Yeah, it's all open range out here. So there's plenty of grazers, sometimes more than there ought to be. But in New Mexico when that happened, we just bought half of the beef, and so we got our trees back, ha! That'll show you, cattle.

Yesterday I saw an elk. A really big one. Well, I dunno, it was my first encounter that close, so I dunno if it was big compared to other elk. But it was big compared to me.

I live way way out in the country, but I am not allowed to have goats. I traded my ability to have goats for my ability to have piped water and a septic system. I think it was probably the right call.

Liese, when I live up at the observatory near Cloudcroft, there was much hilarity when our wee black cat, Thimble, was loping through the tall grass and came nose-to-nose with a...COW. She moved so damned fast back to the house! We'd thought she'd never move faster until she met an elk on the lawn. Ever see a cat lose her tiny feline mind in utter panic? Yeah, it was awesome.

All elk look hy-uge to me, having had to brake for them on the road. I quail at the thought of meeting a moose.

Get used to the 'coons. Lock up your trash. I think your new place is at a slightly lower elevation zone but those guys are persistent and clever!

Yeah, we were just talking about that. We have coons here and we were speculating we still would. The difference is significant in elevation and terrain, but there's still plenty for them to thrive. It's about a thousand feet difference - 7000 to 6010, and ponderosa pines to juniper/pinon.

Also, hee, about the cat. The Biscuit believes he can herd the cattle to where they should be. The cattle believe otherwise. I dunno how it'll be at the new place as far as that goes, but we had quite a regular herd in NM.

I live way way out in the country, but I am not allowed to have goats. I traded my ability to have goats for my ability to have piped water and a septic system. I think it was probably the right call.

It was a good call. But in LA, you can have goats & piped water and a septic system. Who knew?

I'm not sure if we'll have raccoons, but we will have coyotes and rattle snakes.

Cage match!

Liese, I don't know what your trash pickup is like, but what they did at the observatory (9000 ft) was weighted lids on metal cans (which ultimately was kinda pointless cause the damned critters figured out the lever) with extra heavy chains that latched to the lids with a catch that required more strength than raccoons have with their wee fingers.

And even then, they got lucky sometimes. But not sure how much was drunk astronomers&co not securing the latches (um, the parties were legendary) and how much was 'coon cleverness.

I wish I could make the drunken spaghetti carbonera that they used to have at those parties. It was AWESOME.

Alert: Tim Gunn is the guest on the Daily Show tonight.

Yeah, we'll have to see. The trash guys were actually supposed to come set the can today, but with the snowstorm I'm pretty sure it didn't happen. I don't know, though, because with the snowstorm I didn't go back to the house. I taped the money to the door, as they recommended, which cracks me up. How many places could you just tape an envelope of money to the door and have any expectation of it getting to the right people? But there it's likely no one else even drove up the road.

So I don't know what kind of can I'm getting. Here, at this house, we just put the can inside the kennel. But we don't generally have much in the way of food scraps anyway, and we'll have less once we start to compost. I dunno how to secure the compost, though. That might figure into what kind of bin I get.

We definitely have coyotes and rattlesnakes (and a nice assortment of spiders). I saw a grey wolf a couple of times, but my builder saw him too and says he thinks its domesticated. I was just glad because he didn't believe me earlier and thought it was probably a mexican wolf, but I knew it wasn't because it was much bigger. Although now that I'm wikipediaing it I think maybe I don't understand my taxonomy.

Lots of coyotes, though.

You know how dogs do that thing after they go where they go all crazy kicking the dirt around? Turns out, when their starting point for this maneuver is nearly armpit deep in a snowbank, they fall forward smack on their faces and it is hi-larious.

If we were staying in the ponderosas, we'd have bear and wildcats and javalina, too. But I think we'll loose the bigger animals because of the lack of cover. But now that I saw the elk, I dunno. Maybe I'm misunderestimating the Sitgreaves National Forest's capacity for wildlife. Ooh, and I think my neighbor is going to give me some extra birdfeeders she has. She was out there twice today refilling her (many) feeders. With the storm, the birds were out in full force taking advantage of her largesse.