winter time river exploring

we headed up to the cabin this weekend to enjoy three days of chilly bliss. when we arrived on friday morning it was a frigid 35 degrees *inside* the cabin! al got the fire going while i unpacked food, then he took off for his last dive of the season. i alternated between homework and adding logs to the fire, and finally got it nice a toasty inside. that evening we finally tried to the underwood bar and bistro, and our cocktails and burgers at the bar were heaven.


during our saturday walk at steelhead beach, we found a hachiya persimmon tree and filled our pockets. i'll make persimmon pudding in a week or so when they are ripe. it felt really jungly with the bamboo and overgrowth. next we headed out to hop kiln to load up on their horseradish mustard, but when the skies became dark and another set of rained rolled in we found ourselves sipping wine.


sunday we packed some lunch and went off to find the where dry creek and the russian river meet. this was harder than we thought even with our fishing hole map, so we paid a visit to lambert bridge winery for a little warm up. they gave us a tip on how to get to dry creek, and we bought a bottle of their 2008 zin. we soon found the river and creek meeting place, saw a beautiful sky and a this very sad sight.


now we're back home to work and school. tomorrow is my last day working for the next year. i've decided to increase my school load so i can get this program done! i'm really working at making myself feel at peace with this choice, it feels like such a strange time to give up a job! but alas, the decision has been made and all will be fine.

yurit

well here it is again, months since i've posted last. that's sad. work is busy and school just has me heads down all the time. i'm on the computer so much that i don't even want to post on here because it's just another 6 minutes on the computer.

it's definitely spring at the cabin. the last few weekends up there are all about fruit tree blooms, porch sittin', grilling dinner, and trying to get in some relaxation. al went to ridge and got us a case of their 2007 carignane so sitting on the porch with a cheese plate and a glass is rounding me out a bit.

yetti moved away, and i've been missing him, but last weekend a new friend came around. he's another young kitty, full grown, but so obviously a kitty still. he just hung out with us, talked to us, and tripped us trying desperately to get close to us as we walked around outside. we finally started to play "you're it" with him to see who could pass by without being rubbed on, and decided on his new name.

fall at the river

i haven't been up to the cabin in a long time, it feels like two months, but it might be less than that. the light is gorgeous up there now, and the weather was really great this weekend. i didn't work on my paper as i had planned, but there's always tomorrow. i actually relaxed and enjoyed it. i made this bouquet out of our winter yard, complete with figs and mushrooms.




we finally went wine tasting for the first time and found two great wineries; lambert bridge and hop kiln, then stumbled onto the dry creek general store. got some great photos down on mother's beach.





i'm planning our next trip, post holidays and school, when i have absolutely nothing to do but read, drink wine, and walk around the woods.