Since the winter solstice is my seasonal holiday of choice, I suppose that technically my celebration time is over; but I'm still going to Hotchkiss to see my aunts and uncles and cousins to celebrate their winter holiday of choice.  I'll be off email and Twitter and mobile phone and essentially all electronic connection for the next couple of days, which is a real celebration. 

Here's the current weather in Keystone / Dillon.

This morning started off quite early and in a new and exciting way, with Brad coming in around 5:30 and saying that the dogs had gotten porcupined.  A new verb:  to porcupine.  And indeed they had.  Kenai only had about 10 quills right at the end of his nose, but Brooks had many more.  I pulled 3 or 4 out of Kenai, but he was struggling and at 95 pounds is too big for me to wrestle.  And I knew that Brooks wouldn’t go for this at all at a very squirmy 55 pounds.  So Brad found the 24 hour emergency veterinarian in Silverthorne and we loaded the dogs up and took them in.  The vet, Dr. Mark Cowan, was  terrific, and sedation is terrific, too.  He had both dogs under, quills removed, and back with their eyes open in no time at all. 

Stopped at Starbucks for coffee, and Brad headed to his busy work day in Boulder and I’m back at the Keystone house to pack everything up.  The dogs are sleeping peacefully, and maybe won’t be so curious the next time they see a porcupine.

I was just outside chatting with my neighbor from across the street and she told me that they had a bear in their garage last night about 1:30 going through their trash.  They didn’t realize they’d left the garage door open and the bear was having a grand time.  The sheriff came and set off a couple of firecrackers to scare the bear away.  Of course Kenai, my savage guard dog, and I slept through the entire event.  Maybe I won’t go hiking today after all.

It’s snowing here this morning, as predicted, which will make it much easier to stay inside and do my work.  We’re supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow at this altitude above 9,000 feet, but it’s not sticking yet.  While waiting for Kenai to stop chasing squirrels and come inside for his breakfast, I saw a red fox cross the driveway about 2 feet away from me, and saw a red-tailed hawk fly across the meadow, and heard a red-shafted northern flicker call, although I didn’t actually see it.  It must be red-named animal day here.

I’m up in Keystone through the Memorial Day holiday since Brad is away until Thursday.  I thought a week of peace and quiet might give me half a chance to catch up.  You know you’re behind when your inbox is a laundry basket.  I have managed to wrestle my email inbox into submission, mainly by sorting into subfolders (which I’ll never look at?).  I think I’m going to have to start scheduling email correspondence time or it just never happens, especially up here where it’s so beautiful that mostly I just want to be outside.

I went for long walks yesterday and today, which I think in this terrain is called hiking.  The snow has mostly melted along the trails near our house, but there are many places that are pretty wet.  I had to tiptoe across what I would call tussocks and hummocks and muskeg if I were walking in Alaska.  The good thing about the melt is that there is plenty of water for Kenai to stay hydrated and cool and come home completely muddy.  Yesterday I did have a lot more bear thoughts than usual, but today my mind was emptier.  Friday I met only one couple with 2 dogs and today I met a mountain man or maybe Old Father Time also with 2 dogs.  It’s so restorative to be out in the mountain woods just moving the body along.  I really love hiking by myself.  Even after therapy and ongoing meditation, I still worry when I’m with other people whether my pace is too slow or fast and I don’t like walking behind a taller person because then I can’t see the view and I’m always thinking about the other people instead of just being in the moment.  I’ll keep working on caring less about what other people think, probably for the rest of my life — but in the meantime I like hiking alone.

I have a fun step counting device (thanks, Brad) which reports that yesterday I did 146 minutes of aerobic steps and more than 15,000 steps for a day step total of 18,657.  Today I did 17,499 aerobic steps in 167 minutes for a day total of 20,193 steps.  I’ve finally remembered to charge my Garmin Forerunner (thanks again, Brad) and will wear it for even more data gathering on my next hike.

Tomorrow I’m going to read the Sunday NY Times and rest my sore toes.