The Advantages Of Life In The Middle Of Nowhere

Anyone who has actually talked to me about life in Cima knows the downfalls: no stores, no services, no kids for Darcy to play with, and the recurring issues with our water supply. And, of course, we're currently in the midst of a water supply issue which has us living in Baker again temporarily (with any luck, very temporarily).

But every cloud has a silver lining, as they say, and here is ours: people living "near" each other in the middle of nowhere help each other out. Here's today's lesson.

While we are having a water crisis, our post office is having multiple crises of its own. Following the crazy snow, our M-T-W relief postmistress quit. Can't blame her. She's 83 and was snowed in for three days, not even in her own house. Last Wednesday was her last day and so our Th-F-S relief postmistress is doing the whole week for the time being.

Except that she isn't.

Her boss (not exactly sure what position she holds or where she's located) came to inspect the building and (not surprisingly, given that the toilet isn't working, among other deficiencies) told our postmistress not to come to work until further notice. As in, until the owner has brought the building up to snuff.

Today is bookmobile day. It comes every two weeks for about a half hour. Darcy loves it. I had thought about driving down to Cima and meeting it there, picking up some stuff from the house, etc., but then decided that was silly because the bookmobile comes to Baker right after Cima. But I had told our postmistress I'd be there, so I kept trying the post office number to see if I could catch her while she was there for the bookmobile. I did and she told me that I had packages she wanted me to get today given that she doesn't know the next time the post office would be open.

And here comes the advantage: my postmistress lives far from me, but we've gotten to be friends because I take Darcy down there most days to visit. It's not a busy post office. My bookmobile librarian lives very, very far from me, but we're friendly because Darcy and I rarely miss a bookmobile visit and she only gets three or four people per stop.

So my postmistress gave my packages to my librarian and they were delivered to me when we met the bookmobile in Baker. Heartwarming, isn't it?

Of course, there's still the not-so-small issue of how we're going to get our mail until the post office status is resolved. I'm hoping I can walk over to the Baker PO this afternoon and ask if they'll deliver our mail to Kelso Depot, the visitor center where Michael works. They offered and followed through on that when our post office was closed for the snow before Christmas, so I'll just hope they can do it again.

More Water Woes and Christmas Baking

So we are once more in Baker, camped out in our old house while another water issue is solved. This one is not actually AT our house, but at the source of our water, several miles away. We're unclear about the exact nature of the problem, and know only that it requires a part that is supposed to arrive tomorrow. With any luck, it will arrive very early in the day, be installed without problem, and there will be no need for elaborate testing of waters before we are allowed to go home. In the meantime, we have extremely minimal furniture in our giant former house. The upside is that it leaves me with few things to do during Darcy sleep periods, so I can go through more Christmas pictures without feeling guilty about not doing laundry or dishes or meal prep and without the temptation of television in the evenings.

One of the activities Darcy talked about before we went to NY was "painting" cookies. I had tried to explain Christmas cookie decorating to her and it left her with an excitement for painting and eating cookies. Here we are cutting the first round of cookies. Darcy's participation was minimal. Mostly, she watched. Until she got bored with watching and went to play with her trains again.

But the painting! She was so excited about doing it. She just couldn't wait. Again, until the time actually came. Then she painted the somewhat green crimped circle at the bottom right corner of the platter and stopped. That was it. Eating cookies turns out to be what she's really good at. Luckily, she can't reach very high, so her cookie consumption was able to be closely monitored. I suspect that next year will see more participation in cookie creation.

In the meantime, there's not much Darcy likes more than looking at books or being read to. Here, the cousins take advantage of the landing for a light morning read.

A Taste Of New York Christmas

We took well over 400 photos during our week in NY, so there are lots of pictures to document what was a very fun trip for all. It takes time to crop and resize and select and such, so y'all (I recently have been converted to y'all as a gender-neutral pronoun) will have to be patient. Here's a small sampling of the fun.

There was snow when we arrived, but it was actually raining on the drive home from the airport, so that snow wasn't very fun. But then we got more! Enough for some sledding, which Darcy enjoyed, as you might be able to see. The quality isn't great, but the expression is perfect.


The whole week was the Darcy-and-Liana show from morning to night. They had a lot of fun together and amused the rest of us in the process. Darcy took to standing at this corner, leaning into the dining/living room shouting, "LIANA! LIANA!" Here, they are showing off the matching Christmas dresses Grandma made them. Their footwear was not coordinated, but the hand-holding added a little extra something.

More Snow, Endless Snow

This is our post office this morning. We went out to see if we could get to our postmistress's house to check up on her and see if she felt the need to go to work. She's 83. She has earned some checking. Even with four wheel drive, we didn't attempt her road (technically, it's our road, too, but we can go the other way and it's better). Instead, I hiked in about a quarter mile to find her in her bathrobe, perfectly fine, but happy for a visit and the fruit, cheese, and crackers I brought. I hiked back out with a list of phone calls to make for her. I don't think the post office will gets lots of business today.

Getting to the post office was really fun! This is weather in which I would rather not have to get out of the car to open cattle gates. Michael thought it was amusing. He got to stay in the car.

The skies were really dramatic. I have a shot-that-got-away that would have been ridiculous if I had just angled up a little bit more. Instead, I give you the mountain top peeking out from the clouds.

Darcy was playing in deep snow during the lull between the storms. So, in other words, on Tuesday. Last night, when the snow was still blowing horizontally and it was well below freezing and dark, she insisted on going out in the snow. So we took her out, with a headlamp and all of us very bundled, figuring she'd want to come right back in. No. She was happy out there. Must be her Alaskan birth.

Once we convinced her to come in, she was red-cheeked and ready to be warmed up. Here she is standing on the washing machine being divested of her 17 layers of clothing.

The snow really is gorgeous today. The sun has pretty much banished the clouds now and we have deep blue skies. Luckily, we're staying in. Or, luckily, we don't have anywhere we need to be today 'cause we're not getting out of here in our car unless they come scrape our road again. It's all a matter of perception.

Snow! Snow! Snow!

Cima House in the snow. It takes a picture like this for me to fully appreciate how big our surrounding Joshua trees really are. The one behind the house, in particular, is just massive. They are all looking a little more substantial with their snowcaps.

Our snow seems to have ended for the day, although snow showers may continue for the next couple days. We're hoping that our road miraculously gets plowed. I'm not sure I'm holding my breath, but I don't think the Corolla would make it out in this. This picture is the scene across the road from the house. We probably have another inch on top of this.

The yuccas want to be birds of paradise, I think. Or, at least this one does. All the desert plants look very cute and out of their element all covered in snow.

Darcy likes to hug Joshua trees like this one outside our door. Today, though, she insists that she is climbing the tree, not hugging it.

Darcy didn't spend a lot of time on her feet in this afternoon's deeper snow. She found it easier to crawl and then found the remnants of the flowers she enjoyed picking this summer and fall. I don't think the mittens were welcome at this point. Fine for letting her hands stay warm while on hands and knees, but very much in the way for picking/holding flowers.

Snow Darcy!

One to three inches? Hah! We laugh at that! Darcy finds all-fours a good way to get about in the snow.

Wild Friends

Well, our snow didn't start last night as promised, but did finally arrive around 8:45 this morning. Darcy has already played in it for well over an hour. She had fun, and that was even before it started sticking.

Darcy's well asleep now, but someone else came to play in our snow!! We have had a few coyote sightings over the past couple months. There's also been scat in the yard every once in a while, too. But our coyote friend has always come and gone too quickly to get a picture. Not today! I made several short videos of him/her looking for rabbits or ground squirrels (I assume, since there was a pounce involved at one point). They were all taken out the living room window. Luckily, the blinds were already up so Darcy could watch the snow fall.

I love our wild friends! Sorry the quality's not a bit better, but our connection sometimes times out if I try to upload too many plain ol' photos at one time, so I thought I'd be safe.