Vixen Is OK

Good News.  Vixen came to eat night before last and has been here twice a day since then.  I can't tell if she's given birth. 

She always has looked as if she were nursing, so that's no sign.  Any weight I've been able to put on her seems to have disappeared.  What a scrawny, beat-up baby.  

Upon her return after her brief hiatus, she had been a little more flighty than usual.  That first evening, she had Valentino, the male fox, with her and she seemed quite concerned that he not get any chicken.  She started to leave to go back to the den with her one piece of chicken and when she saw me getting ready to throw out another piece, she circled back and grabbed that one too, so I can't decide whether she sees him as a helpmeet or competitor.  I haven't seen him since, and this morning she was much more relaxed.  In fact, she was quite funny.  

After she ate her kibble and egg and took one piece of chicken back to the den, she returned.  I'm trying to stretch this chicken out since I'm on the long forced march to the second Wednesday of June when I get my next Social Security check (can someone tell me why we can't get our checks on the same date, i.e., the 10th, each month, not the same day, i.e., the second Wednesday?), out of which I must save enough for July rent for the apartment in Boulder.  Thank goodness I have enough in savings for June, which is due day after tomorrow.  So I wasn't going to give her another piece of chicken until tonight.  She finished the kibble and then sat, enjoying the sun on her face...

This time of year, it's warmer outside than inside the cabin when I first get up, so I had the cabin door open.  She came in...

...and grabbed this cloth...

with which I had been removing sanding dust from the top part of the secretary that I'd been working on yesterday...

...and carried it out into the yard.  Then, while I was taking some close-ups of some of the wild chives...

...and wild iris in the yard...

...I had left my coffee mug on the picnic table bench...

...she trotted over, put her front feet up on the bench, stuck her nose down in the mug, took a sip and came up with that same expression on her face little children have after their first taste of coffee.  No, of course, I wasn't quick enough to get that shot.  I gave her some unsalted chicken broth that I'd cooked down after I cooked this whole chicken I bought at B&F for 99 cents a pound, the cheapest thing I could find, especially for her.  That seemed to satisfy her.  The next time I checked, she had left.


She brings me so much pleasure.  Teddee


P.S.  Eye is improving although these close-ups of 68-year-old skin, sans makeup, are really discouraging....A facial?  Botox?  Reconstructive surgery?  And I haven't deliberately sunbathed since I was in my 20s and both my moisturizer and makeup base contain sun block!  Too much time in Arizona and the high Rockies!  The knob on my forehead is numb.  I'm hoping that will go away.  And my cheekbone is still sore, but not nearly as sore as it was even yesterday.  Arm is still a major source of pain.  Pain pills at night are a godsend.  I am sleeping long and hard.

The Wind in the Willows...er Aspens

You would think from looking at this photo that we are having an ideal Memorial Day...

...those stupendous Mountain Bluebird blue skies and just that little cloud in the distance.  But the winds have been annoyingly strong all weekend.  My neighbors have an anemometer....

...which you can barely discern against the background of trees.  I think it probably looks much like this image from Wikipedia...

I didn't know what these were called.  This is what Wikipedia has to say about anemometers:

An anemometer is a device for measuring wind speed, and is a common weather station instrument. The term is derived from the Greek word anemos, meaning wind, and is used to describe any airspeed measurement instrument used in meteorology or aerodynamics. The first known description of an anemometer was given by Leon Battista Alberti around 1450.^[1]

I asked my neighbor what speed their anemometer was measuring the wind gusts because I thought NOAA was way under-forecasting when they said as high as 28 mph today.  She said the highest they had was 50 mph, but because their anemometer is mounted too low, it usually measures about 20 mph under one owned by another resident in Eldora, so she was figuring 70 mph.  That seems more like it.  I can usually tell based on the noises various pieces on the cabin and outbuildings make.


I hoped I would be able to capture the winds whipping the neighboring aspens by using the same camera setting that enabled me to shoot falling snow last winter, but no luck.  You can see the tree tops bending a little in this photo, but it's not capturing the true magnitude of the wind gusts...

...and here they are straight again...

If I took enough of these images I could make an animated flip book...couldn't remember what these were called and had to look it up.  Love Google and Wikipedia.  A person can type the most poorly formatted question into Google Search and have it successfully interpret what you're seeking and direct you there.  In this case, this "duh" question, "Is there a name for the moving cartoons made by putting a different image on each page of a book?" typed into the search box took me to "Animation" and Wikipedia has some wonderful information on the subject:

Early examples of attempts to capture the phenomenon of motion drawing can be found in paleolithic cave paintings, where animals are depicted with multiple legs in superimposed positions, clearly attempting to convey the perception of motion. [I love this!  My comment]:

A 5,000 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta has five images of a goat painted along the sides. This has been claimed to be an example of early animation. However, since no equipment existed to show the images in motion, [What about a potter's wheel?  My question] such a series of images cannot be called animation in a true sense of the word.^[1]

A Chinese zoetrope-type device had been invented in 180 AD.^[2] The phenakistoscope, praxinoscope, and the common flip book were early popular animation devices invented during the 19th century.

These devices produced the appearance of movement from sequential drawings using technological means, but animation did not really develop much further until the advent of cinematography.

So, making a bad segue from jumping antelope to foxes, I have been worried sick about Vixen, but was hoping she'd make an appearance and ease my concern before posting anything about it.  Unfortunately, not.  I haven't seen her since Friday night at which time she came at the appointed hour, ate her kibble and raw egg...

 
...while I sat on the bench under the cabin eave and watched her and chatted, then came up on the deck, took this huge piece of chicken from my hand and trotted off in the direction of her den.  No sign of her Saturday morning or Saturday evening, Sunday morning or Sunday evening.  Finally, about dark, the male fox I dubbed Valentino showed up...

There must have been some telepathizing going on because I'd been to-ing and fro-ing about putting out some chicken bones, wanting her to have them if she showed up, but not wanting to attract the bear, and had finally decided to put them out, opened the door and there he was.  But he's very flighty and left without taking the bones or another piece of chicken breast I put in the bowl...unless he came back after I shut the door.


...so now I'm trying to come up with a logical scenario...one that doesn't involve her being killed...and have come up with this:  After being attacked in the den, being injured and losing her month-old kits last spring, Vixen got pregnant again very quickly [gestation 52 days according to Wikipedia], which puts it at about May 5, needed nourishment badly so started coming for whatever calories I could provide, but remained so thin she just didn't look pregnant.  Brought her guy around a few weeks back so he'd know where to come for food when she couldn't.  Gave birth Friday night and can't leave the kits.  All this time she's been trotting off with pieces of chicken she was taking it to Valentino and now it was his turn to do for her and he didn't come through.  I can just hear the conversation...."Do I have to do everything?!"  

I do hope she's OK.  Teddee

What Doesn't Kill You...

A year ago I was just starting to move the last of the wood from a cord I'd had dumped here...

I had had the wood dumped on a huge tarp that I then tried to wrap over the top of the woodpile.  The effort to keep the wood dry was a failure.  The tarp held the water from the melted snow inside so the bottom layer of wood was lying in standing water and the tarp left a really obvious "crop circle" and I was convinced this piece of ground would never recover. 


The bare outlines of the "crop circle" remain, but I think I would need a hovercraft to shoot a photo making it obvious to the reader.  I tried standing on a step stool and playing with the exposure and color to no avail, but the point I'm trying to make is that what I thought had killed out everything simply allowed the wild iris and sage to thrive.  Yesterday I noticed the first wild iris were blooming...

...and the sage is also abundant...

So I'm hoping my recent fall will, if not leave me stronger, at least leave me no weaker!  

I decided I'd keep an "eye diary."  Here are the three photos I've taken, the latest this morning.  The first photo was taken on Tuesday, May 21, the day I fell...

The photo below was taken yesterday, May 26.  Sometime between the fall and here, the points of impact became more apparent than they were right after it happened, but the bruise under my brow is starting to turn yellow, a good sign...

Here's today, May 27...The bruise is spreading, I suppose as the blood settles, but my cheekbone isn't as puffy. 
 

People who know me well know I recommend sports cream for a variety of "off label" uses, I learned many decades ago that I could rub it on my forehead for sinus headaches.  I've most recently been using Walgreens Cool 'n Heat...

and I've been, gently, rubbing this on my impact spots.  I figure it increases circulation and that can't be bad.  You do have to take some precautions.  I don't recommend smearing this all over your forehead and then jumping in a hot shower so that it runs down in your eyes. I've also been rubbing this on my right arm, but have to admit that whatever ails my arm is not responding to my home remedy.  

Today my horoscope...do you read yours?  I read mine and if I like it I pay attention.  If I don't think it makes any sense I ignore it...and I think this was actually for yesterday since the one I receive in my e-mail seems to come a day late...said, 

Your first impulse will be to ignore it and bravely go on.  Don't.  Epic sagas aren't written about someone who was cranky from the flu.  Go home.  Tend to yourself.

Since I had commented in an earlier blog this week that the pain from this arm injury makes me feel at the end of the day as if I had the flu, I decided this horoscope was right on!  

Our winds have been up, gusting 30 mph to 40 mph...blew this heavier tarp...and the rocks I had used to weigh it down...off the table last night...

 and it looks as if this is going to continue until Tuesday, which makes me tired anyway, so I think I'm waiting until tomorrow to take a load down to the apartment.  It got down to 34F degrees last night according to NOAA and is supposed to hit 31F degrees tonight.  With that wind, it was cold in the cabin last night.  I'm unable to keep my electric blanket and other covers in place because of this arm injury so was half uncovered most of the night I think.  It will be nice to get through this and hopefully come out stronger....Teddee

The New Hood

I've managed to take one carload of belongings down to the new apartment each day this week since I signed the lease on Tuesday.  I find it takes about three trips using the handy grocery carts kept on site to unload the car.  Then I shower, maybe do an errand or two in Boulder, drive back to the cabin, take a pain pill and fall into bed.  These injuries, especially the chipped shoulder bone, have really taken the starch out of me, but I'm making real progress. 

Today I'm unloading this steamer trunk...

...so when my neighbors get ready to take it and a few other large items down to the apartment for me in their pickup truck they won't have to worry about anything being inside.

I just found out day before yesterday that there is another cabin owner here in Eldora who has a practically new full-sized mattress and box springs they want to replace with a queen and it's mine free if I want it.  I've been assured by my neighbors I don't have to worry about its cleanliness, so, after determining yesterday that the bedroom is 9 feet wide, I have decided to take it.  I now have a bed and have also agreed to take a computer stand as well as a chest of drawers.  These odds and sods may not be what I'd pick if I had a choice, but you can't beat the price and I know I can make them work.


I thought I'd post a few photos of the exterior of the apartment building I'm moving into and the surrounding neighborhood...how all-American does Walnut and 7th sound?  Love the deciduous trees which I've not had in my environment since leaving Chicago for Phoenix in 1993!

...my balcony is the nice empty one.  I hope I don't get mine junked up over time...

The day I looked at my apartment there was all of this very loud construction going on in this lot directly to the west of the apartment building...

 ...I thought someone was constructing a house or office building and figured I would have construction noise for months.  The good news...

...a new park!

I think when the leaves drop off the trees in the fall, I'll be able to see this wonderful house from my living room...

...the bright sunshine was not only obliterating my view in the viewfinder, but I was having trouble raising my right arm.  I love this roof on the cupola...mansard?  Here's what Wikipedia says about mansard roofs...

Early use

The style was popularized in France by architect François Mansart (1598–1666). Although he was not the inventor of the style, his extensive and prominent use of it in his designs gave rise to the term "mansard roof", an adulteration of his name.^[11] The design tradition was continued by numerous architects, including Jules Hardouin-Mansart, (1675–1683), his great nephew, who is responsible for Château de Dampierre in Dampierre-en-Yvelines.

Second Empire

The mansard roof became popular once again during Haussmann's renovation of Paris beginning in the 1850s, in an architectural movement known as "Second Empire style".
Second Empire influence spread throughout the world, frequently adopted for large civic structures such as government administration buildings and city halls, as well as hotels and train stations. In the United States and Canada, and especially in New England, the Second Empire influence spread to family residences and mansions, often corrupted with Italianate and Gothic Revival elements. A mansard-topped tower became a popular element incorporated into many designs.^[19][20][21]

There are numerous similar buildings in this neighborhood, what appears to be referred to as the West End (of Pearl Street).  I wonder what they dozed to construct the apartment building?  I don't even want to think about it.

I wonder if the owners of this wonderful house would let me stay in their gatehouse?...

...even without gingerbread trim it's as cute as a button.  They also have a lovely English-style garden of which, again, I took poor photos because of my arm.  Is that a peach tree?...

I took these after unloading the car and I am so exhausted and in such pain afterward that I feel a little as if I had the flu, so I'll try to take more and better photos of some of the wonderful houses in the area the next time I make a trip down and do it before I unload.

In the meantime, I'm deliberately missing the half-off Saturday at all Colorado Goodwill stores.  There's nothing like packing, to  make you question your "junqueing" habit.  More later, Teddee

Plain Vanilla

I took a carload of stuff to the apartment in Boulder yesterday morning.  Luckily, because this building I'm moving into caters to the elderly (who, me?) and truly disabled, they have some grocery carts that remain on site and I was able to roll one of these to my car, load it up, push it into the elevator and all the way to my unit and unload it...

...which made it so much easier with this injured arm.  It took three trips from the car to the apartment, after which I took the long awaited hot shower, drove home, took a pain pill and took to my bed.


This morning I awoke to this...

It's melting and blowing off fairly rapidly.  It's about 40F degrees, but we're going to have lows in the 30F degrees off and on through Sunday so we might get even more snow.  NOAA predicts a high of 59F degrees on Monday, Memorial Day, however.


Yesterday I took some photos of what my brother called my "plain vanilla" apartment after I described it to him in a phone conversation.  And it is, but I've rented so much of my life that the white walls and beige carpet don't bother me.  They are just neutrals against which to display your owns tastes. 


So, here is the kitchen...

I was told these are new appliances and they appear to be.  The tote bag on the pass-through contains some plates I had yet to determine what to do with here in the cabin so they and some matching mugs are going to a new home.  Not too happy about the exposed concrete block and trying to think how I'll hang anything from that.


This is the bathroom...

 

I managed to get the shower curtain up with my left arm...

 

There's plenty of storage.  Thank goodness they had not replaced the sink with a pedestal sink and there is open shelf storage in the bathroom...

 

 

...and this entire little room which, knowing me, I'll have packed to the gills...

 

 The above photo refuses to center.  Wonder why?

This is the bedroom.  Small, but with a decent-sized closet, especially when you have had no closet for two years...

 

This cord hanging from the switch at the left is an emergency call button.  There's another one in the bathroom exactly where I'd expect the light switch to be.  I wonder how many times I'm going to mistakenly flip these before I get accustomed to them?

Here's the dining/living room.  More than adequate lighting and I don't abhor ceiling lights like some people do... 

And my most favorite part...

...the view from the tiny balcony.

So, that's it.  Here's my eye update...

...Day Three. The actual point of impact above my eyebrow is more obvious now.  I don't know if my eye looks better or worse.  I know my body feels worse today than it did yesterday.  I think it must be like over-exercising.  You are always sorer two days later than you are the very next day.  I'm going on the assumption it's not that I'm continuing trying to move piecemeal.  I figure if I avoid doing anything that hurts, I'll be OK, and so far, the things that hurt are rolling over and getting out of bed, trying to rearrange the bed clothes at night, getting dressed, inserting and turning the car key in the ignition and shifting gears.  I seem to be able to lift if I don't go over waist high, but reaching, or reaching and lifting, with my right arm are totally out of the question. I was having trouble getting my camera up at the right level to take photos and even keyboarding is a little difficult.

Well, it's still spitting snow, but most of the snow has melted off.  There is still a little on the deck.  I've fed the fox.  I missed her last evening so that's one thing off my mind.  I'm trying not to think about not being here daily to feed her, but hope I've seen her through a rough patch and that she'll go back to hunting when I can't be here on a regular basis.  I took the hummingbird feeder down on the west side of the cabin yesterday evening and don't think I had a bear visitation last night, but it was raining heavily, then snowing, so if it had any sense it just didn't venture out.

I've loaded several tote bags full of small numbers of books and magazines (heavy) into the car and will add a few more things, then make another run to Boulder today.  More later, Teddee