Blessy

Today I hereby coin a new word: blessy.

A friend emailed me describing the last six months of her life as "the whole blessed/messy process."

Difficult tasks got done, slowly, or fairly quickly, depending on one's point of view.  Godspeed.

The sadness of letting go of two family members was balanced by the contentment of having cared for them as well as possible in their last years.

It was a blessed time; it was a difficult and messy time.

Blessy.  

Thank you to a different friend, Barbra Graber for finding and sending me this photo.

Poppies! Persistent...

The humblest and happiest flower on earth is the California poppy.

It can grow in the driest dirt, in the smallest crack.  All is needs is one good rainstorm and it's sprouting.  

We've had a very dry winter in 2017-2018.  The abundance of last year is not happening... "but still she persisted."

The Southern Cross

This photo of the Southern Cross is from Science-Photo-Library, which I accessed through Cafe Press.

We can't see this constellation in the northern hemisphere, but I saw it ten years ago in Argentina.

Here in the north, on New Year's Eve, I love to look out at Orion at midnight and remember where Earth is in its rotation around the Sun.

Wish I were in Colorado or the high desert of California! It's barely possible to see Orion most winter nights in Los Angeles.

I printed this photo for my Christmas cards this year, thanks to Cafe Press.

Wild Turkeys at Christmas

And now turkeys...

It turns out turkeys live in the wilderness area around Trout Lake near Telluride, Colorado.

My neighbor sees them eating grass near her house on these cold but snowless winter days.

She took this photo near the house further on down the hill between her house and mine.

Introducing the bobcat...

Below is a link to a l-o-o-o-n-g jump by a bobcat... sorry I can't actually put it on this blog.

https://www.facebook.com/NSelection/videos/10154299607351244/?hc_ref=ARRF1hqVXTjKDDGFdcDOC2Zkov7tGqjmVwPjJ9LBRUeYHHXG2zRi4SiKiYPYFsmms-8&pnref=story

Thanks to my high school classmate Linda Binns Monteith for this video from BBC Planet Earth.

Plenty of time to observe the cat and compare it to the earlier photo of the lynx in our driveway.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about bobcats:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobcat

And here's the intro:

The bobcat (Lynx rufus) is a North American cat that appeared during the Irvingtonian stage of around 1.8 million years ago (AEO).^[2] Containing 12 recognized subspecies, it ranges from southern Canada to central Mexico, including most of the contiguous United States. The bobcat is an adaptable predator that inhabits wooded areas, as well as semidesert, urban edge, forest edge, and swampland environments. It remains in some of its original range, but populations are vulnerable to local extinction ("extirpation") by coyotes and domestic animals. With a gray to brown coat, whiskered face, and black-tufted ears, the bobcat resembles the other species of the midsized Lynx genus. It is smaller on average than the Canada lynx, with which it shares parts of its range, but is about twice as large as the domestic cat. It has distinctive black bars on its forelegs and a black-tipped, stubby tail, from which it derives its name.

Though the bobcat prefers rabbits and hares, it hunts insects, chickens, geese and other birds, small rodents, and deer. Prey selection depends on location and habitat, season, and abundance. Like most cats, the bobcat is territorial and largely solitary, although with some overlap in home ranges. It uses several methods to mark its territorial boundaries, including claw marks and deposits of urine or feces. The bobcat breeds from winter into spring and has a gestation period of about two months.

Identifying the lynx...

So here's the info on lynxes...  Thank you, Wikipedia!

Lynx have a short tail, characteristic tufts of black hair on the tips of their ears, large, padded paws for walking on snow and long whiskers on the face. Under their neck, they have a ruff which has black bars resembling a bow tie although this is often not visible.

Body colour varies from medium brown to goldish to beige-white, and is occasionally marked with dark brown spots, especially on the limbs. All species of lynx have white fur on their chests, bellies and on the insides of their legs, fur which is an extension of the chest and belly fur. The lynx's colouring, fur length and paw size vary according to the climate in their range. In the Southwestern United States, they are short-haired, dark in colour and their paws are smaller and less padded. As climates get colder and more northerly, lynx have progressively thicker fur, lighter colour, and their paws are larger and more padded to adapt to the snow. Their paws may be larger than a human hand or foot.

The smallest species are the bobcat and the Canada lynx, while the largest is the Eurasian lynx, with considerable variations within species.

Physical characteristics of Lynx species

Species		Weight	Length	Height (standing at shoulders)
Eurasian lynx	males	18 to 30 kilograms (40 to 66 lb)	81 to 129 centimetres (32 to 51 in)	70 centimetres (28 in)[5]
	females	18 kilograms (40 lb)
Canada lynx		8 to 11 kilograms (18 to 24 lb)	80 to 105 centimetres (31 to 41 in)	48 to 56 centimetres (19 to 22 in)[6]
Iberian lynx	males	12.9 kilograms (28 lb)	85 to 110 centimetres (33 to 43 in)	60 to 70 centimetres (24 to 28 in)[7][8][9]
	females	9.4 kilograms (21 lb)
Bobcat	males	7.3 to 14 kilograms (16 to 31 lb)[10]	71 to 100 centimetres (28 to 39 in)[10]	51 to 61 centimetres (20 to 24 in)[11]
	females	9.1 kilograms (20 lb)

Species

The four living species of the Lynx genus are believed to have evolved from the "Issoire lynx", which lived in Europe and Africa during the late Pliocene to early Pleistocene. The Pliocene felid Felis rexroadensisfrom North America has been proposed as an even earlier ancestor; however, this was larger than any living species, and is not currently classified as a true lynx.^[12]

A well-fed cat...

Here, kitty, kitty...

Is this visitor a bobcat or a lynx?  It's walking down the driveway of my house at Trout Lake as if it owns the place... which I guess it does, 90% of the year.

I contacted Telluride native Jack Pera, who has done lots of nature photography around San Miguel County, with this question.

Here's his answer:

The photo of the 'cat is indeed that of a lynx. I can tell by the color. There are other identification marks but the photo isn't good enough to point those out. (Extremely large feet, black tip on the tail, longer ear tufts, etc.) The main food source is snowshoe rabbits (hares.) Their survival depends almost entirely on the population of this species of rabbit. Deb sees lynx tracks on occasion when she snowshoes above the cabin but hasn't seen one yet and neither have I. It's a treat to get to see one.

Donna Nichols reports:

I didn't see it but my nephews did. Tom showed them pix of both.  They said lynx. !  I've seen lynx in that area before a few years back closer to Rico though. [Over Thanksgiving] I saw its tracks in the snow go under the porch of a cabin for sale.  I saw little tracks too...cub?

My neighbor Heather noted:

I actually have only ever seen a cat in our driveway once. I think it was a lynx. But it was like this, broad daylight, and I was out walking [my dog] Maggie. She had a fit and it sauntered off down toward Sue's.

From now on, I'm keeping a log of sightings!  

A few moose have shown up in the last few years, hiking over from Ophir.  Deer, weasels, rabbits, and porcupines are frequent visitors.

Note: Jack is my second cousin.  He used to produce a slideshow of his photos called Mountain Splendor.