Hugo remains a cuddly kitten.

Guido does not trust people much.

In the week following the goat show, our kids drove to California. Lisa started releasing test balloons in the spring about wanting to go on a "road trip". Sid and I proposed various spots that we could visit — but it became obvious that Lisa did not picture spending her vacation in the company of boring geezers. Thus she figured that she would attend to a graduation ceremony of her California friend Lucy — but her idea of driving twelve hundred miles on her own did not sit well with us. Eventually Lisa hooked Tom as a compromise between driving alone or with one or both parents. Tom's participation also solved the problem with Lisa still being a minor — to be able to book a room and stay at a hotel.

I don't think I need to explain to anybody how much nerves and sleep it all cost me. On the other hand — I understand the desire for self-reliance, and for a vacation. Tom has completed his freshman year at the University with all A's, he certainly wasn't slacking. Lisa graduated from high school and received a university scholarship — while, for the last two years, worked three days of a week at a veterinary clinic. We considered it a good mental hygiene to give them a few days to take it easy. I won't keep you suspended, they did return all right — with 2,700  added to the odometer. They visited the ocean, redwoods, even the graduation ceremony — and in the end, with a group of California friends, an amusement park.

We have to adjust our trips to weather.

Lakes in our state park are set in a pretty landscape.

During their absence, my chicken named Pepper began to fade. Her comb went gray, she kept away from other chickens and suffered "diarrhea". Since I am a hipster kind of farmer, I took the chicken to a vet — regretting bitterly that Lisa wasn't around and I could not send the chicken along when she goes "to work". I had to drive her there in the morning and leave her there, until the vet would have a moment between scheduled appointments to check our patient out. I had hoped that she would tell me that the chicken needs de-worming. I only give them diatomaceous earth, don't de-worm them chemically, because I find it absurd to half-poison the birds (and not to be able to eat their eggs for two months). Unfortunately, it turned out that Pepper had been egg-bound, and at some phase the retained egg perforated her internal organs — what I was observing was consequence in the form of a systemic inflammation. Thus I lost a chicken. No, she did not end up in a soup — in principle because I would feel like a cannibal, consuming a member of our family, but I don't tell that to our hard-core friends — I claim to be squeamish about consuming a SICK animal. Which I am, after all.

Dead end.

Sid, too, checked out the kayak.

After our kids came back, Lisa and I journeyed to Ashley in Colorado — and were issued cats. In fact, since moving to our ranch in Wyoming, we have been considering an acquisition of a barn cat. We have goats and chickens, and consequently we warehouse hay and grains — and besides wild bunnies and mice, a flock of sparrows moved into the goat shed in the fall. That they eat of the feed, I don't mind as much as the fact that they burrow in the shed's insulation and make a horrible mess. We hope that cats would keep these vermin in check. Nature has probably witnessed an imbalance, and so I spotted a stoat by the compost — which might be fine regarding rabbits and mice — but what if this weasel finds fancy in our chicken coop and eggs?

For three years we had been vaguely hoping that a cat would find and adopt us — but it did not happen. And then suddenly Ashley, our friend from California, called whether we want Hugo and another, "Old Cat". Hugo is a kitten who found himself in 2020 in our goat-boarding stables in California, together with his brother. The sibling soon disappeared (we're afraid he got eaten by a coyote or something like that) and lonely Hugo kept wanting to play with our baby goats — Pluto, Rocket and Casper. The goats did not have much affinity to cats' games, but we, humans, took to liking this friendly feline. Then the mountains burned in the summer and the stables got evacuated — and Ashley managed to grab Hugo and another, older male cat — neither used to living inside people's homes — and evacuate them together with her own two cats. Now, three years later, Ashley was moving to a rental place in Colorado, which would not accommodate that many cats — and it occured to her to ask us whether we'd take Hugo and Guido (for that's how we named the old cat). Thus it came all nicely together.

Parking in front of Bunkhouse.

Trainspotter's dream come true.

So far the cats stay with the kids in the basement — we plan to releas them soon outdoors. Hugo retains his friendly kitten-like nature — but being the offspring of semi-feral cats, he's also relatively small — they just hadn't eaten well for generations. Guido is still relatively wild, and at the beginning he just hissed at us from some corner. Three weeks later, he lets people touch him sometimes, but he's never going to be a cuddly cat. But he's Hugo's companion, and we will manage — especially since we really mostly need him to keep wild animals in check.

Should you have come to a conclusion that we had totally buried ourselves in our ranch and property, you'd be only partially correct. We still tend to escape from it all and run for the mountains — unlike in California, were where we could leave practically anytime, we must now moderate our desires with respect to weather. This year's summer storms that illuminate whole skies, have been very picturesque — safely from behind a window pane, knowing that your car safely parked in the garage won't be smashed by hail. Then we need to adjust for my shifts at work — Sid can do his work at ten in the morning just like by eight in the evening; I must show up for specific hours — and the situation keeps changing; I receive my shift schedule on Saturdays, which does not favor any planning. On the other hand — beautiful (Rocky) mountains lay about ninety minutes drive from our house — thus we can go there on a day-trip, as soon as circumstances allow. And I'm not elaborating on the chain of parks and national forests that covers forty miles and elevation gain of two thousand feet along Crow Creek to its springs.

Lake Marie from a drone.

Mirror Lake.

The recreation area closest to the city, Curt Gowdy State Park, offers — besides a horrible campground with camper trailers and dry toilets — beautiful hiking and biking trails, and three reservoirs. The easternmost lake can be also reached over a dirt shortcut from the village of Gilchrist, and hence we chose the Crystal Lake Reservoir as the best test grounds for my new kayak. I had expressed my desire for such a vessel last summer, when I tested one belonging to a friendly family, during Tom's farewell party with his shooting team. It was clear I needed a kayak optimized for lakes = unsinkable, for one cannot rescue a sunken boat from the depth of several dozen feet — one with a keel to hold direction. For kayaking on Czech rivers we used boats where one sat inside (and for a wilder water one needed a spray-cover), which had no keel, and thus were much livelier and controllable.
Another problem is the length of the boat — the bed of our pickup truck is six feet long, kayaks mostly span ten or more... I found only one that was mere 8 feet, and would fit our truck bed with open tailgate. I will be glad to advise anybody to refrain from upright tailgate and open rear window — on dirt roads and in terrain, vibrations will shatter the window on the boat sticking out. You're welcome.

I got company.

Lookout Lake.

Besides the mishap with the window, I like kayaking — it's an outdoor sport (other than hiking — during my workshift, I cover about six miles) and the lakes in Curt Gowdy are surrounded by pretty landscape — beautiful rocky outcrops. Sid recorded a drone video of my first outing, which I present as evidence. Please note that the accompanying "Hudson River Boats" song to an old woman paddling on a pond, was his idea.

Sid made yet other interesting videos. At the beginning of June, one of the two remaining functional, world's largest steam engines, UP Big Boy 4014, embarked on a trip to an exhibition in Omaha, Nebraska — literally under its own steam and pulling its own train. Local and out-of-town trainspotters registered a big event, and even in a sparsely populated Wyoming, multiple tens of enthusiasts gathered on every station along the way, despite this being a regular workday morning.

This balloon's name is not Nemo, but Willy.

Everybody's ready, but there's no flying because of fog.

Sid usually ventures alone on his droning trips — since he then sits somewhere with a mask on his face, ignoring his surroundings, which get boring for a companion. Sometimes he goes on days when I'm working. On one such outing, this time hunting mushrooms, he sprained his ankle, which took him out of circulation for a few weeks — thus I went alone myself to check out Mirror Lake. Its elevation (10,600 ft) sported even in mid-June lots of snow — yet just in the phase when deep soft snowbanks alternate with naked possibly muddy) ground — snow-shoes would not help, one would have to keep taking them off and putting them back on. I only made it to the moraine, from which there's a good view of Lookout Lake. There, I sat on a rock and admired my surroundings, when I started having a feeling of being watched. And I was — some six yards away a marmot sat on a rock, checking me out. He was not disturbed at all when I reached for my phone and started taking pictures. Eventually he walked around me and busied himself with something behind a large rock in front of me — but my presence did not seem to faze him — and eventually he climbed under that rock and came to about two yards from me. Besides nice pictures, I had an exciting experience with a totally cool rodent. One of my theories is that I smell so much like a goat, I did not seem dangerous at all to him.

Tom and Sid, ballooning.

Chasing ballons has its challenges — e.g. a swamp.

Naturally, Sid's sprained ankle coincided with a cataracts surgery on his right eye. And with ballooning weekend in Frederick, Colorado. Our end of June was therefore rather full. On Monday Sid got up at five a.m. and drove to a pre-op exam to Colorado. On Tuesday Sid and Tom got up at five thirty a.m. and drove to the surgery (Tom was the driver, Lisa and I were at work). On Wednesday, Jeanne and her Tom came visiting with their dog Chase — and stayed over for one night till Thursday. On Friday we got up at four a.m. for the balloons. Before we finished building it, fog rolled in and all flying was canceled. Meanwhile I hurried home to manage to take a shower, change and be at work at eleven a.m. On Saturday, only Tom and Sid went ballooning — I had a double shift at work and wanted to get enough sleep before it started. They did not fly again, this time due to wind. Sid came back home muttering about swollen ankle and declared he'd skip Sunday's getting up. On Sunday thus only Tom and I went ballooning — and flying was on, and we enjoyed chasing the balloon and similar things. In the end we did not have enough strength to stay and picnic in the park, so we went home.

I have to say that this kind of summer seems a bit stressful. Besides physically challenging job, I still have plenty of work on our property — mostly also physically taxing, despite delegating many chores to Tom. Seeing it from the position of a rancher, American system of summer break spanning from mid-May to mid-August seems very practical — it's the part of the year when it's necessary to plow, dig, build fences, cut, sow, and plant. I'm not sure whether I'll manage to "harvest" by mid-August — but since I planted things with ninety-days vegetation cycle, I should. Compared to first settlers, I also have tendencies to interact socially (re: balloons, goat show, and visitors), and then I harbor modern ideas and needs of relaxation — like setting out for some self-exhausting experience like kayaking or mountain hiking.