Relative Something

Life for me on the ranch is slowly moving away from needing to be Cyndie’s primary caretaker toward our usual partnership in life’s adventures. Her recent advances in regaining independence, by way of driving again, allowed her to attend a gathering of some of her friends and to spend an overnight with another which granted me a little time on my own.

I found an entirely forgettable shoot-’em-up cowboy movie to watch last night that she wouldn’t have enjoyed.

It was the first time I have been truly alone in the house for over a decade because we no longer have any indoor pets. Of course, I miss Delilah and Pequenita but it would be misleading to imply I don’t love the freedom from the responsibilities of tending to them.

The warm February weather has restarted the snowpack’s slow slide from the shop/garage roof. In the shadow of late afternoon yesterday, I saw that a chunk had fallen to the concrete apron below.

This morning, the crust on the snow was frozen enough to support my weight as I pulled broken branches out of the pine tree that suffered the most damage from one of the heavy snowfalls. There were a LOT more branches than I realized.

The tree looks a little worse for the wear but not as bad as I feared. I plan to trim the remains of the broken limbs back to the main trunk. Don’t know if that will make it look any better, or not.

Yesterday afternoon there were hunting dogs roaming our woods and howling off and on between scrambling around with their noses to the ground. These are from the coyote hunters that patrol the area and as such, are always a welcome sight. From my vantage point, it looked like they were roughly following the usual traffic pattern of the elusive fox that roams this area. That doesn’t mean the coyotes don’t travel the same pathways, but I’ve yet to catch sight of those ghostly predators.

At least I’ve seen and have pictures of the fox.

Never did hear any gunshots so their level of success yesterday is unknown.

It feels like we are on a slow slide toward the end of winter. Knowing full well that doesn’t mean we won’t experience more winter weather in March or April, I am holding back on any wild plans for our landscape post-snow.

I’m just going to lean back and enjoy riding the slide.

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