Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The swing of the seasons at 8500 feet

Rock and I loaded up on Friday afternoon for a great weekend at the cabin. A couple we know decided to drive down and hang out with me because I was going to be all alone and lonely... well not so much but we planned on riding the ATV's.

The drive from town was great, a little rain and then it happened:

Winter officially arrived. This was 10 miles from town so I expected the cabin to have a few inches of snow but was surprised to see how beautiful it was as I got closer:
Not that it's ugly when it snows but I wasn't mentally up for a fireplace lighting weekend. We had gotten some rain but otherwise the tree's were in full color still and it looks amazing. I changed and headed out for a nice relaxing run (and managed to not run as fast as possible for once).
Rock and I got our usual hikes in, here is Saturday morning up the road. Rock was checking out the new 'neighbors' and their horses. They tore down the 3 strand barbed wire fence around the property and erected a 2 strand electric fence. I admit I don't know a lot about horses but I don't see a need for anything more than barbed wire to keep them contained. I must not know what they know.

ATV riding was fun but certainly a little chilly. We started out with temperatures in the low 30's and finished in the high 50's. We had some dust, mud, slush and finally some 18 inches or so of snow when we hit around 12k feet. Only one of my friends wanted to ride and we stopped a few times and had some great conversations about life in the mountains. He just couldn't figure out why people would choose big cities over the mountains and that had us talking about a lot of life things in general. My friends vehicle was hit by an EFP (formed IED) and he lost some buddies and it's not very easy for him some days so it was nice to be in the mountains, throwing snowballs and forgetting about life for just a few minutes.
We rode back and got ready for a run, I wasn't going to waste the low 60 degree weather especially since we had just been standing in snow talking about making a snowman (or person, we weren't sure how to make a gender neutral snow person). The temperature swings are pretty big in the valley, I left my shirt in the car for the run, might as well get some sun while I can.

Sunday my friend and his wife decided to just chill out before heading back home. I took Rock out for some hikes and went for a run once the temperature hit 50 (started out at 28 with frost all over). I know the neighbors think I'm crazy, running in the first place and not wearing a shirt (or gloves, hat, scarf, jacket, etc.) but I think they are even crazier when it's 55 degrees and they have winter jackets and mittens on.

Rock and I spent Sunday night alone and headed in bright and early. We hit some traffic that didn't care we were trying to get down the road but Rock reminded them who was in charge and we squeezed by. They didn't put salt on the road so I'm not sure what they were licking but I'm sure it was tasty! I wonder how tasty bighorn sheep are.... probably not.


6 comments:

  1. Nice photos of that beautiful country you live in.

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  2. Horses have somewhat delicate skin and a smooth wire fence prevents cuts and scars .

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    1. All the horses I see have scars from the barbed wire, I never thought about that. I knew I didn't know enough. Thanks for the post, now I know something new!

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  3. I kept horses up here on the mountain for a few years. That's why I have a meadow carved out of the forest. The horses would try to reach through the fence and the wire would cut their necks. Wound up putting up a five strand electric fence.

    Sure do like the countryside there. You can see so far. Even though I live on a mountain top, in summer the foliage is so thick I have to climb up on granite rocks further up to get a panoramic view. You just have to step outside.

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    1. I understand the choice now, but it seemed so out of place and wasteful when I first saw it. We are in the tree's and have some mountain view but just have to take a 1/4 mile hike or less to see everything else.
      Prefer the tree's and water, even if it lays frost on everything this time of year and drops the temps into the singles.

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