Pepé

"Ah, my little darling, it is love at first sight, is it not, no?"...


Ahhhh... NO.

I'm looking out the back window this am just enjoying the quiet and watching the rain come down. Then there was movement. I was excited at first because I like to see wildlife. Then I remembered I was looking out in my backyard and the excitement quickly went away. As the rain was coming down a skunk trotted out from under the shed and waddled under the deck. Makes sense now, the dogs have been acting strange in the backyard for days. Now I can't let them go in the backyard until I know the thing is gone!

It's ironic, I was just talking with Dale about changing my bike commute route to avoid skunks in the morning and now I'm living with them.

So I took a look at the Nebraska Humain Society Website. Here is what I learned...

"If a skunk moves in under your deck or patio try this trick. Mix 8 ounces of castor oil, 8 ounces of dish detergent and 1 gallon of water. Spray the area liberally. To see if your skunk is still in residence lightly stuff balled up newspaper into the entry hole. If the paper is pushed out the next day—your skunk is still there."

I don't have any castor oil so I'm off to the store now.

Prom 2009

Manawa Trailwork

In case you didn't know, there are some MTB trails accross the river in IA between Lake Manawa and the river. Mother Nature was nice and allowed us to have a THOR Trailwork event at Manawa last evening. I met Steve and Doug in the parking lot trailhead at about 5:30PM. Several others arrived shortly after. Steve's first objective was to get the trees cleared and limbs cut back from the trail. Then we worked on hardening the technical trail features in the black trail section of Manawa. There are some great places to test your skills in that area now. I'm looking forward to a nice dry, warm weekend day to get over there with the bike and try it out.

It's not easy to leave Colorado...

...but it wasn't all that easy getting there either. Last Saturday our spring family trip weathered severe storms with a tornado reported just south of us right around York, NE. Then about 40 miles East of North Platte the snow started so we stopped for the night. Good thing we did because I-80 was closed shortly after we stopped. We had an easy trip home today. It's nice to be home but Colorado was really great. We toured two Universities, CSU (Fort Collins) and UNC (Greeley). We did some hiking around Estes Park and Loveland. The trail at Devil's Backbone was only a 6 minute bike ride from the La Quinta where we stayed in Loveland.