Rick's Ramblings

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.

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