Category Archives: Colorado

Six Weeks In

January 30, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

After a bitter and snowy introduction to Colorado, followed by a milder, but still snowy time, we’ve experienced mild temperatures and dry weather. This doesn’t look likely to change soon either. Not only do the western slope snows drive the ski and snowboard resorts, the total snowfall has a huge impact on that most Western of issues: water. Dry winter weather makes people twitchy here, even though ski resorts report good numbers so far.

Six weeks in the settling in part of our home work has advanced a good bit. Kate’s sewing area has begun to take shape and is free of cardboard for the most part. The reading room/dining room area is free of cardboard, too, as are the living room and master bedroom. The garage still has most of its contents in boxes, a task we’re saving until more clement weather.

My loft only has DVD’s in boxes and boxes that were misplaced during the move and now need to migrate downstairs. Since Jon and I discussed the built-in bookshelves, I’ve shifted my work with the books from shelving them in anticipation of a permanent location to clumping them on shelves according to content. This will allow me access to the books by category, while making it much easier to move them to make way for carpentry.

When packing, I had to pack the books by size, now they have to be sorted back into meaningful agglomerations. That’s taking a while, as you might expect.

We’ve already come to love our mountain home, neighborhood and area. It’s a unique area with a distinct sense of place. Our family life here has begun slowly, but we’re here now. Slow is good.

Colorado, Cooking, Jefferson County, Mountains, The West

The Fort

January 30, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Took my sweetheart out to eat last night. We went to The Fort. This unusual restaurant is about 30 minutes from Conifer in Morrison, near the Red Rocks Amphitheater. It began as a suburban foothills home, but when the cost of the adobe construction began to exceed budget the lower level became a restaurant, The Fort, and the upper level family living space.

The Fort models itself to some extent on Bent’s Fort, a trading post that was “the only major white American permanent settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements” according to Wikipedia. (Bent’s Fort reconstruction)

In addition to the adobe facade the Fort took as its guide the cuisine available in the 1830’s along the Santa Fe trail and served at Bent’s Fort.

Kate and I chose their game plate: “Our most popular dish! A bone-in Elk chop, Buffalo sirloin medallion, and a grilled teriyaki Quail. Served with seasonal vegetables, Fort potatoes, and wild Montana huckleberry preserves.” The buffalo was tender and cooked perfectly. The elk chop, while tasty with the huckleberry sauce, had some gristle. Kate enjoyed the quail.

Our table over looked night time Denver in the distance to the east, twinkling in shimmers of air rising from the plain. It was not cheap, but the ambiance, the unusual menu and the company made it worthwhile.

Colorado, Family, Humanities, Third Phase

Deserving?

January 29, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Jon came up last night to handle some handyman tasks. While here, he and I discussed the loft and what I need in additional bookshelves. He suggested built-ins. I’d thought about them, but dismissed the idea as too expensive. Jon had alternative ideas about how to get there. One of them is to use pre-built bookshelves and enclose them.

We decided to go ahead. I’m excited. Being to live inside a library. Wow. I’ve had that feeling to some extent with various combinations of bricks and concrete blocks covered with raw wood, cheaply purchased particle board bookcases and self-assemble IKEA, but never in a consistent look. Jon has the skills and I have the books.

He also said something which touched me deeply. “You deserve it,” he said, in reference to a designed library. Deserve is a strong word and my first reaction was, why? What have I done to deserve a nice library? Then my third phase self emerged. No, I’m not sure I deserve one, but if he’s offering, I’d be silly not to accept.

Just so you know. We will be paying him for his labor.

Colorado, Humanities

Library Begins to Emerge

January 28, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Organizing goes well. I have an ancient history and the classics bookshelf, two American Studies bookshelves, a climate change/nature writing bookshelf, several art bookshelves, a poetry/spirituality/renaissance/depth psychology bookshelf, an Asian studies bookshelf and a literature bookshelf. The art bookshelves include books on Romanticism, Modernism and the Enlightenment. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that I’m going to end up several feet of bookshelf short. This does not come as a surprise, but it does mean something other than the ikea shelving and the regular bookshelves will be needed. I’m leaning toward built ins, but we’ll see what Jon says about how hard they would be to build. (maybe something like the above)

The bending over, lifting several books, then moving them to a new place, bending over and shelving them, which seems innocent enough, puts my back under strain. Which, perversely, I like. Since I’m not getting exercise right now on the treadmill, this kind of stooping, lifting and walking has to be enough.

Colorado, Mountains, The West

Weathering

January 27, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Another 68 degree day. This has moved past a January thaw into a January spring time. I walked around in the back, on the completely thawed out areas and did find some green leaves, especially a thick velvety leaf. There was also bright green moss growing on the ground and a dull green lichen spreading over a rock. The ice melts and flows around the tiny rocks, flakes, large flakes of a tannish-pink rock, then seeps into the soil at least part way.

This kind of thawing, followed by freezing, is a soil-making process. It is the slow, very slow process of eroding away Shadow Mountain. First the rock becomes soil, then rain and streams carry the soil down the mountain. Eventually, there are soft foot-hills or aged peaks like the Appalachians.

Shadow Mountain is even more basic an environment than Anoka County in Minnesota. Northern Anoka County has a high water table that has resisted development and retained the rural, northwoods atmosphere that has made it special. Yet here on Shadow Mountain even development is not as much of an active force as snow and rain, cold and heat. To transform northern Anoka County all that would be required would be an increased drainage of wetlands. Unlikely to happen now, yes, due to stringent requirements on the conservation of wetlands, but possible. Here it would require explosives, massive earth and rock moving equipment and years of time. Even then there would still be the bulk of Shadow Mountain left. It’s just not economically viable, thank god.

Colorado, Humanities, Third Phase

A Library Out of Chaos

January 27, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

One bookcase almost filled with its new content: Latin texts, texts about Latin and Greek authors, ancient history. That may fill it up. I had wanted to fit mythology and religious studies on that shelf, too, but that’s part of the fun of organizing. Bunching books together in new ways, ways that might spark new thinking.

Another example is the United States section where I’m putting everything I have that touches on any aspect, from the geological to the theological, of the U.S. experience. American identity, the American landscape, regionalism and American literature are especially interesting to me.

Art books will fill up many shelving units but that’s a category that already had its own section of my library. In addition to the Latin and my own work, I hope to spend much more time with this broad subject, focusing initially on aesthetics. Aesthetics, or the philosophy of art, was not a part of the MIA docent program education. One question in particular fascinates me: what is art? Said another way, how do you know art when you see it?

Right now I’m carving out a bookshelf for poetry. When I unboxed the books, I put them up with little regard for their content. Now I’m moving books from the bookcases and the floor into intellectual families according to my own interests. That means taking books off of bookcases, leaving some them there, then carrying others to the bookcase. Sounds like a lot of shuffling around and it is, but the process gets easier the more I do it because I recognize where small caches of, say, poetry are.

Of course there are, too, all those file boxes. Then, the art.

Colorado, Weather +Climate

A Mountain Spirit

January 26, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Sunny and 68 degrees! The sound of snow melting and falling off the roof sounds like rain. The driveway will be clear if this lasts another day. Oddly, we’re the warmest of several weather stations in the Conifer, Evergreen area. Weather Underground allows you to tap into personal weather stations and there’s one very close to us that’s showing the 68 temperature.

The colder, darker days of Minnesota were great for writing, for contemplation. This weather will push me outdoors more, I’m sure. Once, that is, I’ve got my working space in order.

Discovered two neighborhood businesses today: HAN Motogear and Black Mountain Staging and Design. Eduardo and Holly run HAN Motogear out of a large shed. They live directly across the street from us. Black Mountain Staging and Design, which is also close, is run by Shirley Jorgensen and has a Viking featured on the website. Seems pretty familiar. And, for that matter, this loft in which I write was a home to a small business before we bought the house. A mountain entrepreneurial spirit roams here.

Well. Back to the book arranging. Fun.

Colorado, Sport, Third Phase

A Silvered Boat Afloat on an Ocean of Down

January 25, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling Moon II

Yesterday. Business meeting at the Wildflower Cafe in Evergreen again. The waitress gave us menus, but said, “You probably don’t need to look at them!” Felt good to be recognized.

The drive there and back along our road, variously Brook Forest Road, Black Mountain Drive and Shadow Mountain Drive holds so many beautiful spots: rocky outcroppings covered with snow, distant peaks with snow dusted conifers, homes built from stone and timber, meadows with frost sparkling shrubs. The Rockies here may not have much variation in fall foliage, aspens and hardly anything else, but they change their look with each change in weather. No drive into Evergreen has looked the same. (this house is along Brook Forest Road and sold for $745,000 in 2013)

Afterward I came up here to the loft and began assembling bookshelves. This is an exciting task for me since it moves my library closer to its Shadow Mountain configuration.

We’ve still got a lot to do, hence Settling Moon II, yet this is already home.

Later in the afternoon I headed out to Aurora for sheepshead with a Meetup group, folks I didn’t know: Bill, organizer of the meetup, Ryan, a dad with two young girls, Mark, with a young child and an older stepson living at home and Terry, Mark’s dad, a retired dairy farmer from Wittenberg, Wisconsin who lives in Denver during the winter, Wisconsin during the growing season.

Originally we were to play at Helga’s German Restaurant in Aurora, but it was full, so we moved to an IHOP nearby on Mississippi Avenue. We had to get used to each others’ conventions and playing style. That didn’t take long. The evening went until 9 pm, my current bed time, so I felt like a real Bohemian. Out late, drinking coffee, playing cards.

Fortuna did not smile on me. I had one hand I played alone and lost by one point and another that I buried, but could have had another play it alone hand. I was timid in my play, not usual for me, but new circumstances. Too, each of the others had played since childhood, taught in their families. Lots of good card sense around the table.

The evening though was a winner. I made some new acquaintances whom I liked, laughed often and enjoyed the solitary drive through Denver and back into the mountains. A sickle Settling Moon II had its horns upturned, bright behind clouds that at times made it look like a silvered boat afloat on an ocean of down. A good day.

Art and Culture, Colorado, Family, Health

Can You See Me Now?

January 24, 2015 Charles 1 Comment

Winter Settling Moon II

No post yesterday! Uncommon. Got too wrapped up in doing stuff.

First instance. Drove over to Conifer III (we have three retail areas, this is the one furthest south on 285, but closest to our house) to see an eye doc about my glaucoma. Due to a screw-up (mine) with the prescription I’d been out of my eye drops for a couple of weeks and, not wanting to go blind, got an appointment. Jennifer Kiernan, doctor of optometry, is a late 30’s woman with a common sense approach.

We discussed the fact that my pressures, 15 and 16, were normal without the drops. She looked at my retinal nerve, “Hmm. Suspicious.” She says the current move is toward no drops, using a very tiny stent to drain the pressure. “But, medicare will only pay for it when it’s done in combination with cataract surgery. Let’s see how bad your cataracts are.” Not too bad, as it turned out. “Let’s keep you off the drops, see you in a month.” Sounded good to me.

Back at home Kate and I came up to the loft and entered her drugs in medicare.gov. This was in preparation for our appointment at 3:30 with John Downing and Larry Seligman. We needed advice about the maze of plans. Larry recommended the very plan that we had considered on the medicare site, so we signed up. Here’s the good news. $0 premium. Weird, I know, but there you are. Larry said it was a very popular plan, no complaints, and it looked like a good fit. Besides, it’s only until 2016 under any circumstances. We needed to get this done because our U-Care coverage expired January 31st.

After that we asked Ophelia (our Garmin) how to get to the exhibition space where Jon had five works on display. This is the annual show for Aurora art school teachers and is held just off Colfax Ave on Florence, deep in the heart of Latino Denver. Jon, Jen, Barb (Jen’s mother), Gabe, Ruth, Kate and I were there. The whole family. That felt good.

Back home. With no thought for a post. I guess that’s probably a good thing.

Colorado, Minnesota, Mountains, The West, Weather +Climate

Ordinary Things

January 20, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Settling II Moon

Exactly a month has passed since we got here. A lot of ordinary things have happened: boxes opened, license plates changed and driver’s licenses as well, found a vet, a place to do our business meetings, grocery store and pharmacies, furniture assembled. That sort of thing.

Each one of these and others like them have begun to layer over our Minnesota identities, helped us reorient to Colorado, to the mountains, to our new home. Like those Russian nesting dolls, we will not so much replace the Minnesota identity as overlay it with a new one, pushing the Indiana and Iowa, Wisconsin and Texas identities further down in our psyches. In that sense we are hyphenated so I am an Okie-Hoosier-Badger-Gopher-Coloradan while Kate is a Gopher-Iowa-Texas-Gopher-Coloradan.

Taking Gabe to the National Western Stock Show yesterday (Ruth got sick.) was a not so ordinary part of this process. Though I’ve taken the grandkids to the Stock Show for several years this was the first time I went as a Coloradan and Westerner. When the Westernaires, a precision and trick riding group from Jefferson County, rode out during the rodeo, we cheered. These were the home county kids.

The gestalt of being at the Stock Show was different, too. Before I would look at the rhinestone jeans, the oversized belt buckles, Stetson hats and cowboy boots as evidence of a different tribe, one that lived far from my Scandinavian minimalist home in Minnesota. Now I have to take them as my neighbors, my fellow Coloradans. That means I have to place myself among them, rather than apart from them. The difference may seem subtle, but in sizing up this new, outer layer of the nesting doll that I am, it makes a big difference.

Another gestalt that has a lot psychic friction is geological. Mountains not lakes, pines not deciduous, arid not wet, high not flat, thin dry air not moist heavy air. These are not subtle dialectics that gradually make themselves felt, but insistent, body changing realities that affect daily life. All this frisson enlivens me, makes me wake up to my world. It makes the change worthwhile.