Headin' For The Hills

We've been up in the mountains playing around the past couple weeks...trying to find a deer to fill our freezer. Steve has a bow tag and right now, all he's allowed to hunt are bucks. So, of course that would mean that all we've seen are does and fawns. Weeks and weeks and no bucks. I'm convinced the deer have found a way to reproduce without males--like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. It's the only logical explanation why we've seen a hundred does and no bucks!

It's been pretty fun though. Lily likes riding around in the back seat of the cab, bouncing around, saying, "COW, wh'are yoooo!?!" (We see cows up there all the time, so that's what she thinks we're looking for.) It's pretty cute. Lily has discovered a way to take a nap on the bumpy, dirt roads that we drive on. I've been up in those hills MANY times and have yet to master the art of napping while four-wheeling. You'd be surprised how exhausting it can be riding around, bobbing up and down for hours and hours.

There was a big fire up here this past summer. They called it the Neola fire, which is where it started. But it went all over the mountains where we've been going. We got some pretty good pictures of the devastation it left. Although, the pictures really don't do it any justice. When you're up in it, it's pretty eerie. What looks really cool is all the blackened trees and forest floor with little, bright green plants coming up. The little plants just look so happy in front of their dreery backdrop. And I have to say, the smell is awesome! I mean, if you like the camp fire smell...we're talking grand-daddy of campfires.