I am recovering well from my fall. I now have a somewhat "black eye" on my right eye where my glasses cut into my eye socket when I fell. Lynne say's I look like I've been in a street fight. Ha. Funny.

Yesterday, we went to Safeway to pick up an online order. They had everything we needed but ketchup and yeast. What is it with yeast? That seems to be the latest thing to horde. Well, people are also clearing the shelves of a lot of bakery items like cake mixes, flour, sugar, etc. I am down to about 1 tablespoon of yeast. I can stretch that a long way. My home made bread only requires 1/4 teaspoon for a whole loaf. Pizza dough needs more, but I think I'd try using an unfiltered yeasty beer (like Odell's Easy Street Wheat) as the liquid and that might turn out great.

Anyway, after Safeway we decided to go to a relatively new King Soopers in Greeley. We'd never been there. It is only about 10-12 minutes from the house (the store in town here is 7-8 minutes). Wow. What a store. It is a superstore! It was well stocked and loosely populated, so may be a good destination in the future. They had eggs, milk and even toilet paper. But no yeast...

Speaking of pizza. We used our last frozen pizza dough to put together a really great pizza for dinner.

How does that look?

The photo of the chicken dish yesterday is terrible. It does not look very appetizing does it? The stove hood lights have a weird color temperture and really screwed up the colors in the photo. You'll just have to trust me that it tastes much better than it looks in that photo.

Today, we are taking it easy. Might try walking the dogs when it warms up. And, we are starting to get antsy about the cabin. The weather over the next 10 days does not look great. Among the two or three nice days there is snow, rain and wind predicted. Still, we may try to get up there in the next day or two, perhaps only overnight, just to check everything out. We could water the batteries (which I am sure very much need it), turn on the refrigerator, and otherwise get the cabin ready for a longer stay.

Stay safe!

Sunday was a day for cleaning. Lynne cleaned the cabinets, countertops and appliances. Rick dusted, vacuumed and mopped the floors. Some areas got neglected--like the guest room.

We had a nice cheese fondue for dinner with a side salad and watched TV. Another "normal" day.

But, we did decide to go to the cabin on Monday and stay a night or two. I've been pretty concerned about the batteries needing water. And, after a camera failure (and recovery) the other day, I was anxious to see how the cabin was doing. We could also use the trip as a way to ready the cabin for longer stays later in the spring.

We packed provisions we already had at home, and took off about 8:30. The roads are strange. There is some truck traffic, but very little car traffic. We drive up I25, cut over to 287 at Owl Canyon, then up to Laramie, WY where we then cut south on a dirt road. Twenty miles later we enter Colorado again, and 5 miles further is the cabin. We did have to drive off the road and across the prairie in one place close to the cabin to avoid a much-too-deep snow drift. But, we got within a couple of hundred yards of the cabin. We were stopped by a big drift caused by a tree next to the road that makes an excellent snow fence.

End of the road

We carried a cooler and a bag to the cabin. It was somewhat shocking to see how much snow is on our driveway and how high some of the drifts are. There must be drifts that are 4 feet deep.

The driveway close to the cabin

Looks like we won't be getting into the barn this trip

And, we'll have to dig through snow to get to the wood. This is looking back up the driveway toward the gate.

This is the top of our driveay, looking east down HIdden Meadows Lane. This "road" accesses 5 or 6 other properties. 

And, this is HIdden Meadows Lane. At the deepest it is probablyl fifty feet deep along this "road".

The cabin was in fine shape. We keep it heated to 45° during the winter. We just turned up the heat and built a fire in the wood stove and after a few hours were up to 65°, which is quite comfortable.

I watered the batteries. They needed it, and I did not have a lot of distilled water, but every cell got a drink.

We also took the dogs for a short walk (when these photos were taken) and they loved running in the snow.

Lynne is inventing something for dinner that involves ground beef, onion, barbeque sauce. cheese and crescent rolls. Sounds interesting. We'll let you know.

We don't have TV, so will just enjoy the open-hearth fire tonight. With wine. And, whiskey.

It is our second day at the cabin, having arrived yesterday. It is very windy. The dogs got a short walk earlier, otherwise we've just been hanging out in the cabin, stoking the fire, reading, playing some games and otherwise entertaining ourselves.

I did struggle through hip-deep snow to retrieve the memory cards from the three game cameras closest to the cabin. So, today's blog will feature four photos. The game cameras are triggered by either motion or heat. And, with the way the wind blows up here, I get lots of false triggers. These four shots were culled from over 3000 photos--mostly of blowing snow, but also some of elk or moose that were just not interesting enough to keep.

This first photo was taken on a snowy and windy day. You can see the mother moose and her "baby" have faces covered with snow. They are looking for what's left of a salt lick that has been knocked off the stump of a tree. It was taken on the morning of October 29, 2019. Note that the temperature was -5°F.

This next photo is only one of several hundred shots of this herd of cow elk. They spent quite a bit of time in the meadow. I kept this shot out because it is clear that a couple of them are having some kind of argument and sparing with each other.

This next photo is of a bull moose that has had part of the paddle of his rack broken off. Am including this because I feel sorry for the guy. However, he will lose both sides within a couple of months and they will grow back bigger and better than ever before! The rack of a moose will grow for about 5 months starting in late winter or early spring. At maturity, a rack can span 50 to 60 inches, making the antlers of a moose one of the fastest growing organs of any mammal.

Finally, the coup de gras, a bobcat. This photo was taken pretty early in the morning and was quite dark. So, I've boosted the exposure to get a better shot of the cat, but it makes some of the other colors a bit exaggerated. What a beauty. And, this was taken in early March, just over 3 weeks ago.

We have three more game cameras that are spread out over the property. But, without snowshoes it would be very difficult to get to them. And, the snowshoes are in the barn which is blocked by massive drifts of snow that I am too lazy to move. Besides, it is pretty windy and I don't like going into that part of the forest, where there are a lot of standing but dead trees, when it is windy. So, we'll save those for another time.