He just kept coming back all morning. We'd look out at the salt lick and he was there, then gone several times. At one point I went out to the bird feeder to add some craisins to it and I look up and there he is walking out of the forest, straight for the meadow -- and for me! I just walked slowly back to the cabin and he walked into the meadow.

He doesn't seem to be bothered by us at all. Now we are certain that this is the same young bull moose that visited us last year. He thinks of this as his home, obviously, so I guess we've adopted a moose. Names anyone? Should we have a poll?

He wandered over to the stump where we had a mineral block last year and licked it for a while. I guess we need a new one when we go into town tomorrow. 

After checking out the stump and finding nothing much there he walked back over to the salt lick and laid down, still licking. We finally gave up waiting for him to leave and took the girls out on leads in the opposite direction and went for a walk. Once away from the cabin area we let them off for some much needed excercise.

Up at 5:45 a.m. this morning. I opened the front curtains and saw something brown down by the salt lick. At first I thought it was just a tree, but then I saw it licking. Finally – a moose! I tried a few shots through the screen on the front porch but they weren't good, so I snuck up on him outside, sticking close to the side of the cabin. He wasn't bothered by me at all.

I think it might be the young moose we had last year since he's so raggedy. Maybe he has scabies? Or maybe it's an injury.

He was in no hurry to leave and we had just fed the girls and they needed to have their morning pee. We waited. And we waited. Finally I knew Hailey was crossing her legs so we put them on leads and took them out the back of the cabin away from Mr. Moose. 

He's gone now, on to whatever moose do with their days. If he becomes a frequent visitor we might just have to name him.

The furnace rumbles to life and the new day begins. Awake and out of bed by 5:30 a.m. Our internal clocks have not adjusted yet. Hailey and Bella were ready to get up too. Above is the view out our dining room window. (Note those slight blue blurs that you can see are Stellar Jays.) More rain is expected today. I don't mind really, although it feels kind of like New Jersey-colored sky, but if it helps the fire danger I am all for it. It's very wet!

Our first rule of order was to get the snow removed so we could drive the trucks down to the cabin and get them unloaded. My poor plants! Oscar came with his wonderful machine and got the job done in no time.

Without the kindness and helpfulness of neighbors, life up here would not be as pleasant. It's nice that we can all count on each other to lend a hand when needed.

Now the trucks are unloaded and "stuff" is piled everywhere. We need to figure out a place for it before tomorrow because our goods arrive at the storage facility at 9:00 a.m. sharp! We'll have to decide what to bring home first. Somehow it seems like we just did this, only in reverse!

Looks like rain is moving in.

We need to do one more really vital chore today and that is clean up the packrat nest on the screened-in porch. Not a pleasant job, very stinky.

The paintbrush will soon be "painting" the high mountain meadows with red and yellow.  The yellow is called "Wyoming Paintbrush."

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!