I know that most people are in the midst of summer heat. I am cold in the morning, cool during the day, and very chilly in the evenings. There has been rain, wind, and hail on an almost daily basis. I layer up in the mornings and warm up my hands and face over the propane stove as I make coffee. When the sun breaks through the clouds I dash out on a walk with the podcast of TED Talks. Sometimes at 7 am, sometimes at 7 pm. The photograph below was a short break in pouring rain as I walked back to the truck.

Then there are the morning walks….

When there is any sun I am thrilled with the mushrooms I find on the forest floor.This rain has been very generous. There are mushrooms everywhere. There are also chipmunks everywhere. They love to jump on the truck tires, then into the truck bed and get into food. The first suggestion, to prevent them from invading, was mothballs. Didn’t work. The next suggestion was dryer sheets. That didn’t work. The next suggestion was a slingshot. I can’t hit them worth a darn. They just look at me, insulted. The last suggestion was essence of peppermint on cotton balls. That is not working, either. The inside of the truck now smells like grandma’s closet mixed with a funky laundromat and a candy store. And they keep coming.

This is a 1972 Cox trailer that was camped in the Burro Bridge Campground for a few days. Used every summer. The sides fold up into a tiny package.

From March to June I kept butter for a long time with no deterioration. When I moved up to 9,107′ things went bad. The extreme temperature changes created condensation, which created the mess you see below.
I am saving this. I am hoping that it will turn into a tasty cheese at some point. I am going to skip butter until I figure out a way to insulate it from the temperature changes or I move.

Quiet days in the campground nowadays. Kids are going back to school, parents are going back to work. I clean the toilets and stay out of the rain and read. Yummy days!