The Gold Street Cabin In Mammoth, Utah

 What can we say?  Progress is slow now--but steady. Most of the deer seem to have moved to a different location.  We have one that seems to travel solitary and then a small herd of about five deer. The small herd seem very young and there is one baby among them.  Barbara is always sad when the solitary deer comes and eats up all of the food put out (currently apple pieces and kitchen scraps) and there is none left for the small herd. See all those footprints in the snow below?  Barbara has been spreading some seed that is supposed to keep down erosion, is fire resistant, and will provide food for the birds and deer.  We were told to spread it on the snow.  It is called Western Badlands mix. Don "playing" with his new "toy"--a Cub Cadet snow blower. First he clears snow from the front door to the driveway. Then, along the street where the plow has piled it up. It takes him about an hour to clear all the snow. Barbara forgot to photograph Don laying the...

Now that cold weather has set in, a lot of effort is expended in just keeping the home fires burning.  A friend who was also a neighbor and a co-worker of Don's recently died of the covid-19.  Don had been exposed to him and another co-worker who also tested positive for the virus.  We are grateful that Don did not become ill.  Don worked extra shifts to cover for the one co-worker when she was off recovering so that gave even less time for working on the house.  The deer come right up to our front door as if to say, "Okay, we're here.  Where's dinner?" We've seen this young buck come only once.            We put our Christmas tree up.  We wouldn't dare have a live tree in a room heated by a wood stove, but this still brings the joy of the season.  It will always be with a little nostalgia that we put up the tree.  Barbara took her favorite ornaments to Chile since we were going to be there for two Christmases....

 Now that cold weather is upon us, a lot of effort is spent just keeping the house warm.  Our progress on working on the house seems very slow and there doesn't seem to be much to report. American Gold Finches have been visiting our bird feeder.  They are so pretty. Sunsets can be really pretty here.  We're so glad that we oriented the house the way we did to take advantage of the beauty of the area. Barbara found a place to put this gift from her sister.  The calendar is mostly a birthday calendar.  With 10 children, 10 in-law sons and daughters, 44 grandchildren (plus two on the way), four honorary grandchildren keeping track of birthdays is significant. Don discovered a problem in hanging the balcony. The wall studs are not where they appear to be from the placement of siding nails. After much thought and prayers, he decided to attach the balcony to wooden cleats which each span two or three studs. Here he is painting the cleats he has already made. Our ...

This has been a short work week because a colleague asked Don to trade shifts so two work days were out, we had a trip to the 'Doctor with the Magic Hands' in Salt Lake (a chiropractor) because Barbara has a muscle ache the local chiropractor hasn't succeeded in bringing relief to (neither did the Doctor with the Magic Hands), and Barbara with Don's help has been frantically finalizing her recent publication Farewell, Fleeing Repatriation before a review comes out on it in an international digital magazine Nov 12.  Still, a few things happened.  Sweet picture of a mother and baby sharing a drink.    Some of the adult deer are getting so brazen they just stand and watch us and wait for us to bring out food. This pretty little bird visited our feeder just one day.  There is too much glare fore the picture to show that he has a neon yellow breast.  Barbara tried to identify him with online resources but he didn't really look like any of the options. The...