Some days we wait, other days we run to catch up. I forgot what it feels like to sit back and wait for the world to catch me. Or is it only in moments of foolish pride that I feel that could possibly be the case?

Summer. The calendar says it’s still a week away, but I say it’s here now. The ranch is filled with laugher of children, and if there is one sound that fills me with joy after the sounds I’m used to of the mountain’s silence, children’s laugher is it. Many children. Last I heard, there were sixty or so. The pup thinks they are all here for him, and revels the attention as he fetches his football tossed by many an eager child unwinding in the soft light of late afternoon.

And in the middle of the laughter and ball playing and sunny city smiles letting loose in the high mountain air, we’re banging away as usual – never the sorts to sit back and soak and take the summer off, but more comfortable with our role of building, providing, creating the place and space.

And tired as I am some days when a bath and bed seem so attractive yet still out of reach, I look around at these smiles, and the ensuing smiles of my own boys, and I’ll stick with Forrest’s expression: sleep is overrated.

Oh, and for Karen and those waiting news on Forrest’s mare, well, we’re still waiting. Now into her seventh day of “waxing” when I’ve never seen a mare take more than two. But waiting is a wonderful thing in this case, as it brings me alone and silent, with the pup at my side, staring up at Pole Mountain illuminated under the cold deep glow of the setting moon in the otherwise darkness of the frosty morning.