Lynne has characterized our lives together into several big chapters: the "Expat" chapter, the "Colorado/Cabin" chapter and the "New Jersey" Chapter. She may have different names, but I think she is right. We spent about 1/3 of our 30+ years together working in Europe. First in Germany, then The Netherlands, and finally in France. Then about 1/3 living and working in Northern Colorado where we enjoyed our mountain land and built our "off the grid" cabin. Finally, the past ten years in New Jersey, which has been a fun work and life experience. 

A subchapter of the New Jersey experience is having "Mia" our 2010 Mazda Miata. 

Mia is now gone. I sold her earlier this week. It was just not a practical car for the muddy, washboard roads we'll drive while living at the cabin. And, it sure didn't make sense to keep her in storage over another winter. So, while I got a bit less than I think she was worth, she is gone. 

I'm sad. I'll miss commuting to work on the winding NJ backroads, and weekend drives with Lynne. But, all chapters must end, and it was time. 

Well, it's official. We are taking the house off the market for the winter. We are resigned to staying here until spring arrives. It breaks our hearts, but we give up. We are now late enough into the year that it would compromise our winter at the cabin. We really don't want to make the move too late to have certain things in place (shed, all-terrain vehicle, possible winter mudroom, washer/dryer) and things that would need to be done such as creating a store of firewood and a myriad of other things. We don't want to go into our very first winter there unprepared, especially if it's going to be a snowy one.

We don't seem to have any luck selling anything. We've had Mia (our Miata) up for sale since the beginning of August. We had one taker but he backed out of the deal at the last minute. We think the wifey put her foot down and said no. We've had low-ball offers but don't feel the need to take them up.

So we'll hunker down and ride out the winter. In doing so we will have more money for retirement and the house mortgage will be paid down even more, allowing us to possibly lower the price even more to move it. We'll have more time to pack boxes. More time to think and plan. More time to dream.

Damn.

Our land has always had a beaver pond. When we first bought the property back in 1988 there were active beavers. Something happened, not sure just what, but the beavers abandoned the pond and over the years it has actually started to silt over into more like a boggy meadow on one end. It's been that way a very long time.

We were shocked to hike down there this past trip to find it occupied again -- big time. Our little pond has tripled in size and we can longer reach it easily. The beavers had "beavered" away at tons of aspens. Chewed off stumps were everywhere. We now have a clearing where once stood an aspen forest. 

All that destruction to build this huge hotel of a beaver hut:

And this double dam:

In this photo taken from the beaver hut side of the pond you can see the clearing that's been made by taking out so many trees. It used to be solid aspen trees.

See that tree hanging over the pond on the end? The fourth photo down (above) is that same tree. Someone didn't have their engineering degree yet I guess because it obviously fell the wrong way. A waste of a good tree. A BIG tree.

Here's another example of bad engineering. This tree is almost there. But not quite!

It ended up resting on other trees. Pretty amazing. I am thinking that over the winter either the snow or wind will finally take it down. I bet that beaver was pretty frustrated after all that work!

I am glad we have beavers again but I wish they weren't quite so descrutive! I hope after all this work that they stay awhile and don't abandon it yet again!