Wildlife

The location of our house offers us daily wildlife visits, for which we never tire of watching.  The common sightings include birds (of all sizes & varieties), squirrels, chipmunks, & deer.  Unfortunately, we also battle with neighbor cats using our yard as their hunting ground or litter box.  I'd really like to pop them in the behind with a BB pellet - not hurt them but scare them off - but apparently that's a felony.  Fiiiine, we won't resort to animal cruelty.  (Seriously though, I don't let my dog wander around the neighborhood to s**t in other people's yards or terrorize other critters, why the hell do you get away with it because you have an "outside" cat?)  I think we'll resort to a squirt gun & letting Guinness out to chase them anytime we see them.

On a more rare occasion, we're delighted with visits from more skittish creatures.  Yesterday evening, a small fox came cruising through our yard, looking for dinner.

 Mid-pounce!  Didn't appear to be a successful hunt, he (she?) didn't walk away with anything wriggling in his/her jaw.

Goings on

 Christmas morning, this little fella found our compost bin, as the lid had blown off the night before.  If he could have fit more of his body, I think he would have crawled right in.  I can't imagine composting food is good on the guts but then again, it is winter & nutrients are scarce for these critters.
*The "fence" in front of him is a garden next to the compost bin & there wasn't a good shot of him without going outside & scaring him away.  The previous home owners used bird fencing like it's going out of style...one of the things we'll be changing next summer.

Our little sponge is soaking up the world around her as she continues moving into new development milestones.  Playing with her hands, looking at pictures, blowing bubbles...

And she's eating like a monster.  This little girl must be growing like a weed, packing on the pounds after lengthening out a bit.  You can see her lovely little baby belly in the picture above.  It, along with the rolls on her legs, are the cutest damn thing.

Wherein life is consumed by a ten pound human

Parents, how do you get anything done with a baby?  Since we had her, it seems like we've barely been able to take care of the essentials to maintain sanity (running, showering, eating & laundry).  One of us is usually running interference with the little one, giving the other spouse a few minutes to get something done.  Let's ignore the fact the house desperately needs cleaned & home improvement has come to all but a standstill.

Despite it all, we fall in love with her over and over and over again.  And each day she surprises us with new development - smiles, giggles, movement.

 Her hair is fabulous.

 Hands by the head/face for sleeping.  Always.

 "Please, no pictures right now."

 Her papa put her down in front of the mirror in our room & she was instantly fascinated.  Look closely & you can see Brewer's snout, checking things out.

 Coy smile.

 Our turkey was not amused.

 These are the moments when the plug comes in handy.

As I was looking through pictures, I realized we never posted these pictures from the fall, shortly after we moved into the house.  We have a dogwood shrub which we happily discovered attracts a large variety of birds.  We'd sit in our sun room, eating dinner & watching the birds fill up on the berries, preparing for winter.

More recently, we've had a series of strong windstorms.  We saw this girl taking advantage of the spilled sunflower seeds from the bird feeder after a strong wind blew through the area.

Baby Bump in the Subalpine

Last weekend Chicky, the dogs and I went for a little hike up on MacDonald Pass west of Helena.  My beautiful bride makes such a gorgeous pregnant woman that I couldn't help but take a few bump pictures while we were there.  Here are a few of my favorites.  I even convinced her to try on my hat for a few pictures.

Recent happenings

Apparently we do have things going on in our life, besides preparing for baby.

Steve completed another ultra, the Devil's Backbone 50-miler.  I'm losing count how many 50-milers we're at...four? five? six?  He also ran 100K last year.  Let's blame it on pregnancy brain.
We met our good friends in Bozeman for the race - they're from Sheridan & we miss them since moving to Helena, so it was great to catch up.  The two crazies pre-race:

 (It's ok hubby, you can smile.  Or maybe you're thinking about another pre-race porta potty trip).

Ah-ha, there's the smile!  Post-race excitement.

 Nothing like an ultra through the mountains, followed by a refreshing IPA.

This race is known for being extremely tough & to make matters more exciting, it's essentially unsupported.  The runners are expected to have general navigation skills, in addition to packing their own water (or filter system) & food.  Steve finished in a very admirable 11:35 - good job honey!

Now that we live in Helena and within twenty minutes of several lakes (yay!), we've tried to take full advantage of the warm weather.  Here's what it looks like when we take four big dogs to the lake:

The last weekend of July, we zipped over to Missoula for their annual Celtic Festival.  With Enter the Haggis and Young Dubliners playing, we couldn't pass up the quick trip.

Guinness (appropriately named) enjoying the park after a dip in the river.

Enter the Haggis.

Just like a little kid, he quickly passed out after a busy afternoon.

Young Dubliners with special guest Eric Rigler (far left)

They put on a great show & the fact everything was free was awesome!  We got their early enough to score great seats (it's in a park, so BYO chair) & had a very fun time.

It's never to early to introduce baby to our love for all things Irish.  She certainly spent a good portion of the night dancing.  We don't know who's playing at the festival next year but we might have to bring her along.

A random collage

We're rapidly approaching winter.  *Sigh*  I love living near the mountains but oh dear, I go into winter kicking & screaming.

Since we're so behind on blog posts, here's a random collage of pictures:

 "Hi Mom.  Just waiting from someone to drop something on the kitchen floor for me to eat."

Sometimes you have to snuggle with your yogurt cup.  Or wear it as a top hat.

Someone stole a stick from the wood pile...

 This is a very typical picture...

Busy bees soaking up the last of the nectar from our Russian Sage.

Our potted clover showing off its floral beauty.

And the post wouldn't be complete without a few of our favorite little guy...

We will be the coolest aunt & uncle.  So we start them young learning to order craft beer.

 "This guy must not be a Ramirez because he's really tall."

 "This is my Blue Steel look"

Circle of life

It never occurred to me a plethora of bird feeders would attract predators.  (Sometimes I'm in denial about the circle of life)  Minutes after submitting my posting below, I looked out the window to see a pigeon-sized bird eating something on a branch & acting quite differently than the pigeons that usually invade our trees.  With the binoculars & zoom lens, we realized a hawk had most likely turned one of our regular small bird visitors into an early dinner.  The occasional tiny feather dropping from the tree was another pretty good clue it was a bird meal & not a rodent meal.  (I'm really hoping it wasn't our resident Black-Capped Chickadee)  Looking through our bird book, we narrowed it down to Cooper's Hawk or Sharp-Skinned Hawk: