Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate, Writing

This, that

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Beltane                                                                       Running Creeks Moon

Front, May 6th
Front, May 6th

The snow is mostly gone in the front, south facing yard. In the back though there are still long drifts of snow punctuated by even larger patches of soil, rock and the tufty grass we have up here on Shadow Mountain. The days are warmer but the nights remain cool. They will remain relatively cool and dry even during the summer.

I’ve had a time consuming blog related project that has eaten up days of time and is not done yet. It has given me an opportunity to go back over all the wordpress entries: 2016-2007, which has been fascinating. Some 8,000+ now.

Back, May 9
Back, May 9

Kate has Bailey Patchworkers, a sewing/quilting group, today and will make a run to the Happy Camper for cbds. My elliptical comes this morning. I’ll be able to get back to working out at a high intensity with the elliptical’s knee joint friendly motion. The treadmill will stay for walking at a moderate pace.

Once this blog project is over I plan to start regular hikes in the woods and a return to the fire mitigation work I began last fall. Kate is currently doing cross stitch for a very cute baby blanket. The baby blanket comes, naturally, after the wedding quilt.

Much to my chagrin, since I stopped adding salt to my meals, my weight has dropped, my blood pressure has dropped and I’m sleeping much better. Of course, I’m happy with the improvements. Still. Imagine me slapping my forehead with my hand.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Water. Psyche.

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Beltane                                                                     Running Creeks Moon

maxwell 2015Went into Evergreen yesterday hunting for truffles-no, not nose to the ground, nose to the display case-and a bottle of Chardonnay. On the way down Shadow Mountain and whatever other mountains I descend on highway 78 (Shadow Mountain Drive, Black Forest Drive and Brook Forest Drive) Maxwell Creek tumbled down its narrow bed toward the rocks of Upper, then Lower Maxwell Falls. Further down Cub Creek came crashing down the mountain, headed toward a rendezvous with Maxwell. This time I realized that the creek going over the concrete spillway further on down 78 was neither Maxwell nor Cub, but a third creek coming down and out of Shadow Mountain like Maxwell. This one hits either Cub Creek or Maxwell somewhere, I couldn’t find the spot, but in any case all three join below Lower Maxwell Falls parking lot and speed toward Evergreen.

IMAG1503Not so long ago, I think it was 2012, these same three creeks overwhelmed Evergreen, causing considerable flooding. That was the same year that Golden and Manitou Springs and Boulder had flood problems, too. This is not that kind of year, but the amount of energy in these creeks impresses me.

The stolid, deeply moored mountain shows its power to create movement, the opposite of its apparent nature. Which might say something about us, about what we perceive as permanent and unchanging in our Selves.  Look for what movement it creates, perhaps unknown to us until we look.

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

Running Creeks Moon

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Beltane                                                                         New (Running Creeks) Moon

Upper Maxwell Falls May, 2015
Upper Maxwell Falls May, 2015

Shadow Brook, Forest Brook, Maxwell Creek, Deer Creek, the mountains streams I see regularly, are full. The snow melt obeys the law of gravity, following the twists in spacetime toward lower points. They boil at rock beds and turns, often muddy water capped with white foam.

With all the recent snow fields have begun to green and our aspens have leaf buds. The lodgepoles look healthy. That 10 inch snow last weekend has already melted and the snow drifts even in our north facing back yard have begun to diminish. Time to get back to I’m a lumberjack, yes I am.

Wildlife is more in evidence, too. On the day of Vega’s death Kate saw a red fox on the roadside, as if Vega’s spirit were saying the good-bye we didn’t get in person. We’ve several small herds of mule deer and Kate saw four elk does yesterday. Pinecam.com, source for all things local, has had mountain lion photos and reports of hungry bears causing mischief. The Denver Post reported a bear rummaging through a man’s refrigerator in his second floor apartment.

The bicyclists also return with the clearing roads, joggers, too. Crankshafts of motorcyclists also begin to appear. And that seasonal bird, the tourist, begins to clog highway 285, racing around curves and down the 7% inclines. There are grumbles on Pinecam.com. Here in Conifer 285 is still four lane, but south (really west) of us about seven or eight miles it goes down to two lanes. That’s the direction the tourists head and it makes for dangerous driving in the summer months.

So a seasonal change is upon us, though a very different one from the flowering, leafing, sprouting spring of Andover.

 

Dogs, Feelings, Memories, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Writing

Foggy

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Spring                                                          Wedding Moon

loft2Clouds at 8,800 feet. Or, as some say, fog. Cold and clammy outside this am.

I’ve gotten back to work on Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf, not a lot of new content yet, but it will come.

Spent some time yesterday, too, in the what now seems eternal rearranging of the loft. Finding an optimal way to encourage my work with the tools I have: books, files, images, maps and brochures, workout equipment, lamps, chairs, is the goal. Still waiting on a couple of pieces from Jon, walnut shelves and a top for my art cart.

bandWhile I worked on rearranging the loft, I put on Pandora, the music streaming service. I have a Pandora station devoted to The Band, a sixties rock group who collaborated with Bob Dylan. As it played their music and music of similar contemporaries, an overwhelming sadness hit me.

It began with a memory of Vega, feeling her presence in my life, feeling her absence. But, it morphed into a more general sadness, possibly a melancholy nostalgia for the times the Band evokes, those days of the 60’s. It tapped, too, into old neurotic loops. What have I done with my life? Has it mattered? Does mattering matter? You know, those inner paths which have a Mobius strip nature, going nowhere in particular yet taking a very long time to get there, only to find out you’ve gotten back where you started.

As these moods do these days, these third phase days, they passed. Grieving Vega, grieving a time gone by, grieving unreasonable expectations. All part of life, not to be inhabited forever, but acknowledged. A hat tipped to them as they go by.

A less melancholy day today, I hope.

 

Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Again. More Snow.

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Spring(?)                                          Wedding Moon

driveway the day we got home
driveway the day we got home

As Weather5280 keeps reminding those of us who live near the Denver metro, but in higher elevations, April is our snowiest month. Well, geez. Another big storm rumbles toward us for the end of this week. This stuff is heavy, wet. Not good for snowblowers, my chief tool in snow clearing.

I just put out a note to a local snowplower who also does high altitude gardening. We’ll need help. Ironically, our neighbors who cleared our driveway for us when we got 46 inches or so last week, left last Friday for Tijuana, driving. We’re watching their property. We may get a chance to return the favor.

Well over 170 inches this year. That’s a lot of white coming from the sky. It’s a good thing for the snow pack and at least for the early fire season. Another way of saying the transition here goes from winter to summer is to say we go from ice to fire. Makes for interesting living. And I mean that.

Life here, like life in Minnesota, finds mother earth a constant presence, one that cannot be sidelined by furnaces, air conditioners and trips to the beach.

house same day
house same day
Asia, Shadow Mountain, Travel, Weather +Climate

Home Again

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Spring                                                                            Wedding Moon

We left under the Maiden moon and returned under the Wedding moon. Appropriate. Like the turning of the Great Wheel, our family now has a new couple entering the Horned God and Maiden phase of their lives. Their love will make the fields fertile and sow a new generation, as happens each year at Mother Earth’s temperate latitudes and as happens in each generation of the human family. As my Wiccan friends say, blessed be.

We transited US customs in San Francisco, bleary eyed and weary from the night time flight across the Pacific from Incheon. Instead of an immigration person saying, Welcome home, we got a lesson in automated passport control, using computers that read your passport and ask the basic re-entry questions related to customs matters. I missed that personal touch.

Travel exacts a price from the economy flyer. I’m not my best person when tired, nor is Kate hers. The Korean Land of the Morning Calm attitude toward life impressed me and I’m trying to incorporate it, but yesterday morning some of the usual backup self slipped through.

land of the morning calm

We returned home to a driveway cleared by our neighbors, Holly and Eduardo. This was a big deal because of the nearly 4 feet of snow that fell while we were in Asia. Without it we would not have been able to get in our house. This is heavy, wet snow that clogs snow blowers and makes the back go ouch while shoveling it.

Seoah’s mentor gave us a tea set made of clear glass and a small bamboo water table on which to make tea. It made it home intact.

 

Asia, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Hot and Cold

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Spring                                                              Wedding Moon

The oddities of traveling. On Wednesday Kate and I walked from the Botanic Garden MRT stop to its Visitor Centre, maybe halfway across this large park, a Unesco World Heritage Site. We knew it was hot, our bodies told us at every step with an oppressive clamping feeling as the humidity and the heat forced out sweat but didn’t allow it to cool us down.

We learned on Friday that this was the hottest day in a decade, 36.7 centigrade or 98.06F. The hottest temperature every recorded here is only .3 degrees warmer, 37. Kate recognized that one immediately as 98.6. The difference between this heat and Colorado heat, which can reach well over a 100, is the humidity which has stayed mostly in the 95% range and the dewpoint, also very high.

Meanwhile back home a huge late winter snowstorm headed toward Colorado. The foothills were smack in the middle of the highest forecasted snowfalls, 1-3 feet, with some predicting as much as 4 feet. Odd junction. Last I looked Conifer Mountain, across the valley from us, had 32 inches with another foot on the way. Since this is spring, it’s a very heavy snow, but it will melt fast, long before we get home on Thursday.

Today in Singapore it’s 84 now, headed toward 93, feels like 110 (not kidding).

Friends, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Translating Metamorphoses, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

Anchored

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Spring                                                                                     Maiden Moon

Spoke by Skype with Bill Schmidt and Scott Simpson today. No reason, just catch up. It was good.

Friends. I don’t make friends easily and the almost 30 years of Woolly relationships and the 12 years for my docent friends will not be repeatable here. I’m making my peace with that, too. As long as my docent and Woolly friends will connect with me, I plan to maintain the relationships. There is an easiness, a knowingness, an intimacy that has taken years to develop with these folks.

Also, my work occupies my time, not in an escapist way, but in a fulfilling way. That’s why I don’t feel lonely here. Kate, the work, the dogs, family, casual relationships are plenty for now. And may be enough for the long haul. Even so, I imagine I will find new friends here at some point, but if I don’t, that’s ok, too.

In other words, I am flourishing as an intellectual and creative worker, lodged in a beautiful place, with family and canine companionship. I’m happy as well. A hard combination to beat.

 

 

Colorado, GeekWorld, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Making Our Peace With Wildfires

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Spring                                                                              Maiden Moon

Figured out yesterday how to use Amazon’s Unlimited Photo cloud service. It comes free with Prime. Because I put so many images in my blog, I have an unusually large number filed away for future use. I began the uploading of the photos yesterday and the service is about 2/3’rds done this morning. It will finish sometime today.

Then, I sat down and learned how to use Dropbox. It’s free storage, about 2GB, is plenty for my novels, short stories, essays. I started copying files there yesterday, too. It will take a little time, but once I’m done, I’ll just have to update whatever current work I’m doing.

These two are in anticipation of a possible wildfire. No need to lose your work these days.

Today I’m going to work on putting together our emergency kit which will include the memory card which has the photographs of all our stuff. In there will also go insurance policies, titles, deed and manuals for various things since they will testify to exactly what we own. Our estate documents and our living wills. That sort of thing.

After a year of trying to put together an external sprinkler system, I’ve decided to not pursue it. Why? Well, for one thing nobody here builds the kind of simple system I want. I’ve investigated all the possible vendors in the state. That would mean I’d have to work with somebody who didn’t know what they were doing. Which would make two of us.

Perhaps even more to the point, I read an article by a wildfire expert who said that if you follow the firewise zone recommendations, which I am, that most houses will survive a fire. The deputy chief of the Elk Creek Fire district said that our house was well situated to survive a fire, in large part because we have a short, level driveway on a primary road, Black Mountain Drive. The perception of the fire department is important because during a fire they drive through the area and in essence do triage. These homes will be ok on their own. These can survive if we protect them. These homes will burn. You want to be in the first two categories. And we are no matter the sort of fire.

ECFD LOGO

Also, I decided to make my peace with losing our house and garage. After I finish the fire mitigation work, taking down trees and making sure we have a our zone free of combustibles around the house, I’m going to rely on luck and the Elk Creek Fire Protection District. Should that not prove enough and we lose everything except our lives and the lives of our dogs, we’ll build again. What could be safer than an area that’s already burned out?

It felt freeing to come to this decision. Both Kate and I agreed that losing our stuff would be very, very far from a cataclysm. We could rebuild an energy efficient house suited to our needs.

All part of settling in.