Snow, endings, and blowing leaves

We've had mail drama here. A changeover to modern ugly key boxes from rural quaint row boxes involved cement pouring, tearing off the row of old mailboxes, and assigning box numbers. This, for some reason, seemed complicated to the USPS and took a couple of days. In the meantime our mail was delivered into the old mailboxes laying on the ground. Good thing there's almost no crime around here. Gotta love it... Also, we have a new small building just built  for winter UPS and FedX deliveries. (They will not, absolutely not, come into our Star Mt. gates in the winter) Here's a photo - bet you thought this was something else.

Outhouse or package drop?

Snow here! All the peaks got it and we got a dusting at the house. Yup, the white stuff comes early around here. A lot of the aspen leaves have blown off, but there's still enough color to have a stunning combo with the snowy peaks. And we picked up our first snowblower ever yesterday - just a coincidence in timing. This is a small one, just for the deck. Giant quantities build up on one side mostly from the roof. The driveway is just too big for us to handle, so marvelous Walter will continue to keep it open with his heavy machinery.

More breaking news - the cows are gone. The cowboys came to get them Oct 6 (a day later than last year). Sadly, even though we had rearranged our schedules to hang out for a couple of hours so I could get pictures of them in action, they gathered them up apparently with great ease on the other side of Star Mt. and took them off without us seeing a thing. A lone cowboy on our road was it. Ah well, next year. Hurray, our gates are back open.

Lots of deer are gathering around the house for the last green plants. Flap and twins were even being social in a pack of them. Our time is limited now - they disappear for the winter not back until spring.

A last dinner with our friends Gail and Steve. More endings it seems, they go back to their other home and we won't see them until next May.

Finished another great book. This time a memoir of a childhood in South Africa in the late 60's. Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller. Full of excitement, tragedy, violence for a family of farmers in the middle of civil war. She has another one out I'll be getting.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that while I was in Virginia, Mark decided to hike Carbon Peak. Our mountain that we see out our living room windows. Not a little effort by any means, it's a nine mile hike in the strenuous category. Took him longer than he thought, I was worried when he didn't check in at the right time according to my calculations, but all was good. He could hardly walk for two days. Evidently our active lifestyle and walking every day is not the same thing as hiking up 12,000 ft mountains. Who knew... These are a few of his photos while up at the top. Fantastic!

Star Mountain viewed from the top