Since Owen and Mila with our darling grandchildren, Hannah, Vernon, Robert, and baby Gideon are staying at our log cabin through the summer and beyond, we have rented a cute cabin 1/2 mile away from them. We will be living here for 4-5 months….until our littlest grandson has the surgery required to fix the hole in his heart.
The cabin we are renting is high in the pine trees overlooking the Cool Pines neighborhood. When we sit on our back deck we see Strawberry Mountain towering high above the little valley below us. And as we relax and enjoy this world before us, we are on the same level as the bird nests high in the pine trees. For this reason (and because we love each other so very much), we have named this cabin our Love Nest!
Our first morning we were excited to hike our favorite loop on the Pine-Strawberry Trail.
A gigantic century plant budding out….one of the few century plants that a hungry elk didn’t break the stalk off and eat it in early spring.
Two more century plants….
The Heart Rock Tree….several years ago someone put a heart-shaped rock in a notch in this old juniper pinyon. And now the tree has heart rocks in every possible crook and cranny!
So of course we added a shell fossil heart-shaped rock that we had found while hiking a few years ago on top of the Mogollon Rim. Every time we go by the Heart Rock Tree we make sure that our special heart rock is still wedged into the crack of the trunk.
Here is our 50 million year old fossilized shell heart-shaped rock….it’s the 6th rock up from the bottom in this photo.
We hadn’t hiked this loop for seven months, let alone any mountain trails all winter long—and last summer it took us three months to hike it as fast as we did this year on our first try.
Neither of us were even wiped out after our hike. In fact, we had so much energy that we headed over to the cabin to play with our grandchildren….oh, and to see Owen and Mila too!
Hannah was making breakfast. She informed us that she makes breakfast five days a week and that she is “learning how to be a wife.” We all sat down to breakfast and Vernon said a prayer. He had four helpings of oatmeal, Robert had three helpings, and Grandpa had two. Hannah’s oatmeal was delicious!
The children discovered the first prickly pear cactus blossom this spring….and spent time duly admiring the yellow blossom and the tiny flying bug that was gathering nectar from the blossoms. Hannah thought that perhaps it was a baby hummingbird. And she was right…this tiny 1/4” bug did beat its tiny wings as fast as a hummingbird’s wings flutter!
They were quite upset that an elk (or perhaps the large black bear that has been visiting lately) had smashed a tiny baby prickly pear baby cactus that they had found last fall, and had protected by surrounding it with rocks.
Upon seeing the beautiful blossom that this (in their word) “pokey” cactus produces, all three children now knew why I had asked them to take care of all the prickly pear cactus on the property. They were truly in awe of the miracle before their eyes.
More fun at the cabin on the swing that Papa made them for Christmas….
Teaching Vernon and Robert how to keep the swinging on their own….
Our littlest grand baby is not just smiling…..
….he’s laughing!
It is so good to be back in our high desert mountains….and cozily nestled in our Love Nest!
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