With the craziness over the past several days, both in the U.S. and on the world front, my poor heart can not take much more so we’re gonna focus on strictly sweet things today from around our ‘hood.

Dr. Dolittle’s got nuthin’ on us, we have more of our fair share of Mother Nature in the heart of the Mile High City. The other night while walking Sam, we ran into this little guy. I swear Sam did a triple-take when this little fella moved. He watched us for a steady 5 minutes, while Sam’s tail never stopped wagging. While it’s not unusual to see raccoons scampering down the storm sewers, I hadn’t seen any for a while so this was a welcome treat. There has been so much new construction of multi-family housing projects here that it probably has the local ani-pals as wigged-out as us uprights with all the congestion and non-stop traffic noise. It makes me long for simpler times and many more masked faces.

We’ve had all manner of fur-critters in the ‘hood. From mule deer stopping by to nosh on the salad bar otherwise known as my lupine garden, to beautiful foxes who frolicked under my bedroom window in the dead of a cold winter night. We’ve seen a horned owl and a pair of falcons in the pre-dawn morning along our walks and especially given the gawd-awful events of the past week or so, a far more welcomed sight.

Last Friday evening we encountered a bunny who caused Sam to stand up straight as if his low-rider mechanism was engaged and raised. He did a double-take and then tried to quickly dash after the bunny. Luckily I was prepared for the “rip-out the shoulder maneuver” he tried to employ and luckily managed to maintain my upright status. Sam looked at me like I’d just kicked his little sister. “Come on….mom….why won’t you let me go play with the cute bunny?” Oh wait, maybe because there’s no way he could ever catch him? Just thinking out loud.

Do you have wildlife encounters around your neighborhood?

Live, love, bark! <3