Last photos of Palisade and Pets

Well, this is it - the last photos of the garden and pets. It's already May 29th, and moving day will be June 5th. Marco is moving back into the house so he doesn't have to pay another month's rent on his apartment. It's fine. We're getting along. He lined up some friends to help me pack the moving truck on moving day. Kate will be flying in from San Jose to help out and drive with me all the way to Oregon. I've made the discovery that Central Oregon is HOT in the summer. The Willamette Valley (Oregon) isn't as hot as Western Colorado, but it's hot enough, and it's more humid. I'm not going there. I don't know where I'll land, but it won't be another place where I can't go out and enjoy the summers. I've been looking at temperatures online now that summer is settling in. Beth suggested I check out the Oregon coast, so I've been doing that. It's weird knowing that I have one week to decide where I'm going to live, and I can't go there to check on it. I have about enough space on my credit cards to get moved and take care of basics. So, which of Oregon's coast towns will be right for me? I guess I can even decide when I get there. The one that looks most promising may be Astoria, with some depth, history, and a community college. My other concern at this point is that I have a lot of stuff to pack into the moving truck, and I dread doing that on a hot day. It could really mess up the rest of my week, and I'll need my health. This is stressful and scary, but also exciting.

Here's Elvis on the hummingbird feeder. We're supposed to hang a bottle on the stand, and we've done that before, but I'm not going to risk the birds when she looks so eager! Here I've exposed the picture for Elvis. See below for how it really looked.

Here are a few more pix of Elvis on the feeder. She was so cute (and creative).

Yeah, Hi Elvis. Where are the birds?

Here she looks like a weather-cat!

The back yard in the evening with roses and late-day sun on Grand Mesa.

Leila enjoyed lying in the back yard about this time of day.

It's not quite the same pose. You'd have to click on it and then look at her carefully. Indulge me. These are the last pix I'll ever take my lovely dog. I think it would be unfair and confusing to come back and visit. Once they get over missing "Mommy," that should be it, I think. The thought makes me cry, but what can I do?

Sweet Leila.

Leila and Elvis doing their thing. I'm not sure why I don't have any pictures of Pterelas today. Maybe he was asleep on the couch. Going around taking "last photos" is no fun, so I probably was trying not to think about that.

Pterelas, Leila, roses

All the nuances make a difference when you know it's almost over. Here's Pterelas with slobber on his nose. He's part Lab and part Chow, and probably part something else, too. He's got a pink tongue with black spots on it.

I just took a similar photo, but I want this one, too. They will all be precious when I can't see the dogs any more. A different expression, a different angle. It all feels important, and also ephemeral.

Even the roses interest me, and how they begin to bloom in May.

This is Leila. We're pretty sure her mix is half Lab and half Chow. Her mother was a Chow, and the owners had to chase the Lab out of the yard after mating with her mom. I guess he could have been a mix, but he looked mostly Lab to them. She had a black tongue, a slight underbite, and white, white teeth. She's one of the sweetest dogs you can imagine. Very tuned in to emotions, maybe a little codependent, but not too. She has a streak of "cat" in her - a bit of independence, and, oddly, is the best mouser in the family (including the cat).

On the couch

Elvis and Leila. My two little sweeties are quite happy on the couch together. I'm going to miss them terribly. When I move, they're staying here. I don't know where my future is, and most likely I'll end up in a no-pet apartment. Marco is good to them, loves them as much as I do, and they have plenty of room to run around here off the street. It's hard, but I don't know what else to do except take a few photos for the memory book.

A blog is a blog - Leila, Pterelas, and hail on the worn out deck

I keep struggling with the fact that some of these pictures are simply self-indulgent and have no redeeming artistic or social value. If it's going on the Web, it should be meaningful, right? Probably not. What is a blog? It's a web log, and it's mine. I like my pets. I want to remember them. I like the way Leila commandeers the chair by the washer and dryer, and Elvis likes to sit with her on the back of the chair.

Here's Pterelas, looking goofy and happy, as usual.

Leila and Elvis, no flash.

How fast the seasons change here! It's April and the grass has not only turned green, but has started growing out of control. A bit of hail reminds us of the season. It could still snow, as we often get our deepest (but not coldest) snow in April. Old-timers say the Grand Valley used to have a long Spring and Fall, but no more. There's basically only winter and summer now, with a very short Fall and Spring. At least it seems that way.

Snow in Palisade and a contortionist dog

The Palisade weather report today is about melting snow.

The view from my garden. I'm getting Spring Fever and am looking forward to turning the dead stalks into flowers again. That means most of them are probably going to have to be re-planted, but I look forward to it!

I liked this picture because the light on the snowy and wet branches glistens around the edges. Also, note the pale outline of the mountains wrapped in clouds. Nice.

Here's an unusual phantom cloud clinging to the Bookcliffs.

Indoors, Leila the Contortionist Dog is doing her thing - taking an upside-down nap.

Dogs, cats, and kitchen sage

Pterelas and Leila are wonderful dogs. Everyone thinks their dog is wonderful, I guess it's some kind of dog magic that happens. Both are some mixture of Labrador and chow, and Pterelas, the one whose nose is in the camera, probably has some shepherd or something on that order as well. More about them another time. It seems there are a lot of Lab-Chows in this part of Colorado for some reason, and that's fine with me. The camera didn't know how to handle the contrast here, but it's a nice picture of PT.

Here's Leila looking pensive - it's her usual look. She's built like a little bull and has especially soft fur and a very gentle manner.

I was really happy to finally discover kitchen sage for my yard. It looks droopy here in winter, but IT'S ALIVE. I won't have to re-plant it in spring, and it grows well but not out of control as many plants do here if they survive. Nothing really likes to grow under it, either, so it's a great discovery for weed control. I began planting sage all over the front and back yards, envisioning practically a sea of them when they matured. They seem to die after two or three years, but that's a heck of a lot better than planting annuals all the time. The purple flowers are beautiful, and you can cook with the leaves :)

The side yard of the house became a collection site for old wood and branches. Most of it ends up in our wood stove at some point. The chickens are gone now, having lived their happy lives, and we took out the fence so the side yard now connects to the back yard. There's Elvis checking up on things.

Leila in the snow

As overexposed as it is, I like this photo. It's one of the few, if not the only picture I have of Leila lying in the snow. She seemed to enjoy it, as she did so many things. It might sound crazy, but she seemed to have an appreciation of the outdoors and what it had to offer. I'll get to that more later with the sunset pictures. The exposure makes it look like burning hot summer, but I assure you, it wasn't! Hey, Leila, you are so adorable!

Leila, sunset, and things I've saved

Leila was one of our two dogs. Her mother was a chow, and her father was at least part Labrador. Her mom died shortly after giving birth, and the puppies were sent to a neighbor's to nurse with a dog that had recently given birth herself. This created quite a load for the adoptive mother dog, and probably also for the humans. Leila and her siblings were weaned and taken to the animal shelter earlier than one usually weans a litter. I have some puppy pictures of her that I'll scan sometime. She was a furball as a pup and very smart; as an adult she could look as elegant as a queen or as awkward as bull. I loved that dog to pieces!

Ms. Contortionist. Her favorite spot in the whole house was at the foot of the two carpteted steps that led from the kitchen down to the family room, which we used as an office. In the winter, it was a good place to feel the warmth of the wood stove, but she loved that spot in any season.

Sunset from the back yard. Palisade didin't get a lot of thunderheads and big exotic clouds, and in fact, most of the time the sunsets were kind of a bust. But on occasion we got the most wonderful array of colors, and clouds that defied arrangement.

These are things that I've carried with me for a long time. Everything has a story. The box with the spots and stripes was made by Kate and given to me, and it's part of a bigger story. The short version is, it's painted like a baby tapir. Maybe sometime I'll photograph and tell the longer story.