Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

It's that time again! Calving season!

The first calf was born on Sunday, but the Bag Lady hasn't had a chance to get a picture of the little one until this morning, partly because she's been busier than a one-armed paperhanger, and partly because the calf's mother is very protective, and every time a human approaches, she takes the calf away!


The Bag Lady fed the cows this morning, and the calf was exploring while her mother was occupied checking out the hay bale. The Bag Lady managed to sneak up close enough to take a couple of pictures.



The Bag Lady has been busy at work, and is trying to get her house ready for the weekend, when she and the Rancher are hosting the family for Easter dinner.

What are your plans for Easter?

Friday!

I've been playing around with the layout of this blog, inspired by Hilary over at the Smitten Image! The changes also seem to have had an effect in unexpected areas (like the "compose new post" section) so this may take some getting used to!

In other news, I've decided to drop the third person writing in this blog, at least, for this particular post! It was getting a little tiresome. I may switch back and forth a bit, because old habits are hard to break!

It's been another busy week in my life. We have been suffering through some colder weather, with lots of snow falling. In fact, it's snowing again right now. Most of March was warm and mild, until spring officially arrived, when winter hit again. Sigh. The forecast is for warmer weather to move in over the weekend, though, so perhaps we'll catch up with the rest of the world soon. I have to confess, I'm looking forward to seeing some green grass and flowers!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

More Wildlife

The Bag Lady happened to glance out the window the other day and caught sight of a coyote in her front yard. She grabbed the camera and tried to take a few pictures, but the coyote was a little too far away, and the resolution isn't very good.



The coyote was attempting to hunt mice, but the snow had a solid crust on top from the recent warm weather. He hovered, front feet in the air, then pounced! Then was forced to pounce again. The Bag Lady tried to take pictures of the pouncing, but wasn't very successful. The coyote, on the other hand, was eventually successful and managed to punch through the crust and snag a mouse!



As the Bag Lady watched, another coyote came along and inspected the first coyote's catch, then continued on it's way.



The first coyote continued hunting in the Bag Lady's yard and managed to catch at least one more mouse before moving on to another location.



The Bag Lady apologizes for the poor quality of the photos, and wishes she had managed to capture some video of the coyote hunting, but, sadly, she didn't.

Hello, Kitty!

Last winter, the Bag Lady happened to meet up with one of her neighbours, and stopped to chat. The neighbour told her about a visitor she had in her yard. Apparently, she looked out her basement window one evening and something was looking back at her! After the woman recovered her wits, she had the presence of mind to run and get the camera.




The next morning, the cougar was back. It wandered around in the yard, then headed up the driveway.


And back under the deck!




The Bag Lady recently ran into her neighbour again, and the neighbour kindly offered to loan these pictures to her so she could share them with you.

As far as the Bag Lady understands it, the cougar had a companion (mate? almost-adult offspring?) and her neighbour saw them several times. They seemed to enjoy the cave-like atmosphere under the deck. Eventually, the cougars were *ahem* encouraged to re-locate.

Finally!

The Bag Lady can do laundry again!

She picked up the part for her washing machine on Tuesday afternoon and called the repair company to set up an appointment. They told her the repairman would call her on Thursday morning between 9 am and noon to advise her when he would be coming to her house.

Naturally, as soon as the clock struck 9 am, her phone started ringing..... and did not stop! Between friends and relations and ranch business and museum business, and even a fax (which uses the same phone line), her phone was busy until 11:30!! Fortunately, the repairman was persistent and he eventually got through.

He arrived on her doorstep a short time later and immediately went to work replacing the latch. Then, because the door still didn't seem to be closing properly, he replaced the hinge. Voila, the door closes perfectly, and latches properly. The hinge was slightly bent, causing the door to close improperly.

The Bag Lady waited over 48 days for a 20-minute appointment, but she can finally do laundry to her heart's content.

In other news, the Bag Lady purchased a camera for the museum, so spent a little time on Wednesday getting acquainted with it. She took this photo of her yard:



When she awoke on Thursday morning, her yard looked like this:



The Bag Lady thinks the camera takes pretty good pictures, and is impressed because when you click to enlarge these pictures, they aren't grainy. (go ahead, click. she'll wait.)

Hope you all have a great weekend and aren't missing her too much! She'll pop back in soon.

Hiatus

The Bag Lady is going to take a little vacation from blogging.......

Of course, now that she's said that, she'll probably think of a million things to blog about and be right back in no time.

Washer Woes

What a week! It was busy at work, busy at home.

The Bag Lady thinks she may (finally) have a resolution regarding her washing machine. She received the unwelcome news from the repair company that the part they needed was still unavailable and they wouldn't have it until APRIL 4th!! The Bag Lady called them and complained, but they said it was the fault of the manufacturer. So the Bag Lady called the manufacturer, who told her that they did, indeed, have the part in stock, but that the repair company had not ordered it from them. Apparently, the technician ordered the part from a company called Reliable. Which, in the Bag Lady's humble opinion, isn't very!

The Bag Lady told the manufacturer that April was not acceptable, and asked the pleasant woman she was talking to for suggestions. The woman put her on hold and finally came back to tell her that the company was willing to send the part directly to the Bag Lady. Then she could call the repair company and they would send the technician out to install the new part. So the Bag Lady will (hopefully) have the part by the beginning of next week, and she sincerely hopes the technician will be available to complete the repair at that time.

Oh, and the Bag Lady finally asked the pleasant, helpful woman where their call centre was located, and was told they are in Tennessee. Lovely people, those Tennesseeans!

In other news, the Bag Lady had a nice surprise the other day when she stopped to check her lottery tickets. She won a whopping $80.90! Enough to buy another couple tickets and splurge on a nice lunch for herself and the Rancher.

Have a great weekend!