Then: January 2009 Now: June 25, 2011

Mountain sun and valley fog

Then: January 2009

The snow continues to stack up and by the first week in January we have almost three feet. It is very cold, averaging about zero. On January 2, it is a beautiful day and -22 degrees, but we bundle up and take a two hour ride down the road in our winter wonderland.  We stay nice and warm with our hand and toe warmers, long underwear and winter coats.  But when we get back, we take a three hour nap!

On January 6 we get seven more inches of snow and that evening the warm Chinook wind starts to blow, with gusts up to 55 mph. A very noisy night. In the morning, most of the snow is melted and it is muddy. We hear from Larry and Elsie that the melting snow created such a river coming down the road by their house that dug a 4 foot ditch and washed out their drainage bumps.  It takes a week and several loads of gravel for Larry to fix it all.

On January 8, we discovered a broken axle on MAX. We ordered a new one to be delivered to Larry & Elsie's store and will walk down to their house to pick it up when it arrives. Since it has warmed up so dramatically, above freezing, we take this opportunity to cut some more fire wood. About 18 years ago, we had our trees thinned out. The loggers burned the trash and left a nice pile of logs they did not want. Even after all this time, that wood is not rotted and is perfect, dry fire wood.

Larry didn't tell us when the axle arrived. He and a friend just arrived one evening on their ATV's yelling, "Pony Express!", and delivered it to us. I almost cried. Fortunately we had also ordered a repair manual, and also fortunately, the rest of January was fairly mild with little precipitation. We had no garage or shelter of any kind in which to repair MAX, so we were out in the weather doing the work. It was down to 20 degrees a couple days but up to 45 a few others, but we got it done and Dinga thought it was a lark that we were outside so much with her.

When we were not outside repairing MAX or cutting wood, we were inside doing our chores and baking. JB really enjoys cooking and I really enjoy eating, which is probably one reason we have been married so long. The smell of baking bread and cookies often filled the cabin. And Sunday morning JB always makes us a big breakfast.

With the weather the way it is, we often have mountain sun and valley fog. And that is the actual weather forecast description. It looks like we are on an island and all the other mountains are islands. There is no Down There. It is all hidden. We have warm, sunny days while they have dismal, foggy ones. It makes for incredible photos. However, we did get some freezing fog which made for beautiful hoarfrost. That also is great for pictures.

Our cistern froze up the last week of the month. The ground is frozen and there was just no way to get it to work. From now on we will be lowering a bucket into the cistern and getting water out that way. Oh goody. . .

Now: June 25, 2011

Wow! That was some winter back in 2008/09. I had forgotten a lot of it until I read my journal again, or rather I think I just erased the memory on purpose.  But I do remember that even though we were frustrated with repairing MAX and manually lifting the water out of the cistern, mainly we were thinking, "The adventure continues."

News flash!! Larry and Elsie are grandparents of triplets! See photo below of Mom and one baby.

Yesterday I went to town again to get food for our weekend guests and run errands. In the winter we can go 3 to 4 weeks at a time without going to town, but in the summer it seems like we have to go at least once a week. JB did the laundry and mowed while I was gone.  After I returned, we set the middle two poles for the deck in cement.  When we got back from our evening walk, we set up the cots in the tipi.  Now we can just enjoy the weekend.

I don't plan to post in my blog tomorrow, but will resume on Monday, June 27.