It’s a bit like Satie. Or, in our case, Satie played by daughter Emma on our old piano. On a fresh Saturday morning, spring sunshine gleams in the dining room windows (which you can tell I’ve washed, not altogether effectually, with my homemade window cleaner) (It’s the squeegee’s fault!). These cold jars of cider have …

Steller’s jay? Jeller’s stay? This is English; you can never tell how something is supposed to be written. I used to pride myself on my spelling capability (even though I lost the 6th grade spelling bee on “asterisk”, a word I’d never heard before, but I’m not emotionally damaged, waaa!). But now that I’m getting …

This actually happened almost a week ago, last Friday, in fact. The snow stayed in shaded areas for upwards of four days. It’s been cooooold out there! January weather, sometimes. Way too cold for October, and I’ve been burning firewood frequently.
That said, we’re back to more normal fall weather now. It’s welcome; I still have …

I got home late last night, and was relaxing in my cushy chair with Fast Company, possibly my favorite magazine (tech, innovation, business, great graphics, what’s not to love?) when here came Abby in her jammies. Sometimes the kids have trouble staying in their beds at night so I was preparing to respond when she …

Some of my immediate family gathered last week to spend some time together in the mountains. On Thursday evening we hiked up Rock Canyon past the old beaver farm, up past the abandoned mine with its cascading waterfall, and in the darkening twilight we ascended the switchbacks to Rock Lake in what became the darkest …

Well, I finally recovered our Utah vacation pictures off my camera, which now seems rather to eat pictures than give them up. I’ll have to get a new card with all my spare money. Anyway, one of them is this one of the Manti Utah Temple, where Jessica and I were married 14 years, 4 …

One advantage of living in the boondocks is that places like this are pretty easy to get to. The trailhead for this adventure is about an hour from my front door.
I got out of work later than expected on Friday and so did not start up this trail until 8:10 pm local time. And I …

Okay, a few more pictures of our hike.
Here’s Becca on the tippity-top of Chicago Peak, shooting the opposite direction of the image I posted yesterday. This one gives a better sense of altitude.
Here we are on the trail, heading out. The ridge above leads to Chicago Peak, so named (I assume) because the jagged blocks …

Well it doesn’t look like it here, but it was quite a climb to get on top of this peak in Montana’s Cabinet Mountains Wilderness. This is the only way I could situate the camera to take a picture of all of us while still giving a sense of the terrain. From the left it’s …

We were headed down the mountain on Saturday before I remembered to ask Rich to get a picture of us. Rich still took the picture I’m posting, but it’s us. (Looks like his camera’s tilted too.) So here is Emma and me a hundred feet below the summit. Most of the peaks you see in …