As I walked the dogs yesterday morning, I saw through the trees ahead a buck of substantial size. I often see deer along that road, but rarely bucks. Each time I see deer (or fox, sometimes even squirrels, birds, butterflies. leaves blowing across the road) it's a struggle to keep the dogs—Mickey in particular—under control. So I swiftly crossed the dogs to the other side of the road in hopes they wouldn't notice it as we passed it by.

Naturally, that's right when Mickey saw the buck...and the second it was bounding to meet up with. I tugged the yelping dogs in line and did my best to keep moving along.

"I can tell from that yelp that your dogs have seen the buck," said a gentleman—refined and eerily akin to 60-year-old Anderson Cooper—as he stepped from behind a bush. A bush he'd been working near, plucking weeds from his yard, not a bush he'd been lurking behind for unknown nefarious reasons. I think.

Me: Yeah, he certainly did.

Gentleman (clearly in awe): Five-by-five there.

Me (thinking WTH? Size? Must have to do with size): Oh yeah? It is big. I've not seen one that large yet this year.

Gentleman: I haven't either, but those are two five-by-fives and one four-by-three.

Me (using my infinite conversational skills): Three? Wow! I only saw two.

Gentleman: Oh yeah, there's three.

Me (pulling on dog leashes and itching to move along): Wow!

Gentleman (slowly shaking his head in disgust): Yeah, two five-by-fives. And I'm a bow-hunter and there ain't nothing I can do about it.

Me (in pseudo similar disgust): Yeah, you gotta just wave as they go on by.

Gentleman (in resignation): Ha...Yeah...

Me: Well, you have a good day.

Gentleman: You, too.

The gentleman gazed across the road at the three bucks ambling toward the ridge, lust and longing palpable as he slowly shook his head.

The dogs and I moved along as I resisted the urge to shake my own head...for a very different reason, to be sure.

Photo: stock.xchng...since I didn't have my camera with me.

Today's question:

Thoughts on bucks, city hunting, or neighbors lurking behind bushes?

Many of the blogs I visit regularly have lately featured spring in all its glory: trees in bloom and flowers, flowers, flowers. Beautiful flowers of purples and yellows and pinks and more.

Well, that's not the way we do spring in Colorado. At least not yet, at least not in my neighborhood.

As proof, here are two highlights from my walk with the dogs yesterday, neither of which feature flowers. (Neither of the photos, not the dogs. Well, the dogs don't feature flowers either).

(The white bar on the photo is part of the fence they're standing on the other side of.)

Sure, I'd be thrilled to see and smell flowers blooming, the true signs of spring. But if I can't have those, I'll gladly accept and appreciate what else Mother Nature has to offer, including snow-covered Pikes Peak and three curious deer.

As for blooming trees and flowers, I'll wait patiently.

For now, anyway.

Today's question:

What does spring look like in your neighborhood today?