The Drunken Bear

  It is so sad to see the old Bush House in Index loose its' glory. Many a good time and meal were had here. Hopefully it can be saved.

Steve and I were working on the cabin, but had to attend the Index Arts Festival. This is one of my favorite artists, Patrick Woods and a piece of his finished work. He puts his headphones on, has a brush in each hand, and just goes at it. He is fascinating to watch.

When the fog moves in, you can really find the taller trees. You don't notice them so much when they blend in with the other trees.

Robert Wisdom, Rich Holliday, and Mike U. Mike Osterman, Ronnie Lundgren, and Robert Wisdom Rich Holliday Joseph "Yoey" Radoslovich Ronnie relaxing and catching some rays on the rock beach. Mike Osterman Ronnie Lundgren toasting a bagel at breakfast. Joseph, Mike, and Ronnie hearing another funny campfire story. Mike U. and Rich enjoying the fire. Our friends, Mike Osterman and Ronnie Lundgren, were in Seattle on a visit from Stockholm. This was a great opportunity to have a party for them at The Drunken Bear.  The weather was perfect for the entire weekend.  Some of us walked into the town of Index and had a coffee at the Outdoor Adventures Center...highly recommended.  Others went for a swim in the river.  Most of the weekend was spent around the campfire with lots of laughter and stories of enlightenment.

  We have a bird feeder set up that has to be filled every time we go to the cabin. We think the Stellar jays get most of the food, but there are also a lot of finches and warblers that seem to get their fair share

This is one of the peaks we see while sitting around the campfire. There is a large rock formation that is continually loosing material...at least in our minds. The fog around the mountains is always fascinating also.

Unknown, but beautiful bug found crawling on our temporary front stairs.

The Digitalis (Fox Glove) were huge and plentiful this year. They were really beautiful. After they finished blooming, we scattered their seeds so hopefully we will have more in the future.

Another unplanned project was caused by our lovely robins. In their efforts to find a dry spot to lay their eggs, they chose the inside of our cabin. When we arrived, we found all kinds of materials for building a nest scattered throughout the cabin...along with good ol' bird poop. We knew we had to remove the nests or we would have a huge mess on our hands. After removing the nests, we had to put up temporary material to make sure the birds could not get back inside. There was a lot of space to cover and not much other work got accomplished on this particular day.

While working, we would hear this tap, tap, tap. It turned out to be a woodpecker and it was tapping on the satelite dish on the neighbor's property. These pictures show the woodpecker sitting atop the metal posts of the gazebo after it had pecked on them. Someone told us this was to attract the attention of a mate.

Two opposing pictures...one looking back at the cabin from the river and the other, looking towards the river from the cabin.

One of these days I will have to learn the names of all the peaks around us. These show a late spring snow fall. If you enlarge the close-up, you can see the snow covered trees. Viewing these on a hot day here in Seattle seems to cool me down some.

The rafters were stopping just west of us for their lunch break.

Some of the rafters floating by on the river below The Drunken Bear. These were taken in May, before the river level dropped.

View from the town of Index showing the well traveled railroad bridge with Mt Index and surrounding mountains.

One of the other projects accomplished was putting on the skirt around the house. I know that is not the correct wordage, but you can get the idea. It hides the hardware used to secure the cabin to the foundation and gives the cabin a more finished look.

It has been over a year since I have posted here. So much has happened in that time period. I will try to keep it brief and then hopefully add more entries in the coming months.   Both Steve and I went on major vacations during the winter, Steve to Bhutan and myself to Kenya. Of course not much work gets done on the cabin during the winter...at least until the cabin is totally enclosed. We have done many things on the cabin, but the major work we have been doing is working on the electricity. Once again, I have to hand it to Steve for knowing what to do. If he doesn't know the answer, he has a handy manual to help him along. We are almost to the point of getting our next inspection...rough in of the electrical and plumbing work. It will be so nice to finally have this part of the cabin finished so that we can have electricity other than from an extension cord that is run from the power pole outside. That, and having a usable bathroom will be heaven. Of course, we always have t...