Ursus Versus

I think that delectable chicken I put out last night for the fox may have attracted a bear instead. This is what I found today just west of the deck:

It is bigger than it looks here.  I should have put something, besides that leaf, next to it for perspective.  I looked up bear scat on line and this is what I found on www.bear-tracker.com.  About the right size and shape.  

 
According to the North Woods Field Guides site:  "Black Bears are omnivorous, their diet consists of animals, nuts, berries, grasses, insects and aquatic life. Evidence of these will show in their scat. Often times bear scat may contain partially undigested parts of only one food source. Their droppings are one of the largest being 1 to 2 inches in diameter."


I don't see any berries in this scat out in the yard and there are still rose hips on the wild rose bushes, so maybe this is just dog or wolverine?

 

Photo by Filip Tkaczyk found on Alderleaf Wilderness College site

According to the Alderleaf Wilderness College website, wolverine scat is:  Cylindrical, 3/8 – 1 inch in diameter and 3 – 8 inches long. The scat can contain bones, fur and feathers.

The size and shape seem right, but I don't see any bones, fur or feathers, either.  So maybe I'm just blogging about dog feces! 

We do have black bears here, though.  I saw one once when we were vacationing here when I was a child and I've heard other villagers say they've seen them.  I thought maybe it had been so warm the bears were coming out of hibernation. 

 

Photo from Colorado Division of Wildlife website

According to http://wiki.answers.com:  "Bears hibernate during winter, but aren't sleeping the whole time. Hibernation for bears simply means they don't need to eat or drink, and rarely urinate or defecate (or not at all).  [Oops!  Comment mine]. There is strong evolutionary pressure for bears to stay in their dens during winter, if there is little or no food available [Italics mine.  What if here is food available?]. But bears will leave their dens on occasion, particularly when their den gets flooded or is badly damaged. [Or they smell chicken!  Comment mine.].

"Weather does play a role. In the colder, northern parts of Alaska, bears hibernate about 7 months of the year. Bears in the warmer, coastal regions of the state hibernate for 2-5 months, with the longer hibernation time for bears raising newborn cubs."  [If you'd been asleep and hadn't eaten anything for two months and you smelled chicken, wouldn't you get up and investigate?].

I also read that I'm supposed to be working to keep bears wild and shouldn't be putting out food, but it makes me feel good to do it. 

If this is the same animal that visited early last fall, it is driven wild by chicken.  I had purchased one of those broasted chickens at Wal-Mart.  At the recommendation of the "chicken lady," who said they had some really special garlic chickens coming out in fifteen minutes and they would be on special, I waited.  By the time I drove from Longmont, the car smelled like one big baked garlic bulb.  I put the chicken inside a cooler, inside the woodshed.  In the night, something strong and determined kept trying to get into the woodshed.  First it would pull at the door on the west side, then it would run around and pull repeatedly at the access my Dad had built on the east side.  I was really curious and got up and shone the flashlight out first the north window, then the east window, then the north window as it ran back and forth, but I couldn't see anything.  I didn't have courage to go outside, and it finally gave up and left.  

That's about as wild as life gets here.  What's your idea of wildlife?  Teddee

Training Like a Cave Man 'er Woman

I just read on-line at denverpost.com this morning an article, "Train like a cave man," by Josh Noel, Chicago Tribune, about the latest fitness craze.  It seems to be an offshoot of the NeanderThin diet, a favorite of my brother.  In this latest craze, you not only eat like a Neanderthal--meat and berries and whatever else might be as similar as possible to what the hunter gatherers ate--but you exercise by doing activities Neanderthals might have done just as part of their everyday life hunting and gathering.  From what I understand from Mr. Noel's article, the first Ancestral Health Symposium was held last August in, where else, Los Angeles.  So, instead of spending hours in a gym, you walk, outside preferably, I guess, because they eschew treadmills, and keep up"a low level of activity all day."  It apparently also includes "short bursts of weight-bearing intensity...such as pushing a weighted sled or pounding...."  Today, adherents pound on old tires.  They also carry rocks, lift tree branches and do monkey-like antics on adult monkey bars.

So, I joined the movement today.  I decided it was time to dig out the wood I had put in the woodshed, which had by now become totally blocked by junk.  My outside woodpile had shrunk to frightening levels over the last week.  This photo was taken about a week ago, so it is a lot smaller than this now.

With the high winds I didn't want to pull everything out of the woodshed to access the stored wood for fear things would blow away.  I cannot tell you how many things I lost to the winds before I got savvy.  Even in summer you can put out fox food in a dish on a beautifully calm evening only to awake in the night to gale-force winds that have carried the dish down the canyon.  Lids to trash cans or plastic containers and anything else that isn't battened down also become victims. I think there are people down the canyon that probably are like those coastal peoples who profited by confiscating the goods off wrecked ships.  (If you have the vintage fruit bowl, the cute little red enamel bowl, the little black pan that looks like a miniature gold panning pan, the lid to my kindling container...they're mine!)

Cleaning out a storage shed is not something a person would normally do in late January, but it actually got up to 40F degrees today and when the day dawned calm, I dragged everything out.

As you can see, if these out buildings were ever weatherproof, they aren't now.  A lot of snow blows into both the woodshed...

...yes, those are chunks of snow that have blown in the east side even though the winds usually prevail from the west...

...and the toilet...

No, that's all you get to see of the privy today.  I've got ideas for making it the most upscale privy in Colorado, but that's for spring.

Once I got everything pulled out, I re-stacked the wood on this old pallet. 

I've found that the outside woodpile is a lot more accessible, and even without being covered, the wood burns as well as that stored inside.  You just knock off the snow and it's fine.  I expect that will change when spring and wetter snows and rain start, but it's the case now.  This is not the best wood stack I've ever made, but it should suffice as fast as I expect to go through it.  I've got another cord ordered for delivery in eight days and I can see this should be adequate.  I wasn't really sure how much I had left in the woodshed, but, in addition to this, I've still got this remaining in the woodshed, so I should be good.

I had purchased a whole chicken--been a long time since I've done that, but these were really reasonably priced--so I cleaned the chicken and set it to simmering before I went out to tackle the wood.  Lots of good eats for me and any visiting canid...canids?  (According to wiki.answers, "Members of the Canidae family are called canid and include dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, dingoes, jackals, and lycaons. The Canidae family is divided into the "true dogs" (or canines) of the tribe Canini and the "foxes" of the tribe Vulpini.").  Don't you just love it?...I'm awaiting a visit from the tribe Vulpini that is going to think it died and went to heaven...So, no, I didn't kill it (the chicken) with a slingshot, but I think it fits into my "ancestral" health day.  What did you hunt and gather today?  Teddee

Snow Country

This is definitely snow country.  I have the photos to prove it.  Snow country inside and out.  This is the situation at the cabin door where layering is the latest vogue in door coverings.  From last to first,  this roll of foam in a black plastic bag, kept for the occasions when there are so many people vacationing here that someone must sleep in a tent. 

Next is the lovely matelasse bedspread, which looks great, but is as stiff as cardboard, so has found a newly important role as a door drape. 

It hangs from two safety pins and two nails.  There is a third pin but the third nail pulled out and since the top of the door is one side that actually has now been made airtight I haven't bothered to replace it.

The next layer is a rug.  Ooops!  You're starting to see the problem.  Yes, that's snow.  Not new snow, just blowing snow.

My local carpenter has devoted an inordinate amount of time trying to get this door airtight, but it just isn't working.  We've got so much weather stripping around the door that I can't get that bottom barrel bolt fastened without putting my knee into it.  But you can still see daylight.

The obvious solution would seem to be a storm door, but the eave over the door is too low to accommodate a door that opens out.  That's why I'm considering installing a new door on the south side, which will necessitate moving the electrical conduit, which is necessitating the budget crunch.  One thing always leads to another.

In the meantime, I'm staying warm with KUVO.  Wow, they are just scorching this weekend.  I've been listening to All Blues, hosted by Ron Lee tonight.  I've got to see about getting that last one, the Lionel Young Band playing "Blues & Boogie Woogie" on the On Our Way to Memphis CD.  I think this public-supported station is getting us primed for something like 14 days of fund raising starting next week.  What music warms you up?  Teddee

Success!

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing we would truly astound ourselves."--Thomas Edison

This quote is from a wonderful little book, The Complete Pocket Positives, my cousin and his wife gave me for Christmas.  I thought it appropriate for celebrating the completion of my bakers rack project today.  First, it fits!  And I can still access the wood box and pull out the wood stove ash box.  And, and this is the real miracle, the microwave fit in under the wine rack on the first shelf, but within a hair's breadth!  And that was just luck.  I could have put it on the bottom shelf, but it would have really been too low.  I can deal with it at this height since I usually am just heating water for my coffee of a morning, maybe making oatmeal or reheating leftovers or making cocoa at night.  I haven't had time to load it up, but will look forward to doing that tomorrow. 

This was kind of a crazy day.  Somehow, the powers that be arranged for everyone in Nederland and Eldora to get free RTD bus passes.  With the price of gasoline, which I expect will only go higher from what I read, I decided this was free money, so went to the library today, along with every able-bodied person within a 30-mile radius from what I could determine, with proof of property ownership and signed up and had my photo taken for my pass.  While I was there, I turned in one of the books I had checked out yesterday when I realized I had already read it and picked up two more.  I almost finished the second book I had checked out yesterday last night and I get almost panicky when I think I might run out of something to read, especially when the weather is bad.  No TV.

We had four or five inches of really light powder snow overnight, but it was calm until just about the time I was ready to leave for Nederland.  Then the winds started picking up and they've increased all afternoon.  I had to sweep out, but this was the first time in two winters that my front wheel drive and studless snow tires could not pull me out onto the road even after I cleared the snow.  We had had just enough sun and wind that the snow that was on the ground before this last snowfall had been turned into solid ice.  I tried twice, didn't want to start spinning the tires and making it worse, so walked back to the house, got a bucket and scooped some ashes into it from my ash pile and sprinkled those in front of my front tires.  Pulled right out.  Sometimes I think when you grow up on a farm in snow country you've learned everything you really ever need to know by the time you're five.  OK, eight.  After I left the library, I drove over to the spring up Caribou Canyon and filled my jugs with water.

When I got back from Nederland I sanded down the Spackled areas of the wall where the shelving had been removed yesterday.  Wore a glove because I had run a pretty good sized piece of very old rotten wood into one of my fingertips yesterday (how long are tetanus shots good?).  It bled freely and I encouraged it, washed with very hot water and antibacterial soap, and it isn't even sore, so I hope I'm OK.

Very smooth.  

Oh, boy!  Now's when you wish you had a vacuum.  It looks like the snow that comes in around my front door, but it's Spackle.

A whisk broom and some tack cloth I found the other day, had to serve the purpose.

Then I painted.  I can't believe this paint brush is still OK.  It's been in this plastic bag for weeks!

I also painted the wood box while I was at it and was taking a real chance because I didn't want to change clothes, and this paint with the primer in it, albeit acrylic, does not come out of fabric, even with Goof Off.  I think my clothes came through unscathed this time.

While the paint was drying, I drafted a letter in response to one, forwarded to me yesterday from an incorrect address, from Mr. Paul Bernardy of Sedgwick CMS on behalf of Sears in which he suggests he just learned about my claim regarding the failed auto repairs made at the Sears auto center in Longmont last October and suggests we've never talked!  Do they train these people in obstructionism?  Well, I've got some fine tuning to do on the letter, but it's almost ready. 

Right now, it's just about 11F degrees, the winds are cranking, but so are the blues.  I've got KUVO radio, Denver, streaming.  They have fantastic jazz most of the time, but Friday night at 6 p.m. it's blues.  If you like jazz or the blues, tune them in.  I just type in kuvo denver jazz and then find I get best reception on Listen Online.  Someone's substituting for the regular dj tonight and he's really got some toe tappers going.  I've fed the fox, got the rug, quilt and roll of foam up against the front door, have a good fire going and I'm a happy woman.  What makes you happy:?  Teddee