Seize the day or die regretting the time you lost.

Yesterday Chris and I spent a few hours tromping around the woods, making a quarter-hectare plot, recording which trees had cavities, damage from sap sucking, or fungus. It's a little confusing to keep track of the trees sometimes, but I'm sure that will get easier as I go. He doesn't mind that I take a little longer as long as I am meticulous (which might as well be my middle name). Speed will come in time.

Then, we visited Matt in his cabin and made plans to meet up and eat Mexican. I brought Sonja with me and we all piled in Kevin's Jeep. But when we got there, we realized that apparently they are closed on Wednesdays. So we found another place that doesn't really specialize in anything, has a little of everything, and I ordered a fish taco since I failed to get one when I was in San Diego. It was alright. The fish-salsa combination was a little weird. We saw a porcupine, deer, and a mother elk on our way back up to the lab, and heard three different packs of coyotes yelling at each other. Chris tried wolf howling to get them going again, but they stayed quiet. The elk, however, freaked out. Poor thing.

Starting a fire last night was a little easier than the night before because our kindling was dryer. I woke up randomly at 2 am and tried to start it back up again and failed so I tried to go back to bed. But I couldn't sleep, so I went to the bathroom, came back, and still didn't sleep until after 3. I did take a moment when I was outside to enjoy the night-time scenery, which I hadn't seen until then. The mountains are all around us here, and some parts were cloudy, but the clouds were lit by an almost-full moon, which must have dipped behind a mountain. All the stars were out. You could see the milky way. I cannot possibly convey the beauty of it all - the silhouetted trees and the power of the dark mountains with shimmering blue snow, and the clouds barely obstructing this view of the universe, which is so clear with no city lights for miles.

Speaking of peeing, I just realized yesterday that there's an outhouse RIGHT outside our cabin. No more having to walk a long ways in the cold to pee, yay! It was hidden by pine trees, which I'm sure were planted there just to hide the outhouse from us. Tricksy hobbitses.

Sonja had to get up at 6, and I don't have to get up til 8. So when I did get up, of course it was freezing in here, and warmer outside with the sun out. So I opened the doors to let light and warm air in and made myself a bowl of cereal. When I opened the side door next to my dresser and laptop, there was a hummingbird right at face level about five feet away, looking at me expectantly as though he'd knocked and I was late to answer. That was fun to see! And then I also saw three chipmunks eating grass and flowers in front of my porch steps. They are cute. I'm assuming today that Chris and I will do the same thing as yesterday in a different place.

Song stuck in head: "Seize the Day" - Avenged Sevenfold