We sent a couple days this week up at our cabin helping my dad clear some felled trees. It was good to get out and do some physical work again, I've spent too much time this summer messing around with and recuperating from my surgery. But apparently going much of the summer without hardly putting on my work boots has allowed my feet to soften. I have one good sized blister and one pretty good sore spot on the other foot, but it was worth it. As much as I love sitting at my computer working on the websites, I think I'm still enough of a country boy that I relish the occasional opportunity to get outside and work until I just can't work anymore. There is something surprisingly cathartic about physical labor, and sometimes I miss the hard work of ranching more than I thought I would.
Despite the threat of hungry bears and the frosty cold of the mountain fall, Sophia loved our time at the cabin. She is still too small to help (even if she doesn't think so), so Ruth gave her wheelbarrow rides between loads of cut firewood. The two of them also spent hours collecting bits of moss and lichen and examining all of the mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Each time we'd try to take her back inside Sophia would throw a fit, which was quite irritating, but at least I'd much rather her want to be outside than have a tantrum from wanting to stay inside. I don't know if it is the hardy Montanan blood flowing through her veins, or the fact that we took her tent camping for the first time at two months old, but that daughter of ours is a veritable dryad. I couldn't be more proud.