Christmas Travels – Part 2

Dad's place got a lot of snow just before we went out, which made the property more beautiful than it would normally be at this time of year, but also made the half-mile drive a good bit more difficult. Dad made a couple of runs along the drive to help clear a path, but it still required 4-wheel drive. I thought the drive was actually a good bit of fun, but I'm not sure the pups were thrilled with being tossed around in the back of the truck. The worst part of the drive was the last. This picture was taken on Wednesday, so a lot of the ice is gone, but I think there's still enough there to give a good idea. To get to the house, you have to go over a creek (lower right corner), up the hill, make a sharp right turn, and up another steep hill. If you miss either of those turns, its easy to end up somewhere you don't really want to be.


The pups and I were staying the cabin in the old pasture, but we had to park at the house. Until Wednesday, the road from the house to the cabin was impassable - even for the trucks, at first due to the ice and then due to the deep mud-filled ruts. I tried to get a decent picture of that road, but none of them really did justice to the conditions.

This is the cabin we stayed in during our visit. It has a bedroom, full bath, loft, kitchen and living/dining room. On the far right is a second little bunkhouse with another bed, bath, and stove. The cabin is plenty big enough for me and the pups, and between the electric heat and the gas "wood" stove, its easy to stay warm. The tire tracks are from Dad's utility vehicle, which he drove through the woods to get between the house and the cabin.


These three pictures were taken from the cabin porch. This first one was taken about 8:20 Monday morning, using my cell phone. I think it came out pretty well.


I took this one later Monday morning - you can't see much detail of the woods, but the icicles are neat. At that point, it was still cold enough that they'd not yet started melting.



This is Wolfie, Dad and Krysti's wolf-dog hybrid. She's 10 years old now, and you can't tell in the picture, but she's actually bigger than Duncan. And its not all because of her fur - she even out-weighs him by at least 15 pounds. She has to stay penned when we visit because she has a nasty tendency to want to kill my pups.


This is a shot of the lake from just behind the house.


This is the same general view, but this picture was taken from the deck Dad built at the edge of the big hill behind the house.


And a closer look at the lake.


This chimney is left over from the original homestead on the property.


A view of the house from the dam...


This is the trout pond that Dad keeps stocked and the little cabin he built over the creek a few years ago. Looking toward the lake from the house, the cabin is to the right and fairly deep in the woods. The trout pond was low on water and frozen pretty solid.


This cabin is to the left of the lake, not too far from the main garden. The pond in front of it (also frozen) is generally stocked with catfish, but has had too many visits from otters lately.