"It's quiet out there ...." .........."Yeah, too quiet."
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Remember that much quoted old Western movie cliché? Well that's the state of the onion out here right now. The snow has been melting and running off. Our creek and the major wash have been running bank to bank at times. The roads are one big mud bog. The BLM has just circulated the 'if you can't drive and leave less than a 6" rut, don't do it' declaration which effectively silences the gas field for the time being. Yep, we are in full rutting season at the moment. It's been a couple of weeks since our last supply run to town and might be another couple before we're able to do it again. Our food supply is holding out well but beer and fuel might become an issue before then. So if I disappear, you'll know that the generator has finally run dry. I'm giving you that techno heads up now, just in case.
With the weather and road conditions, it really is quiet out here. The two new gas wells in progress have become ghost towns. We haven't heard or seen another vehicle in days. The howling winds have been the only source of noise here. Well, except for the fella below.
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I had been hoping for Moose to send down one of Alberta's famous Chinooks, the warm dry winds that pierce the bitter cold of their winters. Above is what I got instead. It was hidden by the mesa's edge but a brawny whup, whup, whupping had me first conjecturing that it was multiple helicopters. I was only able to capture a marginal photo after it loomed into sight well to the east of us. It was an impressive creature stubbornly defying gravity as it plodded along but not necessarily a handsome one. Both ends looked amusingly like cartoon creatures but it's rear end (on the right above) unfortunately reminded me of Barney the Dinosaur grinning down at me. Only that aspect left me wishing for SAMs. Otherwise, it was a very much appreciated air show to punctuate the silence..
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So Daisy here sums up the current mood at the Rat; seen here grinning and lying with her front paws crossed; "Hey, we can't dance so let's just hang out and goof around.".
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Saturday night just insisted on some kind of classic comfort food so I dug a loaf of frozen bread dough out of the freezer. Unburdening the freezer remains a priority and good excuse. Found my coveted 16" pizza pan, primed it generously with olive oil and then worked the softened dough forever to spread it out to the edges and applied the pizza sauce. Then a layer of quartered large pepperoni and the inevitable extra herbs and spices. But I had an urge for something extra gooey and a taste for mushrooms so I got out a can of cream of mushroom soup, hand-whipped it into a lighter texture and carefully applied small dollops of it all over the sauce and pepperoni. Shamelessly applied over a pound of stray mozzarella (found in the freezer as well), a light sprinkling of Parmesan and then tamped it all down very gently to spread and incorporate the mushroom soup into the cheese. Then the final layer of more pepperoni, fresh mushrooms and some ancient frozen green pepper slices (those were 'OK' but obviously not as good as fresh ones).It presented the answer to everything I had hoped to satisfy. Thick and creamy, rich enough that both of us were happy in leaving the second half for another night's treat. I love those meals that don't leave you looking for 'a little something else' to finish off the hunger and even better if they provide a second sitting on another night.
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So, Saturday morning, I'm looking out a Rat window, up at the mesa top and something registers as unusual. I saw what looked like a mound of snow on a small stump. But the stump just seemed out of place so I got out the field glasses. During one of our supper and social evenings, Slim had mentioned how you just get used to what looks normal and what looks just a little off when spotting game. He was right; the glasses revealed the white rump of a mule deer doe. I took out the new camera with the great 12X zoom lens and fired away. The absolutely worst feature of this Canon S3-IS is the view finder. Unlike my adored old SLR where what you see is what you get, you look into the view finder and see some very vague digital image. It's absolutely ghastly so you point in the general direction, cross your fingers, click and hope for the best..
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Fortunately, the auto focus is reasonably efficient and the views above are similar to what my field glasses had revealed. Remember that you can click on any of these images for a larger view but do so especially for these deer photos directly above.These two does took their sweet time munching around the base of that pine tree. I'd love to find out just what food source they were so enthralled with; they were there for well over an hour. I have a feeling that these were part of the three doe group I had seen just the day before as they grazed down in our canyon bottom. We had discovered a well-worn trail which ascended the 300 foot face during one of our 'all critters of the Rat' outings last Fall. They could flit up the mesa face in five minutes and not even breathe hard. This is an awesome place to quietly exist and observe.
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