Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Snow continues to fall. Straight down, like rain, not sideways as in many Minnesota storms. It gathers, soft and pillowy over stumps, rocks, steps, decks and driveways. This is wet, heavy snow and it weighs down the ponderosa branches.
In the Denver area many trees have already leafed out and the heavy snow will be hard on them. Up here though the aspen have no buds yet. The willows I mentioned the other day are in the valleys, not this high.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Dazzlejazz is a the kind of jazz joint I’ve always wanted to discover: an intimate space, good food and great music. We heard music by Claude Bolling, four pieces, a couple of folks we didn’t recognize and one composer, a Ukranian, new to us, named Nikolai Kapustin.
The listening room, where we ate, insists on turned-off cell phones and no conversation during the performances out of respect for the musicians. It appeals to me, but it does take away some of the joint nature of the place. But not much.
The first set featured a saxophone quartet. The manner of the composition echoed throughout most of the pieces. The music began in a classical vein, a slow exposition setting up a more complex rearrangement of the initial lines in movements to come. But. Rather than segue into a gavotte or an adagio or a largo the playing took off in a jazzy, sometimes discordant direction. It became plaintive and solos broke out into innovative twists. This was by a composer named Frederickson.
The next set was the Toot Suite by Bolling, trumpet backed up by a jazz trio. The pianist, in particular, was very good as was the trumpeter. Again, a slow exposition, then, a sudden crash of the drums and the piece was off. The trumpeter reminded Kate of Bradford Marsalis. All the Bolling pieces were wonderful, suites for trumpet, flute, cello and violin.
There were two surprises. The Kapustin piece had a violin and piano, both played by
young women from local universities, both Russian and charismatic. His work is worth getting to know.
The second surprise was the finale, a flamenco played on the harp by a woman introduced as expert in special methods of playing the harp. She glissandoed and strummed, then, near the end, began whacking the harp’s base as the imitated the clacking of castanets. She finished with a flourish, left hand in the air. Ole!
The food was good. The company better and the music just right.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
A couple of weeks ago we stopped at the Simms SteakHouse after seeing the Red and Brown Water at Curious Theater. Found the Steakhouse unremarkable, but our waiter told a fascinating family tale. Obviously Mexican, Felix at first observed that he came from a family with 9 sisters so he always gave a woman options. Referring to something he thought Kate might want.
He went on from there to describe his extended family. He has 100 first cousins. When I asked him if they ever got together, he said yes at the patriarch and matriarch’s ranch in the panhandle of Texas near Amarillo. Grandma was the iron law of the clan. One of her rules was never take an argument to the table. “I can fix any argument with food,” Felix said, in explaining this. After the meal is over, the argument is usually forgotten or much reduced.”
Felix, his mother and his oldest sister are the triumvirate. His word. They handle a large family fund, created by donations from all the different family groupings. “We’re basically self-insured. If someone has an unexpected medical expense, repair, that sort of thing, and don’t have enough cash, we loan them the money and work out a payment plan.” This fund also covers the cost of family gatherings at the ranch.
Felix has a restaurant style kitchen in a large dining hall there and he does all the cooking. Before a gathering he announces a menu, the cost and the money flows before the event. At a family reunion, only parts of the family come at any one time, though every seven years they do have a whole family affair, a relative blocks out rooms at a local hotel. “Sometimes every guest at the hotel is a member of my family.”
They organize a shuttle between the hotel and the ranch. Others can stay at the RV park they have built on this 40 acre ranch.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Light and shade photographs. Every hour I’m taking shots of our yard, searching for duration of sunlight at given spots. Vegetables need around 8 hours, a pretty high standard for most yards with trees and buildings. Some flowers and other perennials can get by with less, some thriving in part shade.
Of course, there are other factors at play here, too. One is that we’re closer to the sun and have less atmosphere to block out the UV radiation, so plants can burn. Another is that we’re west of the 20 inches of moisture per year line, meaning that in most years we get less than that. Vegetables, again, need plenty of water. Witness the struggle going on in California’s Central Valley to keep the farms watered. Most flowers and perennials can get by with less than vegetables and here in the West there are many species and varieties already adapted to the xeric environment. That’s what we’ll be looking for when it comes to plantings for aesthetics.
As or more important than all of these are temperature fluctuation and maximum temperatures. Temperature fluctuations can be extreme here, but they’re not a huge problem as long as they remain above 32. The average last frost here is early June and the average first frost around September 20th. Maximum temperatures can interact with aridity and UV exposure to increase the likelihood of burning plants. Also, some vegetables, notably tomatoes, need sustained warmth to fruit.
Not sure how much we’re going to get done this year, probably reconnoiter, meet others who garden up here, try a few things. Next year will be bees and garden. Of course, we still have to sell that Andover house.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Gabe and I had an adventure yesterday. We went to the Agro Mine Tour, ate lunch at Beau Jo’s Pizza in Idaho Springs and finished off the day with a soporific soak at the Indian Hot Springs, also in Idaho Springs.
The mine tour itself is a cheesy, tourist-trappy thing with a clunky video, corny presentations and a self-guided tour after that. Still, the Double Eagle Mine, Gage is at its face (end) in this photo is remarkable in that it was dug by hand, by two men over the course of one year. About three hundred feet long, maybe five and a half feet tall and about 4 feet or so in width, it’s a monument to persistence, if nothing else.
The rest of the tour focuses not on a mine, but on the Agro mill, which in its prime, produced $100,000,000 worth of gold when gold was at $18-35 an ounce. It was fed by the Agro tunnel, a 4.5 mile tunnel dug through solid rock to remove waste water from various mines and to create a small railroad to deliver ore buckets to the Agro mill.
The Agro mill closed in 1943 when, on the last blast of the day, four unlucky miners 
dynamited a wall holding back water filling up an abandoned silver mine. The resulting flood geysered water from the tunnel for 9 hours. In addition to killing the miners the flood weakened walls and caused cave-ins along the tunnels length making the railroad tracks no longer usable.
The mill itself went down in stairstep like levels since most of the work proceeded through the aid of gravity. The Agro tunnel fed ore in from the top of the mill and the processing went in stages toward the bottom. A structure made of wood it looked like an unsafe place to have worked.
Idaho Springs is about 30 minutes outside of Denver to the west and well into the mountains. The Colorado Mineral Belt, which begins in the San Juan Mountains in the far southern part of the state, makes an arc up through Leadville and finds its terminus just a bit further north from Idaho Springs. Along this arc lie most of the mines in Colorado, many of them producing, like the mines the Agro Mill serviced gold, silver, copper, lead and zinc. Some have molybdenum and other metals. There’s a big, working molybdenum mine outside of Leadville.
Idaho Springs is a tourist town, primarily, located on either side of a long main street paralleling I-70. It has some residential housing, but not much. Service stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants, curio shops, a knife shop, a hardware store which sells gold panning supplies, that sort of thing.
And the Indian Hot Springs. The facilities, both the main building and the adjoining motel, saw their better days many years ago. The springs, though, deliver. Gabe and I swam in a large pool of water, 100 degrees +. There are, too, hot springs caves, a men’s and a women’s cave where clothing is optional. Kids under 16 are not allowed in the caves.
After all that, it was back to Denver and a quick exit so Grandpop could beat the rush hour traffic on the way home.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
Into Denver to the Village Inn last night to play sheepshead. We had 10 people, so two tables of five which is ideal. Not sure whether I’m more timid in a new group, got bad cards or am just playing poorly, but I got clobbered last night. Disappointed. Let it get to me on the way home. Disappointed in that, too.
Putting it out there like that helps me see the evening more clearly. I go for fun and come back unhappy? Hmmm. Something’s not right there. With my attitude. I do miss my old sheepshead gang, the three ex-Jesuits: Bill, Ed and Dick and the Dorothy Day Catholic, Roy. We had a solid, human bond.
The Village Inn is in Denver, just past I-25 on Colorado Boulevard. It collects loners. A goth girl with a bumper-stickered laptop, a Chinese man and his autistic brother, “I would like 4 crackers. Could I have 4 crackers, please? I need 4 crackers.” A guy with a bad comb over, denim ranch jacket, looking at his philly steak sandwich with careful intent.
It also hosts, on Friday evenings, two different groups of card players, ours and a pinochle, canasta crowd that always has the table set in a small alcove. We end up with a round table, plus a couple of other tables. The atmosphere is one of faint urban desperation decorated with bright colors and cheery waitresses.
The sheepshead crowd is Polish Catholic Church for Wisconsinites and their friends. We come together, talk about the Packers, use German language terms like schneider and maurer, and play this odd game. Could be Milwaukee or Wittenberg or Sturgeon Bay. For two or three hours. Then it’s back to Colorado and Shadow Mountain.
Spring Mountain Spring Moon
This weather. When I came up to the loft at 6 am, it was cool, but clear. When I went downstairs for breakfast at about 7:15, there was about an inch of snow on the deck. It’s thick, white light flakes falling now, coating the branches of the Ponderosas and collecting, again, on the deck. I cleared it about 15 minutes ago.
Whatever happens will not be a problem because the temps will rebound into the 50’s and 60’s starting tomorrow. When I asked Kate what were the things she liked most about living here so far, among them she said, “The weather.” The weather, which I also like, has surprised me the most.
Spring, Mountain Spring Moon.
The Latin work has begun to change, moving toward more careful, yet faster translation, a new novel is underway and my exercise program has altered. So, too, is this blog undergoing change. I don’t anticipate much difference in the work I do here, but the form needs to reflect a new reality, Colorado home.
The mountains, the plants, the animals of this Western state press increasingly into our minds: scissor-tailed flycatchers, the fat fox, mule deer, mountain lions, Ponderosa and Lodgepole pine, Shadow Mountain, Black Mountain, Mt. Evans, Conifer Mountain. The drives into Denver, to Evergreen, to Aspen Park, toward the Kenosha Pass.
When the travelers have settled, the way will appear.
Imbolc Mountain Spring Moon
Imbolc slides into its next year spot on the Great Wheel tomorrow, as the Spring equinox returns. Imbolc is the transition season between the harsh mid-winter and the wild weather that precedes the growing season.
This Imbolc was mainly a settling in time for Kate and me. It began on February 1st, following Winter, or Yule, which came the day we moved into Black Mountain Drive. We were still wrassling boxes as it began, though their numbers had begun to dwindle and the remaining ones were put away behind closed doors to await more clement weather.
We did have two parties here, one on February 14th, my 68th, and another last Sunday for Celtic pride. They were in keeping with the spirit of Imbolc, that period of a lamb-in-the-belly, when ewes freshen and Spring, 1896 by Denis, Maurice (1870-1943) begin to give milk. Like the lamb-in-the-belly those parties represent a still gestating immersion into the Shadow Mountain neighborhood and the changing, warming relationships with family. Both should begin to flourish in Spring and blossom in Beltane.
This Imbolc has also seen Kate back to her quilting, finishing the work on my quilt which now covers my side of the bed along with several other projects, and my return to Latin and to writing.
Following the fallow, cardboard dominated winter, Imbolc saw, as it can, the signs of new life and the continuation of parts of the old. Spring will see this all this quicken and brighten. I’m ready for it.
Imbolc Black Mountain Moon
Drove down Shadow Mountain on Brook Forest Drive. We wondered what it will look like with the snow melted, gone. The mountain scenes change much more often than I would have thought with snow, ice, hoar frost, melting, fog, early morning mists and evening. We have three quarters of a year yet, the Great Wheel yet to turn through spring, summer and fall. There will be green, flowers, dry dusty days with fear of fire and times of aspened yellow.
On to the Wildflower Cafe where we learned that Christa, the tall blond who now recognizes us and brings us coffee right away (we’re their first Saturday morning customers), worked as a bartender at Lord Fletchers for a couple of years while her sister lived in Waconia. The sister moved to Colorado and so did Christa. Minnesota connections abound here: the park ranger for the Pike National Forest from Hastings, a neighbor here from the ‘burbs of Minneapolis. Others whose particulars I don’t recall.
Back up Brook Forest Drive in the oncoming morning, a fierce sun appearing every so often through a notch in a mountain or a small valley, then back into the shade, driving through the Arapaho National Forest.