Occupation of Independence

Good timing is important. Just two posts ago I wrote about how hard it is for me to keep the Little Cute One on a leash, except around roads or towns.  The visibility was good at my latest campsite so it is easy to keep an eye on her, here.  And the only animals are gophers or prairie dogs.  Or so I thought. This morning I let her off leash and she did her usual dance/run of joy.  But she came back to me, quite well.   On a late afternoon walk, I considered letting her off-leash again, as her reward.  But I decided to play it safe. A few minutes later, we got within 50 feet of three badgers.  They are such flattened, weird animals.  They are not fast runners.  If the Little Cute One had been off leash, she probably would have run the badger down, unless it got into its burrow first.  I saw their burrow and will keep my eye open for them in the future. from wallpapergeeks.com One of the badgers seemed more curious or protective than the other two.  All three seemed full grown.  But mayb

For years, a certain type of snowbird has irritated me in the winter.  Usually they are from Puget Sound, but Canadians are just as bad. They come to the desert Southwest in the winter, and then complain if there is more than one damn millimetre of rain per month.  They will say, "Oh, I hope tomorrow is a NICE, WARM, SUNNY day." Sunny day, my ass.  They are going home in March or so.  They don't care if we have a flowerless spring.  They don't care if fire restrictions start in early May.  All they care about is their sacred sunlight.  The selfish bastards. (grin) In early June 2023, Canada is having beaucoup forest fires.  Smoke, haze, emergency closures.  Hell, the place is burning down. It has been a lot of years since I took my RV to Canada.  Maybe it is time to go there again.  No matter what topic comes up I could insinuate "a nice, warm, sunny day" into the conversation.  How sweet! After that I will pretend to condole with them, in my best pious and

Since coming into the forest a week or so ago, the Little Cute One has been acting crazy about ground squirrels, chipmunks, and even low-flying birds.  She was oblivious to the rainy weather.  All she cared about was  some kind of rodent in the thick tall green grass.  She acted like a little wolf or coyote on some animal video you've probably seen: remember the way they jumped up vertically and then landed right onto a rodent underneath the snow? But I have to keep her on a leash for her own protection.  (Think cars and coyotes.)  It is  so hard  to do! It is hard, because it is their wild enthusiasm that I most love to see.  The biggest reason for preferring small dogs to big ones is not the little ones' cuteness.  Instead, it is the feasibility of allowing the little ones to stay high-spirited.  The bigger the dog, the more you must suppress their wild enthusiasm, lest they injure people, your clothing, or your house.  For a while I thought I could wean the Little Cute One

I am developing an intense appreciation for a couple things here, in the inland Northwest.  Perhaps I owe it to an overdose of the color brown that I got in the Southwest.     The grass is lush and succulent.  Who ever thought a person could get this excited over grass? I need to learn about the "motion" mode of photography that my smartphone is pushing.  It was delightful to watch this tall, lush grass fluttering in a breeze.  Delightful! So much of the land in the western states is useless agriculturally, that is, to the plow.  How lucky the human race was to have learned how to convert dry grasslands into meat and other useful products.  A mountain biker can see grasslands as paradise because it means they will ride on soil, instead of rubble. My entire skin is drinking in the moderate humidity.    It is so nice to be able to wear sockless sandals up here, with no fear of the skin on my heels cracking, painfully.  Perhaps moderate humidity is under-rated simply because