Not sure as in not sure what I am going to say or what this blog post is really going to be about. I have no new pics to share. Not much happening with fall color this year. I think the trees are water logged. Our color, which is usually spectacular, I don’t think is going to happen. Many trees have already dropped their leaves, never mind the whole changing bit. It’s like they’ve given up. Too much rain. When I mentioned it to Rick he said exactly what I had not thought about before. It’s like when you over-water your plants in the house: what happens? The leaves drop and fall off. Kind of the scenario we have going on here. Very sad. I look out the window to leaves drifting down ever so slowly all day long that have not even changed yet. It’s truly unfortunate as we usually have the most beautiful autumns/falls. I have my doubts about this year.

As I type Rick is on his way to LA, CA. I probably haven’t mentioned it because basically I not supposed to be broadcasting this, but given my blog is now private it doesn’t really matter. Remember last year when the company Rick works for was awarded Ms. Emmy? Well, this year Rick’s goal was to get them nominated for an Oscar, which he somehow managed to accomplish. So now, tonight, he is on his way to a do a presentation as to exactly why their cameras deserve an Oscar. We are truly bummed that Ms. Emmy (the statue) won’t be meeting up Mr. Oscar (the statue) to have any kind of meaningful relationship together. It seems that they only award the Oscar statute to those so-underserving-Hollywoood-stars/starlets and not to the technology field that runs the show. Only a “plaque” or a “certificate” is the best they can hope for. Still, an awesome accomplishment. I am so proud of my hubby for pushing through to even get the nomination! Go Rick!

Neighbor Aileen and I went to the yarn store today (an hour’s drive away) to get yarn for different projects. I cannot reveal mine because of certain people who may be a recipient of my knitting efforts. Suffice it to say we were both successful. Before heading out I went over to visit Aileen’s newest member of her barnyard. (In case you don’t remember I get fresh eggs from her chickens.) Meet Ollie, the miniature pig!

I swear, he is the cutest darn thing I think I have even seen. Personality with an A+. When we went down to see him he was in his little dog house (or is that piggy house?) and he was so wrapped around the blanket he had in his little house that he was all tangled up and couldn’t get out. He was making little piggy noises and as Aileen tried unwrapping him from his blanket prison he squealed and squeaked. Poor little guy! When she tried to pick him up, well, he squealed like a pig, what else? I was totally enamored of Ollie at this point.  Such a cutie!

I am also not sure of the weather. It’s been in the 80’s for two days now. Pretty strange. Supposedly (and hopefully) dipping back down into normal range temps for the rest of this week. Too hot folks! The only difference between these temps in the summer and this time of year is that is cools down significantly in the evening so our air conditioning remains where it should be this time of year: OFF. Enough of those kinds of temps. Really.

However, we still have cicadas going at night. What is up with that? I don’t think we’ve ever heard them this late in the year. Maybe all the rain stopped them from finding mates. Who knows? It’s been strange for sure.

Also not sure (yet) but I may be doing some volunteer work that combines horses (which I used to love being around) and children with disabilities. More on that after I explore the situation more. It could be really good for me.

I have more things tonight that I am not sure about, but those will have to wait for a different post.

Right now the only thing I am sure about is that I have not slept well for the past several nights. So, on to a decent night’s sleep!

Early morning shadows on the bathroom wall and door from the wood blinds. Weird, huh?

As I sit here this morning in front of my computer I have no idea what I am going to say. I just feel like I should be here writing. Something. Anything.

I am working on a blog post about the cabin and the land around it but it’s more complicated than I thought it would be. It’s hard to describe what it’s like to anyone who has never been there. I’ll keep at it.

When I told a friend yesterday that I was having trouble navigating my own house because I kept thinking I was at the cabin and would go to the drawer here at home thinking it was the silverware drawer, only to find that it wasn’t. She scolded me with a “but Lynne you were only gone two weeks!” It’s hard to describe to someone the amount of immersion we experience. It’s not like going on vacation to a motel or resort. It’s our second home. Literally. Sometimes I feel like I am two different people: my New Jersey self and the Wyoming/Colorado cabin self.

I snapped these photos from the truck on the long drive home. Here is the sunrise in Iowa on our second day.

And the sunrise in Ohio on the third day.

This was taken a little later in the day in Ohio. I thought it was an interesting sky. I think it looks more like ripples of water on a lake than clouds in the sky.

It has turned to fall weather here. Our nights are dipping low into the 40’s and last night we had high 30’s. The last couple of days have been sunny and pleasantly warm with a cool nip in the air. Perfect! I find it ironic that it basically rained here the whole time we were in Colorado, and there we had sun every day. Now that we are home the rain seems to have disappeared just when I was craving a rainy day after two weeks of sun.

Another friend wrote to me the other day and asked how could I complain about the sun shining? Trust me, you would be bored to tears with day after day of brilliant sunshine. Weather of any kind that is the same—whether it’s constant rain or constant sun—gets monotonous. I like the sun; just not all the time! We were really hoping for rainy/snowy/cozy weather at the cabin but it doesn’t happen much when we are there. I know you all think I am crazy, and maybe I am!

After reading this blog post over I guess I really didn’t have much to say, but I like the pics so I am posting this anyway.

We arrived home in the very same kind of weather we left in. Rain. It rained nearly all the way through the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, again. We haven’t seen rain since the very first day we arrived in Laramie to do our shopping on the way in to the cabin. Two weeks without rain! The temperature upon arrival was a chilly and damp 50 degrees F which feels so much colder than the dry-almost-non-existent humidity of Colorado.

The dogs somehow knew we were home the minute we pulled in to the driveway and all three erupted into a frenzied joyful barking. We let them out of the truck and they ran around, barking of course, in the front yard. I’m sure the neighbors at the opposite end of the street knew we were home after that racket. The kitties once let out of their crates in the house roamed the rooms with tails straight up and eyes round. The house was chilly, so on went the heat for the first time this year. It smelled good; comforting. We unpacked the truck in the light drizzle, put some things away and then finally sat down to a well deserved glass of wine. We heated up the leftover chicken pot pie we had brought home with us from the cabin because we couldn’t bear to throw it out and had that for our dinner while we watched the TiVo’d premiere of Terra Nova.

Our neighbors called and told us to be on the look out as a big bear was getting into the trash down the street and we had just put our trash out for pickup in the morning. They said they’d had a bear in their garage three times over the past week. Welcome back to the wilds of New Jersey! Rick turned on our outside lights at the street thinking that might deter him.

Too tired to do anything else, we went to bed. As I lay in bed listening to the soft patter of rain outside I thought not for the first time how good it was to be home. We both love the cabin but now it’s somewhere we go on vacation and not home. At least “not home” in the sense of where we live. When we are at the cabin, we are home. Hmmm ... does that make sense? It’s hard to explain. I know I’ve said it again and again on my blog, but when we are there we are home and when we are here we are home. I think you get the idea. I am starting to come around to the idea of a trial year at the cabin, winter and all, once we retire. What a blog that would make!

This morning as I type it’s raining. The sky is gray and dark. So different from the brilliant blue that we had for the past two weeks. When I look out the window I see a wall of trees crowding the yard instead of an open meadow and golden aspens glowing in the morning light. Our trees here are just starting to change but I don’t think they will be very pretty this year. They look soggy and defeated. But they are oh so beautiful with their many colors when they do change. We shall see if all the rain has made a difference in our normally gorgeous fall.

I have much to do today as you can imagine. Grocery shopping is #1 on my list, then laundry. My new machine will certainly be getting a workout over the next few days!

I’ll leave you with a photo I took last week.

That’s the way I felt this morning. We’ve had rain for two days now. Last night it seemed like every time I dropped off to sleep another thunderstorm rolled through with thunder to wake me up and lightning to flash at my closed eyelids. It poured! We got 2.80 inches just since midnight. Add that to the 2.47 inches we got on Tuesday, the .59 inches yesterday and you get a grand total of 6.94 inches. That’s just about the same amount Irene left us with only one week ago! Enough already!

It’s standing room only in our little creek before it makes its first cascade down the little falls.

The second falls.

My feet were going squish squish squish as I was dodging large puddles of standing water while taking these photos. It’s really saturated in the lower part of our yard. Thank goodness our house is situated uphill from all this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much moisture around since we’ve lived here.

Our un-split stack of wood likes to grow fungi in rain like this. I love the ruffly look of them.

Here is a coral mushroom that I found growing near the road. Actually there were quite a few of them all in the same spot. They are rather odd looking.

This butterfly found a nice place to rest after the storm on my butterfly bush. I cut my butterfly bush back too late this spring, so it is just now blooming. Better late than never!

I’m hoping this rainy trend stops soon.

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!