Category: Rants

Monday Mo(a)nings ~ November 7, 2022

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 62 Comments

We’re now back on standard time but there’s nothing standard about the overabundance of political ads currently being broadcast. I don’t know about you but the midterm elections can not be over soon enough. The endlessly redundant ads have had me screaming whenever the TV is turned on. It’s gotten so bad I haven’t been able to enjoy any sports; in fact while trying to watch a hockey game over the weekend, there were so many consecutive ads for nearly every state candidate running back to back to back, for one brief moment I thought one of the dogs may have inadvertently changed the channel. I was beginning to think maybe those &#@% gambling app ads (that I absolutely hate and which are played far too often), aren’t all that bad. The worst one that sends me into orbit shows a particular athlete smiling while on the ‘can’ as he’s placing his bets. Seriously. Argh!!!

When looking for a smile for today, this one seemed timely and made an accurate statement about the current state of politics these days in the US. Whichever way you lean politically, we hope you exercise the fundamental right to vote. In Colorado voting is done through mail-in ballots; the system is simple, convenient with no excuse not to vote, but honestly I still think pets would choose far better candidates. Where in the world do they find some of these candidates…under rocks?!

Smile

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Thankful Thursday ~ September 15, 2022

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 53 Comments

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!  🐾

WordPress Issues

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 52 Comments

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! 🐾

Nature Friday ~ October 1, 2021

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 55 Comments

Well, well, well…October already? It’s not even Halloween yet many retailers have begun displaying Christmas decor, much to my chagrin. Honestly…the trees in my ‘Hood haven’t changed colors yet but I’m supposed to get jazzed up about a holiday that’s 85 days away? Umm, that’d be a hard no.

Ok, I’m off my soapbox and now will join our PNW pals, Rosy, Sunny, Arty and Jakey from LLB in Our Backyard on their weekly blog hop. If you click on their the link you’ll see  what others in Blogville have shared.

As I’ve noted before, there isn’t a whole lot of leaves changing color yet. Because summer has been so hot and dry in Denver, I suspect most leaves may simply turn brown and fall. From what I’ve seen on social media though, the nearby mountains are showing off beautiful swaths of gold aspens. Hopefully we can get up soon to see for ourselves.

Here is one of a few trees around that has begun its annual change but not a whole lot of change is apparent yet.

Trees

And this tree had only one spot that was changing colors deep in its interior and it was actually more brownish than orange. Most trees continue to show signs of drought stress throughout the city.Trees

While walking along our usual route, we came upon this bright orange pumpkin planted between the sidewalk and the street. Seeing it made me mentally kick myself for not planting seeds in the garden this spring especially since canned pumpkin continues to be in short supply in stores. Probably crowded out by Christmas decor {grumble, grumble – I know, stop kvetching}. Between COVID disrupted supply chains on the simplest of products and persistent late season rainfall in states that provide the bulk of pumpkins, who knew there’d be a shortage of canned pumpkin? By the way, did you know that  the state of Illinois produces nearly 80% of the nation’s pumpkins?

Pumpkin

Thanks for nothing, Hurricane Ida.

Halloween

Whatever you plan to do this weekend, we hope it includes some time outside enjoying October’s splendor. Have a good one.

Live, love, bark!🐾

Nature Friday ~ August 14, 2020

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 91 Comments

Greetings nature lovers. Welcome to Nature Friday where we join our hosts and friends, Rosy, Sunny & their brothers for this week’s edition. Nature appears to be pretty upset judging by the numerous wildfires that have popped up around the state. The most concerning one is near Glenwood Springs where my brother and SIL just moved into their newly built home. Known as the Grizzly Creek Fire, it doubled in size overnight and now has consumed nearly 15,000 acres. I-70 has been closed in both directions and it is unknown when it will reopen. The fire began August 10th, is zero contained and some residents have been advised to be prepared to evacuate. The cause of the fire is undetermined but there are some suspicions it may have been human caused. This view was taken of the smoke and flames just south of the Colorado River on August 11, 2020. It gives you an idea of the roughed terrain in the area. That guard rail in the foreground is I-70.

Fires
Photo Source: InciWeb-Incident Information System
Fires
Map of the Grizzly Creek Fire. The red line was the perimeter at 12:47 a.m. MDT August 13, 2020. The white line was the perimeter about 24 hours before. Source: Wildfire Today /USFS /NASA

Another larger fire, the Pine Gulch Fire is located 18 miles north of Grand Junction, has now consumed over 70,000 acres as of this morning. Started two weeks ago and attributed to a lightning strike, the Pine Gulch fire is burning in remote, rough terrain of pinyon, juniper, oak, and sagebrush.  It is now the 5th largest in the state’s history. Hot, dry and windy conditions have forced three days of red flag air quality warnings with temperatures soaring into the 90s and windy conditions, with gusts up to 27 mph.

Fires
Source: Denver Channel 7, KMGH

The smoke from these fires has reached Denver making for blazing sunrises and sunsets as well as unhealthy air quality alerts. This eery image was taken a couple of evenings ago from the front garden.

Fires

The Cameron Peak Fire fire near Chambers Lake, also popped up yesterday afternoon in Larimer County, 18 miles northwest of Fort Collins, and has grown to over 1500 acres in a matter of just four hours. Evacuations have been ordered. Fire season is always challenging in a state with high mountain valleys, canyons and wide open vistas but with the state suffering from a widespread severe and statewide drought, nature has us back on our heels right now.

While Mother Nature can provide us with all manner of beauty, she can get cranky real quick. It’s wise to act consciously whenever your path crosses with nature. Obey campfire bans and for heaven’s sake, please don’t throw your cigarette butts out the window when you’re driving. While we encourage everyone to enjoy Mother Nature, please be careful. And pray for those who are fighting these wildfires and all those who are personally displaced and affected by them. Stay safe.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Monday Musings ~ November 18, 2019

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 75 Comments

Time to start a new week out with a smile within a tiny bit of a rant because you know me subtle is my middle name. The Knuckleheads and I were recently on a morning walk and came upon a fellow walking his little dog. So far so good. I’m always glad to see people walking their dogs, especially in the morning. As we got closer, I noticed he was looking down at a personal device. We stopped to wait for him to realize he was about to walk into a couple of excited Spoos…but no…he kept looking down at his phone. “Ahem.” I cleared my throat loudly hoping he would rejoin planet earth to alert him of our presence (his dog was weaving back and forth from an expando-leash, a second no-no in my books but that’s another story). By the time he was about 4 feet away, he finally glanced up, gave me the stink eye and an exasperated ‘hrumph.’ Oh Dude, you did not just do that! We each went on our way without incident and as I turned around to throw mental darts at his back, I noticed his head went down again reading his screen. I’m not sure if he was catching up on his social feed or proof reading his notes for a cancer cure but jeez…what the dog?! I may also have prayed for an open manhole.

Finding this meme made me chuckle as I totally see this clown behind the wheel of a vehicle with no turn signals too. Sadly the attention too many of us give those little mini-computers in our pockets is not only rude, it’s unsafe.

Monday

However your week goes, and we hope it’s pawsome, just be sure to use your turn signal and make it a safe one. And ditch that expando-leash so your dog doesn’t poop in someone’s flower bed.

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Clean Up Tuesday

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 67 Comments

You can tell once spring has definitely arrived. The fair-weather peeps come out after hibernating in front of fireplaces all winter long and start to take their pups for walks now. They are out in full force in my ‘hood these days but many of them seemed to have left a couple of very important things back at home. Their consideration and their dog bags. 

As our friend Jodi from Heart Like a Dog so aptly refers to them, the DADOs (dumb a$$ dog owners) are out in full force now that spring has finally sprung. What the heck people…were you raised by wolves? No, of course you weren’t. Wolves are raised in highly social and respectful packs. Growl!

Are the DADO’s without poop bags out in force in your ‘hood?

Life, love, bark! 🐾

Did You Know?

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 50 Comments

My daughter with whom I have been visiting all week recently posted this graphic on Facebook and as a mom and as a caring human being, felt duty bound to share. Do you know whether the products you use are tested on animals? Are you surprised at some of the companies on this list from the folks at the Beagle Freedom Project as I was?

Live, love, bark! 🐾

Game On Dude!

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 89 Comments

Normally when it’s been ‘game on’ in the past, it means I’m trying to match wits with a certain blonde knucklehead. This time however, we’re talking about a totally different game.

I’ve tried, really I have. Living in an urban setting, there is a surprisingly diverse wildlife population. Foxes, all sorts of songbirds, a couple of mangy coyotes, an owl, a pair of hawks, some raccoons and of course, squirrels. I enjoy watching them as they adapt to city life and have managed to co-habitat easily with them. That is, except…for the squirrels which seem to be some sort of spin-off from a Hell’s Angels fur gang, minus leather jackets. Lately they’ve become even more bold.

Source filched from the web

Oh sure, we all like to think of our little Sciuridae fur-iends as impossibly cute and even entertaining. Isn’t the one above just beyond adorable? Yeah right. The ones in my neighborhood are a lot more like this one. They’ve eaten screens, chewed ginormous holes in the trash and recycle bins to scrap out that lone tiny piece of stuck cheese in the discarded pizza box and left giant holes in the compost bins. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind it they stuck to the compost bins and enjoyed a strawberry hull or two, but crimmin-Italy…not the dang window screen…again!!

Source: another filched image from the Web

Less than two weeks ago, the most brazen of the 3 or 4 that have been terrorizing gracing the Ranch from large tree in the front yard chewed through the screen in the kitchen presumably to snack on some bananas. Must be offspring from the one from a few years ago that broke in through that same screen and devoured a package of brownies on the counter. Yesterday as we were returning from our early morning walk, we arrived to find a blur whiz past us. Naturally the Ninja huntress took off after it. She nearly caught him too. Sure gave him a scare as he double timed it up the utility pole just out of jaw’s reach.

Meanwhile, back at the scene of the crime, I realized we had caught him ‘screen-handed’ though by the time I retrieved Elsa from chasing him, the only thing left was yet another torn screen in the exact same spot as the prior 2 times. Little bastard. If it only happened a few times every 4 or 5 years, I probably wouldn’t be so cranky about it. But this was less than two weeks ago!! So I went out to the garage to see if I still had any rat traps. While I didn’t find a rat trap, I did find a couple of mouse traps and baited them with some peanut butter. Not 30 minutes later that same hoodlum snatched the glob of PB off one and triggered the other one from the window sill. Are you freaking kidding me??!!

Ok, pal…it’s game on now and I’m going full nuclear. I’m going full Bill Murray from “Caddyshack” and plan to catch that little rat bastard. Have you ever been victimized by a rogue gangster squirrel? While I consider myself a major animal and wildlife lover, this. has. got. to. stop. We’ll be visiting our friendly hardware store this morning to stock up on armament.

Live, love, bark! ❤︎

It’s baaaack

~ Tails Around the Ranch ~ 53 Comments

It’s that time of year again where we arbitrarily move toward insanity spring forward. Yup, time for a Ranch PSA to let you know that Daylight Savings Time arrives this weekend for the majority of the US this Sunday. Regardless of the pending calamity adjustment, we hope your weekend arrives with the promise of fun and some rejuvenation. Enjoy your weekend and for those of you lucky enough to not have to yet start this bi-annual catastrophe, we at the Ranch are quite jealous. Happy weekend!

Any big plans on tap beyond dreading the change?

Live, love, bark! <3