En Casa

Poppi is set up out front in a sad kind of way. We are slowly transferring our life inside to our new home. For two weeks now we have been living INSIDE . It's kind of strange....... a real house with windows that don't zipper shut, a full size refrigerator with a freezer (!), our own bedrooms, closets, and flushing toilets. Our square footage has increased dramatically, and with it, the complexity or our lives. Chris starts work in a week, and the kids are off to a new school Friday.

A new life is out there to become part of, but for now we are in a surreal space of Olympics and boxes. Perched on this new life, there is a deep longing to continue on our journey (for some of us!). I understand now the families that took off for a few months, and never went back. Money is the most obvious barrier, but there is also a promise of stability that we have made to our children. Not everyone can stay with the life on the road....Teslin for one, is SOOOO happy to have a home. She was the first to set up her room and now has two new gerbil friends to keep her company. The fact that she knows nothing of Northern New Mexico does not phase her. In a way, settling in an entirely new community in a new part of the country feels like a continuation of our travels.....it is a huge adventure. Perhaps such a large move was made easier having traveled for a year.

So here we are, nestled in the bosom of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. It is beautiful here....we are very remote, perhaps too remote, but it is very peaceful. The most action we get is from the female hummingbirds bombing each other at the feeders. We have rufous-sided and broad tailed hummers, barn swallows nesting in the eaves over the large window in the living room, and countless siskins, lesser goldfinches and grosbeaks. There are spotted towhees and Lewis's woodpeckers, red-shafted flickers and an occasional chickadee. It seems that the migrations are starting since huge numbers of swallows are gathering. On a walk last night we saw 8 Lewis woodpeckers in one tree. We finally got Cassidy's room painted yesterday and he is all set up in the bird room facing the feeders that are in the cottonwood grove. All is strangely well!

Anny

Our family is as tight as ever. Teslin has 2 new gerbil friends (see her blog for details: sillyfillysblog.blogspot.com ), Cassidy is getting a breeding pair of parakeets this week, and we are looking for a puppy.