Moving all of this 'stuff'

The rain came in last night after a day of clouds and cooler temperatures. The house was cooling off nicely, the rain was an added bonus that I wasn't expecting. I usually water the garden and yard two times a day, the rain just saves me money and gives everything better nutrients. Everything is nice and green, including the super tall lettuce. I've figured about 600+ seeds for harvest from t his seeding along.

While it was raining and during commercials from some Alaska series I have on DVR, I started moving supplies into the dining room. Tonight I'm taking a car load of stuff down to the cabin; buckets, cans, boxes, ammo, etc. I'm going to try and bring a load down twice a week until 70% of our current inventory is there. Then we will restock here at home so it's about a 65/35 ration of supplies at the cabin vs. home.
One thing that's nice about the cabin is when I need some ingredient or item, I plan on being able to source it from supplies. It's a 20 minute drive to town and I don't want to continually drive to town when we need something.

Brown sugar

Our favorite pancake mix

Being able to make a meal from food storage isn't just a valuable skill, it's usually less expensive and just damn handy. The pancake mix, butter, cooking spray, maple syrup were all from food storage. Even the tea for the tea kettle was storage. We are trying hard to live a simpler lifestyle while at the cabin, it's a lot more peaceful for sure. The next time I have a super month at work we will swap out the electric stove for propane, one large tank for cooking only should last a couple of years.

Flour, yeast, honey, butter, noodles, sauce, mustard, brown sugar, spices, meat, etc. are all the ingredients to make a great meal. Since I was alone for a few days that bowl of goulash lasted me 3 lunches and 2 dinners. The sad part of this meal was cutting the bread into small pieces, I finally got my dental implant started and I look forward to biting the crap out of a sandwich in September when it's all completed. I think the hardest part of the meals is waiting to reconstitute ingredients.

Here are a couple of shots of the view while out hiking only 1/4 mile from the cabin:

East of the cabin, looking North

East of the cabin, looking South East I think.

East of the cabin looking South, less than 1 mile to Nat. Forest.

You will notice there aren't any tree's and that's the lay of the land. We are in a large section of tree's, mainly hardwoods, and all thanks to the creek's. In the first picture you can see a few tree's, middle left, anything after that is farm/ranch land and it's cleared out.

I'm looking forward to the next few weekends at the cabin, getting more projects done and even a few relaxation days will be nice. Having a lot of supplies there will also be handy, luckily we've pretty much always bought 2 of everything (or more).
One last photo, the auction we went to. I ended up being on the front page of the local paper, I guess I just happen to be at the right place when they took a picture. Finally in the paper for something other than work or the crime blotter....

I jest.

Another week down.

It's July, and the time flying by just fits right in with the style that my life has always been. One day it's spring, the next I'm starting to harvest in the garden. It's not a bad thing, and its much better than being bored.

The lettuce in the background should be going to seed in the next week. I'll harvest a couple of plants and let the rest fall down, might be able to get 2 seedings before winter.

The yard is colorful, this rose bush will have about 100 roses by the end of the week. All of the rose bushes we have purchased and planted never seem to do really well. This particular bush was a transplant and has tripled in size this year.

The garden has beans, zucchini, yellow squash and tomatoes that will need to be harvested this weekend. The hose running up the middle is my semi-permanent irrigation system. I have 2 hoses that feed 2 sprinklers each, covering the garden and the entire yard. I don't like the look of the hose but I don't want to bury it. I've got a lot of space in the garden and am going to drop another row of beans in next to the hose this week. The weeds aren't being very invasive this week, but I see a few small tree's that have popped up and need pulling.

I spent Friday night at the cabin with a friend, I had to go there to get the satellite internet hooked up. It's going to be part of my home office tax write off so it should help with taxes. I got a few curtains up to help keep the sun out and keep the place cool during the day, a few more curtains will be done this coming weekend. After the internet was hooked up my friend and I went for a hike, with the plan being to see the lakes that feed the creeks. We were short on time and ended up turning around about 3/4 mile from the lakes. It wasn't wasted time and the workout was great. The trail spends about 50% of the time following the creek and ends at the lakes. From the lakes you can hit a few 14,000 foot summits but that's an additional 5 hours round trip for the easiest summit.

The Crestone Needle (right) and Peak (left)

3 Marmot rock

Crestone Peak

Mount Humboldt (false summit)

This is a route up (real rock climbing gear needed) to the Needle

I had to work on Sunday so we left Saturday afternoon and the other half took the in-laws down for Saturday night and Sunday. They really enjoyed the relaxation time (they just finally finished moving into their new house) and were happy to get away.
There is a bluegrass festival this coming weekend so we will all be there again. I plan on getting more work done while everyone else is listening to the music in town. This works well for me, I tend to get more done when nobody is around:
The old trash burn cinder block structure needs to get removed so I can have firewood delivered. The curtains need to be finished, the garage needs to be emptied of a few things and cleaned (with a leaf blower), a path to the creek needs to be bushwhacked for water hauling, the wood shed needs some roof support beams installed, etc. Never ending, but it's good quality sweat equity work.

In closing, when you are a begging dog you often get what you want. That includes great hiking, creek swimming, bike barking and exhaustion.

Introducing 'The Cabin'

Since we can't come up with a name, it's just going to be called 'The Cabin' for now. We haven't put much thought into what we want to call it, it's been a long few weeks and June was just too busy to concentrate.
After being gone for almost 3 weeks out of the last 4, it's nice to be back into rhythm, but after 3 hours of email this morning all I could do was laugh at the silliness of it all.

I was at the cabin for 3 days on my own, from dawn to dusk I worked my ass off. The previous owners preferred everything to be natural, and while that's nice, I wanted it looking a little different.

First thing to do was to clean the inside and that took an entire day to get it done so I felt it was clean. Once it was clean I had boxes to unpack, and it was dark out so I went to bed. When I say went to bed, I mean I layer on a sleeping mat and didn't get any sleep.

The next few days were spent outside cutting the weeds down and raking (20+ bags of pine needles and pine cones). I did chop and drop unless it was around the pine cone area, that had to be cleaned up. 2 days of dawn to dusk yard work like that beat me down hard. That meant 2 more nights of not much sleep as the furniture was not in yet and my body didn't appreciate the hard floor with a thin sleeping mat.

We were finally together and working on Thursday evening until we left yesterday. There is no TV and no internet at the cabin. The cell phone reception is spotty at best and for hours on end my phone was simply a camera. I'm debating adding internet but really don't care about it for now. If I need to work from there I'll do it and set up a home office for taxes, but otherwise I don't want it.

I'll try and catch up with everyone, and everything over the next few days. Here are the photo's, sorry about the bright/dark but it was sunny or everything was closed down to keep the heat out. We have a lot to do, but now we get to relax some as well.

Living room area

Bath

Kitchen and fireplace

more living room and the dining room

Guest bedroom

Master Bedroom

 Exterior shots. Take care everyone!!!

Home for 18 hours

I'm going to try and blog a bit more, isn't consistency supposed to be the key to success?

I arrived home at 10 this morning after being gone for over 5 days. It was fun, but it was also work, so it was exhausting all the same. I managed to whip through all of my work email, get a haircut, see the dentist, mow the yard, set up 2 separate sprinkler systems to help out when I/we are away, repack my suitcase, watch the last Game of Thrones and eat some lunch.

I'm headed to Seattle tomorrow for a few days, then back home for a couple, then off to the new property that is closing on Monday.

Before I left I got Rock out for a nice hike and swim (on a retractable leash of course).

While I was away:
A morning hike and run:

 I think this was before I left but whatever, it was good and looked good too:

 The first morning out of town on business we hiked up to about 11,000 feet. Much of the journey was spent carefully walking on large snow banks and drifts. Snow melt, mud, sunshine, water and some fun.

 My friends started up the huge snowbank that had no bypass. I took us a few tries, we didn't have the "right" gear.

 The reward for being stubborn and hiking for 4 miles:

Time to finish chores and sleep! I'll try to catch up on comments when I get back, blogger doesn't seem to like my phone or ipad for answering them. I'm staying busy,

A garden photo

Life has been amazingly busy, and while we always know May and June are the busy months, it's actually a surprise this year how much we are doing.

Work:
One of my guys left to do full time ministry so I had to panic and fill a key position. Luckily I knew the perfect person and we made it happen in a very short time frame. It did uproot his life a little to take the job and move from the pacific northwest but I am thinking of amazing positives for him and his girlfriend in the long run.
We have an event at work almost every weekend in the summer, and I have to head for Seattle for a conference next week. I'm out of town for the rest of this week, back for 1/2 a day, then away for 4 more. The one weekend I'm home with no work event we will finish packing the tools and items for the cabin.

Home:
The garden is doing well, I have a couple of tomato plants that are struggling but I planted more than enough. I know why and it's my fault, so another lesson learned about hail and removing the buckets from the plants before it gets too hot out.
We hoe'd the bean rows to keep the bushes from leaning too much. I prefer bush beans to climbers, but next year I might just install some chicken wire and change to climbing vines.
The lettuce we planted 2 years ago is almost ready to seed again, we just don't eat enough of it but it's there. The chives are amazing this year, they are going to seed right now. A random potato started to grow and the other random stuff I planted in odd spots is actually coming through.

Less than 2 weeks until closing on the cabin. I could have closed today but I felt it was silly to do closing paperwork and leave town for 10 days.

We managed to get some ATV riding in, hiking, running, indoor rock climbing, and more. I've finished 4 books in the last 2 weeks and should get another 3 read this week while I'm out of town. One of the hikes I took was with my 50lb. pack, it had been a while since I rucked with it and I did great. I've changed up my diet a lot in the last couple of weeks and I'm finally getting adjusted to it.

In the great wisdom from a dog:
When it's hectic and fast paced, sometimes we all need to take 5 minutes under a shade tree. Next to a creek would be better.

I hope everyone is doing well, I'll make my way around to blogs when I have a chance, maybe in a couple of weeks.

Cabin visit

We've decided to use the term 'cabin' when discussing the new property. It fit, and while we have a name thought of once we take possession, 'cabin' works well enough.

My best friend of 20 years just moved to town, and wanted to see the cabin. We loaded up and headed out on Saturday morning after moving a couple of items into his apartment. It was a beautiful day, but we found the road crew working in front of the property.

It seems there was a log jam up stream and it cause most of the road to flood out. There wasn't anything amiss on the cabin property, just some overflow water near the creek itself. The creek was very high.

The county road crew said "the guy who owns the water got rid of the log jam". This peaked my curiosity on the whole water rights, so I contacted a lawyer this morning about it. In Colorado having water rights is one thing, but if someone has senior water rights they have priority. The road crew also said it was the first time this had ever happened, so that's good news.

On the way to the cabin we watched a helicopter take a drink.

Here are some shots from the area and one from the garden.

Yesterday we spent several hours in the yard and house getting all the chores done. We had fallen behind but with some high activity level, we took care of it all. I got the inside chores to help with the allergies, and it sucks to cut the grass with a dust mask on.
The garden is looking amazing, just lacking a few cucumbers so I need to replant in a small section. We already have green tomatoes growing, the blueberries are starting to form, the rosemary is amazing, a random potato started growing next to a random onion that's next to the wild lettuce.

We also added 45 miles to the ATV's, it can't all be work. I hope everyone had a productive weekend as well!