kampfhomo

I am slowly but surely getting caught up on posts!

There's a short drainage tunnel at Lair o' the Bear that goes under the roadway, which is just off the trail, but at least slightly secluded. It's a popular place for graffiti, including a few pretty impressive pieces. Most of what was there this time is stuff that's been there for a while, but I still like seeing it, ha.

One of the new pieces that I hadn't seen before. Eye and flower.

This one has been there for a couple years now, but it's impressive, and I still love the way the vines drape over it.

Nine more pictures:

(I still wonder if "Piss off Karen" is addressed to the Karen, or to the viewer. I also like the little figure drawn above the X.)

Face + squirrel?

This one has been there for a while, but I like the raccoon.

Looking back.

Another that's been there for a while, but glad it still is. Also like the silly little dog on the corner.

There is one swallow nest in the tunnel, which has inspired some art:

Yup!

But also:

Lol, it's not wrong.

And I do love art that's in conversation with the other pieces:

"Birds aren't real."

Not real.

(I was glad the swallow eventually obliged me, and posed next to the label, haha. Though the colors show up much less well from a ways away and at an angle.)

There are other tunnels that are much harder to access from the trail, so I'm sure there's art that I've never gotten to see, ha.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Requiem for My Harlequin - Poets of the Fall

mistressofmuses

Last Monday, we went up to Lair o' the Bear, which is another of the county parks. I always like this one, though since it's one of the closer ones, sometimes it can be a bit crowded. Our day got off to a slightly later start than we'd wanted, but it worked out, because there weren't too many people by the time we got there.

I'm splitting this one into two posts, too. Most of the pictures will be on this post, but I'll do a second one of the current graffiti in one of the tunnels. Too many pictures, as always!

I really like this one of Bella. Such soft eyes!

A surprisingly cooperative pygmy nuthatch. Not a species I see super often, so that was exciting. (It was a good birding day in general.)

I really liked these flowers. They were so bright.

Eighteen more pictures:

There used to be a sign right by the trailhead, talking about a homestead that used to be there. There are a couple pieces of the foundation that are still out in the field. I do say "used to be," because the sign is completely gone, now. The field is super overgrown, and none of the remains are visible from the lot. I guess they decided that if no one can tell it's there, they don't want to draw attention to it.

I still wandered out through the grass to look. One time there was a neat snake over by the old chimney. No snake this time, though.

The official greeting committee! I think this is a young red-winged blackbird. It was not terribly disturbed by people walking by.

Some nice flowers.

The creek.

Neat old willow tree.

Spittlebug nests!

Bella by the creek.

Bellflowers!

Bella again!

Nice view of the creek.

Alex and Bella. <3 Even Alex was happy enough with this picture. (Minus the light flare... creek must be haunted, it's obviously a ghost.)

A fast-moving section of the creek.

Honeybee on milkweed! :)

And a bumblebee on a sunflower.

A flycatcher of some type... a pewee, I think.

Chickadee!

The trail goes down next to some private property, which includes a rentable... castle. Lol. The first time we saw it it was a bit of a surprise.

A very fairytale-looking bridge, for sure.

We used that as our turnaround point. I was impressed with how well Bella was doing! It wasn't as hot a day, and she got a bunch of wading breaks, but she made it pretty far before she started lagging any.

And finally, a mushroom on a tree! Only a little inappropriate looking, lol.

This was a really pleasant walk, and it was a great day to be out.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

I took too many pictures while we were at Hudson Gardens last week, so had to split up the post a bit.

Here is Part 2: The Critters!

Mostly, I'd been hoping we would see frogs, because there were loads of tadpoles when we were there in the spring, but we were too early for frogs.

We were not too early for frogs this time! This was my favorite bullfrog of the day, who was surprisingly chill about me taking pictures.

Found along the lake shore, a fairly recent shed snake skin! Almost certainly a garter snake.

Seventeen pictures of various critters, lots of frogs and crayfish, plus others:

Over past the beehives, the little holding pond is full of water and plants again! We heard one tell-tale "eep! plop" of a bullfrog, but upon looking closely at the pond, discovered there were also quite a few of the tiniest possible froglets.

What is that between the plants?

Let's look a bit closer...

Hmm...

Eeeeeven closer...

The tiniest frog!!

Another tiny!frog. (Just below the stem of the lily pad in the middle, the one with the curled leaf.)

Two more tiny frogs!

The tiny frogs are far too small to be bullfrogs. I feel like they're even a bit too small to be leopard frogs, based on what I remember of the one I raised from a tadpole when I was a kid. They could be toads like Berry Mad, since I think they do start out very small, or possibly chorus frogs.

The other thing there were a ton of...

Baby crayfish! So many baby crayfish! More baby crayfish than I have ever seen!

Still some big bullfrog tadpoles, too.

Another fun aquatic baby: a damselfly nymph!

A kingfisher!

Then up to the lily pond...

A nice big bullfrog under the lily pads! And such stripey legs.

A much smaller bullfrog.

Another shot of the very big, very chill bullfrog from above the cut.

A nice big crayfish, marching along the water line.

Not as intense as the claws I found up at Pine Valley Ranch, but you can see the blue claws!

Another bullfrog, sitting on the waterfall between levels of the pond.

On a fence post, a cicada husk.

One last big bullfrog, on the muddy bank.

One last bonus picture,

of a black widow at my mom's house:

This is "Esmeralda" or "Esme" for short. She lives in the window well outside of my mom's basement. My mom sent me this picture the same day we went to the gardens: Esme had three big egg sacs! (According to mom, she has since laid a fourth.) She is an attentive mother, rotating the egg sacs and moving them around the web over the course of each day. My mom has been enjoying watching her.

My mom said that her research on black widows and their egg-laying said that they only live about a year once they're fully mature, which makes me feel slightly better about how short a time I had Ophelia... perhaps it really was just her time.

Current Mood: motivated
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

Tuesday was my last day off from work. We decided to go to Hudson Gardens. We went there a bit earlier in the year, but knew there'd be different stuff blooming, and we hoped for frogs, haha. Success on both counts!

As always, too many pictures, so splitting it into two posts. This one will be for flowers (and insects), and the other one will be for various critters.

Adorable bee-fly!

Bumblebee, quite coordinated with its flower.

Ladybug!

Twenty more pictures of flowers and bugs:

Lovely water lilies.

More!

We were there a little after the peak for the roses, but some were still blooming:

Nice bright yellow.

The candy-stripe ones are always one of my favorites.

They're all so unique, even on the same bush.

More, with a bee butt!

I love this orange one.

The white ones look so soft.

A very flashy candy-stripe one.

Unfortunately a lot of the remaining roses looked like...

...this. The Japanese beetles unfortunately went to town on everything.

More bees!

Obligatory picture through the kaleidoscope.

Another picture of the bee-fly. They're so fluffy looking.

Honeybee!

The beehives.

More really vibrant water lilies.

A bee-mimic fly (not to be confused with the bee-fly, lol.)

More waterlilies.

A different ladybug, and a little mystery bug.

This waterlily was so perfect it looked fake.

It was a really nice day. We did our usual stop at the café for coffee and a snack, and otherwise just had a really nice day walking around.

Second post will be the various critters, which is always the part I'm excited for, haha.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

On Monday of last week, we went up to Pine Valley Ranch, another of the mountain open space parks.

It's a very pretty area.

A slightly different flower than I'm used to seeing. I think it's a type of Jacob's ladder.

A butterfly I managed to get close enough to get a picture of!

17 more pictures (flowers, insects, deer, one spider):

This thistle was taller than either of us, ha. But quite a hit with the bees.

The lakeshore was kind of disappointing. Usually we see lots of critters: fish, crayfish, frogs, snakes, etc. This time there wasn't much of anything. There were a few small fish and a couple crayfish, but we saw more dead crayfish than live ones, plus a couple dead fish. I did hear one frog or toad hopping away into the underbrush, but I didn't get a real look at it.

Last year was when I was very excited to see leopard frogs there, but I checked and last year's trip was at the end of July, so it's possible we were just a little too early for the things I'd hoped to see this year.

While a live one would have been cooler, the claws from this (probably eaten) crayfish were astoundingly blue. The weird little scrap of black and yellow turned out to be a torn piece of a swallowtail wing.

A swallowtail! We've seen a lot of them this year, but they never sit still long enough for a picture. Obviously I had to take this one from a distance, ha.

More bees on flowers? Always. (Adorable little antennae.)

Down at the end of the lake, in a sort of marshy area, a deer had stepped out for a moment. A moment later she stepped into the willows and she was completely gone from sight. (I wonder how often there are deer or other animals *right there* that we just can't see.)

We paused up at some picnic tables to get Bella some water and snacks (and for us too.)

A few minutes later, a pair of fawns came out from the trees down by where we'd just been.

The first little fawn, bounding up the path until it dodged over to the willows where we'd seen the adult.

The second one ran down the path, and then back up. It also started bleating, which is the saddest but cutest sound, but eventually also headed into the willows, so I assume it found where it needed to be.

A cool beetle.

I love how perfectly sized these flowers are, so that bumblebees fit completely inside except for their little butts, lol.

The river.

Daisies!

A tiny little blue spruce!

Paintbrush flowers.

Down at the base of the tree, another deer!

Bella did actually see this one, and she was very interested. We used to watch a wildlife channel to sleep to, and Bella was very interested in one of the wildlife rehab shows. Her favorite animals to watch were seals, but her second favorites were deer, haha.

We did go sit in the little pagoda by the river for a little bit before we headed out.

It's Bella!

A tussock moth caterpillar! They're very cool looking, though unfortunately can be pretty destructive.

And a neat crab spider.

Someday I'm going to get caught up, I swear. Eventually.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

Little frog, capturing my vibes.

This was a fairly good week. The second half of my time off from work was great, though it was of course rough to have to head back to work afterwards. I was really glad that I did things on all of my days off, and didn't end up with any "eh, we'll do something tomorrow..." days at home. I even did all right on the other stuff I needed to do for the most part. Unfortunately the didn't-realize-it-was-probably-a-migraine derailed the later part of my week pretty hard, and I had a few days where I just couldn't do much of anything.

Goals for the week:

I did read more of Hummingbird Salamander
We got some nice outdoor time
I did not finish the chapter of my WIP, or indeed work on it at all
I did not get caught up on DW
We did go get crickets for Berry Mad
I watered my plants
I did not make one of the phone calls, and the other was rendered unnecessary when the website started working
I went to breakfast with my dad while he was in town
We went to the bank
I sent money to a friend who was picking up a model for us at BreyerFest

Tracked habits:

Work - 4/7
Household Maintenance - 3/7
Physical Activity - 3/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 0/7
Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
Meta Work - 2/7
Personal Writing - 5/7
Other Creative Things - 3/7
Reading - 7/7 - Mostly I read Hummingbird Salamander, also read some of Witch King with Taylor, read some Duma Key with Alex, and read a bit of my ebook side read
Attention to Media - 6/7 - Sunday had some paranormal and exploration videos in the background; Monday I listened to music; Tuesday and Wednesday had exploration videos in the background and listened to music; Friday and Saturday more vids in background.
Video Games - 1/7 - Taylor and I played more of Final Fantasy XIV, playing through the first Sharlayan quest series
Social Interaction - 6/7

Total words written: 0

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

Last Sunday, after hitting the halfway point of my time off, Alex and I went to Roxborough State Park.

The rock formations are beautiful.

Absolutely huge bumblebee (appropriately) on a bee plant! I love these bees. They're at least an inch long, maybe a little bigger.

17 more pictures:

Small stripey lizard behind the grass! This must have been a young one, as it was very little.

Neat longhorn beetle on the milkweed in the garden by the ranger station.

We'd been a little afraid that it would be more crowded than usual, since we were going on a weekend day. I'd say we saw maybe a few more groups than usual, but it really wasn't too bad. It was a pretty hot day, and that probably kept some people away.

A little birds nest up on one of the historic house's outbuildings.

The historic house.

The back side of the house.

Down in the trees behind the house there were wrens nesting! They were very cute.

One of the parent wrens. Both were coming and going.

The nest, in the hole in the tree. You can barely see one of the adults' tails.

The wrens were very impressive hunters! We sat and watched for quite a while, so got to see them come back very frequently, with all manner of insects for their very loud little babies.

Lovely red rocks.

A cute little moth. ...I think this type camouflages itself as bird poop, ha.

Looking up the cliffs.

I never got to see it, but we heard a frog while we were on this part of the trail! It was a chirpier sound than the typical bullfrogs, so maybe a chorus frog?

Stormclouds moving in...

We were a bit worried about the storm, but aside from a bit of thunder and a few spits of wind-blown rain, it didn't do anything.

There were so many of the big bumblebees!

I always love the pollen saddlebags.

I like the trees growing on top of the rocks. Scale is really hard to convey, but those are full-sized pine trees up top.

As we were heading back, the stormclouds looked pretty cool.

And then two pictures from the same day, but not from Roxborough:

I'm pretty sure this itty bitty thing on my mom's geranium is a katydid nymph! So tiny!

And then a bit later, even more dramatic storm clouds from our apartment.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

"Why have I have this omnipresent headache that just won't go away with any of my usual OTC painkillers for almost three days now? While the severity has waxed and waned, it just never goes away. And ugh, lights are really bothering me, too. It sure is frustrating that it seems to have come with horrible brain fog that has made work a struggle and made me basically useless once I get home. I also sure don't love how I've been so exhausted that I've been doing nothing much beyond sleeping, because I fall asleep after dinner, get up for an hour or so, and then go straight back to bed. Despite the 10+ hours of sleep, which is far more than usual for me, I've still been so tired for these last few days. I wonder what could be up with that?"

Oh right. *~Migraines~* are a thing that exist, and that I get! Why the fuck does it take me days to figure that out every time??

Still not gone, but at least the headache has been closer to a 2/10 all day today, rather than ranging from about a 5/10 to an 8/10 for the last two. No auras this time, which is nice, though that would have clued me in faster. And I feel like I can form complete, mostly coherent thoughts! So that's an improvement.

Definitely fell farther behind instead of catching up on things though. Rude.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

Thursday was the first day of my break from work, and we headed up to Mount Falcon. We've been there before, though this was the first time for Bella. It's always a pretty spot!

I'm sure I've taken a variation on this picture every time we're here. I just love the layered windows and the tree behind, ha.

Looking towards the east, you can see a very long way.

21 more pictures: scenery, Bella, ruins, a spider...

There's Denver, way in the distance in the middle.

A fritillary butterfly.

Bella is... not a robust dog, haha. She is very strong, and can be energetic in short bursts, but endurance is not her calling in life, I'm afraid. Mount Falcon (at least the trail we were taking) is not super difficult or super long, but we still made sure we were taking frequent breaks for her to get to pause for a minute and get some water and snacks. (And stopping more often is good for us, too. We're trying to be better about staying hydrated!)

Look at this weenie.

Majestic.

Wild geranium.

You really can see quite far!

The biggest draw of this particular trail is the "castle ruins," the remains of the Walker Mansion. The house was built in 1911, and then was struck by lightning and fell down in 1918.

Having a large bird soaring right over the ruins on approach was pretty great. I think this was a raven.

The still very tall chimney.

I love the shield-shaped window.

Lots of wildflowers growing inside the ruins.

A little fireplace. Plus dramatic dead tree.

Plant growing in the pillar.

I wanted to get a picture of Bella on the same rock that I have a picture of Cy standing on. (One of my favorite pictures, the one my friend did the amazing art of.)

Unfortunately, Bella is not quite as good at posing, and the rocks were a little warm. Not horribly hot, but not super pleasant to be scrambling around on, so we weren't going to spend too long trying.

Not as dramatic, but at least it's Bella with a lovely background, ha.

Adventurous!

You can hike down and around the ruins area a bit, and get down to a little spot sort of below the edge of the cliff. It's often very nice and cool down there in the shade, so we headed down that way to take another break.

Some pinecones at a neat stage.

Huge thistle and a very vibrant bumblebee.

A pair of spiders. They were very small, and I couldn't really get my camera to fully focus on them. I assume the bigger one in the middle is a female and the thinner one up to the left is a male. (There was a second web with two that didn't seem to have gotten along quite so well... the female seemed to have made a snack of the male.)

A fern!

A ladybug on an oak leaf.

The meadow area was really pretty. Very multi-colored with the different things growing.

It'd been a few years since we went to Mount Falcon, and I was glad we got to go again. It really is a neat place.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

mistressofmuses

A long-time friend of mine (jeez... middle school...) kindly offered to do an art piece of Cy. She has long been an amazing artist. The picture arrived today, and is absolutely stunning. From one of my favorite photos:

Thank you so very much

boujee_redneck. You captured him absolutely perfectly, and I will treasure this picture of my best boy. <3

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: Bag of Bones - Silversun Pickups

mistressofmuses

I was really quite happy with the color scheme this week. This is another sticker from the Atomic Pixies, a bee and a representation of the dance they do to convey information to each other.

This was a good week. It was the first time in quite a while that I'd had a chunk of time off of work (minus the memorial service earlier in June.) Over the course of the week, I managed to go out and do things every day that I had off, which was satisfying. Also doing okay on reading. Less so on creative stuff. I'm feeling really discouraged on writing, and I think I will take a break from it for a while. Quite happy with the hiking and such, though. Need to spend some time catching up on other things, though!

Goals for the week:

I did read more of (and finished) Dead Silence (though then immediately started it over to read with Alex, because we needed something to do on the fourth while we waited for fireworks...)
I started reading Hummingbird Salamander
I did write up the books I read in June
I got together with Taylor on Saturday
I did post my writing goals, such as they are, for July
Alex and I solidified the time off plans
I did my getyourwordsout check-in (12334 words for June, year to date is 70817)
We got plenty of outdoor time!
I put my laundry away
We cleaned the apartment (YET ANOTHER "annual inspection"; there have been three since the last time I complained about how many there were.)
We celebrated the fourth of July... not for patriotic reasons, but as our 16th anniversary
We bought our fruit and I made our fruit salad
I did not finish the chapter of my WIP
I did my July tracker grids
I paid the car insurance
We didn't really look at our subscription stuff
I did not work on my pin boards

Tracked habits:

Work - 2/7 - we were closed on Friday, and I took Thursday and Saturday off
Household Maintenance - 6/7
Physical Activity - 4/7
Wrote 500/1000+ Words - 2/7 - one day of over 500 words, one day of over 1000
Wrote on 2nd+ Draft - 0/7
Meta Work - 5/7
Personal Writing - 5/7
Other Creative Things - 3/7
Reading - 7/7 - mostly reading Dead Silence, though Alex and I read some of Duma Key, then we also started reading Dead Silence again lol, I started Hummingbird Salamander, and Taylor and I finished Installment Immortality, then started reading Witch King
Attention to Media - 7/7 - Sunday listened to an episode of Re: Dracula and news coverage Alex had in the background; Monday had paranormal videos in the background, and then another ep of Re: Dracula (shovel day!); Tuesday we watched a couple episodes of the new season of Alone, though I dozed off; Wednesday had some background stuff Alex was watching, an ep of Re: Dracula, and listening to music; Thursday had storm chasing and paranormal videos in the background; Friday I listened to music in the morning; Saturday listened to music after Taylor went to bed.
Video Games - 1/7 - Taylor and I played some Final Fantasy XIV and finished the fourth part of Shadowbringers, and started on Endwalker (getting through the first questline that sends you to fantasy!India.)
Social Interaction - 4/7

Total words written: 3793 on book reviews and writing plans

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my apartment
Current Music: The New Black - Aesthetic Perfection

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kampfhomo

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Reading

Monday, July 14: Lair o' the Bear (Part 2)

Monday, July 14: Lair o' the Bear (Part 1)

Tuesday, July 08: Hudson Gardens (Part 2)

Tuesday, July 08: Hudson Gardens (Part 1)

Monday, July 07: Pine Valley Ranch

Habit Tracking: Week 27 (July 06 - July 12)

Sunday, July 06: Roxborough State Park

It's just a mystery...

Thursday, July 3: Mount Falcon

Truly he was the bestest hiking boy:

Habit Tracking: Week 26 (June 29 - July 05)

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July 2025

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