Time flies - sorry about the long lag between posts. Sometimes we get caught up in the minutia of caring for the wolves day-to-day and none of it seems news worthy to us, so we fail to blog. But I realized the other day that we are spoiled being with these great creatures every day, and we take things for granted that others might find interesting.  So in that vein, we’ll try to be better going forward.  So what started this “zen”-type thinking?  Well, I was cleaning water dishes the other day in both enclosures.  There was about a 10 minute lag between the time I got the young pack’s dish empty and was ready to fill it again.  During that time Comanche jumped into the empty dish – not uncommon so I didn’t think much of it.  When I came back down to the enclosure with the hose I chased him out of the tub, looked down and saw that the knuckle head had be trying to tear out the caulking around the bottom of the tank.  Chris had recently re-caulked it to stop a small leak and there must have been just enough of an edge or flap of caulk to catch Comanche’s eye and that was all it took.  Fortunately, he wasn’t able to get enough out to do any damage – this time anyway. I was laughing and realized this little funny part of my day is very normal and I am so lucky! Hence the urge to share it with you all.

All the wolves have now celebrated another birthday.  The 3 grumpy old men are all 15 years old now! They creak around the enclosure and Mohawk will even occasionally run to the snack window. He also continues to pounce on the downstairs window if people stare at him - though not with nearly as much force as in the past.  Chief is still doing fine even though he is blind. He finds his food and water and always seems to know where he is in the enclosure, although he does occasionally run into one of the other wolves. Comanche and Kiowa are now five, which is mind boggling to us.  In the wild they would be considered old and nearing the end of their life span.  Sekani is three and still an adorable goofball.  The “puppies”  are now officially “yearlings”. They are shedding their puppy fur and are at the stage where they are all long gangly legs and skinny body.  They make Comanche look enormous.  OK, he IS enormous…

In non-wolf news, we had a young great horned owl grace us with his presence recently.  He spent the day at various places around the Inn, including on the side deck, in a tree out back, and on the front fence. He kindly posed for several photos, thrilling us and our guests. That’s him (or her, we don’t know) in the photo. Of course, we have two cats who like to spend most of the warmer months outdoors, so we are hoping this fella doesn’t choose to make his home right here. It could be a problem as he gets bigger.

Wishing you all a good start to your summer.

TTFN