Dragonfly Ranch

Gus likes to pick and eat an apple or two during our evening walks. The trees are sadly neglected but a couple of them still produce edible fruit. Of course these apples are nowhere near ripe, but Gus doesn’t seem to care.

This little drop-off between the wood floor and the tile is Fritz’s favorite place to hang out in the kitchen. He usually finds it by backing into it. Does he like it because the wood feels good on his butt? Because of the extra inch of height it gives him? Because it’s right in everyone’s way?

We’re in the short period during which we can grow things. Summer officially starts in a few days and we’ll consider it a cool day if it reaches only 95 degrees or so. In that heat, virtually nothing will grow except succulents, so we enjoy the miniature rose, the nasturtiums, and the four-o’clocks while we can.

Every evening we walk a circuit of the property, ostensibly for the dogs’ sake — we call this “walkabout”. (The dogs have decided it’s boring and usually go off and do their own thing.) Yesterday, about two-thirds of the way into the walk, there was a flurry in an oak tree thirty or forty feet away, a hawk took off out of the branches, and something dropped to the ground with a loud plop. I went to look and found a half-eaten squirrel. Apparently we had startled the hawk into dropping its meal.

Hawks are part of the landscape here. We have at least three species in residence: Red-Tailed Hawks, Red-Shouldered Hawks, and Cooper’s Hawks. The hawk we interrupted was smallish and may have been a Cooper’s — I didn’t get a very good look, but it definitely wasn’t a Red-Tail because it had a banded tail.

I picked up the squirrel with the end of a stick and threw it over the fence to keep it from the dogs. No photo; I don’t imagine anyone will mind.

The chickens spend the day outside their enclosure, so my evening routine includes getting them back inside. This evening there was a California kingsnake hanging around the mower shed, which is next to the chicken pen. The chickens gathered round, fascinated but wary. I got a five-minute video in which nothing much happens until the snake finally decides it’s had enough and hides under one of the mowers, at which point one of the chickens follows and pecks it on the tail. The snake ignores this, the chickens can’t figure out where the snake went, and I get them put to bed — end of story. The video is too big to upload, I’m afraid, and not all that exciting.

In the mallow bush next to the porch. These are the birds we got as chicks a few months ago.

Sent from my iPad

The other resident dog at Silver City Mountain Resort. That’s my Outback in the background.

This is resident dog Tucker, guarding the entrance to the restaurant and store at the resort.

…which is supposed to help keep the total alkalinity down. Trying to regulate the pool chemistry has been a constant battle ever since we moved in eight years ago.