It costs a lot of money to change the door, but at least it's feasible.

Surface has gone significantly lower on my closest lake.

It did not start suddenly with the fall; repairs were dropping on us even before. The first swallow was likely the killed deer and subsequent repair of our newest car. Sometime then our patience ran out with the toilet in our guest bathroom, which ceased to flush properly — and where a repair would be more complicated and in end effect more expensive than buying a whole new toilet. Then our dishwasher gave up — having been seven years in service — and obviously one of the cheapest kind. One can see on the house that it owner (or builder?) was really saving many wherever possible. A rough reminder of that was one return of mine from kayaking in a storm — when I found the basement external door forced open by the wind so hard that it could not be closed again — so rotten was the wooden frame. We had no choice but to order a new door — wanting something solid, from a more durable material than wood, so that it could possibly serve as an entrance, should a situation ensure that the house were to divide into two housing units. I had cost a lot of money, especially since the original door wasn't of a standard side (it was larger), and part of the opening had to be "extended". Thus we felt the added up cost of the door, dishwasher, toilets and their installation.

The result is positive — for once we have (hopefully for good) quality things on and in the house — and the basement, which had always been incredibly cold and impossible to heat, is suddenly comfortable — besides the actual door, someone had apparently saved on installation and insulation. That, alas, does not end the litany of repairs — our cars began to break. A puddle under our Ford, cracked windshield on the bus, and finally the old wagon breaking — old 2005 Subaru, which Tom was bequeathed with. After some two or three months, engine rebuilt and clutch replaced, it still emits weird sounds and we're not sure how long the old wagon is going to last.

It's rather cold on Mirror Lake this late in fall...

...but still beautiful.

Besides material loss and expenses in repairs and restoration of the house and cars, other, worse things break down, namely my health. It stated back in May with my "feet hurting". At first I attributed it to my job of a server — and lived under the apprehension that it's normal. Yet my European vacation did not alleviate my symptoms in any way, quite the contrary. I began to visit doctors, who discovered, as is their wont, a slew of problems. Besides plantar faciitis, for which there is no easier name or effective treatment, my spine is deformed and one of my spinal discs is "worn out", which compresses nerves to the lower part of my body — and, for a change — there is no effective treatment. After more than a half year of running around various doctors, I have undergone X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging, received steroid shots into my feet — which, the doctor assured me, were to be painless and should help me for at least six weeks, but perhaps for good (it hurt like hell for several days and helped for about twenty days), steroid shots under X-ray into my spine — which, the doctor assured me, were to be painless and were supposed to alleviate swollen nerves — it hurt like hell (do any of you remember teeth drilling without anesthesia? so now imagine that they're drilling your spine and your nerves hurt from the spot in the spine all the way down to your feet — just like somebody sticking a steel crowbar from your waist down through your whole leg) — and it did not help at all. Instead my whole back hurt as if I got pummeled by a baseball bat. At the follow-up, while taking my blood pressure and pulse (to my surprise it showed I still had one), a nurse asked me things like whether I show signs of depression — well, I don't know, after seven months in pain, without a noticeable result or even just a hope for an improvement, only a complete moron would stay un-depressed.

Inspector Pip.

Waiting for trees to turn to fall colors.

Unlike dishwashers and engines, spine and the nerve system, or even plantar fascia, cannot be simply bought new and replaced. With my arthritic knees I cannot reduce bending my back and perhaps squat down — whether I bend my back or my knees, the result is similar — I can't straighten up again. In the end the best thing I found is physical therapy — they don't promise miracles, but when I manage to shuffle there (sometimes literally, as I can't properly lift my feet), I usually WALK AWAY. During my first visit they had pulled my leg (literally) and then warmed me up and massaged to the point that I requested them to adopt me and let me stay there. They said they could not, so at least I go there faithfully every week, and exercise at home. And now I don't have just bad and worse days, but time to time even quite OK days, when I tell myself it may work out.

Like this.

Unlike us, the squirrel knows where to find mushrooms.

I had to reduce my trips and mountain hiking — I had my kayak through the summer, there will be Nordic skiing in winter, I hope, but fall has been tough. At work I have dropped shifts and the two or three that I am able to work per week, I try to put on slower days. I am experimenting with expedition once a week — completing dishes out of the kitchen to match their respective orders — a kind of buffer between cooks and servers. It's still an adrenaline discipline — especially during Friday night rush — just to not be boring, but I don't spend a shift at the double and don't return home completely ruined. With my goats and the homestead I still must improvise. Either one of the kids or Sid is at home, but mostly I'm on my own — so I have a routine for wheeling in hay and mixing grains and carrying water, aimed at never carrying anything too heavy, or at least not lifting it from the ground. Even Tom had to learn to do laundry now — bending down to the washer and dryer is one of my most problematic movements — to bend down for every piece of underwear, and hang it up or unfurl it, and then bend down again to the dryer, is simply something out of my reach.

Fall.

Tom on a bar.

If you made it here, please know that I'm done with wailing and the rest of the journal will be about more fun things. A dry and warm fall meant extending my kayaking season until October. Some trips were marginal, on Mirror Lake at ten thousand feet it was rather chilly, but at least I got out. On our closest Crystal Lake, the water surface kept shrinking as they drained the reservoir — the prettiest part, where the lake meanders between rocks until a kayaker reaches the mouth of Crow Creek, turned into a muddy ditch, sporting a shallow trickle in the middle, as the lake surface dropped perhaps six feet. During these trips, I gained company of Pip the pelican — who truly promenades around fishermen, lets them pet him, and carefully scrutinizes quality of the caught fish — and protects the fishermen's health by eating to non-standard ones. He is a very strict inspector, and so far no fish has passed his approval. I have also seen, this time late in the season, a blue heron — and a bald eagle on North Crow. Small fishes and crays too, and deer on the shore.

I could also watch how leaves gradually turned yellow around the lakes, and when it would be time to venture into our local woods and groves, to admire our colorful fall. With my aching back and feet, it's a bit more difficult, I must better plan and meter out my hikes, but at least I shuffled up to a few places in Sherman Mountains. By the end of October, some snow fell in the mountains — Don's forecast that I would managed to use both kayak and skis, did not quite come true, but we did get out to hike in snow. Our original plan was to drive up to Lewis Lake and then walk to Lost Lake, or perhaps all the way to Brooklyn Lake, but the dirt road to Lewis Lake was already closed for winter. We ended up taking our obligatory Lookout Lake Trail — and since Lisa has accompanied us this time, we hiked up to the saddle under Medicine Bow Peak, where she had not been before.

Our favorite trail.

At my age and in my state it's a big deal that I get anywhere at all.

On ninth of November, snow fell even in our lowland — at mere 5,833 feet — surprisingly wet snow, heavy; it caught our trees unprepared. The largest aspen in front of the house, which still had all its leaves, looked like it broke its branches, but when I carefully shook the snow off, everything seemed alright. My goaties were frowning on the snow, only Mick ventured to explore how it looks this year. I don't know why but it seems to me that he, as the only one, likes snow for some reason — he walks into snowbanks and looks smug. Perhaps because he's the fattest and furriest goats and the snow does not chill him as much? Or he remembers being a baby goat, when he could run on top of the snowbanks and not sink down to his belly — and he expects that the snow will bear him again?

A week later we let mountain cameras lure us out, and went again "up the hill". I wanted to see Mirror Lake frozen over, and snow-capped mountains, before they close the road winding across the Snowy Range Pass at 10,847 ft. We took our Ford with a four wheel drive and a reduction, ready for alpine trouble, and up to Centennial we were telling ourselves it was overcautious. But since Laramie we had seen a snow cloud over the mountains; naturally, as soon as we entered turns in the woods, we found ourselves in the cloud, and snow. And also on an unploughed road. In the spot where turns tighten a lot, we saw a car coming downhill — which, instead into the turn, continued straight to the woods. We ourselves were balancing on an icy stretch and drove on and up to a spot with a turn-off to Brooklyn Lake, with a chance to turn around, to get back to the unfortunate man to help him. Our turning was not simple, Ford skidded by its own weight alone toward the ditch, but we somehow got a grip on the road.

I was afraid that our tree that forgot to shed its leaves would end up with broken branches.

Yeti Mick chooses to walk in snow.

The poor man was crazy lucky, for in the course of his flight he missed both guardrails and trees, landed on a relatively flat meadow, and did not roll down the slope. Besides luck he was apparently sufficiently smart to not completely dig himself in the deep snow. Sid and Tom helped him to lodge some dry branches under his wheels and together with another geezer, who stopped to help, pushed him back up to the road. I watched it all from a distance — a few days before, I received my spinal shots, and was glad to stand up on my own. Naturally, a sand-spraying snowplough (finally) passed by during this rescue operation.

Meanwhile the snow shower passed on and sun came out, but despite the sunshine and the sanding, we decided to rather return to lower elevations. There we found an easy hike at the level adequate to my invalidity, which offered snow crunching underfoot and gave the yeti a boost.

Sid and Tom and the flying car.

Kids.

There were only three of us on this year's Thanksgiving. Lisa flew with James to his family in California. Still, they stopped by during the weekend before departure, and we had a family get-together. And since we don't fancy small talk in the living room, we took the youngsters to Cliffhanger Trail. We took two cars — on one hand we did not need to squeeze tight and in the afternoon we could disperse going shopping and such. Two cars also brought the advantage that we could walk down from Middle Kingdom to Volin and did not have to retrace our steps. The trail leads downstream, above my favorite part of Crystal Reservoir, but this late in November everything was very gray and gloomy. We had to improve our mood by lunch and beer at Bunkhouse. I probably forgot to mention Tom's twenty-first birthday; since October, Tom can legally drink even without parents (in Wyoming, parents can order drinks for children, so he used to have a beer occasionally with us, of course), and now he could wave at the server in Bunkhouse with his new driver license.

On Thursday, we had a festive dinner in three people. I got a message and pictures from California, where our friends were already skiing, while the disappointed yeti watched gray prairie from our window. On the following morning, Sid and Tom wanted to go hiking in Sherman Mountains and asked me about the weather — I usually look up data for this area on the pages of the Medicine Bow Nordic Association — and as I open my browser, a message pops up that they were grooming Nordic tracks! Yeti started rumbling approvingly and insisted that it did not matter that I had an evening shift, and that this should be worth trying.

It snowed on my Nordic tracks!

Sun dogs - rainbow around sun.

I had no big expectations and thus got a very pleasant surprise. There were obviously two snow layers on the ground, an over-frozen old one, and a few inches of a softer snow, but no powder (so it held together) — I ran through my most favorite "shortcuts". Those were in the end more consistent than the groomed skater portions, which were still fuzzy with grass. After an hour on skis I huffed like a steam engine, but yeti was ecstatic. So much, that he took me out again on the next day, Saturday — we tried a longer loop through Headquarters Trail — which goes in part across an exposed (to wind and sun) southern slope, and that was no win — I still did not have take off my skis, circumventing the two worst spots. During the previous season, this loop took me something about an hour and half; now I spent two hours there — well, what can I do, I must practice more. I should also rehearse some dances to attract snow, because the forecast is miserable and I don't like a gray winter at all.