There are mornings out here when the lake is so still it looks like someone ironed it overnight.

Then there are mornings when the wind hits before coffee, the dogs are barking at something nobody can see, and Arön has already started a project I didn’t know we had.

That is generally how life at the outpost works.

August has been busy in the way wilderness life usually is — not with appointments, traffic or calendars, but with wood to move, food to put away, weather to watch, equipment to fix and the constant suspicion that winter is standing just over the hill tapping its foot.

The rainbows are still rising, the garden is producing faster than I can deal with it, and somehow every flat surface in the cabin has become temporary storage for something that apparently “just needs to dry.”

We’ve eaten well, worked hard and once again proven that the shortest distance between two jobs is usually another job.

But somewhere between the chores, the smoke off the lake and the last light disappearing behind the mountains, there are those quiet moments that remind us why we chose this life in the first place.

And then something breaks.

Until next month,

Jennifer
Furthermost Outpost