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November Walks

The mostly gray weather has not kept us inside at all. We try to get at least one walk everyday. The dogs (and I) would go stir crazy if we didn’t get out regularly.

 

Ken’s friend Bill came up from Yakima with his dog Rani
Black and Blue
Ahhhhhh
Sky wanted Rani to be her mentor but Rani would have none of it. She has become a curmudgeon.
Hairy Woodpecker listening
And looking
Listening
And pecking
Oregon grape in front of an unnamed pond.
Nice fall colors and reflections
Buffleheads and mergansers
Reeds and reflections
Sky makes her way through tall grass
Another view of the same pond
Nice color
Sky keeps up with Mary Ann

Fall to Winter and Back Again

Saturday afternoon Ken and I and two of our friends and a total of six dogs went for a quick afternoon jaunt to Aspen Lake. The morning sunshine was replaced with leaden clouds that made it seem colder. And sure enough, it was snowing when we got to the lake. My new camera was confused by that and instead of focusing on a distant duck, it focused on the snowflakes. It made for an interesting effect.

 

Aspen Lake
An interesting painterly effect, if not exactly what I was looking for
The obligatory puppy photo
Subtle fall colors with a touch of snow
Through the aspens
Lindsey helps one of her old dogs over a log
Healthy sagebrush seed crop this year
Barrow’s Goldeneyes
That old tree looks like something out of a story
Overlooking Moccasin Lake on the way down

Frosty Morning Walk

Oh this puppy is growing! She’s now over twenty pounds and was just ten when we started with her almost four weeks ago! And the cuteness is growing just as fast. At some point she will become a teenaged dog and we will yearn for these days.

A sunny morning was welcome after the last couple of gray days. It was a good opportunity to try out a new ‘superzoom’ camera too. It goes out to 600 mm and is small enough to easily carry around.

 

Mountain Chickadee
Frosty bitterbrush
Following her nose
Oh! What’s that?
Mt Robinson, I think
Hey! Whatcha doin?
Goat Peak
Zoomed out to 600, I can see the lookout
Love the sun shining through the trees
Up the driveway
A boy and his dog
And let’s not forget about Luna.

Tiffany Lake with Puppy

Sky is going to be a good hiking dog. So far she has been to Cutthroat Lake and Tiffany Lake in the North Cascades. They are both short hikes but for a ten week old puppy, they are real expeditions. We were surprised to have Tiffany to ourselves on such an outstanding fall day. Here are a few photos from last Saturday’s hike to Tiffany Lake.

This late season butterfly was on a firewood trailer we passed along the road
It should be easy to identify
A very late blooming wildflower. It’s stem was maybe an inch long. I think it is an agoseris.
Tiffany Lake through the snags
A light coating of ice
Sky likes the water
Snags from the Tripod Fire in 2006
Watching Luna
Something stinky that Sky found. Maybe a baby beaver skull?
Beautiful brook trout
Cute
Gorgeous fall colors
Luna doesn’t mind cold water
Sky isn’t so sure about that
She’s a retriever!
Splash
Hmmm, a fish
Helping
I can get over this
Nothing to slow down Luna
She’s getting taller
Another late bloomer. Aster?
Lots of brook trout
Ice
A puppy’s got to rest now and then

An Owl Pellet

Just to prove that this blog is NOT about puppies all the time, I thought I’d share this owl pellet that I found yesterday. Ken and I were in the Okanogan Highlands (a work trip for him; a chance for me and the dogs to get out of the valley) and at the end of the day we were walking the dogs before the long drive home. I found this pellet at the end of a bench. Now that the busy summer season is past and hunting season too, the owl must have found it to be a quiet place to perch. This is the largest pellet I’ve ever found – nearly six inches long. What is an owl pellet? Owls don’t have teeth and swallow their food whole. They do not digest the hair and bones. These parts are regurgitated as a pellet. We picked it apart to try to determine what the owl ate. We found gray hair and the bones of a small mammal. Ken speculated that it was the back half of perhaps a rabbit since there were no scapulas or a skull. You can see the vertebrae on the bottom of the image, thigh bones and hip sockets in the middle, tiny claws on the right with perhaps some long toe bones above them.

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