Work and the hospital, a small update.

Things are crazy. Work is in maximum overdrive with record month after record month. The plus side is larger paychecks and seeing 25% increases in month and year to date numbers.
The downside is less time together at home (working for the same company with different hours) and of course when you have big growth, small growth doesn't seem as exciting to the boss.

and then....

Mother in law had surgery last night to remove a large tumor. The tumor was causing her ovary to twist and put her in serious pain and mess with blood flow to the point of passing out a lot. It started slow a few weeks ago and rapidly escalated.
We don't know if it's cancerous yet, that will take a week or so, but the operation went smooth and everything around the tumor was healthy.

Time will tell on everything, but it has thrown a wrench into our normal very stable and smooth lives. When it's the caregiver who gets sick, it's very scary. Father in law is doing ok, but when you have a set role in the house, these sort of things cause havoc on the smallest levels. We don't think he knows how to do laundry, as an example, so it's a fine balance of patience and understanding.

I'll try to hammer out a real update on the homestead, the cabin, etc. as we have been busy. No guarantees as to when. In the meantime, here is a picture of Rock after we got home from a work trip to Vegas. He couldn't find a toy fast enough, so he found a "stick".

Weekend photo's

The iPhone takes a good photo but it's nothing compared to a real camera that you have to look through an eyepiece to see what you are shooting. I've left mine in town long enough and after a reminder text, it made it's way down on Sunday along with our friends who just purchased a side-by-side Razr ATV.

The riding was great, the company was awesome. What could top that but some great photo's from Sunday evening and Monday morning.

This boy was about 75 feet from the front door this morning.

No clouds but still an amazing sunrise.

Projects and pickles!

We are spending over half of our time at the cabin, it's just so damn peaceful and calming. I headed down on Friday night with a car load of supplies for projects we wanted to get done. Nothing over the top, no construction, just little things that needed attention.

The weather was cool, actually almost cold. I headed out at 8:15 for some star gazing and wore one of my winter jackets. The wind was blowing moist and I would be out in the elements and for once I decided to dress appropriately. The stars were, as usual, amazing. In Colorado Springs we have a lot of stars but until we started getting away we didn't realize how "ugly" it is at night.

I got up at my usual 6AM on Saturday and started the day by trying to make a tincture for my dill pickle spears. Turmeric and hot water was my choice, I was trying to get the spears to look "not so pale". It worked a little, I simply didn't have a large enough container to stir it up effectively every 5 minutes. Cucumber and zucchini spears.

 Inside the cabin it was 59 degrees and I was worried about the jars cooling down before I dropped them into the hot water canner. I decided to measure everything out to keep the process fast: dill seed, dill weed, mustard seed, garlic.

 3 cheers for pickle spears. I wanted regular pickles, but my choice of cucumbers for the garden once again gave me short fat cucumbers.

I did all kinds of other small projects and then decided to work on myself a little bit and enjoy a bike ride. The wind decided to mess with my plans and I didn't enjoy it so much, the huge headwind put my record time 15 minutes out of reach on my 111 mile route but it was incredible workout.

 After my date with a foam roller and some stretching, I moved onto grapes. They were on sale, for silly cheap, so I decided to go ahead and can them. If you have never washed a lot of grapes you have no idea just how dirty they are.

 A very light syrup was made and into the canner they went.

 Dinner time; sliced potato with olive oil, garlic powder, yellow curry powder and rosemary.

 Amish neighbor dog paid a visit and came inside. She is 17 years old according to her owners and I did have the storm door open so I didn't mind. She was exhausted for some reason and didn't even beg while I was eating. A few hours later she headed out again.

I redid my get home bag and dropped some weight out of it. Technology is amazing in how the weight of technical clothing can reduce your overall load. I then took it out for a hike to star gaze, and while it still has some weight (about 43 pounds) it was very comfortable.

I have more photo's but I'll make a new post.