Rick's Ramblings

Monday, December 26, 2005

Christmas at the Cabin, Day 5

How time flies! I can’t believe it is day 5 of our 10 or 11 day stay!

First things first, last night’s dinner. We baked a ham glazed with a mixture of apricot preserves, brown sugar, butter, cognac, and ground cloves. Yum. As side dishes we had some fresh green beans and a gratin dauphinois made with Jersey potatoes (white sweet potatoes). And, as a special treat we drank a 1986 Pernand - Vergelesses bottled by Pierre Delachaume that we bought in Beaune, France in the early 1990s. Yum, yum!

Today started as usual. Up before the Sun because the dogs got antsy. So, we peed the dogs, built a fire in the wood stove, made some coffee and started our day. It was breezy overnight and the low got to just below freezing. We had blueberry muffins from a mix for breakfast.

Today’s dog walk was a short one. We just went to the “bottom” and back. It turned out to be a sunny day, relatively warm, probably into the mid-40s, and breezy. We’ve packed the trail well enough that snow shoes were not necessary. As usual, Millennia stayed behind. And, Bart is gimping a bit, so no more long walks for him.

We have been doing great with electricity. It has been sunny the past couple of days and windy every day. We generate as much electricity as we need, and that is good given the use of Christmas lights, hair dryers, the vacuum cleaner, microwave and toaster! To be fully charged by mid-afternoon at the Winter Solstice is pretty impressive. The wind generator was a smart investment.

We had leftover crab-cheese dip for lunch and it was not very good reheated. So, we didn’t eat much. That’s okay because we are having one of our favorite cabin meals beef-barley soup for supper.

This afternoon, I played with my new toy—a Garmin GPS. We took a drive in the truck from the cabin to the state line and back so I could record the path and then play around with it on the GPS and computer. On the way back we passed a muskrat running along the side of the road. I stopped the truck and got out to look at it. It is a small furry critter with a long rat-like tail. It’s fur is beautiful. Anyway, I was following it across the grassy land down by Sand Creek and it was running away from me. Suddenly, it turned, stood up on it’s hind legs, waved it arms at me and charged me! It really scared me so I backpeddled as fast as I could across the rough ground. As long as I went backward, it kept charging! You can image what that looked like—a 215 pound guy being chased by a 2 pound furry critter! Lynne laughed. Once it quit chasing me I got my camera and followed it again to get these photos:

Another exciting thing that happened today was the arrival of the Gray-Crowned Rosy Finches. They come in large flocks and swoop down to the feeder and then back up into the trees. We only see them in Winter and today was their first visit.

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