Bears and turkeys and deer, oh, my!

October 27, 2021

It was a busy wildlife night on Mineral Farms Lane last night. The bear tracks started behind our house (17) so they - yes, plural, most likely three - must have come down from the woods and the Veenstra's trail. They knocked over our firepit cover and our little grill and then came around our house and down the road. They followed the road to the Radles (13), went around their house then back to the road down to the Lonjaks (5). While there, they decided to tip over the dumpster, no trash out but an apparent dented lid. Being that we're talking bears, I decided not to explore further.

I know it's a dog eat dog world,
but I hope our resident turkeys are safe this morning

A no-doubter

Multiple deer tracks down towards
Camp Bird Road

The title of this blog is a reference to the Wizard of Oz, and it is supposed that if one listens carefully, one will hear a Wizard of Oz reference every day. Truth, I have Mash on in the background, and Colonel Flagg just mentioned the Tinman.

According to our "official" counting railing, we got five inches of snow yesterday. Before the snow started to stick, it rained and rained and rained. It's hard to imagine how much snow that would have been in colder weather. It's light, fluffy snow, not so much water content, but we'll take it. It is a winter wonderland this morning.

My official counter

Trying so hard to hang on

For those of you not in Ouray, we had a planned power outage this morning from 8:30 to about 9:45.

An Amerigas update from a call yesterday, they continue to lie. And lie. As succinctly as I can, my four conversations with their "customer experience reps:"

Jasmine (10/8): We'll pick up the tank in one to two weeks.

Tara (10/14): It takes up to two weeks for us to pick up the tank.

Jonathan (10/26): It will be 2-6 weeks to pick up the tank.

Melissa (10/26-supervisor): We never give dates for picking up tanks.

I swear on my dogs' lives that this is the absolute truth. I don't think I could make up something that so perfectly sums up my experience with Amerigas. Honestly, if they had just said in the beginning that it was the lowest priority and they'd get to it when they could, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

And lastly, some photos from our hike Monday on Portland Mine Trail. We saw an aspen leaf "blizzard," thousands of golden leaves swirling in the air. A picture would have done it no justice.