hi everyone! it’s me, bella! i just wanted to share the day i had the other day with you.

i wented wading in the beaver pond. it’s my most favorite thing to do up here. the pond has lots more water in it than the last time i was here.



i don’t swim but i get really wet.

somehow i got a gash above my eye. i guess a branch got me when i was running through the woods. mommy said it wasn’t bad, just a surface scratch but i don’t have any hair there now. it does not bother me at all.

there is a great mud puddle on the walk and before mom and dad could stop me i laided down in it. such fun! here is what i looked like after the mud puddle.


then i wented and played on the little bit of snow that is still around and that helped get me un-muddied.




after dinner we wented for a ride. here are alex and hailey enjoying it but you won’t see me with my head out the window cuz i don’t like it.




daddy tooked some slow-motion movies of me too. you can see them by following this link and this link and one last link here. mom and dad think they are funny but i don’t get the humor of it all. it’s just me being me after all.

p.s. daddy said to tell you that what you see in the movies is really one second of real time but the movies last about 40 seconds each.

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

I sort of fell off the blog posting bandwagon today and can’t find any words. So instead I will post a few of my favorite photos from the past couple of days.

Mystery shot. You have to guess what this is.




Big sky: cool clouds

Old homestead three ways.
The view they had.




Close up of one section of the house and its gate. Note the sandstone cliffs in the background. They kind of mimic the top boards on the door and all seem to blend together as one.




The whole house.




The “Badlands.”








I don’t like this particular rock formation on the right. It has two eyes that just stare out at me.

And before you even ask, these photos are not touched up. Yes, the sky is that blue. We had a windy day today so the cloud photos are all from today. Without the wind the sky is not quite as interesting!

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

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam and the DEER



and the ANTELOPE



...uhm… lay?

These antelope were curious about us this morning on our way to town. Sorry, not the best focus.




Rick wants to go on safari sometime over the next few days (maybe tomorrow) and try and get slow motion of them running. Hopefully away from him!

The deer photo was taken last night on our drive around Sand Creek. We had a deer right outside our window this morning at 6:00 a.m. and then watched it track through our now open space but no photo of that one. I would never have known it was there except for eBay. She was not on the counter waiting for her breakfast when I got up and I panicked thinking we had left her on the porch last night. When I pulled the curtains open I saw her on the windowsill staring fixedly at something. I looked where she was looking and she was having a stare-down with a deer! Too funny. They were making eye contact.

We have only ever seen deer that near to the cabin once before. So, a good way to start the day. Plus, we finally had one Stellar Jay visit. We normally have a lot but for some reason they have not been around this year.

Here are some shots of the strange landscape on our way in to town. I think the rock formations are sandstone but I’m not sure.

This is Chimney Rock. It looks different from the side but I’ll show you that view at another time. The sky was beautiful today.



The following photos were taken while traveling through Chimney Rock Ranch. It’s eerie. Very much like the Badlands of South Dakota.










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

Sometimes technology is not such a good thing. Being married to a computer geek does not help. But, if I was not married to this totally cute computer geek for 31-ish years I would not have an iPad2. Which I am totally in love with (maybe not quite as much in love with as with my hubbie of 31-ish years).

Nor would our remote cabin have internet access.

Here is where technology + remote cabin internet access which includes a lot of cabin-to-satellite beaming stuff happening + two freaking iPads + one laptop computer all vying with each other for space gets a bit dicey.

We take all this high-tech stuff from a remote place all in stride. Maybe too much so.

Today I must have tried at least 30 or more times to post my blog entry about Dick the Tree that I wrote early this morning. It just would not post. Not happening. Always an error about uploading photos.

Rick scratched his head and thought about it. We tried various things such as only uploading the post with only one photo. Didn’t work.

Finally, the light bulb went off in Rick’s head. My iPad was still photo stream enabled (I am asking Rick all these technical terms since I haven’t a clue), and iCloud was trying to keep all my photos in sync between my iPad here and the computer at home (because they are all linked together like one big happy computer family) and it was trying to keep up with and send all the photos I’ve taken so far to that big iCloud in the sky.

Eureka! The minute he turned off photo streaming, Dick the Tree was published. Success!

My husband might be a computer geek but he is also brilliant!

He took some amazing slow-mo cines (movies) of hummingbirds both yesterday and today. Hummingbirds doing things (like scratching themselves) you would never see with the naked eye. This camera rocks!

He also took a few of the dogs running towards him; one of Bella which is hilarious!

We hope to upload at least one those in the next couple of days.

But, I guess that all depends on our computer/cloud/satellite connection. Fingers crossed and photo streaming disabled.

Purple Fringe

- Posted using BlogPres

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

No visit to the cabin would be complete without visiting with Dick the Tree.
From the side Dick looks like any other ordinary aspen tree standing tall and proud in the forest.

But seen from the front it’s plain to see that Dick is not an ordinary tree. We really don’t know just how he came to be.




We have never seen a tree before that has grown quite like this. Dick has two separate trees coming up from the ground which meet to form one tree trunk. Years ago he had a stick that protruded from the spot where the two trunks come together, hence his name. Sadly, over the years that stick wore down and it is now completely gone.

Here he is from behind. To us he looks like some old cowboy that has been riding too long in the saddle.

It used to be easier to take a good photo of Dick before the little pine tree started to grow right in front of him.

Of course, we named it Jane. What else?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad