Making Mountain Memories

These pics are a conglomeration of mine, Gab's, and Buck's . . . I never did get pics from the boys' phone. This trip was a bit different than previous trips. It was our fourth visit to the cabin. It has been five years since the last. In that time, the health of those who normally host and upkeep the cabin has deteriorated, and with that the cabin has deteriorated some in cleanliness and upkeep. We made the best of it, helped as much as we could, and tried to fill our days with activities. Gabby spent a lot of time reading (five books completed!). We had a similar idea of taking pics of our books in our reading locations, I guess :) Hers outside by the stream, mine inside by the stove--you can't leave a cookstove for more than 30 minutes or the fire goes out and your food doesn't cook.

One fun weekend activity included bonus family time with Buck's sister. The bigger girls don't remember us, because they were wee tiny when we last visited. The baby, now two, we'd never met! All of them ride four-wheelers like champs (the baby with big sister), but before they headed off into the sunset we spent the day reconnecting with them. I was a bad auntie this year (although consistent) and did not send gifts to any of our nieces or nephews on their actual birthdays. So, knowing we'd get to see the girls on this trip, I packed a small birthday gift for each of them. Hip, hip, hooray, they all liked what we brought them! So we worked on jewelry crafts, and read stories, and me and Baby E ended up best buds! She wanted me to hold her and read to her, and I think she told Buck, "I like that one!" and pointed at me. Awww, made me so happy! Our middle niece took her vet Barbie gift to the next level, making her new doll a plastic couch with cushions and fabrics, a tv to watch (featuring a movie about carving Halloween pumpkins), and she fixed her doll up with the tiny sticker band-aids intended for the teddy bear that came in the box. I was impressed with her imagination and industriousness :)

There's no wifi or internet at the cabin (and only occasional electricity and running water when the generators are going for Buck's dad's oxygen needs), so an old radio with tin foil on the antennae brought us play-by-play of the Broncos football game and occasional scratchy tunes. We are all music all the time at home, so I think if the kids hadn't downloaded some of their favorites onto their phones, they would have gone crazy :) I know Brennen was strongly regretting the fact we hadn't packed a guitar and Graysen realized almost immediately, but not immediately enough, that they forgot a football, too! Gasp!

Much of the kids' time was spent traversing the meadow in grandpa's new "buggy." Brennen gave G$ his first ever driving lesson (and learned what passenger whiplash via new driver acceleration and braking feels like, ha! :) But Graysen loved it, and drove and drove and drove. Every other day, we'd send the kids up (what they named) "wifi mountain" to send a couple quick texts to friends and download any important info that might have hit our phones. Not to mention, Caelan was home and we missed her and wanted to check in on how her time was going!

Gabby spent some time relaxing in the hammock, before Buck's stepmom took it down. Also, the horse sat in the hammock, but wasn't very successful at relaxing, ha! That same day, I was getting a bit of cabin gloom--too much time inside! Buck busted me out and we went for a walk onto the national forest land. The kids hunted for arrowheads and flint and then we decided to hike up to a rock outcropping to check out the view. 

Unfortunately, this was the one day we'd talked the hosting family members into letting us take a shower (which involved turning valves on at the natural spring to fill the tank in the spring house to make sure there was enough water for us to wash, but not too much for Buck's sister to have to drain out when the cabin gets closed up for the winter, and when it rained we had to run to shut everything off or else the water would get muddy--whew!). Taking a shower after five days is never unfortunate. The unfortunate part was the path we chose to get to the outcropping--apparently there's a bog over on that side, nice for moosen, not nice for clean humans now wearing wet shoes (mostly me :) 

We all seemed to take "spot the human" pics, so you'll have to see if you can discover our people in what look like scenery-only photos. It's the hidden picture blog challenge (and I'll bet you'll never spot the cows hiding from us in the tree line, lol! If only you had sound options to hear their MOOOOOOOOOOOs echo across the mountain steeps to help you. Sheesh, cows!)

Okay, maybe no people in the photo below, unless someone happened to step out of the distant cabin at the moment I took this pic :) Unlikely though, as it was midday naptime.

Cows on the national park side, horses on the private property side! We couldn't ride the horses this year--one is very old and toothless, so doesn't get enough calories to hold up to riding, another is mean and will run you over just for fun, and none of them have all four shoes, although Mountain Bill gave it his best shot. So, they were nice to look at and pet, and then wash our filthy hands from touching them :) Also, Gabby got a pic of one of Graysen's fish! He mostly fished in solitude, so I'm glad we got at least one proof of his efforts. All fish are catch and release by grandpa rule :)

While Graysen was busy chopping wood, I took over a project Buck started--hand shaping a new axe handle to fit an old axe head. The tool available for this job was a horse hoof file. It was a long process and I have very city hands :) But, eventually the job was accomplished and the axe repaired. I told Graysen that it was kind of like Algebra--I wasn't sure when in the future I will use the knowledge of axe repair that I know possess, but it was useful for the cabin and maybe it will be useful again :) Also, I had to take a tough-looking picture with my completed project proving I'm super off-grid, now. Lol!

While Graysen went fishing (see him in the photo above?), Buck and I worked on a few projects around the cabin that his stepmom wanted done. First we replaced the door handle and lock to the main cabin door. Next, we pulled down an unused bird feeding tray that blocks one third of the stunningly beautiful view up the valley. We also picked up some glass and plastic debris from broken bird feeders from the lawn and discovered where their little dog, Biscuit, likes to hide when they call (under the addition).

During that time, Gabby and Brennen went with their grandpa to try hunting again. He wasn't feeling well and Gabby knew it, so she let it be known that she felt cold, and grandpa wanted her to get back to the cabin where it was warm, a.s.a.p. They might not have had much success anyway, because the "old man" theory of hunting came into play (my dad and grandpa might have slipped into this thinking once or twice, too ;) . . . "We'll park the Polaris in this big open space, and if any animal shows up--shoot it out the window!" The kids weren't too jazzed about that plan, so it worked out just fine that they came back early. Buck intentionally stayed home from hunting that day, so I didn't feel abandoned, although I told him to get out there on the mountain every chance he could. I'm (secretly) glad he stayed home with me, it was one of the best days we had, and we got a lot accomplished!

When the kids got back, Buck happened to find some gold panning equipment and spent some time before he grilled dinner teaching the kids how to find gold . . . a little bit, a fleck or two, appeared, but no big yellow nuggets (I almost drew one into the picture of Buck pointing to what he'd found ;) The kids had a blast, laughed a ton, and panned for gold until the dinner shout came from the cabin.

This might have been why they were laughing  . . . :)

Earlier in the day, the boys helped grandpa make a cherry pie. Graysen was all too willing to slice that pie up after dinner. The nights come early on the mountain, so most everyone headed to bed by eight. It makes the nights long, for sure, because you feel like, "I'm probably done sleeping by now." But with no clocks and waiting for the sunrise (or for the mountain guys to start thumping the coffee pot and stove downstairs at 5 a.m.), it was hard to tell. I did get pretty good at making cowboy coffee, I'm told. Brennen and Gabby chose that over the hot chocolate and apple cider packets I brought with us. Oh, I'm glad no mice chewed my hair in the night. I was genuinely concerned that might happen, like in the Little House on the Prairie series books. Maybe they didn't like the heat--it was approximately one million degrees upstairs when we went to bed, and around 40 by the time morning rolled around. Ha! What an adventure :)