I climbed up Bald Butte today, round trip 5.5 hours. That is a heck of a hike - straight uphill most the way up, of course. Fantastic views however. As soon as I got up to the logging road I discovered some large bear tracks, fresh in the dust. That was pretty exciting. Unfortunately I did not stumble upon a bear eating berries or a deer fawn, but I did snap some photos of the tracks. I snacked on trail mix intermittently and heard a few deer scared off by my presence. I ended up finding the road to the top and followed it for a ways before deciding it's more rewarding to go off-trail hiking. As I came to the top, a dude in his SUV who'd just turned around at the "summit" spotted me and asked if I'd walked all the way up and commented on it being "quite a hike." Yessirree. My feet are still complaining. But it was fun.

After that I ate lunch and headed into town to meet mom at Arlene's. I grabbed a couple wildlife art mugs and then we went to Dog River for chai smoothies. Then I went grocery shopping for mom at Rosauers, and ran into Jonathan, who just got a job there bagging - I seriously haven't talked to him since I was a sophomore in high school! Crazy. We talked a bit tonight via telephone and might end up hanging out sometime soon, perhaps hiking. We got a pizza from Santacroce's for dinner, and it was excellent as usual.

Yesterday I went to the wildlife clinic, and there are several new patients: a skunk, two more great horned owls, and a Swainson's hawk. I applied frontline to the luckily-drowsy skunk and finally got to feed the bat. It's rather cute.

Oh, today on my way home I saw our neighbor in a cart pulled by her donkey (that donkey is seriously only the size of a great dane). My first reaction was "that's neat" 'cause I do like working with animals. But then, oh my gosh, it's rather ridiculous, isn't it?