Yesterday, Lynne looked out the window toward the meadow and saw that a bunch of cows were back. They have been around for a couple of weeks, but mostly down in the bottom of the valley where we can hear them, but not see them and surely not try to round them up.

We let Bella and Hailey out. Hailey likes to bark when she is excited. She gets excited just going outside. I'm not sure she ever even saw the cows, but the noise she made along with Bella's attempt at herding the cows drove them out of the meadow.

At first, most ran down into the valley. But, after a while they all came back up and crossed the meadow to our neighbor's land.

The phone rang. It was David. "We got about 12 cows here at the house! We are trying to drive them up to the road and then south through the gate and onto forest land. You need to get up there and keep them from going back into your woods and meadow."

So, Lynne and I jumped in the Ranger and took off. Well, Destin joined us, reluctantly. By the time we got to the road, we could see David herding the cows with his jeep across our south parcel toward forest land, so they had not come back toward our meadow.

We joined the chase and drove the Ranger up to where there is a gate in a barbed wire fence that marks the boundary between private land and the forest. Lynne and I opened the gate so it was ready for the cows.

Meatime, David and Deb were herding the cows on foot now. Deb, had just unsaddled her horse or this job would have been easier. They had their Austrian Shepherd, Shilo, with them. Not sure if he helped any, but he added to noise and general fun time we were all having. Between me, David and Deb, we managed to slowly move the cows toward the gate. One cow spooked and went right through the barbed wire fence! Another refused to join the herd and went the opposite direction. The cows came to the cattle guard on the road and milled around some. We just let them figure out on their own that there was an open gate adjacent to the cattle guard. Sure enough, as soon as one cow figured it out, the others followed.

That's 11 on the forest side of the fence, but one more looking on from a distance on the wrong side.

I think the three of us must have walked a mile or more back and forth and up and down to try to get that damned stupid cow pointed the right direction and moving along the fence line toward Lynne. I guess I got too close at one point and spooked her because she went right through the fence, breaking a post. At least all 12 were now on forest property. (We set the post up and repaired the fence the best we could.)

Destin was not sure what to think of all this. We never let him out of the Ranger, but he acted like he'd like to get in on the action. Maybe, someday.

I had sent an email to the cows' owner after we drove them out of our meadow. He was out of state but promised to have Richard come get the cows. I sent him a new email telling him where they were. But, I bet as I write this they are plotting on how to get back on our property.

When we got back to the house, there was a package that FedEx had delivered sitting on our stoop. We had to laugh at that. While we were out on our round-up, FedEx had driven in, delivered a package, and left.

The Meadow at sunset, Bull Mountain in the background.

Gee, that's a hard question! Let me see ...

Yesterday morning on our way into town (our activities yesterday require another whole blog post) we saw in this order, a herd of antelope that have been hanging out in the area around Bucky Beavers', cows, a coyote, a bald eagle, about four unidentified hawks, more cows. When we arrived home (the first time —see I told you yesterday was crazy) as I drove down the driveway I spooked our Great-Horned owl who was apparently sitting on our barn and all I saw was a huge wingspan sweeping away from me.

On our walk to the bottom with the dogs last night after dinner I looked up to see four big bucks (deer) with large racks running across the ridgeline on the top of the hill. Gorgeous!

Just as it was beginning to get dark I looked out to see our resident mamma moose and baby at the mineral lick right outside our diningroom window. 

And that was just yesterday! We are also fond of sitting out on the front porch and listening to the pair of owls perform a duet of squawks and calls after dinner.

Geez, right now I am sitting here at the table typing this post and who shows up but mamma moose and baby, right now! And here they are.

Any more silly questions you'd like to ask?

As you already know, we have a huge amount of beetle-kill on our land. It's sad when another once-beautiful stately pine gives up and succumbs to gravity. Last week we came home from being in town and I looked out the window and the view just didn't look right. I said to Rick, that tree wasn't down before was it? No, it wasn't and it's a biggun. But at least the trees that are dead and eventually fall will go on to keep us warm and cozy in the winter. Gathering wood is essential to our lifestyle, and it also keeps the ground clear of fallen trees.

Here Hailey demonstrates where the tree is in regards to the cabin. I think we are leaving the tree right where it is for now and we have plans for how to use it —maybe a sign for our new (yet to be done) gate post? Maybe some furniture? Two people close by have a sawmill that would make quick work of it. And, the wood is so lovely.

We still have a huge stack of logs from the cutting of the trees in the meadow that are close to the cabin. We decided that instead of taking the easy way out and using that stack we would go further into the meadow and harvest from there for now since in winter it will be covered in snow and unreachable. Better to save the close-in wood for a winter emergency stash. We also need to get the darned wood shed built, and now that our propane generator is delivered and in place we'll soon be able to start on it once the propane tank is delivered, which we are hoping won't be too long from now.

We posted a week or so ago about putting up wood and here is how it looked then. I thought you might be interested in seeing the steps that go into that nice neat stack of wood. Well, okay, I admit it's not as neat as I would like it. It kind of leans and takes a turn in the middle. But, hey.

This is a load of logs that we cut down in the bottom of our property from a large tree that had fallen over years ago and also what was left of two trees that were leaning over the road that our neighbor Mark (who owns land above us) cut down. We told him he could have the wood if he wanted it, and then he left us a couple of logs.

Here is Rick sectioning out a large tree (already fallen) into logs out in the meadow.

Our bounty from the meadow loaded up into MM (Mountain Mia, as we call our Ranger). Again, some pretty hefty logs!

Next comes the smaller sectioning of logs in prepartion for the splitter. We cut the log lengths into smaller segments that will fit into our wood stove. Longer pieces can be burned in the fireplace. It's a messy process and the reason why we wear overalls when doing this part—sawdust everywhere! Rick runs the saw and I push the log into place for him with each cut.

Next comes the fun part — the splitting! Having the splitter makes it so easy. Some of the bigger logs need to be cut into six or eight pieces, depending on the size of the tree. Make a split, put it back on, split it again! This one I think we ended up splitting six ways. I love running the splitter, but sometimes I load the logs onto the splitter and Rick splits. Either way, with two people working the time passes quickly and pretty soon you have a wonderful piney-smelling big stack of lovely split wood! (see next photo).

Here is all the wood after it's been split.

It's not only fun (well, I think so) but a good workout for the abs and everything else. Plus, you get to see and feel the wood up close. All this wood is beetle kill which gives it layers of blue-ish-gray rings. When it's cut into lumber it makes cool stripes. We found all kinds of funny things inside the trees marking-wise. Some had a yellow laquer and funny holes. Some bark had what I like to call "ancient tree writing" on it, which I think are just simply bug tracks. It looks like tree hieroglyphics to me. And some pieces just had ants. Tons of red ants, some of which ran down into my overalls biting at my tender flesh. Damn things.

Sometimes I see wood that I want to keep which drives Rick crazy. I have a pair of "boots" that I use as bookends. I also kept this slab of wood because this tree had two hearts and a beautiful beetle pattern. Rick is going to sand it down for me and then I think I will shellac it and display it.

Another find of mine from this batch of wood, is this single boot. I liked it because it does look like a cowboy boot and the heart of the tree is so lovely and round on the front of the boot.

After all the gathering, sectioning and splitting comes the stacking. Of course. Here is our finished stack of wood which is about a cord and half, with another 2/3 cord on the front porch.

Yes, it does seem like ALOT of work, doesn't it? But there is something very satisfying about working with wood and knowing that all your hard work now will pay off in the winter when you are sitting around a toasty wood fire nodding off for a nap with your book in your lap. That, and that you can stand back and look at what you've accomplished —just you and no middle man. Making use of what nature left behind. I am thinking it's a good thing and well worth the effort.

One annoying thing that we experience up here are unwanted cow visitations. Ranches will bring their cattle up to graze on Forest or BLM land, and they find their way into Sand Creek Park and onto our property. Cattle guards get filled with dirt over time and are no longer effective. The beetle killed pines fall over and take down fences. It is almost impossible to "fence them out", which is the rule of the West.

And, we really don't like them on our property. They can be destructive (to outdoor furniture, bird feeders, etc). And, their poop is a real mess (that the dog's just love to eat, play in, track around, etc).

So, when we woke the other day to about 15 head in our beautiful meadow and up against the house, we were pretty upset. They were eating bird food, rubbing against the cabin, and generally being obnoxious. So, we let Bella out.

As I told our neighbor when I called him about 7:30, "I've got good news and bad".

"The good news is that Bella has natural herding instrincts and somehow knew exactly what to do to drive some cattle away from our place and keep them together as a group."

"The bad news is that she drove about half of them through your gate and into your pasture."

A few minutes later I drove the Ranger (we've decided to call Mountain Mia), over to their place and Deb was on horseback rounding them up. She drove them through some broken fence and then stayed with them to move them back onto Forest land.

Later that day, we were sitting inside the cabin and heard someone hollering. I went out back to find an old cowboy (Richard), sitting on a beautiful horse at our back door. "Hear you got some cattle in here", he said. I told him that Deb had driven them back onto forest land, so he tipped his hat, turned his horse, and went on his way.

Lately we've been getting some beautiful birds that appear to be just passing through. They are not our regulars and only stay about a day or so after checking out the feeder. Our bird feeding station is right outside the window where I always sit in the mornings to check email and drink my coffee, so it's obvious when different birds show up.

This beautiful Lazuli Bunting showed up the other morning and stayed the better part of the day.

He checked out the seeds along with the pine siskins, juvenile red-winged blackbird and juvenile evening grosbeak. He was not a very big bird in size, but big on color!

Another day visitor was this Bullock's Oriole. I never could get a clear photo of him. He did land on the hummingbird feeder looking for something sweet but he was not interested in the seed at all.

Another bird that has been around a lot lately is the Clark's Nutcracker aka Camp Robber. We haven't seen them all summer but now they seem to be everywhere. They like the sappy green pinecones. They are large birds, the size of a magpie and very beautiful in flight. You know when they're around because they are noisy. Hey, after all they are a jay!

I'm sure we'll be seeing more visitors as they migrate to their winter homes.