Saturday, August 10, 2013

Flooding, Football, Coyote Attack & Snow on Pike's Peak

Pre-season NFL games have begun.  Thursday night I watched the first half of the Broncos and 49ers game, and wasn't impressed.  Last night, I watched the Patriots and the Eagles play and was happy to see Tim Tebow on the field; but I was not happy when the NFL Channel stopped showing the game at the beginning of the fourth quarter to show the Cowboys.  I also realize that it was a home game for the Eagles, but I was overwhelmed with information about the Eagles and very little info about the Patriots.  Likewise, I would have preferred to have seen the game playing on the field, rather than the announcers and the Eagles' General Manager.  But enough of my grousing...
  Our summer rains wreaked havoc in the Black Forest burn area yesterday - there was flash flooding along highway 24 in Manitou Springs (near Colorado Springs), which swept more than 20 cars away in a huge mud and ash wave (and causing at least one death).  Fountain Creek in Manitou Springs also flooded across roads and restaurant patios because of the rain.  We are expecting summer thunderstorms each afternoon for the next five days, so I'm hoping none of them stay long in the Black Forest burn area.
  One of the home owners in the neighborhood where I walk dogs is quite deaf.  If she doesn't have both of her hearing aids in place and turned on, she can't hear a word one speaks at a normal conversational level. She was awakened at 4:30 Friday morning by an animal "screaming" - she was sound asleep, no hearing aids in or on, and she ran from window to window in her house, trying to see what was causing the disturbance. She was never able to see anything making the sound, and it died down after about eight minutes.  However, when she was outside, working in her garden at 7:30, she observed a mother doe with twin fawns walking haltingly along the side of her yard.  She grabbed her binoculars, and saw that the chest area of the doe was ripped open and bleeding, and that the wounds went between the doe's front legs and on to the rib area. Since the fawns looked rather young, she called local Animal Control, because she was afraid the doe would die and leave orphans.  The people at the office told her to "let nature take it's course" and, if she saw the doe's body, to contact them again, and they'd see if they could find and rescue the fawns.  She described the wounds to Animal Control, and they told her they thought that coyotes and tried to attack the fawns, and that the doe fought them off, which accounted for the screaming which was heard.  So I sent out a BOLO to the neighborhood regarding the doe and her fawns.
  My brother-in-law is running in a half-marathon today up around Georgetown.  Next weekend, he'll be competing in the Pike's Peak Double - and the weather folks just announced they'd had snow on Pike's Peak this morning.  I'm certain glad I'm not running (or even walking) up that 14,110 foot mountain!

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