Life in the Country

It's been interesting living out in the Sticks of Shoshone... We don't have central heating, so we've been relying on our wood stove to keep us warm. We haven't been able to make a firewood run, so we've had to make do with scrap lumber received through a personal connection. So far so good, but it hasn't been incredibly cold yet. It's been interesting standing on the porch late at night and sawing up long scraps to fit in the wood stove. There is a wild kitty that comes to visit me while I do that. I've been feeding him because our landlord trapped and moved his mother and siblings, and I worry that he's lonely and hungry. He is not afraid of the saw and often gets right in the middle of what I'm doing. I call him "Kiki." I think he's maybe two months old. The box is his little house so he can get out of the elements. I'm thinking about taking him in to get him neutered and vaccinated since I've started feeding him and sortof become responsible for him. The other night when I was cutting my wood, another kitty came out of the darkness, and it appeared to be pregnant. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do about her if she keeps coming around.

It's nice to have animal company on these late nights when the fiance is working. In addition to Kiki, we've also added another canine to our menagerie. We thought Rocky was getting lonely having moved away from my parents and their dogs, so we thought it would be a good idea to adopt another dog. A local shelter was having a Halloween event to promote vaccinations and show off their dogs, so we went to check it out. We ended up taking a juvenile German Shepard/mix on a trial basis to see if he and Rocky would get along. Rocky actually hated him at first, but now they're getting along pretty well. Shadow (new dog's name) is much more of a puppy than I thought, and he peed and pooped in the house and has been chewing everything. I think he's already getting close to being house-trained, though, which is great! He's also a super-sweet mellow teddy bear. I think he will fit into the family just fine, and we've already decided he's a keeper.

Rocky (left) and Shadow (right)

Rocky and Shadow keep me company all night, which is nice, except that Shadow wakes me up every hour or so wanting to play.

We finally got some basic channels to come in on our TV after much research and about $100 spent on an antenna and a converter box. It's really nice to just have the babble of the TV in the background while I'm futzing about the house.

We got a dryer but still have no washing machine, so it looks like I'm going to make the trip into town tonight to do some laundry. Unfortunately, the washers there are a little rough and have ruined several items of the fiance's clothing already.

The Move

Here is our new house:

We moved in on Saturday. It was actually very stress-free due to the fact that Henry's entire family helped. We went to bed exhausted, and woke up the next morning to see this:

Needless to say, we stayed inside by the fire the rest of the day, and unpacked. I was pretty disappointed because Fall is my favorite season, and it seemed like we had just passed right over it and into winter. Fortunately, the snow melted within a day or two, and the weather is pretty much back to normal.

This is what the house looks like from another angle and further away:

What the surrounding landscape looks like:

As an added bonus, there are llamas in the pasture adjacent to our backyard! They belong to the landlord. There are three females, a male, and two fairly new babies. Apparently, since llamas are from the southern hemisphere, they have their babies during our fall, which would be spring in the southern hemisphere.

The dad is the only one brave enough to get up close to us, but apparently he can also be aggressive due to the babies, so we have to be careful of him.