TOO Many Losses on "The Mountain"

As a few of you may know, I volunteer at Full Moon Farm, a rescue for Wolves and Wolfdogs. This has been a year of too many losses. This will be hard to write Delaware one of my heart canines died, from cancer that was not found during his bloat surgery. I have my memorial Delaware coffee cup as well as my Pete one. Pete was another heart dog. Nancy Brown who runs and owns Full Moon Farm says I am a mixture of Pete and Delaware.... a talkative, cranky old man. I guess she is right. I can't drink out of either cup. The coffee for some reason gets too salty. I'm not putting salt in my coffee.....
Pete died a few years ago. Annie, Nancy's first rescue finally died from her mamary tumors. I could give her treats, and she would make funny "squeally" noises of joy, take them from me and store them in her dog house. I never got to pet her. And then recently Zodiac finally went. The last Howl In he looked so old. He was overweight from his thyroid condition, and last Christmas was his last. I thought he was going to drop dead on me. He was around 10, and for the mix he came from that was good, especially being that out of that rescue some died of starvation and Zodiac weighed a breath of what he should have.
Nancy has a new outreach animal and his name is River. Jolene adores him. She also REALLY adores Lobo. I can let River take treats out of my mouth like Zodiac would.
Well that's all right now. Just this much has bummed me out rather badly!

Sliding into Fall

It is November now, and we are back on Eastern Standard Time. The Sugar Maple trees have finally changed color, and right abruptly I might add. My small Sugar Maple in the front yard is a pinkish red. The larger tree in the back yard has become bright yellow. The large Sugar Maple in the Mechanics Creek bed turned orange, but the tree also dropped a lot of the leaves. The Winged Elms are dropping leaves and turning a rather pale washed out yellow, then to brown and on the ground!
It's been quite wet and rainy, though the rainfall totals have not been substantial this time. At least the forecast for now gives us cooler than normal and dry until next week. That will give the standing water and boggy yard time to dry out and the water to soak down into the ground.
Jolene goes to the vet in the morning to see why she has bloodshot eyes. It might be "Pink Eye" but she shows no symptoms other than looking like she's a drunk. And she now has a kitty. It was my neighbor, John's kitten, but he fed him outside, but when he wasn't home he got food if I fed him. John calls him "AC" but I think ACE is a better name. He's an orange tabby with no black pigments.... pink nose and pads. This boy is wide open and plays VERY rough with Jolene which SHE likes. She plays rough back, but never hurts him. I am afraid Ace will try to attack a Coyote, thinking it's a dog. That is not good. Ace is going to be a rather large cat, and he is loving. You can hear him purr in the next county. I bought him a nice cat bed and he didn't want to get in it until I placed him in it on his back. THEN it clicked. So he does like it.

OOPS....I've been away too long.....

Well it has been quite some time since I wrote....so a short update. It's fall and the colors appear they are NOT going to be as vivid as last year. The stunning Sugar Maple down in the Mechanics Creek bed is turning color mostly but a lot if the leaves have dropped. My 2 Sugar Maples are just hinting, and the Winged Elms are dropping leaves and certainly won't be as pretty as last year. A couple weeks ago my 1996 Ranger was retired in favor of a 2006. This one has 50,000 miles and is almost like new. It has the 3 liter V-6 and automatic. It has an aftermarket Kenwood radio, and it was a suprize as the AM part is actually better than the stock radio. On a trip to Camden, SC I got 25 MPG which is better than the older truck did and it was a 4 cylinder. I do another post shortly.

What a difference a week makes!

In the previous blog post, I mentioned the beauty of the fall. Well this past weekend the leaves were falling like snow. And then now we had 20 degrees this morning, and a forecast of another hard freeze this coming weekend will likely take all the leaves from the trees.

November 18 was Jolene's 3rd birthday. I got a cheap piece of meat, and cooked it. It was large enough for both of us, and she got fed each piece by hand, and she had to sit, stay and wait for each one.

This morning I was awake as the sun was coming up and tuned in to WKDK, and Jimmy said it was 21, and was 20 JUST as the sun came up. That is generally when the low occurs. I ran and checked mine and had 21 degrees out here. The high struggled to 49, but it wasn't so blustery as Tuesday when we had winds to 25 miles per hour, and that made the 47 degrees seem much colder. Of course Mount Mitchell, NC had a 4 degree low this morning and yesterday struggled to get into the teens. BRRRR!

Into mid fall

I had thought the leaves on the trees would be a repeat of last year. PFFFT went the leaves on the Winged Elms last year. This year, with a bit more rain, they have turned a bright yellow. The couple of below freezing mornings aided to the color change, but some large Oak trees were still green and these trees are just going to drop brown leaves. Now those trees, luckily are in the minority. I have 2 Sugar Maple trees. My brother and I cleaned out around them. Well the one in the back is beatiful, however it's NOW in the open. I may cut down the 2 pine trees nearby. They both have rather damaged trunks, and will clean out that space even better. In the front yard, that Sugar Maple is crowded by a couple of Winged Elms. And it needed to be watered, and really didn't get a lot of it, so it's not as pretty. The one in back is a vivid yellow, while the one in front wants to be orange. As I walk down Alpha Martha with Jolene, the colors are maximum. Sweet Gum trees have vivid colors ranging from bright yellow to a deep purple. Some of these Sweet Gum trees have the entire range of spectrum. As we turn down Sandy Run Creek road on the way down the hill to Mechanics Creek, the Red Maples are blazing red. Some of the other Oak trees also are a deep red. The granddaddy Sugar Maple in the basin of Mechanics Creek is a blazing orange. I would love to have that tree on my land. It has to be 60 feet tall. I bet you could get a lot of sap to make Maple Syrup. Down in the basin there are quite a few smaller Sugar Maples. I may get down there and get me a small one to transplant
Now, the trees actually, once we get a rain and another freeze will start dropping leaves and we shall head toward winter. But for now, it's a blaze of color. And the smell of fallen leaves is in the air. Walking the mile down and back to Mechanics Creek with Jolene is great. It's the most beautiful time of the year. The fall flowers are blooming also. Jolene is getting her winter coat in. Yes, the summer coat keeps showing up on the living room carpet. That's what the vacuum is for. Jolene, is my rescue, and is a German Shepherd / Sheltie mix. She's currently curled up on "her sofa" .
Speaking of her, I may get my friend who has the Husky rescue to make me a cart. He makes racing (sled dog) equipment. I think she would do well. I found out she can drag me if she really wants to, and she loves to RUN RUN RUN !!!! She does get to go to the radio station with me when I have to work evenings for ball games and I get to leave a bit early to come home and pick her up. She curls up in the control room with me.

Catching up

Summer was hot, and dry, but not record setting like last year. We had some more severe weather but nothing to write about. Some late summer and early fall rains helped a lot but this year we are around 6 to 10 inches of rain below normal unlike last year when here on Alpha Martha it was closer to 30. We had no record breaking temperatures. Just a boring summer.

March was a BLAST

The Storm Prediction Center first put us in a "Moderate Risk for severe weather then gave us a VERY rare High Risk category. Were they ever right. SC had 17 tornadoes and 40++ million dollars damage. These storms were very fast moving and had multiple tornadoes in the long lived supercell thunderstorms. It went from lightly overcast to dark enough to turn on the security lamps, and then there was golf ball sized hail and 75 MPH wind. The sky was this dark purple green. I was not amused. being a storm chaser, being THE CHASED! The sky was smeared over and there was no storm structure visible in these storms.

We had a minor repeat of this stuff on Friday night April4, while I was at the radio station. The worst here went through Jalapa, SC and did some damage.
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