Well... we're sitting on a point at maybe nine or ten thousand feet. If the water stacks up this high... I think they'll be writing a new chapter in the Ol' Book! ;)
It did rain though. Whew! Did it rain! Made for a cool morning too. Felt kinda guilty crankin' up the furnace this morning while I had my coffee and muffin' sittin' watchin' the sun climb over the mountains. The way ever'body back east and even down on the front range has been grousin' 'bout the HOT! :) But it was chilly! So yes... on the 25th of July, on a wet, chilly, mountain morning, this old stove up buster cranked up his furnace to warm up his feeble achy old bones. ;)
How many of you travel and hike with dogs? When you're out on the trail suckin' on your camelback... are you remeberin' your dogs? A few years back Heidi got given a lil' gizmo that we thought was just 'bout the dumbest thing we'd ever seen.
I mean... how ya gonna keep water in a folded bowl? :)
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| *Folding Dog Bowl* |
Turned out to be a handy dang lil' thing. Folds flat and fits in a pack pocket and is always handy for dog drinks on the trail. Which is a whole lot better than a sick dog and another vet bill. We've carried this lil' bit of plastic for six or seven years!
Don't have any idea where you can find one. But I know they make folding bowls for back packers and they likely have some variety of folding bowl at Pet Smart or one of the other big box critter places. If you walk much with the dogs out in far country... it's a good investment. ( and don't forget the water bottle in your pack for the dogs water!)
Along that same line... DOG HAIR!!! ARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
There is nothin' worse than Hairy Ice Cream or... sitting on a quiet morning contemplating the universe over a cup of hot coffee... and having to stop and fish DOG HAIR out of your cup! grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....
So... While there is no guaranteed gizmo that prohibits an invasion of discarded dog hair there is a gadget that helps cut down on it a goodly amount...
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| *A Dog Rake* |
The thing is made by a couple of different outfits. It comes with a pair of blades. The one shown that rakes out the undercoat and loose hair and then a thinning blade that swivels around to take out even more DOG HAIR!!!
It's not a cheap lil' tool... I guess they charge what the market will bear... and when cranky Ol' busters are grousin' 'bout the DOG HAIR in their coffee... apparently they'll "Bear" quite a bit!!! :)
The thing required in the whole deal though is the discipline to get out and scrape the dogs. Sometimes she waits too long and when she does get after 'em it looks like a herd of rabbits was slaughtered! Better that than fishin' hair out of my ice cream though!
... or chasin' four pound Dust Bunnies of DOG HAIR around the rig!!!
Worked into the evening last night as the rain fell... chasing bad spelling, typos and weirded out formatting.
If you'd asked me twenty years back what I'd be doing now... I can say that editing fiction was Not something I expected. :) As soon as I got that done... as much as my eyes can find to fix at this point anyhoo... I set to work building a table of contents and buttoning up the last bits of work on my third Novel!
HEART of a MAN is on track to be uploaded in the next few days. I just need to do the final scanning to try and spot any OOPS! that have slipped through. Otherwise it's sitting in my laptop all set to go.
This one is the second book following on behind A Matter of Honor in what is now OFFICIALLY the Jeb Taylor Series. I guess it takes more than one book to be a series huh? :)
I've been thinking of a way to give this book and the others a "kick". One way, that doesn't change the cost to anybody would be if I could organize the folks who intend to buy a copy as soon as it's released, to wait for one particular day to do their deals. That way... if all those folks did their deals on the same day it could have a bigger "splash" that could have a chance of pushin' it up into the "Lower" sales rank numbers and make them more "Visible" to all the jillions of readers out there who have never heard of a puss gutted old biker cowboy story teller.
So... I'm thinkin' that if I can get it uploaded in the next day or two... Sometime next week would be a "Target Day"... So if you're lookin' for a Western to read on your Kindle... Stay tuned! :)
Having a lil' difficulty finding water around Steamboat. I've kept my eyes peeled the couple of times we've been down off the mountain, but no spigots have appeared. It's one of the "issues" of boondocking... finding water and dumps. Usually little difficulty. There's dumps all over... and generally there's a spigot to rustle water in National Forest Campgrounds (which we frequently pay to use the campgrounds)... but here...
...Routt National Forest is taggin' users $ten$ bucks for a campsite 15 miles up a Bad Road... seems like a lot for a site that they don't maintain (all over grown with brush and deadfall), the roads are washed out, first gear, rock crawlin' axle busters... just lil' trash cans and few dumpsters and NO WATER. It's only proper to pay a reasonable amount for the use of facilities... but it's also only reasonable to maintain what you're charging $300 bucks a month for the use of!... or charge a heck of a lot less for it... Just sayin'
That and consider that the Tonto National Forest down in Arizona gets $6 bucks... and they've put in paved roads, solar shower buildings, and spacious, comfortable campsites with Ramada covers and GASP! Water!!!... seems like maybe a few other National Forests need to send their supervisors to Arizona to learn how to do the job right? It would appear that it CAN be done! ;)
I mean... the only thing that the two FS campgrounds near us have is a grubby outhouse... and battered pic nic tables. The brush is so thick that it's really just a skeeter farm. It's really time to start running a brush hog through most of these FS campgrounds. Let "natural" prevail out in the forest... but inside the campgrounds, clear 'em out and make 'em comfortable and usable! Just a lil' effort could make a huge increase in enjoyment and "Use" by folks. Improving both the Forest Service bottom line (with increased use and fee revenue) and the worlds of the people using the campsites...
... since I don't expect any great changes in bureaucracies... I'll just keep on boondocking and avoiding the sites that aren't taken care of...
... anyhoo.. I'll keep my eyes peeled once again when we make a bill payin' run to Steamboat today... There's only one dump in town at a private park... maybe I can buy three jugs full of fresh, clear, water! ;)
Un-Flash flooded and "Rambled out" on the Mountain
Brian
4 comments:
I'll be watching for Jeb Taylor Day.
Warren
Jeb Taylor Day! :) I like it! Thanks for the Idea Warren! :)
Try Gaurdian Gear- portable travel bowl.
Tops pet products
Topsfield MA 01983
Hope it helps
Jim
Yes, Pet Smart sells a folding bowl that looks very much like what you have in the picture.
I know what you mean about the dog hair bunnies. I have a short haired American Staffordshire that has almost shed herself bald this summer. Hair everywhere!
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