Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

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

A Holiday Sunday

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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

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Summer                                                                      Moon of the Summer Solstice

Black Mountain July 2Flash 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

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Summer                                                                     Moon of the Summer Solstice

misty mayA 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

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Summer                                                                           Moon of the Summer Solstice

solar panels 11 22 midday
solar panels 11 22 midday

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.

misty morning May 31We’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.

Cooking, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Writing

Old habits, rejuvenated

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Beltane                                                           Moon of the Summer Solstice

crow hill cafe
Home cooking in Park County, near Bailey

Slowly getting back into cooking using NYT recipes. A tomato and pomegranate salad I made Sunday received an encore performance for Kate’s quilting group. The eight women that showed up left only a spoonful to take home. The best kind of praise.

Today I’m marinating leg of lamb to make Jerusalem shawarma.  This one required some herbs and spices we didn’t have so I had to go to a spice shop. A fun place.

I used to cook a lot and enjoyed it; but, after Kate’s retirement, we slipped into a habit of her cooking. Rectifying that requires some rearrangement of my day since I normally work out around 4 p.m., a good time to cook supper.

Learned last night that Seth and Hannah will not be taking the logs from the backyard. Seth’s done a lot of fire mitigation, too, and has plenty. That means I’ve got to figure out something to do with a hell a lot of wood. It’s work I would have had to do if they hadn’t been in the picture, but I’d hoped they would relieve me of a lot of it. Not gonna happen. Still noodling this one.

freshman year
Still this guy, 55 years later

The flow of work, Latin and novels and reimagining, has slowed to a trickle since late March: Asia, Vega, iconetectomy on Ancientrails, then wildfire mitigation. This week or next, probably next, I’ll start up again.

Like restarting workouts I’ve found it’s best for me if I start slowly, build toward a full morning of work. I’m excited to return to intellectual work though I’ve enjoyed the hiatus.

Physical labor has its own rewards, not least among them a mindfulness required when using sharp objects and lifting heavy weights.

Dogs, Family, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Writing

Soon, Back to the Marathons

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Beltane                                                                     Moon of the Summer Solstice

Kate at work yellowIt’s Sunday. We’ll head out in a bit for our business meeting, going somewhere nearby for breakfast. This is a routine, weekly. These meetings where we discuss money matters, calendar, upcoming projects, how we’re doing are an important part of our marriage. They prevent issues that could divide us or surprise us from sneaking into our lives. In a sense they’re the board meeting for our marriage in its quasi-corporate aspect, but more than that they are a commitment to open discussion, to mutual decision making, to the sort of hard headed pragmatism I believe many people around the world see in American culture. Thanks to Ruth Hayden.

The sprint that started after we got back from Asia with Vega’s sudden, fatal illness, then the copyright infringement legal problem and the subsequent expunging of images from Ancientrails, followed by three weeks or so of fire mitigation is nearly over. Cleaning out the garage and organizing it, clearing off the swedish shelving in the house and getting the china cabinet upstairs into the guest room will be the last of it. Then I will get back to Latin, to Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf, and reimagining faith. That is, I’ll get back to working on them in the mornings.

 

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

Slash. Gone.

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Beltane                                                              Moon of the Summer Solstice

Slash June 1 limbs
Slash June 1 limbs

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.

Slash June 1 treetops and limbs
Slash June 1 treetops and limbs

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.

 

 

Colorado, Jefferson County, Park County, Shadow Mountain

A bit more on Colorado

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Beltane                                                                                       Moon of the Summer Solstice

 

Fairplay, South Park
Fairplay, South Park

We have become much more familiar with the Denver metro area. The southern suburb of Littleton has become our medical neighborhood. We visit it often, perhaps a bit more often than we’d like. Jazz clubs Dazzlejazz and Braun’s are regular evenings out. The Curious Theater has entertained us with the work of contemporary American playwrights. Museums from the Colorado History Museum to the Museum of Science and the Denver Art Museum. Restaurants with Western flair like the Fort and The Buckhorn Exchange. Many sushi spots including the unusual Domo which features Japanese rural cuisine.

Shadow Mountain from the Upper Maxwell Creek Trail, Cliff loop
Shadow Mountain from the Upper Maxwell Creek Trail, Cliff loop

Most of our time has been spent here on Shadow Mountain or in the immediate vicinity: Conifer, Evergreen, Bailey. These mountain communities are quite different. Evergreen is a tourist destination for day trippers from Denver, but it has a distinct flavor that makes it much more than a tourist town. It has homey cafes, gourmet restaurants, an excellent jewelry store, two synagogues, small shops and large grocery stores. Conifer is a geographic anomaly, not incorporated, but quite large physically with three different “activity areas” two anchored by their own large grocery stores King Sooper and Safeway and the third with a Staples, a great ice cream place, Liks, and our vet, Sano Vet Hospital. Bailey is distinctly downmarket compared to Conifer and Evergreen, but it has a rough mountain charm. Our favorite marijuana dispensary, the Happy Camper, is outside Bailey. We visit each of these towns frequently.

GeekWorld, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Electricity, Electricity Every Where and not a Volt To Use

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Beltane                                                                        Moon of the Summer Solstice

One unhappy camper. Yesterday, after the lights went out as IREA shut down our electricity for scheduled maintenance, the generator came on. Just as it was supposed to do. A minor but real victory in an as long as we’ve been here slightly unfinished project. But. No power in the house. Gnashing of teeth. Verbal expressions of displeasure. Frustration of immense proportions.

This meant that until Todd from Altitude Electric came out about 10 am we had no power, even though our solar panels were producing electricity and the generator was producing electricity. We were making a lot of our own power and able to use none of it. Irony? I think so.