Jan 14, 2023: tracks, waiting for snow.

Here are a few photos of recent tracks around our place. I’ve written before about my fascination with tracking. It was a stunning day yesterday, so I took a 3 hour hike around the canyon, checking out who else is hanging out.

Elk, heading onto our property toward one of our ponds for water. Once hunting season ended on Dec. 31, they came out of hiding and have been all around; at least at night!
Some Tom Turkey was showing off here. No sign of a struggle.
3 coyotes trotting down the road.
a little guy, small rabbit likely

Today, we took a walk at Valle Seco, a Forest Service area north of us and saw more tracks.

This photo was taken at Valle Seco, about 1/4 mile off the highway on a closed FS road. The hole is nearly 2′ diameter. This looked like a coyote den at first. Maybe curious elk checking it out? I’ve never seen coyotes make such a mess. A bear? Not people tracks, either. Any thoughts?

Alan and I have done a lot of driving recently; a week on the Front Range with family, trips to Durango and Pagosa, Las Vegas, NM, Albuquerque, and more. Big Red (below) is now in the shop, getting repaired following the hit-and-run a couple months ago that trashed the back quarter and rear bumper. It’ll be there for at least 2 weeks. So we are down to 1 vehicle, Alan’s work truck. The first big storm of the season is moving in tonight, and we hope to see at least a couple feet of white stuff from it. The plan is to lay low and get out the xc skis and snowshoes.

Big Red, the day we bought her on Sept. 7, 2013!

Just to add some variety, here’s some shots from our drive home from Fort Morgan, CO.

The Wind Farm near Last Chance, CO: it goes on for about 50 miles
Great Western Sugar Factory, Colorado’s only beet sugar manufacturer.
South San Juans, nearly home.

We haven’t done much work on the house recently. Too much driving, I guess. I’ve been busy prepping for the coming semester, which starts Monday. I’ll be teaching 4 classes online. Alan’s been working on adding lighting in the kitchen, which is wonderful. We continue to work with the water system: there’s 1000 gallons of rainwater in the cistern, and it’s not freezing much even when it’s minus 10 outside, so that’s great. Every 10 days or so I drop a pump into it and fill up the 65 gallon tank upstairs, which then gravity-feeds to the kitchen and bathroom sinks. The well provides water for doing laundry, but we still need to install the 3 large (120#) filters that will allow us to use it for washing and gardening. That’s a big job, and not one Alan really wants to tackle in cold weather.

Another New Mexico sunset, driving home

The woodstove works fantastically and keeps the place cozy, and so we have been enjoying comfy evenings reading and watching TV shows like The Expanse and Wednesday. We don’t watch much television most of the year, but make up for it during these long nights!

Cold face, out on walk with dogs

2 thoughts on “Jan 14, 2023: tracks, waiting for snow.”

    1. 4 similar classes, all psych, but to different populations…. 1 is for prison inmates at 3 different federal prisons in CO! That’s a new one for me. Luckily, I developed all of the courses, which helps a lot.

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