This & That

He Did His Job

I got to the cabin a few hours ahead of my sisters and was thrilled to find that the baby robins were still in residence. As a reminder, this is what they looked like when we left them last time.

And this is what they looked like last week....all feathered and grown up.

We rarely saw Mama Robin at the nest. I imagine she was looking for food for the little ones. When she did come back, we could hear all the babies set up this huge racket. 

It became apparent, as we were there, that they were really close to leaving the nest. The little robins would stand up in the nest and flap their wings and hop to the edge.

In fact, in the course of one day, there was only 1 left, thinking about taking that big step.

However.....

With a puppy, even a perfect puppy, who is being trained to retrieve on the premises, who happens to be in the chewy stage and will gnaw on his chewy bone, bed posts, carpet squares, and even pieces of wood, turning them into splinters.....it was a really bad day for the birds to leave the nest. And that's all I'm going to say about it, except that we did everything we could to avoid the problem, carefully checking the surrounding area before letting Ollie out to do his business. But he apparently is learning how to do his job....really well.

 

It was a sad note during an otherwise wonderful time together.

The Perfect Puppy

This is the label that my sisters gave Ollie and, admittedly, he was a very good dog while we were at the cabin. I was a little worried about transporting, maintaining and not losing him while the guys were gone, but since he is the perfect puppy we didn't have much trouble at all....with the exception of one notable incident which I will document tomorrow.

My sisters took him everywhere they walked around the place, which he loves. They really loved on him and there was so much baby-talk flying you would have thought there was a flock of newborns in residence.

Ollie is supposed to sit on the mat by the door when he is in the cabin.

 

However, he very cleverly belly-crawls until he is half-on and half-off, if it gets him closer to some scratching.

He is fetching so well, but still has a little trouble giving up what he fetches, whether it's sticks, or a piece of antler or.....other things. (Photo by my sister)

And his water work is awesome. He just loves jumping in on his own now, as long as the water isn't too deep.

And the Food!

We all took turns with meal prep and man, did we eat well. 

We even managed the grill without male assistance. 

Look.....real crepes in the woods!

And while we were eating well, so were the hummingbirds. We also got the full benefit of the aerial acrobatics show.

Camera Treks

One of my sisters got a new camera for Mother's Day, so part of the time we were at the cabin we tramped around the property taking pictures of anything we could find that possibly looked cool. 

My other sister, camera in hand.

My niece, who was a much more cooperative subject than, say, Ollie.

 

We headed to the creek in a couple of different directions. We tried to get to the big river, but I couldn't find the place we usually cut through the willows to get there so we had to settle for the side creek.

 

There were a lot of different flowers blooming, some varieties that I hadn't seen before.

We even looked at trees and their parts in a different way.

Please tell me you can see the heart in this photo.

The Girl's Trip

You'll remember that last week I spent several days at the cabin with my sisters, my mom and a niece. This is the second year in a row that we have done this and it was truly wonderful just to relax together.  (Cabin photo courtesy of my sis.)

 

That's not to say that we are idle while we are there. Each of us brings a project for everyone to do. This year there were stitching project to choose from.

Plaques we could put together.

Some were more successful than others.

 

 

And cards to assemble. (Yes, I know I'm having focus issues....)

There's nothing quite like relaxation combine with a little productivity.

Beard Wars, the 2010 Version

I have previously documented the Beard Wars that take place at my house during long stretches of time away from home. Living with a bunch of boys, you soon realize that facial hair is a reflection of manliness in their minds, and because my boys tend to be competitive about such things, there's always a "contest" of sorts to see who can grow the best beard during their trip. And Mom has to document it all when they get home. This photo makes me laugh because there are two of my boys looking all squinty-eyed and snarky, and there's my sweet Preemie Boy just smiling away....and it's even a nice smile, not the cheesy one.

Well, you can see that, hands down, DH wins....every time. He's very proud of the multi-colored hair variations you can see in there. He thinks he should get extra points for that. Coming in a suprising  second is San Diego Boy. Now here the rules get a little fuzzy because he was supposed to shave the morning they left and he "didn't get the opportunity" with all that was going on, so he had a couple days growth jump on Eldest. So we may have to disqualify him for that. Eldest's next in line, followed by Preemie Boy. San Diego Boy says that PB's beard looks like someone glued sawdust to his chin. There are always comments like that flying around.

Bring up the rear is a new entrant in the contest. The Girl decided that she needed to get in on the act, giving her best rugged facial expression.

Changes

There have been a few more changes to the house in the last few weeks, mostly in The Girl's space. If you can believe it, she decided that she had outgrown the dress-up wallpaper and light blue & white color scheme of her childhood.  Yeah, that's a little nostalgic for me. I remember picking out that border and those linens when she was tiny.....sigh.

Instead, she has opted for an updated and very teen-inspired color scheme taken from her love of Gerbera daisies...bright green, orange, pink and blue. She has picked everything herself and we have begun the process by painting the room the color she wanted (it is very......spring-y green) and gathering some bed linens. This is where we are now:

Since I took this picture, we have found an iron headboard for very cheap (on clearance) that we have leaning by the bed while The Girl mulls whether it is completely suitable.  I think the biggest challenge will be finishing off the furniture with a bedside something and a seating something.

I so did not get the home dec gene.

A Gal's Retreat

As we "speak," DH, as many of the boys as could manage it, and The Girl (and I do mean in the singular...she is the only girl in attendance this year) are on their annual horse pack-in fishing trip in Wyoming's Wind River mountains. They debated whether or not to take Ollie with them, but in the end decided that the 17 mile trek was just too far for him to go, especially at his young age. Maybe next year. 

With the family enjoying the mosquitos, homemade "outhouse," and no shower facilities, I'm going to have to sacrifice and go to the cabin with my sisters, a niece and my mom. We are there now, as a matter of fact, and the plan is to make some cards (photo of my prep work on those above), do some stitching and some crafting, trade off meal prep and generally just have a good time.

I have been given tutorials on how to work the grill, how to work the projection system, how to turn on the well, the lights and heating units if we need them, as well as how to load the gun should I see a bear or some other predator. I have been instructed how to pack Ollie for the drive up and where I can and cannot walk in the woods without the men. DH has even hiked to the top of a mountain in Wyoming to get cell service to give me last-minute instructions. I'll let you know how we survive the journey without the menfolk.

The Girl at Philmont

You might recall that the first part of the month, The Girl was with a friend at the Philmont Scout Ranch. They participated on a 50 mile backpack hike while they were there. I wasn't especially worried about her being able to hike, but she has never had to carry anything heavier than her lunch on her back. She did a little training before she went, but when we put everything she needed in her pack, it was heavy. The photos I'm posting come from her camera. 

Here she is with the group she hiked with. The groups were very small...6 girls and two leaders. They hiked several miles each day and stopped at different stations for the night. They usually learned some kind of skill at the station, had to set up their own tents and carry their own food (which she said was mostly disgusting...except for the pudding which apparently became a big trading commodity). 

They saw wildlife, including this deer and a few bears. In fact, one of the scouts in a different area of the camp was mauled by a bear and had to be life-flighted out to Albuquerque. He will be fine, but I'm glad I didn't know about that before I sent her down there.

I loved that she took pictures of the "bathroom" facilities which ranged from the sublime:

To the ridiculous:

Um...yeah.

The girls got up early one morning to watch the sun rise and were treated to this:

 

 

Her assessment of the experience was that it was the hardest thing she's ever done, and while she's not sure she would do it again, she was glad she did it.

In my opinion, it's a very good thing to learn that you can do hard things if you work at them....a great life lesson, and one that needs to be taught sooner rather than later.

The whole Philmont experience was documented in the LDS Church News and when I got my weekly copy, imagine my surprise when I opened it and found this photo with the article. Yep, there's my girl with half her face cut off, but still there in the picture.

In the Mail

This came in the mail last week.

What is it you might ask? 

It's the notice that Preemie Boy passed the AP English test. If I could have done back flips, I would have done them. He worked so darn hard this past school year and it will be such a blessing for him not to have to take freshman English. The math will be trial enough. We are counting down the two semesters he has to take for his major and we are getting them out of the way first off.