Well, it took a while, but I’m back again. Lance and I moved out of the apartment on March 30th, donated a whole lot of items, some in storage for children and future VRBO Boulder rental use (October 1 – February 1 time frame, generally speaking), and UHauled the rest up on April 4th to suwarrow in a long, but not-too-bad 2-day drive up. Then unpacking and organizing for days.
On Sunday, it was time to get out and Lance drove us on a fun exploration of logging roads, along which we saw a few shaggy-bearded cow elk. And a spot where it was so obvious that they loved to hang out (yes, becoming a scat observer).
On Wednesday or so (who knows what day it is?), Michael and Lance pulled out the dirt bike
(thanks AMIR!!), tuned it a bit, and took off for a visit to the Big Burn. Lance and I were in MaryAnn and Michael on the bike ahead:
We parked part-way in and hiked for about 40 minutes or so, until the (literal) end of the road. Checked out for critters and headed back, when Michael saw a tick crawling on my shirt. Quickly flicked off, we returned to our vehicles and noticed more ticks. We proceeded to pretty much strip down
and check each other out, as well as turning clothing inside out. I rode back with no pants on..silly girl. Now we check regularly, but no place has produced the plethora of little buggers that that area did.
No more boxes to unpack, pictures hung and on to the usual suwarrow chores, Lance and I took off on Sunday for our first foray at morel/mushroom hunting. I was debating with Michael over whether it was too soon or not (nights need to have lows above 40 degrees, supposedly), but evidently the rest of Montana thought it was high time. There must have been 6 cars parked along the road near where the West Ford Fish Creek Fire was last fall (remember that?) because recent burns are fertile ground for black morels. There was even a group of 3 atv’s along with a mycologist on an official mushroom hunt. Yowsa! Anyway, we each headed up a hillside (luckily I had a walking stick so I could counterbalance the vertiginous slope) and scored 4 each. A good start and we chatted about keeping it up weekly (but not on Sundays when there’s more competition) as a fun activity. After we returned home, I scouted part of suwarrow an came up with 4 more! We sautéed in olive oil and butter and enjoyed the vegetables of our labor:
that’s all the news for now…
keep in touch!
*This Week In Suwarrow