Category Archives: Jefferson County

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.

Holidays, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

A Holiday Sunday

July 3, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Moon of the Summer Solstice

Caught the dawn on Black Mountain while getting the Sunday paper. A red cast to the usually green mountainscape. Multiple shades of green brighten yards, trees, creek sides, valleys and mountain slopes.

It’s cool here, 48 degrees. The third day of cooler, wet weather. National Forest Service fire signs post the key information about all this, Fire Hazard: low.

Kate has declared the pine pollen season over, saying there was no yellow rime on the driveway after this latest rain. May it be so. This fine lodgepole reproductive matter puts a light yellow cast on everything it touches. And, in a time when the windows are open, it touches almost everything.

Pinecam.com has been abuzz with holiday traffic postings. The interesting word, citiot, gets flung around. It’s true that the city folks, who make up the majority of tourists on Hwy. 285, don’t understand mountain driving, going alternately too fast, then too slow. Their frustration once 285 goes two lane (just beyond Conifer) finds many passing on yellow lines, following too close or exhibiting the finer elements of road rage.

Bailey and Conifer residents recount the amount of time it took them to get home on Friday, July 1st. One person told of leaving Denver at 4 pm and getting home around 7:15 pm, a journey of less than an hour without holiday travelers. Part of the congestion follows wrecks: too fast, too slow, passing in the wrong place, bumper riding and over use of the middle digit.

Otherwise up here on Shadow Mountain it’s a quiet holiday Sunday with the 4th tomorrow.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Rain

July 2, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Moon of the Summer Solstice

Flash flood warning last night. Heavy rains. Seemed silly the first time, flash flood watch for us, living on a mountain. But of course to get anywhere we have to drive down the mountain. All those creeks: Shadow, Brook Forest, Maxwell, Cub, Deer, Bear. We follow the water down the mountain and there are points where it can escape its banks. Back in 2012 there was significant flooding in Boulder and Manitou Springs and Golden.

Rain dots the screens as I look up toward Black Mountain. It’s shrouded in gray light, the lodgepoles massed and black. The peak of Black Mountain extends 1,200 feet above our altitude here at home, so it dominates the view to the west. Beyond it about 10 miles is Mt. Evans, our weathermaker. Still not sure the exact meteorology of its effects, but they are striking. We get much more precipitation than other areas, many of them physically close to us, but in different relationship to our local 14’er.

According to Weathergeek, who posts on pinecam.com, June saw 3.57 inches of rain making it the rainiest June ever up here. An atypically wet year so far, thanks to El Nino and now the monsoon rains. The bad news about all this rain is, of course, that it makes the grass grow, the shrubs grow, small trees, too. This is a problem as things dry out in mid-July and August. More fuel for the possible wildfires, making them likely to spread, to burn faster and hotter.

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Jefferson County, Mountains, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, US History, Weather +Climate

Like Northern Minnesota

July 1, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Moon of the Summer Solstice

A rainy week here on Shadow Mountain. The El Nino has given us an early summer reprieve from wildfires. Last night Jon said it felt like northern Minnesota. It did. The rain and the cool down at night brought back Burntside Lake, Magnetic Lake, Lutsen. No need for a.c. so far and we’re at July 1st already. Not a good environment for growing tomatoes though.

Nate Silver has given Hillary Clinton an 80% shot at winning the presidency. Not a lock, but pretty good odds. Even though Hillary’s politics are not mine, she’s a helluva lot closer than the Hairdo. And, in spite of her centrist politics, the thought of our sitting President, an African-American, campaigning in tandem with a female candidate for the office, excites me. Our little country might be growing up.

Colorado Republicans nominated a tea-bagger conservative to run against Democratic senator Mike Bennet. This should make it very difficult for the Republicans even though Cory Gardner (R) did oust Mark Udall (D) in the 2014 senate race. There are many lefties, Sanders won the Colorado Democratic primary, but there are also libertarians and far right wingers in large numbers. The contours of the state’s politics have not opened up for me yet. I hope by the end of this election cycle to have a much clearer understanding of Colorado’s political dynamics.

And, hey Minnesotans! How about that Iron Range guy that chopped his friend’s head off with a machete? Whoa.

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

Maintenance

June 27, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Summer Moon of the Summer Solstice

Out on the ladder this morning using the pressure washer on the solar panels. After checking our panel production by time, I noted that yesterday some of the panels operated at 110% of their capacity. Guess the removal of the pine pollen has had an effect even though the panels still look occluded.

The sun up here at 8,800 feet is fierce and requires sun protection winter and summer. The heat when standing in it can quickly become too much. Of course the solar panels are on the south side of the house, so when working on them the sun is an issue. I finished before the peak of the UV index which begins at 10 am and ends around 4 pm.

We’re gradually changing the house and grounds to suit our preferences. We have plans for some plantings in the far back, well outside the defensible zones 1 and 2. Probably lilacs and shrub roses on the edge of our leach field. On the leach field itself we’ll plant bulbs and some flowers suited for an arid climate and the kind of sun we get. That’s this fall.

The now thinned lodgepoles have also changed the look. To my eye they look healthier, more space for individual trees and more sun, too. I like the less crowded, congested feel. Kevin of Timberline Painting will make our garage, shed and interior look better. Bear Creek Designs are coming by today for an estimate on redoing our bathrooms. I had guessed two years for settling in and I think that’s going to be pretty accurate.

Jefferson County

Education in the Mountains

June 18, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Moon of the Summer Solstice

Just posted this on a Pinecam.com thread featuring, other than mine, rants about a new bond issue from Jefferson County (Jeffco) schools:

At 69 I’m excited about the future of our county, our state and our country. However. To remain strong globally and internally we need each of our citizens to work with as much of their potential as possible. The key that unlocks this potential is education.

The school district in Jeffco has been in turmoil over the last few years, especially when the school board was at war with its principal employees, the teachers. The way forward includes good facilities, decently paid teachers and extra-curricular activities that don’t require students to sell things to support them. My wife and I are happy to contribute another $150 a year to ensure that the next generation includes well-educated adults, ready to take on the demands of a world power.

We each have a responsibility to our own children or grandchildren and more broadly to all the children in our community. Why? Because each business, each law firm, each medical practice, each university, each level of government, each city and town depends on having citizens capable of leading them into the future.

There are things my taxes get used for that I don’t like. But, elementary and high school education? Let’s fund it like our country’s future depends on it. Because it does.

_________________
The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
– John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, (1938), page 313.

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

Slash. Gone.

June 11, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Beltane Moon of the Summer Solstice

The slash is gone. Chipped and carted away. We had two big days of chipping, one from work done last fall, this one from work done over the last three weeks. The bulk of the fire mitigation project is now over. The remaining logs will be stacked by the end of the week.

Taking the branches off up to ten feet will happen this year, though I’m not certain yet whether I have to wait until fall to protect the tree’s health. We’ll mow the fuel in the back so it doesn’t get higher than six inches, maybe two to three times, maybe a bit more if we continue to get rain. Screening all the vents and other openings in our house is another fillip, as is taking the few pine needles out of our gutters.

After the electricity production limitations of snow and gloomy skies comes pine pollen. This yellow maker of new pines comes off the lodgepoles in wind driven clouds. And, it coats solar panels, reducing their effectiveness. It appears to pare between 10 and 20% off their regular capacity. It rains tonight so I’m going to wait and see if that eliminates the effect. If not, up on the roof with a hose and spray nozzle.

Even though it is 76 here today, the humidity is only 33%. But, it’s 92 in Denver. Gotta love the altitude effect on air temperature.