Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Welcome to the bone yard... I mean backyard. I meant backyard.

We are having a bout of just beautiful warm weather here in my tiny mountain town these days.  And when I say warm, I mean warm for here in March.  Which is low to mid 50s.  Which is also shocking and obscene to my California friends, and I apologize for that, but who knew that I would find myself at a point in my life where 52* would feel warm.  Not I, I can tell you that!

So, to celebrate the lovely weather Mr. T, Noodle, Nugget and I all donned our rain boots and went slogging around in the mud that is our almost 6 acre parcel surrounding our house.  Would you believe that we have owned this land for almost a year and a half, have lived in this house for almost a year, and I have never walked the whole lot?  Completely ridiculous, that's what.

At least that's what I thought, until we really got into it.  Would you like to see what we found?  Okay, here we go, but remember, you asked.

First, let me give you an idea of what we are working with:


This is our backyard.  I know.  Eventually some of it will be landscaped (all that dirt in the foreground, perhaps?), but let's face it, we have almost 6 acres of scrubby sage.  Not much to be said about that.

So off we go.  And the first thing we find, before even getting out of the civilization part of our yard, right next to the garage, is this:


Ummm, what is THAT?  Well, we eventually found out, but I will spare you the details.  Or at least the picture.  Because it was gross.  And smelly.

Some other things we found were lots of cactus (goody), lots of animal poop, and lots of tracks, like this one:


That is a deer track.  Doesn't look like much, does it?  Until you are surrounded by about 147,285 of them, then it looks like we plopped our house down right on a deer/elk highway.

We also found this track...
 

... which I have been assured is a dog track, and not a very large wild cat print (though we have those here too!).

And this one:


I'm pretty sure it belongs to this:


That's a Nugget.  He makes cute prints.  I'm going to keep him.

Then we came to this:


I don't know what it was, but it was big.  And I was pondering where the rest of it was when Mr. T told me to turn around.


Welcome to the bone yard, people.

Now, I know that this used to be cattle land, a long time ago, but, really?  And that isn't where it stops.  I got some close ups for your enjoyment.


Couldn't even start to tell you what this is, but the thing behind it is most definitely a spine.


Yup, and even I could tell you that those are ribs back there.

And my personal favorite:


Don't know what it is, but it reminds me of a periscope.  I'm pretty sure it's not one, though.  What with us being land locked, and all.

And with all this carnage around us, still happy campers.


There is also a crazy amount of petrified wood around this joint.  It looks like this...


...which to many people might look just like a rock, but once again, I've been assured that it is, in fact, wood.  Or once was wood.  Whatever.

I took Nugget back in, since he tripped and ended up covered in a fair amount of mud, but Noodle and Mr. T kept nosing around, and Noodle shows up at the door with this:


Which is an antler.  Which came from our front yard.  Made all the more disturbing by the fact that this is the usual sight in our front yard...


Oh dear. 

Just for the record, that was also the source of the fur we found way back when we started this excursion.  Not that particular deer, but trust me, it was a deer. Heavy on the "was".

So, that is my land, and everything on it.

How nice.


1 comment:

  1. Ok, so yes I need to clean my oven...badly. Yes, I too have a crazy cat (or 4). But honestly, it was the deer carcasses that made me say "I'm totally following this!" Because anyone who can blog about tracks, bones, and dead critters has definite Internet Bestie potential! Lol
    Nice to meet you...You happen to be just my brand of crazy ;D

    ReplyDelete