Our Very Own Time-Share

I promised you all a peek into my seed starting operation, but we had so much fun this weekend that I want to share about that first. As I said in my last post, I had reserved a National Forest Service cabin about 1 1/4 hours from our home. It turned out to be even nicer than I had expected! The cabin was nicely furnished and cozy warm. The water had not been turned on for the season, so we had to haul our own, but it was not difficult.

The cabin overlooks a large meadow and the surrounding hills are lovely. We put on our cross-country skis and headed into the meadow and then into the woods. We followed several sets of tracks, some very small, which we decided must be fox, some medium, which were coyote. But
what really interested us were the large (about 4 inch in diameter) tracks.
We decided these must be wolf tracks. Later, we chatted with a ranger and he confirmed that they likely belonged to wolves. Here is a picture of one of the wolf tracks juxtaposed to the track of a ski pole. It was amazing to realize that, according to the snow fall, the three wolves had to have come by the cabin while we were there. Too bad we didn't see them or get to hear them howl.
It was so fun to see how much the kids have improved in their skiing. We went through the woods,Mr. Blueberry Eyes leading the charge much of the way. He took us over countless logs and around in circles. We found meadows, creeks, and followed tracks, trying to piece together a forest story!

Saturday afternoon we were blessed with a visit from dear friends, bringing a German Chocolate cake to celebrate The Wood Artist's birthday. They visited until evening. The rest of the time we spent playing board games with the children and reading books.

In the end, our family voted to make more frequent use of the U.S. Forest Service's cabin plan more often! It is like having your own time share - only more affordable and closer to nature!