The Vet...

Today's visit made the second this week...and it's only WEDNESDAY! Out of 5 dogs at my house, 4 are on medication for various new reasons, one is currently undergoing heartworm treatment, one is scheduled for surgery on Monday to remove a growth that suddenly appeared on her side last week and another one is scheduled for surgery next Tuesday to do some exploratory surgery on an infected paw! And I don't even have an old pack! Whew! It's a good thing I LOVE my vets! I certainly see them enough!

New Mattress!!!!!

Whoo hooo!
OK...so the story goes. I've had a king sized Stearns and Foster for like...20 years! A bit ashamed to say but as I said in an earlier post I have a tendency to keep some things for a long time...maybe too long? So, earlier this year, while I was trying to furnish the cabin I bought a new mattress. I'm usually a thorough researcher and always do my homework before I buy something. Not this time. I thought...a mattress is a mattress...save a few bucks...no big deal.
Well...BIG DEAL! It was horrible!! The first two photos below sort of show the two huge body-divets the mattress developed. Awful! ...and that's without being in it. Imagine how bad it is when your laying on it. Anywho...I was determined to sleep on it and suffer through it and atleast get a bit of my money's worth out of it...that is until Diesel developed a UTI and peed on it. That was it!
New mattress welcome home!! I can't wait to sleep on it tonight.
Simmons Beautyrest take me away...

TV addict...

Back in the big city and back to the grind today. Work, work, work.
BUT guess what tonight is?!?
The new season of The Bachelor starts this evening!! Whoo Hooo!
I know, I know...a great way to waste precious hours huh! Well for me, it is. It's mindless and helps me wind down from a long work day and turn the brain off. Yes...OFF!
Jason's back...Yippee!!

What a view...

This is the view from our friend Chip's cabin. He lives just above us on the same mountain. We took a walk up the road on Sunday evening at sunset and this was the view off his porch. God's country!

Who wants to ride???

We all do. I LOVE the mountains!!!!

Weekend project...

I bought this little dresser a while back at a local store in town. I just love it and it fits in one of the guest bedrooms perfectly. It was raw wood and needed to be a bit darker so with a view like we have off the front porch and great weather...off I went. I think it turned out great!

King of the mountain...

Just thought this little guy was cute. I guess he didn't like standing around the hay ring so he decided to play "king of the mountain" in it...

I love walking out the front door of the cabin and down the dirt road to sights like these. Fresh air (...well mostly), farm life, amazing views, green space...little piece of heaven!

Sacked out...

It's been a good day in the mountains...

Good night!

Pocket pooch...

Our friends Rich and Donna came over this afternoon/evening to watch some football and hang out. They brought their dogs (Italian greyhounds), Augie and Izzy. Izzy is their newest and she's obviously tiny. They say this is where she'll hang out for hours if you'll let her. Too cute...

Supper time...

So right out in front of our cabin is this beautiful pasture land. The man who owns it, owns most of the property down "our" valley as well. He has quite a few head of cattle which he rotates amongst his many pens/pasture areas. For the last few months we have had the pregnant gals. It's been fun to watch the littles ones arrive and as a group they just have the best time. Today the tractor showed up and brought with it the metal hay ring which will house their food till the grass greens up again in the spring. There was not a cow in sight when the tractor showed up but as these photos will show...it didn't take long.

A walk in the wods...

What a foggy, drizzly day. Perfect for a walk in the woods.
Todd and Rich hit the trails on the bikes so I decided to take 3 of the pups out for a hike.
I love this time of year up here. We were talking tonight that winter actually might be our most favorite season in the mountains. The views are amazing without all the leaves on the trees, the tourist traffic is down so it's incredibly quiet and it's just awesome.

Houston we have a BIG problem...

OK, so after we caught the 5 cute little mice...nothing.

We checked trap after trap, and nothing. I decided to move one of the traps to the "under the stair" location where the earlier "storage facility" was located and noticed something new since we cleaned it out. Droppings and those of the rather large persuasion. Off to the local hardware store...which is one of those old school Ace Hardware's that one could stay in for hours-very cool...to buy some larger "kill" traps. Didn't want to do it but they left me no choice. If my city cats couldn't take down a little mouse I knew they would be worthless with the larger variety.

All I have to say is HOLY CRAP...

Prayer request...

Just received an e-mail from an old friend of mine who lives in California. Her name is Shea and she has an older sister named Sophia. We were all good friends back in the late 80's early 90's. Sophia was just diagnosed with one of the rarest forms of ovarian cancer, a Granulosa Cell Tumor...it makes up for only 2% of all ovarian cancers and although it is rare it has a great chance of recovery following treatments of chemotherapy. She'll be doing 4 treatments total and each treatment consist of 3 days 8-10 hours per day. Treatments started Dec 29, 30 and 31 at Cedars Cancer Center and so far Sophia is handling it well.

Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers...

Three, Four and Five...

OK, so being novices and all I think FIVE in one day is pretty good!!

Catch # 3. "Hello"

Three, Four and Five...

We released the last 4 at the same spot. It's an old run down barn next to a creek surrounded by pasture land. Enjoy!

#2...but the first for Tito...

Way to go!!
Todd takes another one down!!
We hopped in the car and drove 3 miles down the road and let this one go.
TWO down.
To be continued...

Houston we have a problem...

It all started with this...cute huh?

I thought so. I've always loved nests. Especially bird's nests but maybe that's because I've never been exposed to many other nests. So...when I discovered this one (a few months ago) in the drawer of the master bath at the cabin I thought...so cute! And what craftmanship. What I failed to consider is that nests are generally created for babies. And when one considers what kind of nest this is...babies is not what you want more of!

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we were back at the cabin. There were a few too many indicators that we had quite a few tenants that were not paying rent and even more today...

Another nest. This time in a kitchen drawer.

I don't know much about the habits of mice/rats but this was like a storage facility. It was unbelievably full of some incredibly random things. (this is underneath the bottom step on the staircase btw) Acorns, red berries, dried blue berries, insulation, paper from the sheetrock and my user manuals, straw from a wisk broom, screws, screwdrivers, paint rollers, etc, etc, etc...

Everything in this photo was found in that "storage facility"

Crazy!!!

This is what the space underneath the step looks like empty. There was soooo much stuff in there. Is that where the term "pack rat" comes from?

I came to the cabin prepared. I went shopping this week for traps and just couldn't bring myself to buy the "kill" kind. I may have changed my mind now but at the moment...this is what we have. I bought 4 of these. We loaded them up with peanut butter and off we went.

I'm not scared of a lot of things. Sharks, alligators, murky water, varmits! I'm sure I could come up with a few more but these are my top ones for sure. My brave and fearless husband has been on the front line of this little battle. I'm a good support crew but man they freak me out!!! He's setting traps. We're loaded and ready to go... Here micey, micey, micey...

Other members of the front line...

Persistence...

Now that's how you earn your keep. What a good little soldier kitty!!

What the heck are yall doing??? Get the mouse...

Oh...what good kitties. They're just sharing!!

The conclusion to the saga of MOUSE #1 is that these two city cats played around with it, didn't/wouldn't kill it and Todd eventually had to pick it up and put it in a plastic bag. We walked waayyy down the road and let it go in the woods. Todd said he scurried up a tree. Yippee!

One down.

To be continued...

New Year's Eve...

We thought we were headed to the cabin for New Year's Eve but work schedules kept us in town so we were delighted to head to the Treter/Smith household for a food fest!! Can you say slab o' meat!?! The largest and most delicious !!

Breakin' bread...

Grrrrrrr....

Steve didn't get the memo...It was white shirts and BLUE jeans...

OK...so as the night wore on and the bottles of wine emptied... These were a "white elephant" gift that JT and RS got stuck with at a holiday party and of course they became part of the evening fodder. Funny photo but the real reason I posted these is for the last photo...

There's an actual "Nutrition Facts" label on the back of these. Are there people out there who actually consume them?!?

38 pieces and 20 servings per "container"

Government regulation at it's finest.

Hope everyone had a Happy New Year's eve!!