Monday, March 31, 2008

Weirdness Abounds

Okay, this has been a truly weird weekend around the Bag Lady's ol' stump ranch. After her weird Saturday night experiments with her word processing package, she thought she would have a nice, quiet Sunday.......but no.

The first weird occurrence involved the Princess dog and a deer. The Bag Lady could hear the Princess barking, so she looked out the window to see a deer standing in the driveway. This is not at all unusual, but what was strange was that the deer was not leaving. In fact, as the Bag Lady watched, the deer pinned back her ears, advanced on the Princess and stomped her foot! The Bag Lady's mouth dropped open in disbelief! She has never seen that before! She tried to videotape it, but unfortunately, the angle of the sun was wrong and the deer was standing in the shade, so wasn't visible.

The Mexican stand-off went on for about half an hour, until the Bag Lady finally called her dog to the house. When the dog left, the deer walked a short distance into the trees and stood there. Out of curiosity, the Bag Lady went and searched around in the bush a little (the deer finally left when the Bag Lady got too close) but there was nothing to be seen. Deer don't usually start having babies until late April or May, but she may have had one early. If she did, and it was in the bush, it was very well hidden.

(This is the best shot the Bag Lady can manage - if you look very closely, you can see the deer has her ears laid back and one front foot in the air, about to stomp.)

The second weird occurrence happened Sunday afternoon. The Cowboy and the Bag Lady spent most of the day in the shop, putting together a new grass-seeder. When they finished and were walking from the shop to the house, the Bag Lady heard the roar of jet planes, so looked up. Lo and behold, there was what appeared to be a passenger jet being pursued by 6 fighter jets! The Bag Lady ran to the house for her camera, but the jets were traveling so fast that by the time she got back outside, they were almost out of sight. She snapped a picture of their contrails:


Approximately 15 or 20 minutes later, they heard jets again, so back outside they went. This time there were more contrails, but they were also traveling so fast, the jets themselves were out of sight. The Bag Lady took a picture again. Rather like taking a photo of the empty barn after the horse is gone...

(The funny white square in the picture is the Bag Lady's new high-speed internet receiver.)

The strange part of all this is that the Bag Lady lives far away from any military bases where there are jets stationed. And why would they be chasing a passenger jet, if that is, in fact, what they were doing? Weird.


The Bag Lady is hoping that her quota of weirdness is full now. She doesn't know how much more of this she can take! She should have known what kind of day it would be when she dropped a full 2-litre carton of milk on the floor as she was preparing her breakfast... of course it split open at the top! She was tempted to just throw her cereal there, too. If she was a better housekeeper and washed her floors more often, she just might have...


14 comments:

Reb said...

Very cool about the deer, there must be a baby somewhere. Keep an eye out for one.

As for the jets...who knows what they were up to! Are you sure it was a passenger jet and not maybe a refueling tanker and they were practicing? It still doesn't explain why they were there over your place. I suppose they could have been from here and that distance allowed them to burn off enough fuel?

I hope your weirdness is over now and everything goes well tomorrow.

Hilary said...

Reb beat me to both thought about a fawn and about the jets. How far are you from Cold Lake? I'm thinking they were practicing. Fun to see the pics .. especially of the stand off.

the Bag Lady said...

Hi, Reb - I did search for a fawn, but was afraid to spend too much time there in case there WAS one and the mother abandoned it because of me!

Hi, Hil - we are all the way across the province from Cold Lake and never see air force jets. It was just strange!

Anonymous said...

ok.

it is wholly entirely and ALL KINDS OF CLEAR your life is far more interesting than mine.

M.

Scrumpy said...

Your weekend was much more exciting than mine. I mainly napped on the couch and watched I Love Lucy. :)

the Bag Lady said...

Mizfit - oh, no, no, the Bag Lady has given you the wrong impression! Most of her time is spent in total isolation, with nothing going on but breathing!
SB - and a nice, relaxing weekend it sounds! The Bag Lady spent most of Sunday trying to read instructions that were written by someone for whom English was not a first language! Grrr.

Anonymous said...

Wow - nature drama!
WIsh I had less airplanes - living right outside of DC and two minutes away from National Airport I definitely hear many jets and planes. You can always tell when the Blue Angels are at Andrews AFB :-)

Missicat

the Bag Lady said...

Missicat - we see lots of passenger jets going over, heading to Alaska, or Europe, but never see fighter jets, unless there is an air show here. It was very strange.

The big air base in Alberta is at Cold Lake, on the eastern side of Alberta. We live on the western side, close to the Rockies.

Spent a couple of days in Cold Lake once, and it would drive me insane to hear those jets roaring overhead all the time!

JavaChick said...

Quite the exciting weekend you had!

the Bag Lady said...

Javachick - we live on the edge around here, I can tell ya!! :)

Dawn said...

What a very strange experience with the deer. I'm sure there must have been a fawn hidden somewhere so you were wise not to look to thoroughly. I remember being driven through a deer farm once and when the fawns are snuggled down in the grass they are almost impossible to see. The owner of the farm sat on the bonnet as we drove through the paddock to make sure we didn't drive over one!

Been reading your latest posts on your highspeed internet connection. I am drooling! I think the rest of the world forget how S-L-O-W dial-up is.

the Bag Lady said...

Oops, posted under the wrong name!
Dawn, good to see you! I really hope that deer returned to claim her fawn, if there was one, and that I didn't scare her away!
Love the high speed and am so glad it is finally affordable out here in the country.

Leah J. Utas said...

Sorry I'm late. Very weird about the jets and very cool that you saw it.
That deer had some backbone.
It must have had a fawn nearby.

the Bag Lady said...

dfLeah - was wondering where you were! Yes, it was strange all around yesterday. Back to normal today, though.