Bella loves our beaver pond. She knows exactly where she is and when we draw close to the pond on our walk, she takes off and plunges in ahead of us. The pond is really full this year. Fuller than we've seen it in many years. They've had so much rainfall this summer, which is very good! We couldn't take the same path around the pond as we usually do because it was underwater.

She doesn't swim, but she wades out as far as she can before she looses her footing. It's pretty funny to watch. She likes to stick her nose in the water and blow bubbles. Silly dog.

She found a stick floating in the water and carried it around.

Happy happy dog!

The colors at the pond are at full peak right now. 

But wading through all that deep water and marshy ground, not to mention jumping over logs while chasing squirrels is a tiring job. A girl's just gotta nap.

I was going to blog yesterday but given that we went into town for the second day in a row (highly unusual for us) it kind of ate up the day or at least a goodly portion of it.

On Friday we drove into Laramie for a provisioning trip. We left slightly before 9:00 a.m. We saw a lone coyote running across the prairie. As we rounded the corner on the main road a buck antelope was running right down the right in front of us. His lovely white rump was only a few feet away from the hood of the truck. I grabbed my camera, aimed and proceeded to click the shutter -- nothing. The darned battery was dead and I had not brought the spare with me. Duh!! He stayed in front of us for a goodly portion of the road before finally finding a spot he liked to jump the fence. It would have made for some great photos.

A little further down the road we noticed a pickup pulled over to the side of the road. We looked over in the meadow and there was a large herd of elk. One big bull and his harem of about  40 elk. Again, not a usual sight to see. Again, no photo. By this time of course, I am muttering to myself about how dumb I am.

Just before we got to the paved highway where the Laramie River crosses the road, a small herd of antelope had stopped for a drink in a section of the river that had ponded -- gorgeous reflections and all. Now I am truly kicking myself!

But I have the memories of all those encounters imprinted in my mind and maybe it's better than way.

The night before last we caught this cow moose by surprise with the game camera. And oh! I almost forgot that the day before this picture was taken we were sitting at the table eating dinner when Rick looked up and saw two moose -- one large female and a smaller one (but not a baby) -- walking through the meadow inbetween the trees. They moved so fast that there were gone before the realization that we had seen them set in. We are thinking that this moose might be the larger one that we saw.

Western clouds over the cabin.

We've been "remodeling" the inside of the cabin's living area. I was going to post that in this entry as well, but it's too much. Rick, however, did do a post with photos on his blog. You can find it here. One of the reasons why we went into Laramie again yesterday was to purchase the two bookcases we saw in Bart's Flea Market the day before. We needed to come home and see where we could fit the pieces. Brining them home sparked a "redo" of the living room area which we are really loving. We also rearranged the bedroom. We moved the Hoosier out from the wall and put it in the kitchen to break up the space and to have extra counter and storage space. So far it's working great!

The weather has been unseasonably warm since we've been here with days in the 70's and it even hit 84 degrees a couple of days ago! Last year we got snowed in. You just never know with the weather. I brought plenty of clothes for layering and have not worn a single one of them yet. The aspens change daily in all there gorgeous goldness.

I thought you might like to see how we make Cabin Coffee. It starts with this antique coffee grinder filled to the brim with rich coffee beans.

(A view of our kitchen area with the Hoosier as part of our cabin "remodel". Details coming soon!)

After 80 turns...

 the coffee is uniformly ground to this:

and percolated in my Mom's old Corningware Pecolator.

Who needs one of those grind-the-beans-brew-the coffee electricity hogs?

We arrived on Monday around 2:00 p.m. and right off the bat had a problem facing us. Our lovely archway over our driveway fell down over the winter. We knew it was on its last legs (so to speak) because the bottom of one the poles had rotted out because the builder did not coat them with creosote. The year before last our neighbor propped the leaning post up and it lasted two years that way. It had fallen across the driveway and of course was unmovable. Rick put the truck in 4-wheel drive and drove around it "off road."

The next issue facing us was not a pile of welcome from the pack rat as you might have thought, but upon flicking on the light switch we discovered we had no power. Not good. Not good at all. The batteries were dry and apparantly had not had a charge in 66 days. We powered up the little generator to at least be able to turn on a light. Rick went to add water to the batteries only to find he did not have enough distilled water. Off to the neighbor who wasn't home. On the way to another neighbor who might be able to help us, he came across David (the first neighbor) and told him our tale of woe. Soon David and another neighbor showed up with distilled water and a chain saw. The sad result you can see above. It breaks my heart. 

For several hours we did not have enough juice from the generator to power the water pump, so we could not use the toilet and had no water either. We didn't know at that point if the batteries would come up enough and the charge controller did not appear to be working, meaning the generator was powering the batteries but no charge from the solar panels was coming in. Kind of a dire predicament. Rick called the company that takes care of our batteries for us when we are not here and tried to figure out the problem. They couldn't, and they also could not come up until Friday. 

Long story short, we finally got enough to run the water pump, and the batteries starting charging. Whatever the reason, the controller finally reset on Monday night and all is good!! Whew! We still did not have TV or Internet until Tuesday afternoon. It was great to be able to be in touch with our little world again. Tuesday the satellite folks came up and mounted a new dish with better and faster service. Plus, it's cheaper than our old program.

Tuesday morning we had a visitor to the meadow. A cow.

Normally Hailey is our cow dog, but she has been having troubles with one of her rear legs, so we let Bella out instead to see what she would do. At first she barked and ran from the cow. Big Brave Bella. The minute the cow moved she spooked. When I went out to get its photo Bella got braver. They had a little stand-off going on.

Finally the cow turned tail and Bella gave chase! Good girl Bella! She chased him almost completely out of the meadow and then ran back with a big grin on her face. Okay, it wasn't a moose, but it was something.

Today Grant from Laramie Heating came up to fix our non-functioning furnace. Poor Grant. Last time we had him up it was for a smelly squirrel that had gotten stuck in the furnace pipe and died. I guess they still talk about that in the office and have a good laugh on him. We knew we had a problem last year during the last two days of our stay when the furnace pre-blower came on but the furnace didn't light, therefore no heat. It turned out to be an easy fix, so now we can add heat to our list of comforts. Not that we have needed it, it's unseasonably warm.

Tomorrow the chimney sweep comes and on Friday we will go into Laramie for supplies and all the things we forgot to get our our shopping trip on the way in. (Canned dog food, bird seed, other things.) We did not keep a good list last year of what we needed.

As you can probably guess by all the busy doings since we arrived, we have not had a chance to just relax and enjoy and let the cabin weave its spell. But, things must get done and it's hard to leave a place for an entire year with no one really looking after it. We still have the meadow clean-up to tackle and we are not sure when they are going to come.

The aspens are starting to turn and should be peak before we leave. As I type a sweet little rain shower is tapping on the metal roof. 

When I got up last night to use the bathroom, I tweaked the curtains open to see a sliver of moon and Orion in the middle of a cartwheel. It's good to be "home."

YIPPEE!!!! Bella is happy that one week from tomorrow we will be headed westward to the cabin (where this photo was taken last year). It's finally time!

We are making lists and adding to the pile of "things to go" in the spare room. We have begun thinking about which meals do we want? What kind of clothing should we take? And the biggest question of all that is looming over our heads at this point is:

Will the cabin still seem as magical as it did last year when we realized it was where we wanted to be? Or was it just everything surrounding Alex's death? We're about to find out.

I don't really have any doubts and neither does Rick, but you never know. We might get up there and say "what were we thinking?" But the cabin and the surrounding land is part of our souls. It's hard to explain, as I've said before. Just what is it?

Is it the aspen forests in the valley?

The wild, untamableness  of it all?

Or the peace that enfolds us when we are there?