“Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” – Sir Winston Churchill
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Cabin Visit 2010 - Day 6
Today was meant to be a “lazy day”—no chores, no visits. Just “rejuvenation” time.
After a breakfast of bacon and eggs, and of course strong percolated coffee, we took the dogs to Eggers’ Pond. Bella did a lot of swimming and everyone had a nice long walk. After that, I called Eric to talk about the mess left behind after logging the beetle kill pine and I think we have the beginnings of a strategy to clean it up. There is more to this story, but no need to spill it here.
We worked on the jig saw puzzle that turned out to be very, very difficult. Nevertheless, with perseverance and time, we got it done. I also finished my book—the first of a trilogy, so I have another to look forward to now.
We took an evening drive to look for wild animals, but saw nothing. It seems very quiet up here this year without any wildlife such as deer, or elk or moose. Not even a coyote or owl has been heard. It was so chilly when we got back that Lynne built us a small fire in the stove to take the chill off.
There was a full moon that was beautiful, and I got the telescope out and took a look. Finally figured out how to use it, but I guess I need to pull the manual out and brush up on it if we want to use it any more this trip.
Bob’ Oven Fried Chicken and potato salad for dinner. It was yummy, maybe the best we’ve ever made it. We watched some TV for a change and went to bed around 9:00. Read for a while and then off to a nice sleep. My sleep was only broken by the sound of rain on the metal roof! Rain! Hooray! It is so hot and dry here and the fire danger is so high that a nice soaking rain (without lightning) is very welcome. As I write this early Thursday morning, it is still drizzling outside and we have a nice fire in the stove.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/23/2010 at 07:15 AM
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Cabin Visit 2010 - Day 4 & 5
I’m going to cover two days this time to get back on schedule and not always be posting a day late.
Yesterday (day 4, Monday), we woke early and popped a breakfast casserole in the oven. Once everyone was up and fortified with coffee and breakfast, we took a long hike to the top of the hill to the East of the cabin. We walked up the road and then back along the ridgeline. The wind was blowing hard (again). Linda left mid-morning.
We popped some chicken wings in the oven (but, they did have a slight “off” smell) with Buffalo Chicken Wings as our goal for lunch.
Ed came over about 11:30 and briefed us on all the news from him and his family and the whole association. Some is news, some is gossip, but it is always fun to hear from Ed. MId-way through his visit I turned off the oven because the wings were done. Later, when we sauced them and went to eat them they had an off flavor and we threw them away. By that time it was pretty late and we just skipped lunch.
We had planned to “oven fry” a chicken for dinner, but when we opened the chicken (“sell by 9/20”) it was also bad. So, it was not a good day for us and chicken. We threw it away and ended up cooking a pot of canned chili from our emergency rations with a home made cornbread topping. It was good.
We were both pretty tired so hit the sack about 8:30, read until about 9:30, then went right to sleep.
This morning (Day 5, Tuesday) we got up about 7:00—not sure why the dogs and cats let us sleep so late. It was nice to get a good long night’s sleep (although I don’t think Lynne slept as well as I did). We made our list for shopping in Laramie, walked the dogs to the bottom and back, and then took off for our trip “into town”. We stopped at Larry and Donna’s on the way to catch up with them. It is always so good to see them. They are our dearest friends up here and look out after our place all year long while we are 1800 miles away. They are salt-of-the-earth people and we’d trust them with our lives. We discussed the politics of the land owners’ association. Confirmed some of Ed’s news (and some will still need to remain categorized as rumor), and learned even more.
We discussed the small disaster we have at our cabin. I’ll not go into the full story now, but last year when we saw the extent of the beetle kill on pine trees near the cabin, we decided to have a large number of them removed. We had two reasons for this: first, fire mitigation—we wanted to create a good “defensible area” around the cabin in case of a fire; second, some of the trees once fully dead could blow down on the cabin! We hired a company with good references to do the work. They did, but at a bad time coming up when there was a lot of snow on the ground. As a result, the job is not very “pretty” with a huge mess of slash and stumps and trees left in the cut area that need to be removed. And, they really messed up the roads up here moving their equipment in and out. While we accomplished our objectives, the result is very ugly. We do like the “openness” that the cutting created and we can see the sky and the skyline much better and that is great. But, there is still a lot of work to do to get the mess cleaned up and I don’t think the original guy who did the cutting will do anything about it.
After an hour with Larry and Donna we took off for Laramie where we did our major shopping at Walmart, then went to Albertson’s for a few missing items. We decided not to shop at Safeway any more because of the bad chickens we got there. A quick lunch at Sonic and a fill-up with gas, and we were on the way home.
Driving home we could see the haze created by multiple fires in the area. This morning we could even smell the smoke from one that is west of us on the other side of Bull Mountain.
Now we are home. Groceries are unpacked. Small chores are done. Dogs and cats are fed. I had to troubleshoot a problem with the Internet connection, but obviously that is working now. It is time for a nap or a book or some more puzzle work. Then grilled hamburgers for dinner, a nice walk (or drive) with the dogs, and a pleasant evening together.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/21/2010 at 03:35 PM
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Monday, September 20, 2010
Cabin Visit 2010 - Day 3
Slept well. Had muffins for breakfast. Today we are expecting our great friend Linda to visit for the afternoon and night. So, it is a cleaning day! Dusted, vacuumed, and generally spiffed the place up.
Lynne made a frozen chocolate pie for dessert.
Had grilled ham and cheese for lunch.
Linda arrived around 1:30 or so. It was great to see her. She and Lynne caught up on dog talk while I read. After a while we took the dogs for a short walk to the pond. Bella got in a short swim. The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up and gossiping.
I baked some potatoes for twice-baked potatoes for dinner.
It was hot again, and pretty windy.
Since we only come up here once a year, we tend to forget how well outfitted we are. When planning meals we wonder “do we have sesame seeds? Cumin? PAM spray? Garlic salt?” since we don’t know for sure we’ll buy some. And, of course, we get up here and find we already have 1 or 2 or 3 of everything we need. So, this year instead of shopping for a long period, we just shopped for a few days ad will take inventory before going into town to shop again.
For dinner we grilled steaks, had the potatoes and a simple salad.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/20/2010 at 08:08 AM
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Sunday, September 19, 2010
Cabin Visit 2010 - Day 2
Up early this morning. The dogs are still on Eastern time, so at about 5:00 a.m. (7:00 to them and they even let us “sleep late”) they are moving about, jumping on the bed, demanding to be petted and Hailey even starts her early morning “alarm clock” bark. They got fed and a short pee walk and I went to work on making some bran muffins.
After a refreshing shower, we took the dogs for a walk “around”. Bella, of course, had to go for a swim in the pond. There are lots of trees down and the trail is a bit more difficult than it used to be. Some day while we are here I’ll haul a chain saw on the hike and cut through what I can to make the hike easier. Still, there are some places that the trail will just need to move.
It was otherwise a mostly lazy day. I started a new book, we started what is going to be a very difficult jigsaw puzzle. We had sandwiches for lunch. I did fire up the saw long enough to cut up an Aspen tree that had fallen across the driveway.
It was warm—not as hot as it has been and will be (according to the weather forecast), but still unusually warm for September. We often see our first snow flakes in the middle of the month. Instead, we are getting 80+ degree weather with stiff winds. It will be the Wednesday before we leave (about 10 days from now) before we see really cool weather and a chance of rain.
Tuna casserole for dinner. It was just “okay”, not great. Ice cream sandwiches for dessert along with a shot of home made limoncello.
We took a short drive at sunset, which is around 7:30. Will need to leave a bit earlier on future drives both to give us a bit more time and to compensate for the continuously shorter days.
To bed early, around 9:00 and read for while.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/19/2010 at 07:13 AM
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Friday, September 17, 2010
Cabin Visit 2010 - Day 1
We arrived at the cabin a little before 2:00 on Friday afternoon. That’s three pretty full days of driving from New Jersey. On the first day we make it through NJ, PA, OH and into IN. On the second day we leave IN, and drive through IL, IA, and a good chunk of NE. Finally, hours upon hours of straight flat road through NE, into WY, and drop into CO.
We did a short shopping trip in Laramie, WY to get food for 3-4 days, dog food and other necessities.
As you may know, we had about 200 beetle kill pine trees removed from the West side of the cabin. This is our first chance to see the result. Actually, we like the openness the cutting created. We now have an large open area West of the cabin and we can see the sky and parts of the horizon we never could see before. We will get more stars at night, longer twilight, great sunsets, etc. The downside is that the area is not cleaned up very well with many downed trees and piles of sticks and brush that did not get removed or burned as we expected. So, there is the need to get the cleaned up. But, once it is, we’ll have a wonderful meadow by the cabin. And the fire break that was created could be a “cabin saver” someday.
The dogs did not miss a beat. They know exactly where we are. Maybe somewhat confused by the missing forest. We’ve already had a couple of short walks and they are now pooped out (literally) and ready for bed.
The cats also know where we are and are adjusting quickly. Ebay has already escaped outside once.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/17/2010 at 07:55 PM
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