Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Family, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain

When the Lights Went Out on Shadow Mountain

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Beltane                                                                               Moon of the Summer Solstice

Power line runs among these trees
Power line runs among these trees

Today is the power outage, scheduled to begin in half an hour. A damaged Xcel transmission line has to get repaired. Pinecam.com has been abuzz. Bad IREA folks for not posting a map of the affected area.

Weird phenomenon. Because folks who got the letters or phone calls from IREA knew about the outage two or so weeks ago they posted about it on Pinecam. Then, those who had not gotten letters or phone calls began to worry that they, too, were affected and had not been told. This went from suspicion to certainty with demands to do it on another date or at night. At night?

Turns out IREA had not posted a map so crooks couldn’t use it as a reference for break-ins. And, no letter or no call, no outage. Oh. Everybody calmed down.

solar panels 11 22 middayApparently, at least according to Seth who installs solar panels, when the grid goes down, the solar does not pick up the slack. Just why I’m not sure, but I’m waiting for the  event to find out. Nothing like an empirical test. Anyhow, since we have a generator, we should be fine, but it’s not been used since Patrick worked on it back in January or so. A test for it, too. Maybe.

Meanwhile Tyler is coming today to finish removing the slash, not much left. When he’s done with that, he and I will stack all the logs bucked for Seth and Hannah into short piles so those two can get them easily. That will mark the end of this phase of fire mitigation. There are other matters, but they will wait awhile. I’m tired of the lumberjack life right now. Literally. Tired to the bone from it.

NFS SignRuth and Gabe come up last night. We have them through Friday afternoon. This is our first time with them since the divorce news. We’re very glad to see them and will provide a point of stability and love. A hard time for kids since they need to sort all this stuff out, too.

Some hiking for Ruth and me, a trip to Dinosaur Ridge, then a picnic at Red Rock Ampitheater today or tomorrow. Gabe had a bad bleed a couple of weeks ago and his physical therapist told him no running or jumping until July! He’s 8. That’s a tough restriction. The problem is that if this bleed gets exacerbated and recurs it can become a continuing problem. For life. High stakes for a young child.

Well, fourteen minutes to lights out. I’ll let you know.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West

More Adventures With Chainsaw Bob

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Beltane                                                                   Moon of the Summer Solstice

My old friend
My old friend

More Chainsaw Bob. Took my saw into Chainsaw Bob for sharpening and an overhaul. “Let’s look inside and see if we have enough saw to overhaul.” Chainsaw Bob, with a monk’s tonsure and a long, flowing white beard, quickly removed the air filter, took out a flashlight and looked inside, shaking his head.

“Not good. See those striations?” I did. “See how we have them over here, too?” I did. “Not good. I’m afraid this saw is not worth an overhaul.” Oh. “With that it’ll have trouble idling.” In fact, that’s frustrated me the last week or so. I have to reach the throttle fast to keep the saw moving. Otherwise, it chugs, sputters and dies.

I’ve had this saw eight or nine years and it’s served me well. Wish I’d attended to whatever was causing this problem. It will work for a while anyhow, then I’ll have to consider whether to buy another one. Fire mitigation is mostly done and is the most chainsaw intensive task we’ll ever have here.

Back to Bob. I noticed a tin dancing bear sitting in a window of his crowded shop. “You a Deadhead, Bob?” “Music died on August 9, 1995. Since Jerry died, nothing good.” So, the old guy who cares for two-cycle engines like they’re babies is, in fact, about my age. However, he probably listened to the Dead while riding in a Huey gunship over the rice paddies of Vietnam.

two topper cutLast time I saw him Bob had just returned from hip surgery and wasn’t sure he’d ever walk again. He did. And is.

He rents chippers, asked me if I wanted to rent one. No thanks, I have someone coming. “Malevolent, evil machines,” he said, shaking his head, stubbing out the ever present Camel in a melamine ashtray. “If I rent’em, I go out and check on’em. Checked on a guy last week and he had 12, 13 year olds without gloves or goggles feeding the machine. I took it back. He wasn’t happy.”

Colorado, Family, Friends, Jefferson County, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

You Try to Remain Calm

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Beltane                                                                        New Moon of the Summer Solstice

Webcam of Hwy285 near the accident site
Webcam of Hwy 285 near the accident site

“So you try to remain calm and remember your training. Not easy to do as you use the last t-shirt that came home in the box with your nephew from Iraq to try to keep the inside of his head where it belongs.”

“Meantime help from the young man that caused the incident is running around getting in the way crying ‘Please don’t let him die, I didn’t see him. Please don’t let him die’. Tried to be nice but had to tell him to get the f out of the way.”

“Was trying to figure out how to make an airway out of Pepsi bottle or something when he slipped away, as the fire department pulled up.”
Redneck for Hire, Pinecam.com

Life. Like the flickering of a firefly or a summer breeze passing through a mountain meadow. We have it, then we don’t. Tyler, my young helper who will be a junior next year at Conifer High School, had an uncle killed in a motorcycle accident on Highway 285, Saturday. Pinecam.com, that smalltown breakfast joint of a website, had several entries talking about the accident.

One, from a poster who takes the handle Redneck for Hire, was very poignant. He has EMT training and was on the scene before Elk Creek Fire Department. Tyler’s uncle died in his arms while he tried to remember something he could do to help. What was an abstracted source of hometown news became personal, even for me, though only in this tangential way. It’s the slow integration of our life with the lives of others who live near us.

Driveway the day we got home. Eduardo and Holly cleared our driveway.
Driveway the day we got home from Korea. Eduardo and Holly cleared it.

Our neighbor Holly is still in California, having had thyroid cancer surgery at Scripps in San Diego. Eduardo worked on the family beach house outside Tijuana. His father has late stage Alzheimer’s and the beach house is a place for him to enjoy. The two of them cleared our driveway before our return from Korea.

Next door neighbor Jude’s dogs are quieter, the front yard neater. He has a woman friend who has moved in. Jude was fired from his job as a shift supervisor at a casino in Blackhawk about a year ago. He returned to the welding business of his father, having worked there before. Now, he says, he’s so much happier. Glad he was fired.

Jon and Jen are in the early stages of a divorce. Painful news in so many ways. Yet, having been there myself, I know that once a relationship sours the way back can close down forever. Made more difficult of course by Gabe’s hemophilia and both Ruth and Gabe’s gifted, but troubled personalities. As grandparents we’re very limited in what we can do other than that most important thing: love them all, through it all and afterwards.

chiefhosa300You might consider this an OMG moment for us since we moved out here to be closer to the grandkids and Jon and Jen. To the contrary. It makes the move make even more sense. We have a chance to be of real assistance, up close. I’ve spent a lot of time talking with Jon already. Nodding. Listening. Reassuring. We will be here.

Yes. life is a firefly flickering or a summer breeze across a mountain meadow, but while it flickers, while the breeze blows, what an amazing experience.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

Clouds Will Form and Rain Will Fall, Even on That Day

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Beltane                                                                     Running Creeks Moon

Cub Creek Trail
Cub Creek Trail

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

Though nothing in our immediate vicinity would count as wilderness, Mt. Evans, the fourteener that lies directly west of us and is our weathermaker, has a designated wilderness area all around it. I can access the Mt. Evans’ Wilderness Area on the Cub Creek Trail, about two miles from home.

The mountains are our everyday, rising, rising, rising yet still. Steady. Tall. We have our life on and among them, enjoying the air cooled by Shadow Mountain, a mile and a half above sea level. The lodgepole pines, interspersed with the occasional aspen grove, are the mountains’ hair, growing longer and longer. Sometimes the odd bald spot appears, usually with craggy rock visible.

Black and red fox, mule deer and elk, black bears and mountain lions, squirrels and chipmunks are our neighbors. We’re just two legged mammals in our dens up here. With the millions of years of age the mountains represent, in very physical form, our few thousand years as a species is unnoticeable. When we’ve run our course and the homes here on Shadow Mountain are fit only for archaeology, Shadow Mountain will still exist. It will not wonder where we’ve gone, nor feel a pang of loss.

I like the feeling of our impermanence set in contrast to the mountains. They too will erode away, yes, their immovability moved by water following the demands of gravity, but it will take so long. Cannot be imagined, how long it will take. Our visit to the heights will be long over when Shadow Mountain is of Appalachian size. And even on that day the sky will be blue, clouds will form and rain will fall.

 

Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Seasonal Changes

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Beltane                                                                        Running Creeks Moon

Maxwell Creek, May 2015
Maxwell Creek, May 2015

As the Running Creeks Moon fades from the sky Deer Creek, Shadow Mountain Brook, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, the mountain streams I see frequently, have all subsided. Running full, yes, but not tumbling and roaring and foaming as they did a couple of weeks ago.

The aspen leaves are still coming, now a bright chartreuse against the gray/white bark. They soften the always green needlescape of the lodgepole pines. Solar production is up, the blue ribbon trees are down and tourists have begun to clog up Upper and Lower Maxwell Falls trail heads. We’re shifting from the more inward days of cold and snow to the more outward time of warm, clear days and cool nights.

A seasonal change. Not really the spring to summer transition of Minnesota, more like a late winter to summer shift.

A Native Plant Master class focused on the montane ecosystem (6,000 to 9,500 feet) starts in July at Reynolds Park here in Conifer. This time prostate cancer will not interfere. I want to bump up my knowledge of the ecosystem.

After several weeks of image expunging and fire mitigation, a less harried time is near. More creative work, much less destructive work. Looking forward to it.

 

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

Close

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Beltane                                                                     Running Creek Moon

Strong trees remain
Strong trees remain

Tyler has moved 4/5ths of the slash, maybe more. He’ll be back Sunday to finish up. I’ve cut up all but two trunks. One tree remains standing with a blue ribbon. There is a way to take it down. Before Tyler returns on Sunday I’ll finish that work plus limbing logs with newly exposed branches. Then, the only work that will remain is stacking the firewood and limbing the standing trees up to 10 feet off the ground.  Since May 20th this round of mitigation has occupied some of every day, two to three hours, sometimes more. That’s almost two weeks.

Cheaper than having someone else do it. And satisfying, too.

Soon I’ll be back to writing on Reimagining, Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf. Translating Latin. Hiking in the woods.

 

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

Slash

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Beltane                                                                                      Running Creeks Moon

Tyler, who lives down Black Mountain Drive toward Evergreen, came over yesterday morning. He’s a junior at Conifer High School this fall. A three sport athlete football, basketball and baseball, he’s still growing, but on the thin side right now, and tall. He worked hard. Here’s the material he moved from the back.

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

While he did this, I cut up the downed and limbed trunks. Most of them I cut into Seth and Hannah size logs though I have made some fireplace size logs for us. More of those today. I’m hopeful Tyler will finish moving all the slash by the end of the morning. Our regular afternoon rains make working then difficult. The water adds a lot of weight to the slash. Better to let it dry out overnight.

The end of this work is in sight.

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

Mitigation Nears Completion

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Beltane                                                                      Running Creeks Moon

misty morning May 31
misty morning May 31

All the blue ribbon trees are down, save one. The remaining tree presents a difficulty in terms of felling and I haven’t sorted out what to do with it. I spent yesterday finishing the felling, topping most of the downed trees, those already limbed, and completing the limbing of a few others. Kate moved slash.

Today Tyler comes over and will help move the slash into the front where it will get chipped. I’ll finish limbing while he does that, then begin cutting the trunks into logs. This project is nearing completion.

After Seth moves the logs that he wants and the fireplace size logs get stacked away from the house, there will remain two tasks. We need to prune the branches of the trees near the house. They need to be clear up to ten feet above the ground. This prevents laddering of a fire burning on the ground. The second task involves cutting down a few more trees further back in the yard. There are dead trees back there and a few situations where felling smaller trees will help the larger ones grow.

Feels good to have reached this point. This is the first major work I’ve done here. Glad there was a task that needed a skill set I possess. As the trees grow over the years, the virtue of this kind of forest management will become apparent. Mitigation will improve the overall health of our trees, another bulwark against fire. Healthy trees can withstand more fire.

Bees, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain

Summer Begins

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Beltane                                                                                Running Creek Moon

house400So. A rookie takes the Indy 500. The Warriors outlast the Thunder to make the NBA finals a second year in a row. School has begun to wind down. The rhythm of our national life slips into summer, a season forever shaped by the farm, the growing season, even though the number of family farms has continued to sink since the middle of the last century. The kids get out of school to work on the farm, at least they used to. Now most school kids have probably never been on a farm, perhaps find them as foreign as they find the North Woods or the Rocky Mountains.

Here, so far, we’ve had a wet May and forecasters think that may extend into mid-to-late summer. The deeper into the fire season the moisture remains the better off we are. With one exception. All that rain encourages the grasses, shrubs and smaller plants. They in turn can become the fuel that advances a fire.

Bee-guyThe fire mitigation process has the flavor of seasonal work in that it needs to finish before the mountains dry out. Hard physical labor in the early summer fits the mood. Here in the mountains the mornings remain cool, pleasant for working outside.

A couple of days ago I noticed an odd newcomer in the mountain meadow the cattle company uses to grass feed some of its stock. A beehive. A single beehive surrounded by metal posts with both barbed wire (I think. From the road it’s hard to tell.) and electric fencing. It intrigued me, looked like a simple set up. Sort of rejiggered the beekeeper in me. Hey, maybe I can do that. I’m going into the meadow someday this week and check out the setup.