Last Day

 The boys pulled an all-nighter at the firepit last night.

We heard them at 1:30 a.m. then when they mimicked the coyotes a few hours later and finally they packed it up at 5:37 a.m. when the sun back lit the mountains, and the sky started to get light.

Dan was tempted to tell them to call it a night earlier, 

but I convinced him they'd worked so hard this whole week, they needed to be free to stay up all night if they wanted to. It's fun! 

Turns out it was Noah's first all-nighter. Pretty great.

Last night Dan and I put the telescope together. Assembling it wasn't difficult, 

but the next part of "aligning" and "slewing" was very challenging to understand.

The directions and youtube videos were clearly created for people 

who had experience in telescope viewing!

It was also freezing outside so we'd go out and try to focus on the moon, not have luck 

and have to go back inside to read the manual again and watch another video and warm up.

But today, we finally figured it out, focusing on the chimney on the house across the hill 

to align the finder and the telescope. It was very cool seeing needles on the pines from so far away!

Part 1, check.

We were going to align the stars at night, but it was a violently windy day and the sky was hazy at night.

Next time.

Cows arrived next door and Kershaw sprinted across the property to bark at them.

I've never seen him run so far that fast!

All the cows came to watch. Dozens from both sides of the hill also came to get in on the excitement.

I went to town to buy a couple more things and had the best visit with the antiques dealer

at "Feather My Nest" on Piedra Road. She's got a guy that can get pretty much anything and we've got a potential bookcase from an old plate hutch that fits exactly perfectly in the space.

I just have to wait until August when he comes back to town to buy it.

Feels good to be moved in. 

I don't want to leave, but I'm glad to be going home because my brain needs a break from 

thinking about everything I'd like to get done here.

Time to rest. We'll be back in two weeks. That's not too long to wait.