I am so behind in posting photos of our walks! The re-threading of the serpentine belt was successful the other morning and took half the time of our messing around that night trying to achieve the same results. Thank goodness! Rick is my main auto mechanic! If I had been here by myself I would be stuck. Anyway, no more rat talk!




Old man sage.

The dogs do so love it up here.




Hailey




Alex




Bella (dry version)




Bella (wet version)

We walked to the UFO landing sight (or at least that’s how we refer to it) which is just a barren circle of ground where nothing grows. Every year it yields up what I call Colorado Turquoise. This year it was just small nuggets, but I have a whole collection here at the cabin of larger stones.









The views are always expansive up here.




Not much left in the way of wildflowers, but still pretty even in their dried state.

Star arnica still blooming!

More pics coming soon!

Click on a picture to enlarge it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

This was last night’s sunset as seen through our dining room window. This is a sight we never used to be able to see. In other words, we couldn’t see the sunset for the trees. So, there is some good in losing all those trees to beetle kill.

This photo was taken outside the cabin and looks more like an advancing forest fire.

And again, more late night bedside scribblings led to this:

As I lay in bed awaiting sleep I can see the last of the fire’s light flickering on the logs of the ceiling above. I hear the deep satisfied breathing of tired dogs.

Click on a picture to enlarge it!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I am writing this totally whacked tonight so I don’t have anything much to say. The truck is mostly packed, the dogs are going crazy knowing that their crates are in the truck. We had our new washer and dryer delivered today (finally) but in the midst of packing up, so lots of commotion and turmoil all at the same time. I am ready to get out of here! Well, mentally ready but still things need to be done to finish up in the morning.

I might be blogging from the road or not. It just depends. For sure I will be blogging once we arrive at the cabin. Stay tuned!

Our cabin pulls us back like a malfunctioning compass, insisting that for us, west is the true north. Our souls resonate with those 70+ acres of rolling sage-covered high prairie hills. The deep gullies filled with aspen and pine. Bart’s Creek (named after our Bernese Mountain Dog Bart who loved the water) that runs in the spring. The beaver pond where Bella loves to “swim.”  The meadows where columbine and lupine grow. The moose, deer, and elk that sometimes grace our land with their presence. (Although the free-range cattle that also “grace our land” are unwanted visitors.) The coyote serenades at night. The Milky Way shining brightly in the night sky. The cabin made of hand trimmed logs. It’s part of us. Part of who we are.

And next week this time we’ll be arriving about now after three days on the road cooped up with three dogs and two cats and a packed Suburban full of all the necessities.  We’re on countdown now ...

My wet driveway early last evening.

If you are reading this then you are a newly minted member to my blog site! Welcome, and thanks for joining! To have my blog become membership only has long been a wish of mine. I know you’ve heard me say it time and time again. Now thanks to computer guru (and husband) Rick, my wish has been granted. No more waking up to ten comments left by people whose sentences are mere gibberish with links to who-knows-what kind of web sites embedded within them. Hurray! And I doubt that anyone noticed, but our entire web site was transferred off an old and aging server over the weekend to a new one by our provider. All went smoothly thank goodness.

If only all things were going that smoothly. Last week I noticed that our 15 year old Maytag Neptune washer was not spinning the clothes anymore. This weekend we went shopping for a replacement and were surprised to hear that our particular Maytag model basically put the Maytag people out of business because it was such an unreliable machine! For us it was just the opposite. We chose a sleek new wave action LG steam washer and steam dryer. Delivery date was set for today. Last night we got a call that our delivery date had been pushed out to next Wednesday due to blah, blah, blah (you’d be bored if I explained). So, next Wednesday just happens to be the day before we leave for our cabin in Colorado. And, as you can imagine, I have loads and loads of laundry to do before then. Thank goodness I washed all the cabin bedding and towels before the washer quit on me. At least that’s done.  We don’t have a laundromat in our town either, can you believe it? Neighbor Kim offered her washer to me but she said hers doesn’t spin all the time either and she has to reset it to spin. I told her she needs a new machine as well!

In the past 24 hours we’ve had another three inches of rain. Good grief, not what we need at all! I’m glad we managed to get the lawn mowed this past weekend. What a soggy mess! Hopefully the flooding will be minimal down the mountain from us. They already have enough to deal with.

The trees are stressed from all the rain and are dropping leaves like crazy. Some even look like they are starting to turn which is way too early. I don’t think the color is going to be very good this fall.

Along with the rain comes interesting mushrooms. These were growing by our neighbors’ stone wall. I don’t know what they are but they were gorgeous. Maybe a type of chanterelle. We weren’t sure so we didn’t try them out!

A visiting fawn from last week.

On Monday we took the dogs for a walk down to Green Turtle Pond. The road leading down there had been closed off due to water damage from Irene, so we knew we’d have a nice quiet walk. It was pretty soggy through the wooded trail section and we had to detour off the path several times to avoid downed trees. Somehow both Rick and I managed to get stung by wasps: for Rick it was on his arm, and for me, on my knee. The road was full of deeply carved gullies but no major wash-outs like we had envisioned.  When we reached the pond we were the only ones there. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It was so quiet and peaceful. The dogs got a much deserved drink and of course Bella had to go wading.

Alex shows off his silly side while Hailey looks on. Thank goodness the dogs are booked at the groomer’s this week!

Bella’s “spin-dry” cycle works better than the one on my washing machine at the moment!

I know it’s kind of a lame post but that’s all I have for you today. Again, my heartfelt thanks for sticking with me and continuing to read! Somebody please leave a comment so we can see if that’s working too!