It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s my back fence ...

Ah, the joys of Colorado weather. You never know what you’re going to get. I recently made a comment that we are lucky we don’t get hurricanes. But instead we get cold hurricane force winds.

Monday morning started early - really early. Our beloved Labrador is really afraid of the wind and kept waking us up. About 5am, I heard a bizarre noise - like some of my wind chimes in my bedroom. I got up, put my sweatshirt, glasses and slippers on and went outside. I grabbed a few things that were wavering around and secured them down. Out front, I secured my lawn moose down better and grabbed the newspaper. It was really windy.

Well, that was just the wind-up. (get it? *wind*-up).

Once the sun came up, the gusts came harder. At the airport just north of me, they measured gusts of 92 mph. One of those gusts lifted a 45-foot section of my back fence about 10 feet into the air and then threw it 20 feet into the neighbor’s yard. Dang. We were going to get that replaced but thought it would hold to the Spring (since that section alone is about $1300!). My porch wall came apart too. Sigh.

Sarah-dog came out with me to survey the damage. The neighbor’s dog, Drake, a shy Rotweiller, poked his head out to see what was going on. He was very surprised when Sarah-Dog came over, kissed him on the nose (like “hey, howzit goin’”) and sniffed around his yard. His look was like Monk needing an antibacterial wipe. “Wha... hey, where’s the fence... hey, you’re in my space....” But Sarah-Dog being very socialized and familiar to him from sniffs through the fence, just went with the flow.

As the day went on, I tried to get him to talk to me and gave him a couple of biscuits. He was putty in my hands after two. I went back inside and noticed him periodically coming over and stealing the girls’ toys. Poor boy is out there 24/7 (yes, he’s out there in today’s below zero weather). His people seem nice but ignorant about him being out in the cold.

So now we have a little temporary fence up. I think when both girls out, they might gang up on him. We’ll ask Santa for a new fence. In the meantime, Drake the Rottie is getting a lot of extra attention. If only I could bring him in my house to warm up.