Saturday Slight

A light rain overnight, this morning's quiet calm, along with gray skies and rather balmy temps----all have combined for a new fall pattern.  

Skies are gray.  The ground is a bit cleaner. We needed this moisture.  

There's more scheduled but all is quiet right now.  

My walk this morning felt refreshing and relaxing as the weekday traffic---even the paper deliverer---is not following its usual pace.  

The lone vehicle I saw on Selle Road stopped at South Center Valley, then continued heading east.  

As it passed in semi-darkness, I saw from the wording on the side door that it was an airport shuttle van, probably mistaking our road for Forest Siding---a common occurrence out in this valley.   

I figured that someone was either heading out of town or coming home from a trip.

Having recently returned from my trip, I felt a bit spooked this morning while reading an article about the missing Colorado girl who was found dismembered in a park not too far from her home.

Having seen news reports about the nationwide search throughout our travels in Colorado, I wondered where Westminster and Arvada (that's where she was discovered) were in respect to our travels.

After looking at the map, I surmised that some questions had been answered, regarding our unusual encounter with a law officer while hiking at the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Arsenal on Wednesday afternoon.

Turns out the arsenal is less than 10 miles from where the little girl's body was discovered.  

I reread the article----her body was found Wednesday night.  Authorities did not announce the discovery until yesterday.

In retrospect, I remembered hearing an unusually loud barrage of sirens on the highway west of us while taking a picture of the Rocky Mountain Wildlife visitor center.  

We did see one man on the trail around the lake.  He told us where to look for the buffalo---in the far north end of the refuge. 

Later,  the cop stopped us.  

We thought the intervention was odd from the beginning.  

He wondered if we were driving the Chevy.  Well, yes, we had a Chevy rental but it was not the same color as the other Chevy parked not too far from us.

The car in question was a blue Chevy SUV,  not in the authorized lot but parked near a building near the man-made lake.  

We didn't think parking in the wrong place would necessarily bring out the heavy hand of the law. 

Annie surmised that someone may have stolen that other car and ditched it. 

Later, while driving outside the perimeter of the arsenal, looking for the buffalo herd,  we saw another cop car patrolling a grassy road below the freeway just east of the arsenal.  

Both of us wondered if something big was up.  I'm guessing now that the small part we played with our Wednesday questioning was  much bigger than we ever imagined.

So sad to think of the little girl, her family and all the families who now live in fear because of a dangerous predator still loose in the area. 

On a more positive note, I had time yesterday to tackle some fall projects around here:  digging up iris bulbs for planting before the snow flies, pulling corn stalks and celery from the garden, putting a few things away.

My big project was the manure pile garden.  Twas time to stir it up and tidy up the area.  I used the Kabota and its loader and was quite pleased with my tractor skills.  

The area looks better than it has for years, and there's a big pile of dirt and dead vegetables, destined to be complete dirt as time goes by.

Today I'll keep moving along the same path, finding things to put away, areas to clean up and places where those iris bulbs will go.

Looks like pleasant weather for the projects ahead.  Bill and Willie will go cut wood for the second Saturday in a row.  

Eventually we'll be ready for another long siege of winter.  It's just around the corner and hard to believe that it's coming so soon.

Happy Saturday.