The Farm...

Chicken Hilton!

We call this little hippie camp, it's in the front yard of the house. We bought some old lumber to build on that and the green house.

View from the deck of house onto the lower yard. At the bottom (you can't see, there are 4 beds and soon to be a green house that we are building)

The view from the coast...not too far from our house. This is where we go to surf.

cheaper than paper towels...kind of!

I made my first pie ever...apple blackberry lavender pie. All from the garden and the crust from scratch! After the pie, I made my first quiche ever...kale with veggies! And crust from scratch, naturally! I spilled some of the egg and milk when making the quiche, so I just put pika on the counter for a treat for her, and an easy clean up for me!

The Farm

I guess it's officially a Farm now! We got chickens today. 5 hens, soon to be named after historical political people (we thought that would be a funny motif)!
The veggie beds are only 2 of 8, plus 3 gardens that border the house that are veggie and medicinal herbs and other perennials. I have my hands full! I try to cook with what we grow, we have lots of apple trees that surround the property, and a friend that owns Mark West Vineyard gave us this huge old wine press (I will get pics of it, it's classic)...so we made apple cider! So delicious! We've been jarring it in old juice jugs for now. I'm learning how to save seeds from all the plants as well as learning how to can, and dehydrate! I can't believe how fun and rewarding this is!!! Living off the land...what a brilliant idea! I've been non-stop baking, and starting to write articles about my gardening experience for the company. I love this climate, I didn't know how to explain it other than "perfect"...but someone told me today that this place is the "land that's always Spring". YES, that's what it is, it's Spring all year round! the bottom pics are of the girls being VERY curious about the chickens! I will do a post of the outlay of garden and chicken coop! Max made the coop from scratch-its beautiful!

Family Photo

The Old Redwood Grove is our evening walk about for the doggies! It's right near the house and its sooooo cool~

My new favorite multi sport day: Surfing and Climbing!

my surfboard...I love her
heading to those rocks to climb them



Surfed in the morning with Max, then met up with my friend from Jackson that was passing through on travels. We went and had a great afternoon, climbing on some rock by the seashore! Then back to my place for some home cooking and a bottle of Organic Syrah!

Then and Now

I'm done with Winter!

Making Videos!

I must have been confused for 16 years!

I'm a skier again, and loving it. Why did I ever snowboard?!

I like Rock!

Why do I like rock climbing?

Because:
*You're solving a problem only you can figure out, it's between you and the rock. It's like a game of chess. And everytime you play, you play it differently.
*It takes as long as you need, and the calmer you are, the faster you find the perfect answer.
*You live IN the moment, not the next, or tomorrow, or yesterday....it's all vivid in that second and that minute...it's sureal and all so real at the same time!
*You get to conquer a fear...a fear of dying or getting hurt and also a fear that the rock will WIN!
*Seeing a rock face, realistically it looks impossible...then making it possible-a feeling that can't be explained properly.

A day to myself-a day to remember

You ever need a day to yourself-to be in your own mind? Well I do, and I had the urge to get up at 3am and go for a glacier ski in the park. Great sunrise, alright turns, but I needed to be alone, think, and get my hike on!

I was back at my car by 10:30am, but as I was hiking down, bumped into some hikers that said there was a missing woman on the Middle Teton (which i was skiing under and saw the helis out) (seeing helis in the park is NEVER good). I kept hiking and a storm started brewing...when i say storm, i mean a barreling thunder/lightning storm that was shaking the ground. I was at my car before the rain hit me, but man it took over the entire park! As I drove back to town, I see people pulled over watching the lightning storm show.

There were 16 people trying to summit the Grand (different parties) when the storm came. They were not paying attention to the weather and thought that it would pass them. A: this angers me b/c-it never passes the Tetons. Those peaks are magnets for bad weather. B: They obviously didn't do their research weather prior to entering park-bad form for any mountaineer.

(the most important trait for a mountaineer-humbleness and humility
-humbleness for letting those mountains win every time-they are bigger and will gobble up anyone they so choose if they aren't respectful
-humility to not summit something. Just because you are more than half way doesn't mean you should push through and summit-bad feeling=TURN AROUND. Live to summit another day...shit it took me 3 tries to summit the Grand in a summer!

that's my rant!!

Anyway...the storm hit and search and rescue stopped searching for lost woman on Middle to rescue the groups on Grand. All were rescued except for one boy...who was shot with lightning while on rope and the rope exploded and he fell to his death. Others were electrocuted but maintained until they were helicoptered off===the Biggest Rescue in TETON HISTORY!!

Please don't worry about me-I'm confident in my skills, guts and FEAR!! Fear keeps me alive! My guts make the final decisions and my skills allow me to execute the moves required to stay safe and move efficiently!

Rock Springs Buttress Climbin (on Jackson Hole Mtn-Backcountry)

My 29th