4. Mule Deer
5. Elk

In Crested Butte:
6. Fat mouse/kangaroo rat during the race

On the way Back:
7. Antelope
8. Big horn Sheep
9. Coyote

After a nighttime ski tuesday in Los Alamos:
10. Bobcat

As a bonus, Elena and I spotted another Bald eagle above the Rio Grande at Ottowi Bridge on Saturday.

Now all I need to see is a mountain lion, oryx, and a moose and I can retire.

Mule Deer seen south of gunnison: