“The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.” – Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist, 1891
Thursday, September 25, 2014
Cabin Trip 2014 - Is it Thursday Already?
Yup. Thursday. I haven't blogged since Monday. Time is starting to fly!
Let's start with food. Monday dinner was at a neighbor's. A "cowboy cookout" made over a campfire in cast iron pots. Very fun. Good food, good company and good cowboy stories. A couple of the people there have worked as wranglers and guides for a dude ranch in the area, and we were lucky to meet Dave Lockman and his wife. Dave is noted for work in revitalizing the Trumpeter Swan in North America.
Here is Lynne at the Cowboy Cookout (petting Fluffy Fuzzy the barn cat):
Tuesday, I made the Italian Meatloaf with Wild Mushroom Ragu recipe and some polenta on the side. Last night was creamy Three Cheese Mac & Cheese.
Early Tuesday morning as the sun came up, we experienced a beautiful, full, double rainbow.
I couldn't get the whole rainbow with my lens, so here are two shots. Lynne put on her fisheye lens and got the whole thing. See her "Stormy Weather" blog to see it.
Tuesday also saw a huge transformation in the look of our "meadow". This is an area where we had a couple of hundred trees, killed by beatles, cut and removed. We did that to mitigate the wild fire danger around the cabin and to improve the survivability of the cabin in case of a fire. The cut area is to the west and southwest of the cabin, the direction of the prevailing winds. However, the logger who did the work did it in several feet of snow. So, the stumps were not cut near the ground, not all slash was cleaned up and the slash that he did try to burn did not complete the burning since he did not actively manage it. It was an ugly mess. A new company came in with four crew on Tuesday and did a great job cleaning up. They cut all the stumps near the ground, limbed and sectioned any blown-down trees (providing us with a good amount of firewood), and they collected all the slash into a few slash piles ready to burn when the snow flies this winter.
Slash pile, ready to burn this winter:
And, nice wood for later use:
The weather was damp, cool and breezy, which was probably nice for those working outside (rather than the hot, dry weather we've had before and since). I set up a couple of cameras hoping to get a great time-lapse movie of the whole thing. But, I set them up very early in the morning, in the dark, and neglected to push a button twice to start the recording (I pushed it only once). So, I did not get a movie of what would have been a dawn to dusk recording of the cleanup. Bummer.
Wednesday, we did a quick run into town in the morning. We needed a couple of essentials including dog food. Not good planning on our part, I guess. We took advantage of the trip to take in our trash (thanks, Terry!), and pick up other items to get us through another week. In the afternoon, we started the process of repairing our fencing and creating some kind of "gate" at the cabin driveway. It got too hot and I got too tired to finish it, but when working with 6" spikes, a sledgehammer and a chain saw, it is best to stop when tired.
We had a great dinner of Mac & Cheese and watched the season's first episode of Survivor.
This morning, Lynne got up and turned on the heater. It did not kick on as it should. After more than two minutes, still no "whoosh". Damn.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/25/2014 at 07:22 AM
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