I have been remiss in posting for the last two days, the bottom line is there was not much going on. Today, however, was a busy day. I didn’t get everything done I wanted to get done, but that’s OK, it was a Saturday. I started off the day with my normal get up, have coffee, let the dogs in and out, give them their snacks, and then wade through my personal email. do a quick check on work email – I always make sure nothing urgent.
When Jesse got up I too Res on his morning walk, today was a lone walk and we did about 3.25 miles. It was a good walk until Res noticed that I was starting to turn him back to the house, then he changed speed from bunny speed to snail speed. He likes being out and about and when I turn back to the house he notices.
When we got back home it was now Climber’s turn. I took her on a slightly longer walk because she walks a little faster than Res does and she needs her exercise, she needs to loose 9 pounds. We have cut her back on her food a bit. I am being a little stingy on her treats, and I am going to start figuring out how to start giving her more outside time during the weekdays. Anyways, her part of the walk was really good, except for something that I will describe after her walk gallery.
I love our Prairie Dogs, the are cute, they are funny, and even Res and Climber love to watch them. They are harmless. They build their colonies in empty fields, they do not build in peoples lawns, and they have family units. So, imaging my surprise and horror when I see some asshole in the field next to one of the churches up on Tower Boulevard in the middle of the Prairie dog colony.
What this idiot was doing was using a shovel to seal off one end of the tunnels and then he was sticking a long hose with a funnel into the other end of the tunnels and dumping something, I assume poison, down the hole and then sealing the colony into the holes. The way he was approaching it, he has done this before. As soon as I saw what he was doing and started taking photographs of him, his actions, and his license plate, he suddenly put his stuff away and got really nervous.
I want to point out that there are so many things wrong with this. First, poisoning entire colonies of Prairie Dogs is wrong. Second, he did not mark the field so no one knows what chemicals he was using. Third, if another animal gets one of the poisoned Prairie Dogs they will die was well. Poison is forever. Third, this is baby time, this is the time the young ones are born and in the caverns. Given where he was, this apparently is a sanctioned activity by the Church. Perhaps someone should sit down and read a few passages in the Bible about compassion and all that stuff.
I will be filing a formal complaint with all my photos to the State Wildlife Department, the Aurora Police Department, the Aurora Animal Control department, and the State Department of Licensing (wildlife control is a licensed activity and I somehow doubt this idiot was licensed.) There is nothing I can do for that colony of Prairie Dogs, but I can sure follow-up on this and make sure at least this idiot’s actions are seen and noted.
So, after I walked back home from that little discovery, I sat down and had breakfast with Jesse. And then I decided I wanted to go swim. I got to the Central Recreation Center, and believe it or not, got a lane pretty quickly in the lap pool. Unfortunately that did not last long. I had just gotten about 300 yards in when there are kids jumping into the lap pool without looking. It turns out that they had to close the main pool because yet again someone had a bathroom accident in it. This is now two weekends in a row, and that means that the pools will be bad tomorrow.
I gave up and decided to drive over to the Utah Indoor Pool that just re-opened and everyone keeps telling me that I should try. It’s a 25 meter pool, a little longer than the 25 yard pool I have been swimming in, But, it’s about 6 miles from the house and takes me a little longer to get to. I was able to get in a nice 2000 meter swim. I was annoyed, but recovered. I haven’t swum in a 25meter pool in a while so it took me a while to get used to the wall that had moved (25 yards to 25 meters — do the math kids.)
When I got home I decided to tackle putting the irrigation system box in place for the right side of the backyard, one more step to remove some heavy water use from the system (we are moving to drip and micro irrigation for anything that is not lawn area. It’s just not an easy thing to do as the yard is clay and I have to find the lines that I can disconnect and the ones that I need to tie into.
Anyways, then it was time to take Res and Climber on their afternoon walks, and feed them, feed us, and relax for the evening. I managed to get the laundry done, well actually waiting on the last load to finish drying, but one less thing that I do not need to worry about tomorrow. On my list of things I really want to do tomorrow is to dig out all of my hydroponic planting stuff from the shed, figure out where it is going to live this year, and then I want to build the double buckets that are now sitting in the living room still packed. This will be a part of the hydroponic setup this year, and I think that should keep me busy most of the day. I may skips my swim tomorrow, not sure yet on that one. I will see how I feel in the morning. Nothing’s wrong, but I do want to get some stuff done around here at the house.
Anyways, Res and Climber say goodnight and maybe we will see you all tomorrow.
Don’t they look innocent?
