Wandering Routines

I have been remiss in posting on this blog for a while now, feeling melancholy and creatively uninspired, and feeling as though there is little to say..

A couple of weeks ago the temperature was in the 70s.  

Last week we were in the 60s, and this week temperatures are down into the 30s during the day and teens over night.

Although I knew it was coming - and although we were lucky enough to have warm temperatures so late into the fall - the drastic change in weather is both surprising and dramatic.

We had snow for the first time yesterday.  And it is snowing now, albeit lightly.

Snow is staying in the mountains, but not here yet.

I snapped these pictures in and around town a couple of weeks ago when it was still endlessly sunny and warm.

 The picture of the tattered American flag was snapped outside the town bar.

A dysfunctional place that seems to attract only the dysfunctional.

This concrete deer sits on top of a stone dedication to the founder of the town, whose name I cannot recall at the moment.

This small statue was once a beautiful little deer, but after all these years he is weather worn, fading and in need of attention that he likely will never receive.

He sits silently on top of the stone monument and under the shade of a tree in the small city park, watching over the towns people, and watching over the deer and coyotes that quietly wander into town when no-one is looking.....................

After missing them so much through the winter and spring, deer sightings have again become common for me and my always-ready-for-a-walk puppy.

We have not seen the three bucks in a couple of months, but the does and their growing fawns wander alone or in pairs or (occasionally) in large groups throughout the town, and the magic of them is that you never really know when you will bump into them.

As Kory and I walked to the far end of town before picking up a side street, I stopped in front of a home to snap a quick picture of the mountains that were visible in back of their property.

It was then that I noticed one motionless deer staring at us.

Kory and I stood for a long time - Kory staring and me wondering who would give up the staring contest first.

It was us as it turned out, and before we moved on in our walk I snapped this picture of a beautiful deer that  was mostly hidden in the shadows...................

Two houses down I stopped again when I realized that still more deer were standing silently and watching our every move.

Click on the pictures to enlarge...................

For the longest time LC and I were very curious about this building.

I had heard stories about the long, wooden bar that sat inside the building.

A bar that was embellished with silver dollars.

Of the daughter of the town founder (who was a very old woman by the time we moved to Atomic City, and who died only a couple of months later) who back-in-the-day was a beautiful woman with long, flowing red hair.

As the story goes, a deputy was shot and killed inside the bar in a gun battle with another would-be suitor.

 This past summer this old structure changed hands, and the doors were finally unlocked.

Shamelessly nosy, LC and I wandered inside to check the place out.

As is so often the case the reality of the structure was nowhere near as romantic and exciting as the stories.

 Walking inside the building I was immediately disappointed.

There was no beautiful, long bar embellished with silver dollars.

In fact, there was not even a floor.

Instead, there was a huge dirt pit in the center of the large room, surrounded by a gravel floor filled everywhere with..............junk.  

Broken glass, random 2x4s,  random metal, random insulation, random fill-in-the-blank.

There were no interior walls.  Simply frames for walls.

The entire large room was nothing but the remnants of whatever this building used to be.

 And so were the smaller side rooms that were located in back of the building.

So........curiosity has been answered and satisfied, and the outside of the building after all, is much more interesting than the inside....................

We kept the outside of the house classy when we painted and added trim this past spring, so the exterior is all brown and natural wood and black metal decorations.

But the fence is covered with whimsical and multi-colored decorations - smiling sun faces, bright red and black lady bugs, hummingbirds, sun flowers.

A happy smiling sun-face..................

We bought this little guy about a month ago from one of those Face Book online classified sites that I am so addicted to.

I have always liked carved wild life statues but they are usually so expensive that I never expected to come across one that we could actually afford.

And then I did.

He was weather worn so we restained him.

Don't know what the deal is with the salmon, or why he looks like he is facing the wrong way, but likely LC will turn him around next spring.  Or not.

For now, he sits outside our front door, I have mistaken him for Kory a number of times because he is just about the same size as a dog that we are constantly trying to keep track of, and I like him a lot.............

One lonesome deer wandering around looking for something to eat by the side of the house................

Taken during walks with Kory just outside of town, at a time when temperatures were still unseasonably warm.

We had to keep her close to home for a week or so not long after these pictures were taken.

She had hurt her foot poking around in our neighbors barn.

I went for bike rides without her.  I walked without her.  And every time I walked out of the house without my dog I broke her little heart.

Thankfully she is healthy and uninjured again, and we have returned to our regular wandering routine...............

He could tell by the way animals walked that they were keeping time to some kind of music. Maybe it was the song in their own hearts that they walked to........Laura Adams Armer