I got an email today and *had* to share it here at the Shak!  See the “dots” on the dam?  They aren’t dots… look closely.

Now look a little closer…

Another angle of Buffalo Bill Dam at Shoshoni River at Cody, Wyoming.

Source unknown.  Yet still amazing!

Photo by tanakawho through Flickr Creative Commons.

From TheoGeo,

The way I see it, we’re BFFs automatically since I did not dispense with any smashing.

Well said.

I suppose when you turn 50, you find more free time to enjoy what nature has provided right out our back doors.  Before 50 (heck, before 30!), it was hanging out with friends, going on adventures, traveling, or raising children.  While we can still do those things, it really is nice to be able to sit back and enjoy.  From The Other Side of 55,

The more I watch ‘my’ chipmunks, the easier it is to recognize differences in them (they might all ‘look alike’, but each one has its own patterns of behaviour, territories, and – I like to think – personalities!)  People – in general, and I imagine, in the eyes of chipmunks – all have the same general physiology, but we all behave differently from one another, which sets each of us apart from all the others as we go about our daily lives.

Me?  I watch our hummingbirds.

My friend Aunt B. noticed something about Mrs. Wigglebottom.  As she ages, she sleeps more and more deeply,

Last night, the dog was sleeping next to me on the couch and I accidentally bumped her. It startled her awake and I could tell, for a second, she had been sleeping so hard she had no idea where she was. Just a second. But I noticed. Young dogs don’t sleep that hard. They slip in and out of sleep when they need to as easily as they need to.

I could go for some deep sleep of my own right now.

From Dolfpedia and titled “Downhill from a dog park”:

H/T Brittney.

My friend wrote on her Facebook page that she was worried about dog sitting for another friend.  Gizmo was 16 1/2 years old, blind, and sickly.  She was fearful that she’d pass away while in her care.

Yesterday she wrote an update that Gizmo had been barking non-stop for 10 hours.  When she reached Gizmo’s Mom, she said to take her home and let her stay in the back yard overnight because it would make her feel better.  Sure enough, when Beth took Gizmo home the barking stopped.  Gizmo bounced around happily before settling down for the night.

When Beth went to check on the Giz this morning, she found that she had passed during the night.  She called me absolutely distraught.  I tried to reassure her that she did what her Mom wanted her to do and that she needed to call and let them know.  Then she had to either bury her in the back yard or take her to a veterinarian for cremation.

I thought any other temporary storage choices would be a very bad idea since Gizmo’s Mom and Dad have a baby in the house.

What would you do if an animal that didn’t belong to you, but was in your care, passed away?

I don’t know why this tickled me, but it sure did.  From my friend Jeffraham Prestonian,

Happy Happy Monday!!

Awwwww….

Happy weekend!

I’m so pleased I could clear that up for you!  Actually Jumping in Mud Puddles helped to clarify that for us on her post about lightning striking cows and a big toe,

We built our house on a hill on a spot where an old dairy farm stood. The guy we bought the property from told my husband that the old dead tree on the property had been struck by lightning, and a couple of cows were killed by a lightning bolt, right where the house stood. Well, isn’t that lovely? I loved being out in the country, but when storms came through, it became ugly and menacing, yet beautiful at the same time. Well, not for the cows, I imagine.

I do love lightning storms – watched safely indoors and where my electronics aren’t destroyed.

Photo from kcdsTM photostream via flickr creative commons.