Thankful Thursday ~ September 15, 2022

Surprise, it’s me…and yes, I realize it’s Thursday and not my usual Wednesday post but the world seemed to conspire against me yesterday while I was trying to install a new computer and it ended up taking 7 hours getting it remotely configured. By the time I managed to smooth out the numerous wrinkles migrating the old data onto the new hardware, it seemed silly to post anything late in the afternoon…so voilà…it magically transformed into a Thankful Thursday post instead of a “Wordless Wednesday, ” i.e. “Wish I Were There”  post. But trust me, I’m ever so grateful I didn’t fling the doggone thing out the window before figuring out how to get anything posted again. And I’m exceedingly grateful no people or pets were harmed in the agonizing process and I still have a head full of hair (thought there was a short period of time where I thought I might need to wear a wig for a while). At any rate, here’s hoping you enjoy no matter what day it is.

Italy
High Tide, Venice

Live, love, bark!  🐾

Nature Friday ~ September 9, 2022

Nature FridayWelcome to this week’s edition of Nature Friday where we join our pals over at Adventures of the LLB Gang for their weekly blog post. Make sure you check out the link for other posts.

We were absent for last week’s blog hop as we went to celebrate my Dad’s 92nd birthday for a few days so this week’s offerings are a bit ‘catch-as-catch-can’ with no real theme. But sometimes that works out ok as Nature often can be a benevolent mistress when sharing beautiful sights. We weren’t able to do a lot of looking around this week, between the broiling temperatures and catching up after several days away, but managed to capture a few pics from our trip that just might do nicely.

Birthday
92 never looked so good

Different from most trips down to Dad’s house in southern Colorado was the addition of a certain Ninja coming along. She loves my Dad so I thought I’d see how’d she do in the ‘wild’ if you will. New situations for Elsa are always tricky and I’ll admit she was definitely a bit out of her routine element but she handled things far better than I had hoped. Dad’s property isn’t fenced and there are loads of critters weaving across the two acres (ground squirrels, rabbits, quail and heaven only knows) but she stayed close to me, cautiously sniffing the trees, bushes and ground. Norman of course, was his usual self but having two clever dogs to keep an eye on kept me on my toes. I’ve learned to never leave anything to chance when dogs are involved.

Let’s start with meeting the neighbors. Norman loves saying good morning to the donkeys across the road and they seem very keen on him so I wondered how Elsa might do.

Elsa & the donkeys
‘What the bloody heck?’

She has that “what the &#@% are those things” look to her in this pic, which cracked me up. The guys, however are pros around the dogs and didn’t blink an eye no doubt wondering what the fuss-up was all about as Elsa lost her mind and barked her fool head off. Oh that dog.

Rather than wake up the entire area, after brief introductions, we moseyed along our on walk.

Norman
Norman meets a horse

The next morning following a most delightful evening rainstorm, the morning skies seemed to shout “Are ya happy now?”

Sunrise

It was exquisitely beautiful. But it got better. As we started out on our morning walk, the sky kept getting redder and redder with that great cloud cover. After we climbed the first hill, I turned around and this is what I saw.

Norman & Elsa

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more intense and spectacular sunrise anywhere. It was just breathtaking.

We all had a great visit, celebrating, eating, laughing, and Zooming with out-of-state relatives. It was one terrific visit for one terrific human. Once we got back to Denver, we noticed a new neighbor moved in around the corner from the Ranch so naturally we had to check them out. The dogs weren’t sure what to make of the new feathery dudes, and the ducks sure aren’t keen on them getting too close, but they quack at us every day when we walk by.  They usually are swimming in one of the two small pools as their owners sip a cuppa and watch over them. They wave, I wave and Elsa barks her fool head off. She may never be a member on the Welcome Wagon, but fortunately the duck owners seem friendly. I’ll stop when the dogs aren’t with me to welcome them personally.

Neighborhood Ducks

It’s bounty time now in the veggie garden. I came home to the potted tomato plants kicking into high gear. The cherry tomatoes have been a regular, heavy producer but it’s outperformed itself this year in the hot temps.  They are like little red candies-so sweet, so tasty. The ‘Early Girl’ is just now beginning to ripen. All the fruit seems fairly misshapen as well as smaller than I anticipated so I think this year’s experimental planting likely won’t be repeated next year, no doubt to the chagrin of the neighborhood hoodlums…aka squirrels. Anytime I can irritate that local population, I’m a happy gardener.

Tomatoes
Cherry tomatoes
Tomatoes
‘Early Girl’ tomatoes

Well, that’s it for us. With a break in the heat bubble this weekend, we’re hoping to be able to get out and find more of the amazing sights Nature routinely bequeaths us. A news report this morning indicated the Western US should experience a La Niña winter (colder/wetter while warmer/drier in the Southeast), with Colorado being pretty much the dividing line between the two so we’ll see what this means in the weeks ahead. I’ll be grateful to turn the AC off. Hope you are able to enjoy some of Nature’s finest. Have a ‘wagnificent’ weekend.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

WordPress Issues

Gif   Greetings fellow WordPress bloggers who have been experiencing issues trying to [easily] leave comments (and in the misery loves company category, I have had the same problem with some of yours). I managed to figure out a work around but became frustrated having to do it frequently so I reached out to the WordPress Happiness Engineers. Their initial thought is they believe the issue is a bug (bloody cockroach is more like it but I digress) and will move it up the chain “to the team” for further evaluation. Great {dripping with sarcasm}.

So…have you been receiving this message lately when you try to leave a comment?

WordPressAfter experiencing it on several blogs I follow and receiving a number of messages from folks who follow me (thank you very much for letting me know), I contacted the WordPress Happiness Engineers who suggested the following work-around (although why this suddenly woke up the blogging gremlins didn’t make sense to me, but then again I’m no techno-wizard or blogging expert so who the heck knows).

You can clear your cache if you want to. You can also test turning off the setting at My Site → Settings → Discussion → Comments → Comment author must fill out name and email” [For the record, making this change did not seem to rectify the issue for me but it might work for you]

Turn off the setting for “Comment author must fill out name and email.”

Check your Discussion settings page on your blog to see how it may be configured.

The only thing that seems to work for me thus far is best described in this graphic. Whenever I receive that error message, I first copy my comment (no point having to retype it again) once I get back to this view:

WordPress

Rather than retyping my comment, I paste the copied comment and then fill in the info at the arrows. Sorry this is turning into a cluster, but hope this info helps until WordPress fixes the bug. I’ll share any info they provide. Good luck to us all.

P.S. As of 7:00 AM MDT, I had not heard back from the advance team. Sigh.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Wordy Wednesday ~ June 15, 2022

Given how crazy and wild things have been lately, I couldn’t help but wonder if things were better ‘back in the day’ and found this look back in history. The nostalgia was definitely noticeable on my spirits. Wordless Wednesday

Do you have an “I remember when” moment from way back when? It seems we may simply trade problems through the years.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Wordless Wednesday ~ May 11, 2022

Peacock door
Door handle to Indian restaurant.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Monday Musings ~

Monday

Cuz we’re just not quite ready for it.

Norman

The Ranch’s presence this week may be somewhat spotty and limited. A project in the studio has gone badly (no thanks to IKEA) and may restrict the ability to be online. I was lucky to find the laptop in the chaos.

Chaos
And that’s only the part that was ‘spiffed’ up

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Nature Friday ~ December 31, 2021

It’s Friday which means we’re are joining the Nature Friday blog hop with our friends, Rosy, Sunny and Jakey from LLB in Our Backyard.

WildfiresWeather and climate change continue to dominate nature  along the Front Range. Unless you live in a cave, you’ve no doubt heard about the catastrophic Marshall and Middle Fork fires which hit the northern metro suburbs yesterday afternoon. Hurricane force winds of over 100 mph are believed to have knocked down power lines sparking dry grasslands which moved quickly between Denver and Boulder. The entire towns of Superior and Louisville were evacuated yesterday which remains in effect today. Nearly 600 homes, the Element Hotel and a shopping center were destroyed. Six people were reported to have suffered injuries but it is unknown if there have been any fatalities. Winds were so strong yesterday, there was little firefighters could do but evacuate homes and businesses in the fire’s path as quickly as possible. Major traffic jams occurred when some cars four-wheeled over bike paths and through parking lots to escape the wildfire’s path. A state of emergency is in effect.

Wildfire
Photo courtesy of AP 

Wildfires are becoming a year long phenomena throughout the Western U.S. but this latest fire is highly unusual in that it occurred in an urban area and not in any wilderness area.

The fire has consumed over 1,600 acres as of last night. Officials hope they can get a handle on the fire with less severe winds, cooler temperatures and several inches of snow scheduled to arrive later today. This map from the New York Times shows the affected area. Colorado Highways 93, 128, 170 and parts of US 36 are closed to traffic.

Wildfire

Wildfire
Photo courtesy of AP

The aerial image below gives you an idea of the scope of the fire area.

Wildfires

As if 2021 hadn’t been exhausting enough with record-breaking COVID cases despite vaccines, we now face a year round fire season. Don’t know about you, but I for one am SO. OVER. 2021.

However you celebrate the New Year, we pray you’ll do it safely. Best wishes from everyone at the Ranch who will probably spend most of the weekend huddled together on the sofa under a thick pile of blankets as single-digit highs arrive tomorrow. Yo Mother Nature…could you please lighten up?

Nature Friday

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Nature Friday ~ November 19, 2021

Nature FridayWelcome to the Nature Friday blog hop where we join our pals, Rosy, Sunny and Jakey from LLB in Our Backyard. Don’t forget to click on the link to  see what others have shared.

Well it finally happened, the leaves have been wrested away from trees that have been hanging on  (yeah, I’m talking about you, Mr. Passive Aggressive Catalpa). Bags, bags and more bags have been raked up and carted off to the city’s composting station at Sloans Lake…so now what? It’s November and although temps are still pretty mild, with no leaves on trees to check out, let’s just say the month of November can be pretty dull and boring. Could that be why there’ve been some pretty colorful sunsets?

After Wednesday’s post showing off the Oregon coastline at sunset, you probably think I’m a bit obsessed with sunsets. And you’d probably be right (though truth be told I enjoy a beautiful sunrise every bit as much). The sunsets have been pretty amazing lately (despite the fact that my urban sunsets unfortunately include power lines with no rugged coastline). This one started early on and it only got better.

Sunset

This week I’ve been charmed with Nick Offerman’s latest book, “Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (wherein he waxes on philosophically about Mother Nature) and on one evening, I looked up to see why the living room was so brightly lit up by orange light. Getting up from my comfy reading spot and disturbing a couple of furry snugglers, I went outside to see a brilliant sunset highlighting stately evergreen trees across the street.

Sunset

It was as if a wildfire was burning close by (which sadly there is-the Kruger Rock wildfire near Estes Park, where a fire fighting tanker plane crashed, killing the pilot). It’s so hard to comprehend that we’re still in the midst of wildfire season. In November!

The evening skies have been exceptionally vivid lately. I guess if you’re November, you’ll do just about anything to make yourself look good now that autumn leaves are history.

With this being the last weekend before the Thanksgiving Day holiday, do you have any special plans? Whatever you decide to do, we hope your sunsets are spectacular and that you’re able to enjoy some time outdoors appreciating Mother Nature’s evening light show.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Monday Musings ~ November 8, 2021

Halloween

The neighborhood has barely put away all of its Halloween decor when we walked past the yard above over the weekend to discover another frightening scene in its place. Ugh, I think I need a Bromo-seltzer to settle that queasy feeling in my stomach. With weekend temps hitting the upper 70’s, some peeps are already dragging out the Christmas gear before raking up all their leaves. *sigh

Christmas

I suppose if Costco can start displaying Christmas decorations in early September, then anything is possible. Here’s to having a ‘festive’ week-whichever holiday you’re preparing for. Have you managed to source your Thanksgiving turkey yet? I’ve heard there are…wait for it…supply chain issues related to the Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings.

Live, love, bark!🐾

Monday Musings ~ March 22, 2021

Spring arrived over the weekend and boy was it ever glorious (sunny and 65ºF-perfect in my books). While walking around the garden picking up wrappers that has blown in  during last week’s blizzard, I noticed my favorite baby blue grape hyacinths had begun blooming an Ode to Joy. I had to chuckle because of what I knew would probably be coming.

Flowers

These little guys are my favorite of the grape hyacinths in my garden (the purple ones have a later blooming timetable and bloom longer) but they never fail to charm. The fact that the original dozen has naturalized nicely makes them even more appreciated.

This morning, the Ranch hands woke up to this scene and is expected to continue accumulating off and on today, tomorrow and possibly Wednesday.

Snow

At least there was at least one day of spring which may be the shortest spring on record. Funny thing about these records, we seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Mind you, I’m not complaining about the snow; we need the moisture. But it does mess up my plans for a day trip to visit with out of state family members who will be in the southern part of the state just until this Thursday.

Whatever is going on in your neck of the woods, we hope your week starts out with a smile and sets the stage for a ‘pawsome’ week. Happy Monday!

Live, love, bark! 🐾