It seems that most of the country has experienced an unusual weather year, and records continue to be set as our tourist summer ends and we head into fall. Our daily temps here in Colorado have consistently been 10 degrees warmer than usual. We had a horribly dry June, but then the monsoon moisture came, and we got some rain storms that helped put out the big wildfires in the area and saved the forests around here.

We didn't have the lightning storms, heavy rain, or hail that we usually do, but that's a good thing because so many times the lightning starts fires out in the forest.

Lately, the pattern at our house here in the mountains has been very scattered afternoon showers, but we have been fortunate in that, even if it doesn't rain, we get cloud cover in the afternoon and it is a relief from the heat of the day.

Most of our hummingbirds have left already. At one time we had at least 80 of them at the feeders by our house, and now there might be 10 or so. I still have a lot of feeders out so they don't have to share. We take them in at night so the raccoon can't get them, and get up at dawn to put them out again for when the birds first awaken.

The raccoon goes up on the roof and snags the hangers, shaking them until the feeders fall to the ground. There are muddy footprints all over the metal roof because he also tries to rip the vent covers off so he can get into the attic.



Mr. Troutbend was splitting that Douglas fir he cut down the other day, and found barbed wire that had been nailed to the tree, embedded in 50 years of growth. The tree grew right around it. The core of that tree was really in bad shape, and the winter winds would probably have toppled it into our power lines, so good thing he cut it down.



Our new cat Eloise continues to catch any mice that come along and spends more time with us every day. Since she is up all night on mouse patrol, she tends to sleep most of the day.



The fox was here the other day for his weekly visit. We saw him go around the house to where Quackers used to hang out, just checking to see why it is so quiet now. Bless his heart, the fox didn't eat that goose. Of course I didn't want him to, but couldn't have blamed him if he did, because that's his instinct.

This is probably the peak of his summer coat, and you can see that his tail is starting to fill out again, getting ready for cold weather. Isn't it funny to have a wild animal that will stand still for pictures?



Here is that group of three deer who were here a couple of weeks ago. It was low light, so hard to catch them all in a photo without blurring.