Just a beautiful moonrise!

ow! We came home after dark, the other night, and 2 HUGE ELK were in our front yard! The next night, Jimmy heard a commotion and it seems that Nikki (my dog) had encountered them and startled them so off they scampered, kicking some pipe somewhere....we heard a "clang"!

Friday, our neighbor, Will, decided that he wanted to ski, too. Hadn't been in 15 years.....64 years old, and his wife has decided to take lessons and ski now, too. They have the bug now and Will just bought all new skis, etc. Jimmy is the one in front with the Blue helmet, Will is in the white pants and David the black. Double click on the picture.

Our friend David, from Ft.Worth came to visit, and he and Jimmy skied 6 days last week! Whew! But the snow was great and after Tuesday, the weather was great, too!

We got our first big snowstorm last week! Then another one followed and my car was a foot deep!
Jimmy has been skiing 6 days last week and Yesterday! Another big storm due in tonight! Right now, tho'....it's 50 degrees and not a cloud in the sky! barely sweater weather!

Our newest acquisition!
High Mesa subdivision now has our own fire truck! Not many people can say that! Our friend David, found this used truck for sale in Cleburn, Tx.
It is now sitting in our shop, getting new tires and getting the transmission checked out. The Engine runs great, we'll have it parked here in our subdivision to protect the houses built here.
They are expecting another dry, windy fire season this spring, so were ready! Also hear that the city will rent it from us if need be.

Well. we got some shocking news, the bank president where we are working on our construction loan.....just up and quit last Friday!!!
So we had to start all over with a new guy!
Anyway, Here's pictures of the subdivision. The front gate, the view from our lot, the fountain with the Elk and the clubhouse.
(sigh) Jimmy's mountaintop.

Then, they took a picture of me with a vintage plane and a motorcycle and sidecar, little fuzzy, but it's a picture of a picture!
And NO...my radiator isn't leaking....someone else's was!

On October 15th, the Pine Top Car Club had a car show/airshow here in Ruidoso........
Lots of people, cars, planes.....great fun! There were helicopter rides, glider rides and a Ford GT giving 150 mph + rides, up and down the runway.....complete with motorcycle cop and radar gun to check your speed! Free food, a couple of hundred cars and beautiful weather!

Went to the Cowboy Symposium last night, it's all weekend. Saw the "Texas Playboys" and Mel Tillis! Very entertaining!

In the meantime,
Jimmy, the contractor, is fixing up his mountaintop.
Moving dirt, digging ditches, fixing plumbing, etc.

Last weekend, there was a small car show at Ruidoso Downs, (the Casino and horse race track)......fun day, cloudy, cool, lots of snazzy cars!
This coming weekend is the Cowboy Symposium, Then October 15th is the "Fly in- car show" where I plan to put my Daddy's 442 Oldsmobile in......It's a work in progress!

The Aspencade Rally came to town Sept. 9-11 weekend, with all sorts of crazies! There was a parade on Saturday, with thousands of bikes, if you double click on the picture, you can see that the state troopers were in the parade, too! the one on the front, has an AK-47 mounted on his bike! ONLY IN THE SOUTH! haha.

All the years Jimmy has lived up here, he has never been up the ski run mountain, in the summer.......so up we went 9n the gondola!
Beautiful, green, cool. But once we got up to the top of the mountain...at 12,000 feet....their were lightnening and storm strikes around, so they shut the gondola down!
So, since we were just about the only ones up there, they loaded us up in a Suburban and drove us down one of the ski runs!
One of the neatest nature tours I've ever been on! There were herds of elk on the mountainside, wild turkeys, got to see the snow making machines (blowers), unusual plants....really interesting!

This is my new favorite! I thought a bear was getting into my hummingbird feeders, at night.....but my neighbor caught this picture.......AHA! the culprit!

This was just several snapshots I had, to show the interesting critters around here. From Bluejays, to woodpeckers, to great bucks and a really pretty butterfly or moth, I don't know which.

Well.....the newest stress factor......I went to lunch with a girlfriend and came home to pavers and asphalt trucks! It seems that Jimmy had our lot next door and the front of our lot, asphalted!
It turned out nice, but was several thousands, without talking to me first....needless to say I was furious!

On the morning of the 30th, we got a phone call saying that the shop yard, chain link fence gate (in Texas) had been pulled down and one of the freightliner trucks had been stolen. (The shop has been there 10 years with no issues). Luckily, we have satellite tracking and even though someone cut the antenna wire, as they were going down the road.....they didn't cut the power wire! So all we had to do was triangulate the last ping of a celltower and we found the truck 14 miles away, the next day! See the red dot above... pretty cool, huh?

On August 28, I woke up feeling especially achy and would love to slip into a hot bath....one problem, no bathtub up here....only shower.
We have even joined the local Ruidoso Athletic Club, just so that I could sit in their jacuzzi.
Anyway, Jimmy has been trying to talk me into a hot tub, and I finally broke down....but only if it fit in the 5'7" X 5'7" spot where I wanted to put it.
Well, Holy Crow.......they had a 2 person hot tub! We went to Discount Spas in Alamorgordo, NM.
Anyway, we loaded it up in the back of the pickup truck and drove home to Alto.
I was soaking the next morning! Jimmy had also recently fallen off a ladder and really tore up his shoulder, so it felt great for him, too.

ooohhhh! Look what was about 20 feet away from my back deck!

Well, after several different nights of one of the bucks deciding that he wanted sweet water, and destroying my hummingbird feeders.....I came up with a new idea. I've got all 4 feeders on a pole that can raise and lower with a rope......now, no one can reach them except the birds! I thought I was pretty smart!!!

Two of the babies came back! The momma was still feeding them, but they were in the tree in my front yard, today!

I have been watching this little bird nest right over my front door, since there were 4 eggs! The babies have grown like weeds, then yesterday...they all slowly left, one by one! The final picture was one of the babies, sitting on the chair, next to me! Not scared of us, since we came and went out the door all the time. SOOOOO cute!

Well, last weekend was a very interesting Saturday night! After we had eaten dinner at the Kokopelli Club, Jimmy noticed that they were setting up for a game of Nite-golf!
So he called our friend Bret and his son Bronson to come play....what a hoot! Once the moon came up, it wasn't so bad....but until then it was REALLY dark~!
As the golf balls flew, they looked like a shooting star! Lots of fun, tho'!