A couple weeks ago we went out to my parents ranch. It is only about 15 mins away and they have a nice creek about 75ft out the front door. I spent many summers there playing for hours on end. I took the kids down to the creek to play while my Mom and I sat in lawn chairs and chatted. 2 of the kids' cousins also came to play. We'd been there about an hour and noticing a doe in the creek about 50 yards away and she looked like she was escaping the heat in the water like we were, except she just appeared to be feeding long the edges of the creek and meandering around. So we had been chatting and watching the kids play up and down the creek from us. I noticed our doe had left after an hour of being there. Then about 15 mins later I noticed something low to the ground coming out of the brush right where the deer was no longer there, first I thought maybe a beaver because it was moving so slow and so short, then more of it came out of the bush and a little more and then I realized it had a big long tail! It was a cougar on it's belly creeping out to the edge of the water and it got a drink....about this time once we realized what it was started yelling for the kids to get out of the water and get to the house (thank goodness it was so close). We got the kids to safety and the last time I looked at the cougar it was sitting up looking at us. Thank goodness it didn't try to chase us! I doubt it would have. It wasn't a very large cougar but still a cougar 50 yards from where my children were playing in the water! YIKES! Anyway that was enough excitement for one day! LOL
They called the state trapper (who is entirely too busy in our area with cougar sightings etc) and he was supposed to come out and track it with dogs but we never knew if he actually made it out there or not.:( Unfortunately the surrounding areas are getting overrun with cougars. Ever since they changed the law about not hunting them with dogs. They have no fear of humans like they once did and the younger ones (because there are so many more of them now) are getting pushed into more populated areas because their mom's push them out of their territory etc. Anyway I think this one was a younger one because it wasn't real big but they tend to be more dangerous because they are inexperienced hunters and are more tempted to try to attack a human and they are more bold IMO. This isn't the first time we have seen cougars out there over tthe past several years but when we were growing up we had never seen a cougar on the ranch......as much as we were all over that land on horseback and on foot it is amazing. Now we see several a month.:(
That was the week I decided to stay off the internet for 1 full week! No internet so that I could make sure and think about my priorities and take some time to think about life, these precious kids. It was the best thing I could have done, it got me out doing things I don't normally do and we had quite an adventure of a week!!! First there was a huge windstorm at my parents that blew over about 30 trees and we had to cut trees out of the road and the kids all got to ride in an excavator and see the guys falling trees etc. It was pretty neat and the kids were loving it. Then the cougar sighting the next day, we also did several fun things that week like sewing Sunshine's 4-H project, going to Tri Cities for fabric shopping etc. It was a very good time and I can definitely see myself limiting internet for several days per week or another week at some point just to keep my focus on life going on around us.:)
They called the state trapper (who is entirely too busy in our area with cougar sightings etc) and he was supposed to come out and track it with dogs but we never knew if he actually made it out there or not.:( Unfortunately the surrounding areas are getting overrun with cougars. Ever since they changed the law about not hunting them with dogs. They have no fear of humans like they once did and the younger ones (because there are so many more of them now) are getting pushed into more populated areas because their mom's push them out of their territory etc. Anyway I think this one was a younger one because it wasn't real big but they tend to be more dangerous because they are inexperienced hunters and are more tempted to try to attack a human and they are more bold IMO. This isn't the first time we have seen cougars out there over tthe past several years but when we were growing up we had never seen a cougar on the ranch......as much as we were all over that land on horseback and on foot it is amazing. Now we see several a month.:(
That was the week I decided to stay off the internet for 1 full week! No internet so that I could make sure and think about my priorities and take some time to think about life, these precious kids. It was the best thing I could have done, it got me out doing things I don't normally do and we had quite an adventure of a week!!! First there was a huge windstorm at my parents that blew over about 30 trees and we had to cut trees out of the road and the kids all got to ride in an excavator and see the guys falling trees etc. It was pretty neat and the kids were loving it. Then the cougar sighting the next day, we also did several fun things that week like sewing Sunshine's 4-H project, going to Tri Cities for fabric shopping etc. It was a very good time and I can definitely see myself limiting internet for several days per week or another week at some point just to keep my focus on life going on around us.:)
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