| Title |
Excerpt |
Author |
Date |
Total Comments |
Recent Comment |
| April / Easter Weaving |
I wanted to weave a short table runner with Spring / Easter colors, but also attempt a fairly complex pattern using overshot and pickup techniques. I started with some nice Easter-y pastel colors (the first photo), but was not happy with how the pattern was showing up. I wanted it… |
Rick |
04/17/22 |
0 |
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| Weave for the Month |
I've started a new "thing" with my weaving: a decorative table runner or centerpiece for each month of the year. For the first two projects, I used a technique called Crazy Overshot. This allows me to create very complex patterns on my rigid heddle loom. However, it is time consuming.… |
Rick |
03/09/22 |
0 |
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| A New Weaving Technique |
Some time ago I posted about a table runner I'd woven on Facebook, but did not capture it here. So, I'm finally catching up on that. This is a table runner woven using 1-1/4" wide strips of quilting fabric (from a "jelly roll") as the weft. It was inspired by… |
Rick |
02/26/22 |
0 |
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| A Leno Shrug |
I had plenty of the silk noil left over from weaving the Infinity Cowl (twice), so decided to try a new technique and pattern. This is a shrug done using 2x2 leno. Leno is a weaving pattern where you cross over some warp threads and then pass the weft through… |
Rick |
02/17/22 |
0 |
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| “Infinity” Cowl |
My most recent weaving project (that is completed) was an "Infinity" Cowl from a kit by Gist Yarn. It is woven using relatively fine silk noil. Every 3 inches in the weft, I placed a 1/2-inch strip of cardboard in the shed to create open space in the fabric. That… |
Rick |
02/07/22 |
0 |
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| I Was About to Abandon This, But… |
I started a new weaving project prior to our Albuquerque visit and subsequent injuries. It was an experimental table runner where I was working with new materials (a quilting jelly roll), and technique (rag rug weaving). After a few rows, I was about to cut it off the loom and… |
Rick |
01/08/22 |
0 |
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| Follow-up #1 |
Lynne and I both had follow-up doctor visits this week. We are both making progress but also have a way to go. Lynne's foot has improved some. The doctor would have liked to see more growth of soft tissue and calcification to her break, but it had not gotten any… |
Rick |
12/31/21 |
0 |
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| Not the short vacation we had hoped for |
It has been a very long time since I did a blog post. We've sold the cabin, so our Off-The-Grid blog, while still online, is no longer active. This site used to be my (Rick's) personal blog site, but we may migrate it into a new site for capturing our… |
Rick |
12/17/21 |
1 |
01/25/22 |
| Welcome! |
You might expect to see our Off-the-Grid blog site when visiting, but since we've sold the cabin property, that is no longer the default site. Temporarily, you've been redirected to Rick's old "Ramblings" blog site, which has not been updated in several years. Over the next few months, we'll figure… |
Rick |
08/06/21 |
0 |
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| A Chapter Ends |
We have sold the cabin. If you've followed this blog, you know the history: we purchased the land in 1988; visited and camped on the land for many years while dreaming of a cabin someday; built the cabin in 2000; enjoyed it as a vacation home / retreat even while… |
Rick |
08/04/21 |
5 |
12/07/21 |
| Wild Fire |
On Monday, August 10th, Lynne and I left the dogs at the cabin and drove up the Laramie River Valley to the Chambers Lake area, where Co Rd 103 (the Laramie River Valley Road) meets US Highway 14. There is a small lake north of Chambers Lake called Lost Lake,… |
Rick |
08/23/20 |
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| Gone Fishin’ |
I recently volunteered, through Trout Unlimited, to help with some research being done by a CSU Masters Student and funded by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The task was to electrofish for brook trout in two streams close to the cabin--Sheep Creek and George Creek, collect data on their size, and… |
Rick |
08/07/20 |
0 |
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| I’ve Been Lazy |
I've been lazy the past few weeks and have not kept up with our off-the-grid adventures much. We are still spending most of our time at the cabin. We stay for 7-10 days, then go back "down the mountain" to check on our house, mow, and shop. We haul our… |
Rick |
06/28/20 |
1 |
06/29/20 |
| Who Doesn’t Give a Hoot |
A few posts ago I mentioned that one of our evening pleasures was sitting on our front porch with a whiskey in our hand (which occasionally makes its way to our mouth), while watching for moose and listening for the Great Horned Owl that has occupied the land for many… |
Rick |
05/26/20 |
1 |
05/26/20 |
| The Food Post |
I promised a food-oriented post. This will probably be pretty boring because it is just a list of our evening meals during this trip. And, there are no photos. I will provide links to our online recipe book, where possible. Still, it will serve to remind us what we ate when… |
Rick |
05/24/20 |
0 |
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| Wildflowers Galore |
Since it is a cold and snowy day (as predicted in my last post), it is a good day to catch up on our wildflower posts. The purpose is to not only show the great diversity of wild flowers, but do chronicle when we see them for future reference. First,… |
Rick |
05/24/20 |
2 |
05/26/20 |
| A Memorial Day Warning |
First, let me say there is nothing quite as satisfying as sitting by a camp fire, eating 'smores and sipping peanut butter whiskey. Those flavors blend nicely and with the smoke in the air, it is heaven. That is what we did last night. Today, we did laundry to get… |
Rick |
05/22/20 |
0 |
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| Quick Update to Yesterday’s Post |
Glenn L gets the "win" for identifying one of the wildflowers from yesterday's post. We believe he is right in thinking the daisy-like flower is a Hooker's Townsend Daisy, aka Townsendia Hookeri. It is a member of the aster family, so at least I got that right. There was more… |
Rick |
05/19/20 |
0 |
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| Just Another Pandemic Monday |
We have been exercising our "extreme social distancing" at the cabin for a few days now. Spring is definitely starting to spring. The birds are getting more plentiful and there is more variety. The aspen trees are just starting to leaf out--we can see the difference each day. Bart's Creek… |
Rick |
05/18/20 |
3 |
05/22/20 |
| May Day(s) |
It has been a couple of weeks, so let me catch you up. No news from home. Boring... But, we are now truly "Off the Grid" at the cabin, and loving it. We came up on Thursday, the last day of April. When we got here, we were astonished at… |
Rick |
05/03/20 |
1 |
05/19/20 |
| More Monday Musings |
It is Monday again. If you've been reading this blog, you know what the normal routine is, so I won't go into that again. No, this Monday I want to share some thoughts about how people are reacting to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, a quick summary of… |
Rick |
04/20/20 |
0 |
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| Friday’s Musings |
I feel like we are really living our "off the grid" lifestyle again. Today, we went shopping. It was the first time we've been out of the house in 10 days. Wore our masks. The truck is fixed. That was what got us out of the house today. Actually, it… |
Rick |
04/17/20 |
0 |
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| Happy Easter |
Well, it is another Monday. As usual, our day to shower, change underwear and shave. All done already. Not much has happened since I checked in a week ago. Wow, has it really been a week? How time flies when you are sitting at home with little to do. We… |
Rick |
04/13/20 |
0 |
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| Monday Goin’s On |
It is a Monday! A very special day of the week, but I'll get to that later. First, I want to point out that the last time we went shopping and exposed ourselves to other people was a week ago on Saturday. That's 9 days of isolation with the exception… |
Rick |
04/06/20 |
0 |
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| Nearest Neighbor |
This image shows where our nearest neighbor was during our recent 2-day stay at the cabin. Probably enough distance. The photo was take about 1/4 mile from the cabin where we have this great panoramic view of Sand Creek Park all the way to the Snowy Range in Wyoming. |
Rick |
04/01/20 |
0 |
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| Game Camera Photos |
It is our second day at the cabin, having arrived yesterday. It is very windy. The dogs got a short walk earlier, otherwise we've just been hanging out in the cabin, stoking the fire, reading, playing some games and otherwise entertaining ourselves. I did struggle through hip-deep snow to retrieve… |
Rick |
03/31/20 |
0 |
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| Some Serious Social Distancing |
Sunday was a day for cleaning. Lynne cleaned the cabinets, countertops and appliances. Rick dusted, vacuumed and mopped the floors. Some areas got neglected--like the guest room. We had a nice cheese fondue for dinner with a side salad and watched TV. Another "normal" day. But, we did decide to… |
Rick |
03/30/20 |
0 |
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| Recovering on Sunday |
I am recovering well from my fall. I now have a somewhat "black eye" on my right eye where my glasses cut into my eye socket when I fell. Lynne say's I look like I've been in a street fight. Ha. Funny. Yesterday, we went to Safeway to pick up… |
Rick |
03/29/20 |
0 |
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| Forensics of a Fall |
I've gone over it in my head a few times and between my recollection, Lynne's description, and the scrapes and bruises on my body, I think I have a pretty good idea of what happened yesterday. But first, the promised description of dinner. We had a dish from the Union… |
Rick |
03/28/20 |
0 |
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| Dog Walking - Try 1 |
We are really lucky that we have a great place to walk the dogs, even among social distancing. We have a loop we walk, out the front door, turn right, to the end of a long block walking through the neighborhood. Then a right turn, cross the canal, another right… |
Rick |
03/27/20 |
0 |
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| Wheatless Wednesday |
Not much to report today. We spent the day at home, of course. Our governor has now issued a "stay at home" order, as have many other states. That does not affect us much since we've been living by those rules for a while. But, it does make it even… |
Rick |
03/25/20 |
0 |
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| Tuesday is “Foraging” Day |
We've been asked by the Governor to limit our shopping activity to one day a week. We can do that. It is ironic that we've worked so hard not to have the mass-shopping instinct we had at the cabin, (see our article on Winter Provisioning, for example), and now have… |
Rick |
03/24/20 |
0 |
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| Thoughts on COVID-19 |
This blog has been silent for several years. Since we decided to move from off-the-grid life to life among other people in Windsor, Colorado. And, it has been a great couple of years. We have enjoyed a more active social life, the ability to shop for anything we might need… |
Rick |
03/23/20 |
0 |
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| The Dog Show |
We recently took the RV, three dogs, one cat, and ourselves to a dog show in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The good news is that Destin won major points on the first two days of the three day show and finished his championship. The bad news is that it was not the… |
Rick |
04/04/18 |
0 |
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| I’m Back |
I have not posted to this blog in about 2 years as Lynne and I explored an “off the grid” life. We are now back on the grid and living in Northern Colorado. So, our daily lives have changed dramatically and I’ll get back to sharing my ramblings on this… |
Rick |
04/03/18 |
0 |
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| Off-the-Grid is Now Off-the-Air |
“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.” ― Henry David Thoreau |
Rick |
02/03/18 |
5 |
03/06/18 |
| Snow Guards and Other Winter Topics |
The “front” of our cabin faces north(ish). I quote the word “front” because our use of “front” and “back” when describing the cabin is highly ambiguous. By the plans we used to build it, the front is where we have the screened-in porch and a set of steps leading down… |
Rick |
11/21/17 |
2 |
11/21/17 |
| Timberrrrrrrr! |
We had a couple of 100+ year-old beetle-killed pine trees close to the cabin that we cut down recently. I guess the correct term is "felled". I don't think they'd have damaged the cabin or fence when the fell naturally, but they could easily have taken out dozens of still… |
Rick |
10/19/17 |
0 |
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| Way Behind |
We are way behind in preparing for the winter. And, it seems winter has already come--several times. By this time last year we had about 5 cords of wood cut, split and stacked. This year, we are well behind that goal. See the green tarp in the photo above? Last… |
Rick |
10/14/17 |
2 |
10/14/17 |
| Snowed Out |
If you read this blog last year, you know that we spent a lot of time and effort making sure we would be okay if “snowed in”. With no winter access other than our own ingenuity, getting snowed in at the cabin for several weeks at a time is a… |
Rick |
10/09/17 |
0 |
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| Air Ambulance Coop |
I just renewed our membership with AirMedCare, a network of air ambulance providers. It is not insurance, rather a coop. By joining, if we ever need air ambulance services and use a member provider, all of our out-of-pocket expenses would be covered. They bill our insurance and any costs not… |
Rick |
09/27/17 |
0 |
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| Snow? Oh no. No. No. No. |
Oh no. Snow. Look what we woke to: About 2" overnight. |
Rick |
09/20/17 |
3 |
09/22/17 |
| Thermal Runaway |
You may remember from earlier posts, that we have a small shed across the driveway from the cabin where we keep our winter provisions. It has a chest freezer for meat. A second propane refrigerator for overflow from the one inside. And, this summer we installed a propane dryer for drying… |
Rick |
08/27/17 |
1 |
08/31/17 |
| Fire Season |
Mid-Summer is wildfire season up here (as it is in most of the West). A small forest fire, called the Keystone Fire, has been burning near Albany, WY--about 30 miles away--for the past month. We occasionally get some smoke from that fire, but it has not spread much and is… |
Rick |
07/21/17 |
4 |
07/22/17 |
| The Barn is Finally Stained and Painted |
A little over a year ago, we had a preconstructed barn delivered to the cabin site. You can read about that adventure here. You can see from the photos in that old post that the barn was unstained and unpainted. When we had the cabin restained this summer, we had… |
Rick |
07/19/17 |
0 |
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| Jack and Jill Came Up the Hill |
We recently had a visitor for a week. More than anything else, she wanted to see some moose. But, we seemed to be in a moose drought. My mother had visited a few weeks earlier and we had a Moose-a-paloosa. We saw four moose on three different occasions. After that,… |
Rick |
07/07/17 |
1 |
07/19/17 |
| Game Camera Catches Elusive Ewok (and Other Critters) |
I moved one of our game cameras to look out over the pond a few weeks ago. It successfully got a shot of an illusive Ewok sitting on a log: Ewok sitting on a log. Photo is cropped and enlarged. He is a bit harder to see in the original… |
Rick |
06/26/17 |
0 |
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| Before and After (and In-Between) |
Picture of the cabin exterior "before". Note the dark stain and how it covers the chinking? About a month ago we started the process of doing some rennovations on the cabin. A few years ago we hired someone to apply a coat of stain to the exterior of the cabin.… |
Rick |
06/25/17 |
2 |
06/25/17 |
| We’re Retired! |
Note: I originally wrote this post on the 19th of May. I failed to publish it then. So, here it is better late than never. It has been just over one year since I retired and we moved back to Colorado to live full-time in our off-the-grid log cabin. You've… |
Rick |
06/05/17 |
4 |
06/07/17 |
| Spring Snowstorm |
Snow covered truck As you will learn in an upcoming post, we took off in our new RV for a while to escape the transition from Winter to Spring. It seems that Mother Winter simply does not want to loosen her icy grip on the weather this year, and although… |
Rick |
05/21/17 |
3 |
05/21/17 |