Category Archives: Mountains

Dogs, Family, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Love Is Enough

August 12, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon

The morning sun throws reddish highlights on Black Mountain to our west while our home remains in the early dawn. It’s cool here this morning at 41 degrees and a week of cool temperatures is in the forecast. The northern European residents of this home on Black Mountain Drive are pleased.

Jon’s getting ready for his one hour commute to Montview Elementary in Aurora. He has to be there by 7:15, his third day with students. This Labor Day to Memorial Day school year guy still shudders at the thought of hitting the desk in early August. Seems to violate some unwritten compact between students and schools.

Feeling much more engaged this morning. Writing about a problem often sneaks a mood change through as I consider what I’ve written. Took Kate out last night to the Twin Forks Restaurant on North Turkey Creek Canyon Road. This was to honor her steady work on the needlepoint project, Love is Enough. Three years, but now it’s done, ready to be cleaned, blocked and framed. She’s going to add a small metal plaque, Vega: 2008-2016. We clinked glasses for Vega, one of a kind.

Commentary on the news, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, US History

American Authoritarianism

August 5, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Lugnasa Superior Wolf Moon

This morning Black Mountain has a shroud of gray white fog slumping down its eastern slope. Rain water puddles on the driveway and the overall feel is early fall. As we prefer it here on Shadow Mountain.

Could this election get weirder? I’d have said no, but the Donald keeps surprising me, all of us. As his polls slump like the fog on Black Mountain, certain Republicans have begun raising money for Hillary, admitting openly that they will vote for her, too. This group includes members of congress and a former primary candidate for President, Meg Whitman. That’s very strange.

But, wait! There’s more. Now the Dump Trump folks have begin wondering in interviews if he can be forced to drop out. Or, perhaps he’ll just choose to drop out, some hope. So, members of his own party are campaigning against him while others are trying for an unprecedented, geez I think I’ll just quit you. This all very new stuff in American politics, like seeing a rare bird and getting to add it to your life list.

He will not drop out. His self-image is of a fighter and a winner. Fighters don’t quit and winners don’t lose. From a political hobbyists point of view this is a most excellent campaign. Not the same old boring cereal we get every morning for breakfast.

Over the next decade plus the significance of this race will become clear. The most interesting analysis I’ve found so far links Trump to the rise of voters seeking an authoritarian leader. Read this Vox.com article: The Rise of American Authoritarianism. Research into the phenomenon of authoritarian leaders has its origins in the puzzling question of how Germany pivoted to Nazism in such a short period of time. There are now several well-regarded academic works that focus on answering that question. Some of them look at American culture, probing for similarities to post-Weimar Germany.

In this understanding, with which I agree, Trump is not the cause, but the effect. Another good article on the political roots of this new American authoritarianism comes from NYT columnist, Charles Blow: Trump Reflects White Male Fragility.

Aging, Family, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Sinking Behind Black Mountain

July 29, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

The sun is on its way down, sinking behind Black Mountain. I don’t often write in the evenings anymore because I’m usually downstairs in the house. Tonight I came up after a sweatshirt. It gets cool reliably around 7 pm or so.

It also gets quieter here in the evening. The motorcyclists have made it to wherever they were headed. The cars loaded with camping gear have found a spot for the night. The Denver tourists headed to Upper Maxwell Falls trailhead have returned to the city. No bicyclists. No one walking their dog. A few people are still arriving home from work, probably having driven from downtown Denver.

This has been a hard week. Jon’s most recent encounter with the courts got at least part of the divorce mess sorted out. Kate drove home from Jackson Hole. The last of the painting project is almost wrapped up. Kate and I went to the grocery store today, a task that proves physically difficult with our mutual arthritic thises and thatses. The days have been warmer than I prefer, though definitely more tolerable than Denver proper.

A possible arc upward does seem hidden in the detritus. Jon has more predictability now in his life. The long work of staining and painting has all but ended which means no more extra cars and people around during the day. BJ’s injury is healing, headed toward what her surgeon believes will be a good recovery. He says she should be playing again in a couple of months.

Lugnasa lies just ahead, two days. That means the peak heat of the summer has begun to wane. The nights will get cooler, the days shorter. Welcome changes. Summer is my least favorite season and was so even during our intensive gardening days in Andover. I don’t like the heat, even the more modest heat that we get here. The vegetables and fruits and bees needed it, we welcomed its results, but not its presence. I’ll be glad to move into August, even more so September.

Family, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

A Collective Sigh

July 19, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

Staining the wood is an involved process. First, there’s power washing, cleaning and laying bare the wood, followed by extensive masking. These tasks took a week. The application of the stain is, itself, labor intensive. Though it can be applied with a power spray, it has to be back brushed to force the stain into the wood. Since the process requires two coats, that means each inch of the garage, shed and two decks will get stained and brushed twice. Longer lasting siding and much increased aesthetics will result. Nathan, Chris, Dean and Matthew have been working steadily.

While they were finishing up yesterday, we had a thunderstorm. As in Minnesota, a thunderstorm breaks the heat, but here it comes with a collective sigh. The rain has a salvific effect, much like the rain in movies after a long drought or the coming of the monsoons in India.

We’ve had several red flag warnings over the last week plus and the forest service signs, common along roads here in the mountains, have all had Smokey’s finger pointed at High. Jefferson County, our county, instituted a level 2 fire ban. No fires at all. The rains give us some respite from the risk of wildfire and that’s most welcome.

Jon is in Denver for the next five days working on finishing a deck railing, remodeling a bathroom and moving his stuff out of the house. Jen and the grandkids are in Orlando for a hemophilia conference. Today is a phone conference between Jon and Jen’s lawyers trying to hammer out some differences without the principles involved. May it be fruitful.

Cinema and Television, Family, Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Weekend Stuff

July 17, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

Went to a delightful children’s movie, BFG, with the grandkids. A Spielberg film, it uses CGI as seamlessly as anything I’ve seen. This is a big-hearted movie with childish wonder spilling out all over the place. A Roald Dahl book. The story of an orphan who inadvertently sees a giant deploying dreams. He kidnaps her because she’s seen him. They develop a relationship, one threatened by other giants. Sweet and sad.

Ruth and Gabe were here overnight. Ruth and Jon worked on printmaking in the garage. He’s developing a body of work focused on found objects, metal objects crushed by traffic. He inks them up, then uses a press to transfer the ink to paper. Gabe and I talk because he likes to come up here in the loft and play.

The staining of the garage is underway. It will look good and last longer when this whole project finishes. The shed and decks, too.

Wandering the back yard now, looking at flowers that grow here with no help. I’m going to gather seeds, then reseed with them in the fall. We have two varieties of penstemon, wild flax, columbine, sulfur flower, indian paintbrush, daisies, shrub roses and a few I haven’t identified. Work with what already likes this soil and this microclimate. Encourage them.

Later in the fall we’ll plant lilacs and more shrub roses in the far back, perhaps some aspen. I want to plant some aspen out front, too.

Commentary on the news, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Mutual Homicide

July 16, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

Up here on Mt. Ararat, aka Shadow Mountain, our small ark has come to rest. Or at least so it seems at times. The rising waters of hate, fear, violence, guns, neglect lap, muddy and turgid, not far below. We keep sending the dove of peace out from the ship. It quickly returns, finding nowhere to rest in a world rent by pain. Doves can read the headlines.

Under the headlines a friend faces death from lung cancer. Jon and Jen fight. The wildfire season is underway on the Front Range, a Russian roulette moment until the rains return. The Trumpet blasts ignorance and xenophobia.

Yet. The lodgepoles blanketed us with their yellow pollen. I watched bees, native and honey, crawl in and out of pale blue Penstemon. Stacked and neatly trimmed lenticular clouds form over Black Mountain, Mt. Evans. Cub Creek and Bear Creek and Deer Creek carry water stored higher in the mountains by late winter snows, feeding trout and willows along the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The mule deer and elk come to our yard for grass and other small plants, show up on Black Mountain Drive as we drive home from dinner. A great horned owl flies above the pines, hunting for prey.

All this human turmoil happens as the Great Wheel turns, as it turned long before humans emerged from the evolutionary struggle and as it will turn long after our mean spirit has scrubbed us from the planet. We may live on beyond this wonder, this earth, but our fate here seems one of mutual homicide. Could we only take the lesson of the Great Wheel and learn to live with our kind as part of rather than against each other and the natural world.

Great Work, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Red Flag Warning

July 11, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions
are either occurring now... .or will shortly. A combination of
strong winds... low relative humidity... and warm temperatures can
contribute to extreme fire behavior.

All that fire mitigation work makes sense when the weather services throw up a red flag warning as they have yesterday and today. Those of us who live up here know this is a price for living in the mountains, but that fact doesn’t mean we want to pay it. The dilemma is that we live in a desirable area, so folks from all over come up here to play, to be in the mountain wildernesses, to do research, to hang out, camp. The visitors are not as attuned to the dangers here, so that s’more or that can of beans or heating the water for coffee seems innocent. And it is, until it isn’t. One spark.

Jefferson County fire fighters closed westbound I-70 and Colorado 470 east (which connects to our nearest highway, 285) due to a grass fire on Hogback Ridge. Yesterday a truck lost some trash which flew in the air, contacted power lines, burst into flames and fell to the ground. So freak accidents, careless tourists or locals ignoring reality put us at risk.

A person reported a neighbor yesterday for burning stumps. He puts charcoal on them, lights it up, then covers the stump with a metal can. He was indignant when asked to put them out. What could possibly go wrong? In another instance folks moved into a new development near Bailey and spent the 4th and this last weekend setting off fireworks in their driveways. Geez, guys.

And, as friend Tom Crane knows, there’s always the possibility of a propane explosion. Cheery thought.

Anyhow our weather is like a femme fatale: gorgeous, sensuous, potentially murderous.

Garden, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants

Among the Wild Flax

July 10, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

Conifer is big and diverse. I drove 20 minutes from home this morning to Reynolds Park, a Jefferson County Open Space Park. It’s still in Conifer, nestled in a canyon, filled with Ponderosa pines, creeks, forested hills and plenty of montane ecosystem plants.

The Native Plant Master class held there ran from 8:30 to 12:30, a long time in the heat. At least for me. By the time the morning was over I was hurting. That arthritic knee, right hip and lower back crying out for surcease. No more plants, please! Lay us down, right now. Frustrating because the information in this class is germane to our home on Black Mountain Drive.

We found the Harebell, a wild geranium, three different grasses including Timothy and Broomtail, keyed out a Ponderosa and an Aspen and a Rocky Mountain Maple. There were two members of the Sunflower family: Rudbeckia-the black eyed daisy and a flower with multiple white petals whose name I can’t recall. A native bee crawled into a Penstemon, gracilis, getting pollen on its back in the process, nototribic. We visited a wild Flax with delicate blue flowers.

Two more classes yet to go. Right now, I’m looking forward to the information but not the wandering pedagogy.

Garden, Great Work, Jefferson County, Latin, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Science, Shadow Mountain, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Getting Back To Work

July 10, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Park County Fair Moon

Summer has come in full glory and I’m still not back to work. Getting frustrated with myself, need to get a discipline underway. Back to the work in the morning pattern that has seen me through several novels and lots of Ovid.

It is now a year and a day since my cancer surgery, a real spade turner in the soil of my psyche. Are my old goals still appropriate? Does the divorce and the engagement with Jon and the grandkids override them? Doesn’t feel that way. My ability to give correlates with the care I take of myself. Taking care of myself means continuing creative and scholarly tasks. That work plus exercise are central to my life and cannot be avoided without damaging my Self.

Right now the days float by. This meeting with Jon. That power washing of the solar array. Mow the fuel. Reorganize the loft. Work in the garage. Read the NYT. Keep up with the presidential campaign. All of these things are important, even necessary, but I’m doing them and not creating the daily discipline that longer projects require. I know how to do it. I have done it. But not now.

This morning I have my first class in a Native Plant class that focuses on the montane ecosystem, the one in which we live. It’s a start in the discipline. What I need is to protect my mornings again. Get up here in the loft, write a thousand words a day, translate at 5 verses of Ovid.

I need encouragement to get this routine started again.

Friends, Holidays, Jefferson County, Mountains

Slowly and Over Time

July 4, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer New (Park County Fair) Moon

Kate and I went to a fourth of July party at a friend of hers. The view from their deck (above) includes Pikes Peak in the very far distance. The general rule of urbanists is that the poor live in the place of least convenience. Here in the mountains that rule reverses and the wealthiest live on the peaks, or near them. Getting to their homes entails driving up and up and up, often the latter part of the way on gravel roads, then having a long driveway that also goes up and up and up.

This house has 6,000 square feet, cathedral ceilings, a wrap around deck, tables custom made from beetle kill pine. Its driveway is a one-car wide ribbon of asphalt that winds up from Pine Country Lane to a turn-around with a three-car garage and a vaulted doorway with a cast iron handle. The three floors all face this view. The main floor is at this level, bedrooms above and a floor with a music room on the level below, a walkout onto the grounds seen here.

Steve, husband to Kate’s friend Jamie, calls this, “Our little slice of heaven. Especially for a boy from the Bronx.” He amplified that last by talking about walking through the tunnel into Yankee Stadium and seeing green on the playing field. “Where I lived, it was all concrete. The green was remarkable. And now this.”

Parties are not my natural habitat. This one was no exception. I met a couple of people, Steve (not Jamie’s husband and one of three Steves at this party, two of them, including Jamie’s husband, named Steve Bernstein), an actuary, and Lou, a software engineer, in addition to Jamie and Steve. That’s an effective outing for me. Many of the people at the party were members of Congregation Beth Evergreen, so we’ll see them again and again. That’s the way I make friends, slowly and over time.

This loft is my natural habitat, books and maps, a computer, a place and time to write and read, to work on my Latin. This loft and these mountains. Becoming native to this place is, it occurs to me, identical in process to the way I make friends, slowly and over time: hiking the trails, driving the roads, being present as the seasons change, seeing the wildlife. I’m in no hurry for either one.