O Canada!

I can smell you burning!

The pictures don't really do it justice. The smoke haze has been awful for the last three days, and my world smells like someone left the poutine on the barbie too long.

Didn't keep me from my appointed rounds though.

One of the nice things about my life is that I can take the time, if i like, to pull out a camp chair, kick back, and read. Reading is enjoyable anywhere, anytime, but outside on the prairie is kinda special. The temperature was nearly 100 and I'd been toiling in the sweltering heat, rebuilding washed out five-wire fence. I got tired and faint, and realized I needed a sit-down with a book and a nice jug of lukewarm formerly iced tea. It was a divine hour I spent in the slender shade of juniper, surrounded by grazing cows and calves, reading from Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy. Heaven.

In the morning I took a little hike to check mushrooms.

This is a Giant Puffball, Calvatia gigantea. They're quite common on the shortgrass prairie in mid- to late-summer, particularly following a rain. That said, I've never seen them so large. Of course I've never seen such a wet, rainy year. The puffballs are edible and somewhat prized in certain mushrooming circles. They sure smell like edible mushrooms, midway between the white button and baby bella shrooms we can get at our local (ahem) supermarket. If I were younger and still convinced of my immortality I'd have slaughtered and cooked a batch of these puffballs. But I am not younger and I am no longer convinced, therefore I'll leave these for those who are.

I was reading the other day that the FBI recently warned of isisisil "barry's own" terrorist cells operating in Cheyenne and in Greeley, Colo. Sixty miles away. The local constabulary is "somewhat" aware of this. So that's about five of us. And another reason that I choose to exercise one of my Constitutional rights.

I don't make a big deal about it, and as a CCW holder most of my friends and neighbors have not the faintest idea that I'm one of those crazy insane psychologically emasculated nut jobs. I'm not as spry as I once was and I believe I'll leave the unarmed terrorist hunting to callow utes like those on the Amsterdam-Paris train the other day. Me, I'll rely on Ol' Betsy.

Back by popular Badger demand, the rusty bike.

Which is actually a trike.

It's been there as long as I can remember, and I'd guess since at least WWII. Maybe WWI. I have no idea what the story behind it might be, and there's no one around with more information.

The other day it was cool and foggy. One might even say cold and miserable -- for August. I had a workout hike scheduled and couldn't let the conditions defeat me, so off I went.

I went 5.3 miles or so and was soaked and chilled to the bone when I finished. I got to thinking about one of Sarge's post-horsepistol posts, the one featuring Michael Caine and an image of Shepherd's cottage pie. My mouth watered.

So I went to work.

I'm afraid I was too hungry to take any mouth-watering images of the completed project. Such images would have been disappointing, anyway, because what I made was more properly cottage upside-down pie. In other words, I was to lazy (and hungry) to put the mashed potatoes on top and bake. So I put the mashed potatoes on a plate and covered them with the filling. My stomach seems not to have known the difference.

Finally, here's a confused milkweed bug and a snap of a friendly bullsnake. Note the round pupil.

And last but not least, we return to where we began, more or less, with a tiny annual sunflower blossom set against the backdrop of an evening sky filled with burning poutine.

Hope you're all having a wonderful day.