Pack Rat Art: The Minimalist Approach

Sunday afternoon it rained which is truly an event that doesn’t happen all that much, or at least not when we are in residence. The best you can hope for is a little sprinkle or a quick shower. Not so for Sunday’s deluge. At times it poured. Sheets of wind-driven rain obscured our view of Bull Mountain and pretty much everything else that wasn’t 500 feet from our window. Rain drummed on our metal roof and slid off in waterfalls. eBay hid in the closet with the water heater and Bella kept rolling her eyes upward towards the ceiling at the noise.

It continued to rain a little bit all night long and yesterday we woke to gray skies filled with bruised clouds. Very wintry looking and feeling at 43 degrees. Where are those typical-sunny-warm-September-in-Colorado days? Not that we are complaining, because we aren’t. This is exactly the cozy kind of weather we always long for up here but never seem to get.

Our aspens surrounding the cabin really haven’t started to change yet, which is a bit strange. They were still very green when we arrived on Friday and now we can see that they are losing their color and (hopefully) starting to change. A few trees on the walk to the bottom have already turned in just a few days.

Yesterday we did a provisioning trip into Laramie and took the girls with us since it cloudy and cold. The dirt roads were muddy and puddled and it’s now hard to tell what color the Suburban really is.

We got groceries for a week, salt & mineral licks for the deer and moose which we’ll put out today, a dog bed, assorted household things we needed, buffalo bones for the girls (their annual treat), a bathrobe for Rick and a couple of books each from Hastings.

I started a beef stew in the afternoon and we took the girls for a walk down to the bottom and then down the main road where Rick saw a coyote cross right in front of us. I didn’t see it as I was too busy seeing what the girls were up to behind us.

The stew was delicious! Just simple ingredients: beef cubes (which I braise to a nice brown color), carrots, onions, potatoes, peas. At the end of the cooking time I drop baking powder dumplings on top.

This morning as I type I am still in my robe, a cup of coffee almost gone and a half eaten bran muffin at my side. The sun is just starting to hit the meadow and the tall pines are swaying to and fro in the wind. I can’t see any clouds in the blue sky from where I sit. The steller jays have almost emptied the feeder of their morning portion of peanuts.

We don’t have any big plans for today other than a couple of walks and a neighbor coming by late this afternoon for a glass of wine and a chat.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

Pack rat offerings this morning: one on either side of the door again.
I think he was going for a collage effect with this scattered arrangement.

This one was stacked neatly and contained a nice rock, a clump of mud and assorted sticks—one with a small pine cone attached.



Rick also found three nests under the hood of the truck which included a few wildflowers and the dog biscuits that we had used in the setting of the traps under the truck. Clearly, dog biscuits don’t appear to be food to the pack rat. They expertly sprang the traps and carried the biscuits off like treasure.

We had a morning visitor to our meadow—this sweet female mule deer. We watched her for about an hour as she made her way around, grazing on the grass.


W have lots of clouds around today due to a front moving in. It’s also very windy.

We walked to the top of the hill with the girls. Walking uphill at this altitude when you are not used to breathing the rarified air is a bit of a workout, especially when you are walking against a strong wind.


However, Bella did not seem to be affected at all by the change of altitude.





Old woman Hailey just watched as Bella ran around.


Now we’ve had our lunch and I just started a fire in the wood stove. We’re going to start a jigsaw puzzle soon.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

Last night as I lay in bed I had formed the perfect blog post in my head. Of course, all those words did not come to mind again this morning when I woke up.

After so many hours on the road it took us awhile to get our land legs back. Yesterday we still felt as if we were vibrating and our legs didn’t want to work. Weird. We try to stop every three to fours hours to stretch and walk the dogs, but still, 12 hours on the road for two days, then 6 hours the last day is a lot.

We did see some flooding occurring in the North Platte area. The river was way over its banks and flooding the fields along the road. We were a little concerned the night we stayed in Grand Island as we had heard the Platte was flooding west of us and we had to cross the river to get to our hotel, but in the end it was not an issue.

We stopped in Laramie to do a quick shop at the super Walmart and a bite of lunch before heading to the cabin.

Upon our arrival we were greeted with twin pack rat nests of assorted goodies on either side of the door on our stoop. A perfect pack rat greeting. I should have taken a photo of it because it really looked pretty comical, but we were in such a hurry to kick it aside so we could open the door to see whether or not they had also gained entry to inside. Thankfully, they had not.

Here is a photo of our pack rat offering of this morning, and what follows are two pics of the “nests” we kicked off.









If they weren’t so pesky and their pee didn’t reek to high heaven they might be cute to have around.

Rick got to work turning on the water and the propane and starting the refrigerator which is sometimes hard to get going. While he was working on those important tasks I got busy with sweeping up the cluster flies that formed a black carpet under each window. Gross. They’ll continue to come out now that the cabin is warming up and we’ll be swatting them for days to come.

Rick spent an hour on the phone with Hughes Net trying to get the internet up and running. There seems to be no way around going through this routine every time we come.

It took about two hours to get everything running, clean up, bring everything in from the truck and get it all put away. Not too bad.

Today we’ve just tackled a few more chores and have gone for a few walks. The weather is sunny and around 70 degrees F. The skies are blue and filled with puffy white clouds which scud quickly across the sky in the very breezy conditions we are experiencing today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

We have arrived at our final destination as of 1:30 p. m. Mountain time today.

More details of the arrival tomorrow. Right now we are enjoying the flickering of our fire in the fireplace and about to wearily tumble into our newly made-up bed.

All is well.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

I am still  not sure if my blogging silence is completely over, but I wanted to say that as of tomorrow we are on our way to Colorado. Therefore, I've changed my header photo to the cabin which is where you can find us for the next two weeks.

First of all, let me say that our hearts go out to all our friends and our previous home of the flood-ravaged Loveland/Ft. Collins area of Colorado. It's hard to imagine that it is much, much worse than the Big Thompson flood of 1976 with such widespread damage. So very sad. Not to mention the amount of time to rebuild all those roads and bridges, especially the ones up the canyons leading to Estes Park. It's a staggering thought.

Our cabin is not anywhere near the flooding, nor will be have to drive anywhere close to it to get to our cabin since we approach from the North, and with all the rain they've had (even at the cabin) forest fires can be ruled out for our visit this time.

So, our annual trek begins even though our little family is sadly diminished by two since the last time we made this trip in June of 2012: the loss of Sam one short year ago on September 16, and the more recent and still very raw loss of Alex. We are hoping the cabin will bring us peace and restore our souls.