Strange Critter

Well, it's been a while since we've had anything interesting on our game camera, so I've taken to photographing the critters in the immediate vicinity of our house. The other night this little guy scared the crap out of me... I think it's some sort of albino praying mantis.

Albino Mantis?

I Shall Call Him Fred.

Anyone out there have some idea as to what he is?

New Blankenheims

Apprently this is the part of sabbatical where I get bored and start adopting animals.

Without further ado, meet the two newest members of the Blankenheim family...

CeeLo

Lucia

Yup, I named a bird CeeLo. He seriously reminds me of him. And Kati named the girl (at least I think she's a girl) for me - because she's the color of St. Lucia.

So far Shadow is indifferent. We'll see how long that lasts.

The Critters of Clinton Road: The Story of My 18 Mile Run

Today was a day that for some reason was sort of stuck in my head... 18 miles sounded like so far. I woke up before my alarm (5:45am) ready to run. I parked at the gym and did a loop through downtown Jackson, then headed out to Clinton Road, a long, hilly road.

I love this road - it's beautiful, through the country and just makes me feel good about running. About four miles into the run, I came across three baby cows who seriously looked like they were there to cheer me on. I had to stop and get a picture because they were so darned cute!

The Three Musketeers

A little farther down the road, I found this little cow. I was trying to get a picture of her looking at me because she had really cute eyes. Then I noticed who was hanging out in the background... the dreaded turkey. I swear, those suckers are stalking me.

Sweet Cow, Scary Turkey

Then I just ran for a while. The weather was absolutely beautiful. I hit one of the big hills around mile 10 and owned it. On the way back, I saw these really pretty horses:

Horses!

One day, I will own a horse. I swear it.

I started to feel tired around miles 14-15, took a Gu and felt better. It definitely wasn't easy, but today was one of the first times that I actually felt that the marathon was within reach. I had it in my head that 18 miles was really hard, and once I was able to do it, it makes me feel like I can do anything!

Sweaty!

The final stats: 18 miles, 3 hours and 5 minutes, 1400 feet of elevation gain.

Twelve Mile Stalker

This week I jumped right back into my marathon training (last week was an "easy" week). So today, being a Saturday, was long run day. Let me start by saying this was the best 12 miles I've run in a long time. I still have a bit of the achy knee thing going, but not nearly as bad as it's been in prior weeks. I ran on a road that Mike and I normally bike, but for some reason had forgotten how hilly it was - today's 12 miles included 640 feet of climbing.

But on to the more important part of the run. I firmly believe I was stalked by turkey for the entire 12 miles. Before I elaborate, let me remind those of you who followed my blog way back in 2008 (when it was on Vox - boo, they deleted their whole site and I lost the content from that time) that I have a history with the turkey. Not the eat-you-for-Thanksgiving history, but the holy-crap-you're-mean-and-scary history. Long story short, I found a turkey in my front yard making pretty little turkey sounds (think: velociraptor sounds in "Jurassic Park"). As soon as it saw me, it escalated to hissing, wing dragging and flying. Yup, until then I didn't know they could fly (like onto the roof of my house). I spent the next two years in that house terrified to walk out the front door, convinced they were waiting on the gutter to pounce on me.

Add to that Mike's horrifying story of being chased on his bike by one who proceeded to peck at his calf and I've developed a healthy "respect" for these critters.

Today, one (I'm pretty sure it has to be the same one) followed me, gobbling, for the entire 12 miles. Only, whenever I looked over my shoulder, they weren't there. Keep in mind that I was running in the country - like real country (cow pastures, horses, creeks, etc), so there was plenty of places to hide. Mike tells me that there's hundreds out there this time of year, but I'm pretty convinced it was just one... toying with me the entire time.

Maybe I need to drink more water...

Creature Chronicals: Deer

One of my favorite animals to see now that I live on land is the deer. I know they're not like most of the creepy crawly animals that I've been featuring, but I wanted to share all of the critters, good and bad.

I snapped this picture on my way to work the other day - the sun was just coming up and this doe and buck were grazing on the frosty grass. This ins one of the first pictures that I've been able to get of them (they normally run away right when I get the camera out).

Deer In A Meadow Near Our House

This little buck had just two small horns... very cute. Lately there have been a big herd (about 15-20) that have been hanging out in the area. A lot of them (more than half, I'd guess) are babies still... they're so cute! I tried to get a picture of them, but they're the first to run away.

Enjoy!

Weekend Wrapup: Football, The Haka & Critters

Today was quite the Sunday in the Smithson/Blankenheim house. We started the day with some serious football watching. My 49ers pulled off another win - so exciting to see them at 3-1! While the game was on, I worked on an apple pie. It really has been forever since I took some time to bake - and while my crust was not fantastic and my pie is not beautiful, it sure does taste good! Once all of this wedding stuff is over, I'll need to brush up on my technique!

After lunch I took a lovely nap... we had all the windows open and the breeze was wonderful! When I woke up, I went out and noticed that football was no longer on TV (seriously, that's blasphemy on a Sunday). Instead, it was rugby. As it turns out, the World Cup was on... New Zealand was playing Canada. For those of you who don't know, Charlie and Mike played rugby all through college... so he was really into this. I sat down to watch and I must say, it is a really interesting game.

The most interesting part of it all, was the New Zealand All Blacks team's pre-game ritual. They perform the haka:

Yeah, they do this before every game. And the other team is just expected to stand there and watch. You have to admit, it's a little intimidating! Apparently, the haka is a traditional war cry and/or dance of the Māori people of New Zealand.

Finally, we ended our day with a little walk down to the game camera. I'm telling you, we hit camera gold today.

Black Bear

Mountain Lion Dragging A Deer

Here's the crazy part... the picture of the mountain lion dragging the deer happened on the night that I was up because my alarm was on the fritz - and right around the time that I heard awful noises outside. How crazy is that?! I find that I'm completely fascinated and completely terrifed all at once.

The Creature Chronicles Part 3: A Snow White Moment

Today was seriously beautiful. The weather has cooled down a little bit (this morning it was in the 60s) and the animals of Sutter Creek decided to come out and play. I'm serious, I felt like Snow White:

A whole little herd of deer were hanging out just outside of the house... munching on some grass. I tried to get my camera to get some pictures, but every time I moved past the window they looked like they were going to bolt and I decided that you've all seen deer and I should just enjoy the moment. They looked something like this:

A little later on, I decided to head down to the grocery store and had to stop in the middle of the road so that a flock of turkeys could cross. By the way, for those of you who have followed my struggle with how to pluralize "turkey" (turkies? turkii?) over the last few years, I finally looked it up. How do you say multiple thanksgiving birds? Turkeys. Now you know.

Anyways, as if that wasn't enough, I had a ton of hummingbirds hanging out tonight. I definitely felt very immersed in nature today... I think they were all coming out to enjoy the slightly cooler weather!

The Creature Chronicals Part 2

As promised, I've been trying to snap pictures of the fun (and sometimes scary) critters around my house. I found this one the other day when I was working on digging up the peach tree. On a side note, Mike said that I loosened it up for him - two hard whacks with the sledgehammer got the roots out. I knew I should have pounded on it for a little bit longer! The new crepe myrtle looks beautiful!

I digress...

I discovered a lizard (look really hard in the middle of the picture):

Lizard

There are tons of these little guys all over up here. They're incredibly fast, which is why the picture is a little bit blurry... I had to sit very still for about five minutes to get him to come back out of the bushes after I originally spotted him. These little guys are super fast and tend to hang out just about everywhere outside. They scare the heck out of me because I'll hear something move in the leaves and, of course, my mind immediately things I'm about to be eaten by a mountain lion, only to look over and see a little lizard tail scoot away. Of all the critters around here, these guys might be my favorites... they stay outside, look cute and leave me alone!

Conclusion to the Nature Experiment

Well, I waited a whole week only to discover that the only things in the forest that eat defrosted squid are the neighbor's dog and vultures. It was a little bit disappointing, but at least now we know!

We did get one brave deer that was willing to walk past the stinking pile of squid to make his photogenic debut:

Is Anyone In There?

We also had 12 pictures of the neighbor's dog (alone and off leash, I might add) doing I don't know what to it. The neighbor must wonder why his dog keeps coming home smelling like fish when we live no where near a body of water...

One Smelly Dog!

Finally, I got to see some vultures up close and personal. When we went down to retrieve the memory stick, there were a couple still hanging around - they're huge!!!

Two Vultures

Flying Vulture

Yup, this confirmed that they're pretty much the most disgusting creatures on the planet. Must suck to have your only marketable skill be to be able to find dead things. They (along with the snake) really must have pissed God off somehow...

So that concludes my back yard experiment - pretty much only vultures and dogs will eat nasty, decomposing squid. We've also learned that mountain lions apparently don't enjoy seafood...

500th Post & A Puppy!

Before you get too excited, no, it's not my puppy. My best friend Brigitte and her husband Dan got a new puppy today. He's a 10 week old yellow lab and his name is Remington - yup, like the gun. He's going to be a bird dog! But for right now, he's an adorable puppy! Brigitte and Dan invited me over to meet the puppy (and to see their beautiful new house) this afternoon. We had a blast hanging out and they made a fantastic BBQ for dinner.

Mr. Remington Porter

I'm blown away at how smart this puppy already is - in the 4 hours that I was there, he had already learned to ring the bells to go outside (that's how they're training him to let them know he needs to go outside to go potty). Just after I left, he put himself to bed in his crate!

In other exciting news, this post is my 500th post on the blog! Woo hoo!

A Nature Experiment

I have begun an experiment, right in my own back yard.

Here's where it all began - we're starting to buy stuff for our wedding and needed the freezer in the garage. The whole purpose of that freezer was to store the squid that Charlie and Mike caught in their quest to see a great white shark.

I had to somehow dispose of the squid to make room for 120 pounds of tritip. There were a couple options:

1. Throw it in the garbage can. My garbage man comes on Friday and this was Monday night... I don't think I could live with the smell of defrosting squid.
2. Roll it down the hill. But then the smelly, defrosting squid would be a little too close to my house for comfort.
3. Schlep the smelly, defrosting squid down to the game camera for some (hopefully) instant entertainment.

Obviously, I chose option number 3. Of course, I'm trying to do this discreetly, but the easiest path to our game camera involves crossing our neighbor's land. And (of course) he happened to be standing there as I hauled what I can only imagine looked like a dead boy across his land. So, I had to explain myself (quickly because that sucker smelled!) and his eyes lit up. I'm not the only one excited about this...

Mike and I are going to head down Saturday or Sunday to check out the footage... and to find out if mountain lions eat seafood. I can't wait!

Play Dead!

One of my friends posted this on Facebook... I totally need to teach Shadow - this is hilarious!

The Creature Chronicles Part 1

Ok, I'm officially starting a new feature on my blog called "The Creature Chronicles". Basically, I'm going to start posting pictures of all the scary bugs at my house. I saw this one out front on Tuesday evening after Mike and I got home from a bike ride. Without further ado, I bring you the first entry:

Centipede

It's some sort of creepy centipede thing. It's different than most of the ones I've seen up here - normally they're black and this one definitely was not. Bug lovers out there, do you have a name for this one?

Note that I was brave enough to put my finger in the picture. Historically, I've been very bad at getting close enough to some of these things to get something in there to show scale. I promise, now that I'm documenting my scary bugs, that I will get something in there to show you how big they are.

Stay tuned for more... I know, you're all waiting with bated breath...

Fourth of July Wrapup

After yesterday's bike ride, we headed down to my parent's house for the Smithson family 4th of July BBQ. As always, the food was fantastic and we had a great time. I spent another hour or so hanging out in the pool with some of the family friends... it's definitely been a wet weekend!

Yesterday's festivities ended with a migraine at about 2am. Not entirely sure what caused that one, but I suspect that hanging out in the heat drinking beer and caffeine may have had something to do with it. Needless to say, this morning is pretty much shot thanks to the migraine hangover. Mike and I did make a trek down to the game camera as it's been a couple weeks since we've checked out what was on there. Unfortunately, the batteries went dead sometime around 6/23, so we only had four pictures. In fact, I'm pretty sure that for the last couple weeks the mountain lions have been dancing in front of it, knowing it's off. There's a ton of turkey poo around there as well, so we missed some bird pictures.

I'm lucky enough to have today off, so I plan to spend the rest of the day just hanging out with Mike and Shadow. We don't have any real plans beyond watching today's stage of the Tour de France. We did start up our own Tour de France fantasy cycling team - if you win the overall competition you win a trip to next year's Tour! We are planning on going anyway, so winning the trip would be awesome! It's a fun game to play even if we don't win. You basically pick 15 riders and can have 9 of them active for each stage. They get assigned points based on where they finish and if they're wearing any of the major jerseys at the end of the day. We'll see how we do!

Humongous Moth

This morning Mike told me that last night after I went to bed this bat kept hitting the window. He said it was annoying and must have had some sort of issue with it's sonar.

Then, about 11am today I got a text from him saying he found a moth stuck to the sliding glass door that was humongous. This was followed by a text picture of the biggest moth I've ever seen.

I didn't think much more about it until I got home this afternoon and went out on the deck to water some plants. It scared the crap out of me! Seriously, I was afraid to turn my back on this thing!

Moth 1

Moth 2

Moth 3

After taking these up close shots, I decided that I needed something to show some scale. So I made Mike hold up a quarter, because honestly this thing scares me a little:

Moth With A Quarter

Every day I love moving out to the country just a little bit more...

Weekend Wrap Up

Holy cow, it's already Sunday and even holier cow, it's already May! I can't believe how fast this year is flying by!

On Saturday I headed out to work at the American River Parkway Half Marathon. It's an event that C.E.R.T. does every year and it's a really fun one. I like working the races because I get to help people that aren't feeling well, but I also get to cheer people on! This year I was assigned to ride my bike up and down the course. I must admit, since my bike accident back in 2006, I haven't been very keen to get back on. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I have. This was a great event because I wasn't focused on "Oh $h!t, I'm going to crash" and actually had a lot of fun. Next up, climbing Alpe d'huez. Yeah, that's right, Mike's making me. :)

Mike and I went down to check our game camera (we don't really go alone any more... and now we're getting ready to take the pistol with us!) because we hadn't been in about two weeks. More success with the mountain lions! We ended up with two pictures of them and a couple really good deer pictures. The mountain lions seem to be sticking to passing our camera at night (which is when it uses infrared technology). I wish we could get one good one during the day - that way we would get way better detail and color pictures! Either way, these are some big cats. I think they're two different ones in these pics because one seems much bigger and muscular to me:

Mountain Lion on 4/23/11

Mountain Lion on 4/27/11

We also had a couple of pretty good deer pictures:

Deer on 4/24/11

I definitely wouldn't be caught dead in those woods alone (pretty much at any time of the day), but I am gaining quite the fascination with these beautiful creatures. I'm sort of hoping that one walks past our deck one day (when Shadow, Mike and I are safely inside, of course) so that I can see it up close!

I spent the rest of today (ok, ALL of today) laying on the sofa and trying to actually relax. I have definitely been over booking myself lately and need to figure out a way to create some down time. My allergies are kicking my butt, which definitely helped keep me mellow today. We topped it off with 88 Giant Burger for dinner (after all, it is National Burger Month!) and are now headed back to the sofa for some Sunday night mellowness!

Anna Get Your Shot Gun

On Sunday I did something I never thought I would do... I fired a shot gun. Several recent events prompted me to pick up a gun for the first time in my life. I don't care to go into too much detail regarding one of the incidents, but I'll just have you know that I feel the need to be able to protect myself and my home. The other is the latest in pictures on our game camera:

Mountain Lion

Here Kitty Kitty!

Yup, we've definitely got mountain lions. Big ones. Well fed ones. Who apparently don't have any issues hunting.

Mike and I went out with our friend Logan to teach me how to use the gun. I was scared to death... it probably took me a good ten minutes to pull the trigger the first time. Even after being told how powerful the shot gun is, I was still a little surprised (and very surprised the next day when I had actual bruises on my shoulder from the kick!). Once I got going, the shooting part was not hard at all.

I hope to never have to use the gun, but I feel more confident that I can take care of myself now. I spent a long time thinking about whether or not I would actually be able to pull the trigger, and I believe I could if faced with serious danger. I feel really good about being able to protect myself, my family and my home.

Let The Planning Begin!

I started looking at a lot of the bridal magazines that Kati gave me (thanks Kate!) as well as the Knot. There are just so many decisions to make... it's starting to feel a little overwhelming! There's venues and dresses and food and colors and favors and all sorts of other things. I started to look at all of the different checklists out there and there's tons of stuff that we should already be doing! We're thinking about a Fall 2011 wedding, which means that we're already under a year! I had wanted a few weeks to bask in the glow of being engaged... I guess it's time to kick it into gear!

We've been talking through venues and reception sites... we know a ton of people, so we're going to need to make sure we find one that has plenty of room! I feel like once we get those two big things nailed down (and actually have a date) things might become a little less overwhelming. I think we're getting close!

In other news, our neighbor sent a picture to us yesterday that says "Meet our new neighbor":

Yup, it's a bear. Our neighbor has a game camera mounted on one of the trees near where our properties meet... this little fella was caught on film around 5pm on Wednesday. I'm definitely not living in the city anymore! I'm less worried about the bear than I am the mountain lions, but I'm definitely going to be on my toes! My main worry is that we take Shadow out at night to do his business and accidentally surprise one of these big old critters!

Onyx Vigil

Ok everyone, time to round up some prayers and happy thoughts. Eva's kitty, Onyx is very sick and in the hospital. She's fighting through some kidney issues. Maybe if everyone sends out a happy thought/prayer we can help her out a little!

Here she is in her Thanksgiving sweater:

Weekend Wrapup

Another crazy week here! Thursday night I dyed my hair dark again - only this time I did it on my own and finally got it dark enough. I'm pretty sure that my hair dresser refused to do it that dark because he was scared. I love it. Now I have to face him the next time I go in for a hair cut. That's always the awkward part. But hey, I'm saving my money right now, so the hair and nails had to go. It's a good thing, really. I would much rather have a house!

I spent all of Saturday morning in the yard raking leaves. I woke up with this brilliant idea that I was going to earn my keep and get it done so my dad wouldn't have it. It didn't look like a lot of leaves... boy, was I wrong! Three hours, one entire "green" garbage can and four gigantic Hefty bags later, I was done. Cody and I were so pooped we had to take a 2 hour nap. Seriously, my little shoulders are sore today - who would have thought that raking would be so much exercise? And who would have thought that three little trees could drop so many leaves!?

Today was spent researching puppies. I've been looking just for kicks - I definitely want two when I get the house for protection (and company), so I thought I would be proactive and research the best breed for me. The first that came to mind was the Siberian Husky. It's one of the most beautiful dogs in the world, however, the following was on EVERY website I found:

THESE DOGS WILL RUN AWAY IF LEFT OFF A LEASH, EVEN IF YOU THINK THEY'RE TRAINED".

Um, yeah, not what I would like to deal with. Not to mention the fact that they like to jump and can jump as high as 8 feet. I definitely don't want a dog that could hurdle me.

Next up on my list was the German Shepherd. They're friendly, easily trained and fiercely loyal. They also have a double undercoat that they shed at least twice a year. Now, I am officially not allergic to dogs (thank you allergy tests) but I don't know that I want to deal with that kind of fur. I've seen the fur fly, so to speak, with Cody and it's a mess.

After German Shepherds was the lovable Labrador Retriever. Things got interesting here. They come in three colors (ok, four, but I'm not paying for the rare silver one) - chocolate, yellow and black. They are great watchdogs, very loyal, easily trained, although a little more independent and stubborn than their cousins the Golden Retriever. Basically, it's me in dog form. I want two. Now. A boy and a girl, one yellow, one chocolate.

Now that that's settled, I just need to get a house...