First Time in 18 Months!

For the first time in 18 months JR and I were able to spend the night in our mountain house. For those of you who are not really familiar with the saga of this experience, suffice it to say that rennovations are everything people say they are! Don't ever do one! We had to move out of our cabin about 18 months ago, because we could no longer live in the conditions that the rennovation required. We have spent the time staying with our long-suffering friends, Curtis and Chris Long (no pun intended) since then. They have been most gracious and we have been very grateful for their hospitality. And, although we have tried to be "paying" guests by bringing food and other supplies when we came, and tried not to stay more than one or two nights at a time, it is still hard to have guests in your house as often as we were there. We will forever be in their debt and celebrate their friendship. But this weekend...we stayed at our own place! It was kind of like being newlyweds and setting up housekeeping! In fact, we liked it so much that even though we had planned to come home on Sunday night, we didn't. We got up early and came this morning instead.

Chris and Curt Long, good friends, good neighbors.

So let me tell you about this place:

It is the most gentle of all places...where the sun comes up over the moutains looking like an orange billiard ball, setting fire to the landscape; or, as the Hawaiians euphemistically say, we have a "silver sunrise". That means it's foggy, sometimes to the point that one can barely see beyond her nose.

It is a place where the quiet is loud. I read a little poem in a book my mother gave me one time that described it perfectly..."You could hear an ant fart, it was that quiet." None of the sounds of the city, just the sounds of life at an easier pace.

It is a place where wildlife abounds right outside the door. If you sit still, you can see all manner of nature...birds, squirrels, groundhogs, bears (yes, bears), panthers (that, too), bobcats, turkey, grouse, predator/scavenger fowl like buzzard, hawk, and owl. Wild flowers are everywhere, and fill vases with a profusion of color that is unmatched anywhere.

It is a place where the August sun feels good on the skin; where the summer breeze is, incredibly, almost constant; where nights require the use of a sweater or jacket, and a fire is a nightly ritual.

It is a place where the sunshine filters through the foliage, leaving a speckled footprint as if it is reluctant to intrude on the stillness.

It is a place where the winds can be high, the temperatures low, the snow blows into drifts that can be higher than your boots, and where the coziness of a warm fire makes one feel safe and secure.

It is soon going to be HOME!!!