Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Colorado, Family, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase

I’m An Old CowHand From the Rio Grand

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Beltane                                                           Closing Moon

Three things of significance today. Picked up Mary for her first visit to Black Mountain Drive. I’m wired up with leads and a belt holster, ekgs available at the push of a button. This is for thirty days or until I have 3 episodes or events.

And. The Andover house closed, almost all of the money is in our bank account. We are no longer cash poor and paying two mortgages. Yippee, Yi, Ya as we say out here in the West. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet, but we’ve looked up our bank balance and it’s pretty damned healthy. Great to have that uncertainty behind us.

Now the entire circus tent has been struck, all three rings, loaded on the train and the train’s left town, heading west. Our last physical and fiscal ties to Minnesota ended today around 3pm. The friendships, the cultural and political ties, those will remain.

But today we are wholly here from a business perspective. Black Mountain Drive already feels like home, as does the Front Range. How long it takes for our souls to take root in the mountains is an unknown, but a pleasant one, a process of taking the mid out of the midwesterner. It’s already begun. Gotta go now and hitch my hoss to a post.

 

 

 

 

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

For Millions of Years

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Beltane                                                      Closing MoonUpper Maxwell Falls Trail350

 

A mile or so from our driveway is the trailhead for Upper Maxwell Falls trail. I went once in the winter and didn’t take my yak-traks with me. It was too icy to navigate the altitude gain.

Today, as the gloom began to settle in late afternoon, and as my own mood began to mimic the gray overhead, I set out for Maxwell Falls.

Upper Maxwell Falls Trail1350The trail is not long, about a mile and a third round trip, but it does climb, then decline through ponderosa forest. Piles of large boulders, weathered and jumbled together, cling to the side of Shadow Mountain above and the trail, while Maxwell Creek flows with equal parts power and grace, going white over rocks in its way, curling around them, too, in gentle embrace.

The falls themselves are modest in height, but there are several, one after another, giving more speed to the already rapid water. This is the way it’s been here for millions of years after the snow melt and when rains come. The water starts up high and finds these channels that allow it to collect and be the chisel. Later, it will grow calm after having taken a fast ride, perhaps pooling behind a beaver dam or a spillway or flowing into a lake or pond.Upper Maxwell Falls1350

It is a privilege to live so close to this magic. It dispelled the gathering gloom in my Self, allowed me entrance to the Otherworld, the place where humans are still one among many and not more important than any other.

Feelings, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Lucky Guy

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Beltane                                                                           Closing Moon

A beautiful day in the neighborhood. Clear blue skies, fluffy clouds over Black Mountain, the air cleared of dust by last night’s rain. Driving to Evergreen on Interstate 70 yesterday afternoon, there were cars pulled alongside the road taking photographs of the snow-capped mountains to the west and the buffalo herd to the north. On an Interstate. Tourist season must be getting underway.

Looking southeast from Sushi Win
Looking southeast from Sushi Win

And I was driving home, turning into the Front Range mountains that surround Evergreen. On a nearby one, Shadow Mountain, is our house. It’s a feeling I have often, feeling lucky to drive these mountain roads to get home.

Eating raw fish is an important part of my occasional diet and Sushi Win in Evergreen got good reviews. It was off Co. 74 and on my way, so I stopped there. The view from the window. Well.

Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Solar Snowshovel

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Beltane                                                                        Beltane Moon

Geologist Tom Zeiner from the Colorado Native Plant class calls it the “solar snowshovel.” Without spending a dime or even removing the snowblower from the garage, the weekend’s snow has melted and transpired from the driveway. This will continue to amaze me for some time. What a treat.

The forecast has rain in all of the next ten days save 2. That means more water going downhill added to the already high water levels. But, no snow.

 

Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate
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Beltane                                                             Beltane Moon

Hmmm.

“Snow for the northern and central mountains is looking like a sure-bet, and with that the National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch which goes into effect Saturday afternoon and continues through Saturday night. Heavy snow at elevations >8,500 feet for the northern and central mountains will add up to 10 to 20″ by Sunday morning. If your plans take you into the mountains Saturday afternoon, please plan for winter driving conditions.”  weather5280

Art and Culture, Dogs, GeekWorld, Shadow Mountain

Tires, Wood, Art and Dog Bites

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Beltane                                                                        Beltane Moon

Into Denver today to pick up four Michelin Latitude Tours. Saved $300 over my mechanic’s quote for the same tire. Tire Rack.com you rock!

On the way back I stopped at Paxton Lumber Company just off Colorado Avenue near I-IMAG147070. Actor Bill Paxton is a member of this family. Jon recommended it. They have wood for wood workers. I’m looking for wood to make a new top for some Ikea cabinets I have.

Woods they had, often 10-12 foot boards, many 3 inches thick: chestnut, yellowheart, padauk, wenge, pecan hickory, mahogany, teak, brown ash, walnut, alder, white ash, cherry, red oak, white oak, european beech, aromatic cedar (smelled so good) plus other, softer woods like pines, basswood, poplar. What a great place. Finishing the book shelves, getting a new top for my cabinets will mean I can organize and then use all my resources. Excited about that.

When I got back into the mountains, I made a stop in Indian Hills, a small town just off Hwy. 285. The Mirada Art Gallery there has a good reputation, the best in the Denver metro in spite of being in a relatively out of the way spot. It had a show of contemporary artists focused on the West that will close Friday.

The art, most of it, did not attract my eye. Too loose, too colorful, not enough depth. Expensive art to match your couch. However, sculpture Jennifer Stratman and painter Alvin Gill-Tapia would look good in any museum or home.

These were places I’d wanted to see for some time, but the opportunity hadn’t presented itself. Today, it did.

While I was gone, the dogs tripped over into predator behavior. They are neither pliable, nor sensible in that state. Gertie has a wound just below her left eye. She looks like a prize fighter. Vega, who had attacked both Gertie and Kepler earlier in the morning, got bitten by Kepler. The e-collar he’s in didn’t bother him. Kate said he clamped on and wouldn’t let go. It’s not a terrible wound, but it’s a puncture wound through the dermis, so she’s back on antibiotics.

Vega, in a happier moment, with her sister, Rigel
Vega, in a happier moment, with her sister, Rigel

When they’re in a predatory frenzy, fights and biting occur at the door. Doorways are places where doggy status becomes critical, top dogs through first, omegas go last. In the frantic scrums like the one this morning everybody tries to get through the door at once. Havoc can, and did this morning, ensue.

Colorado, Feelings, Friends, Jefferson County, Minnesota, Shadow Mountain, Woolly Mammoths

Places are strange

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Beltane                                                                            Beltane Moon

The plane performed its wonder, lifting a couple of hundred people into the air. The full Beltane moon lit up the clouds passing by underneath. I stared out the window, a bit confused, leaving Minnesota to return home. This required an adjustment in my thinking.

Then, when I arrived at my home airport, it was strange, another place on the road with unfamiliar paths and habits. Mostly I enjoy learning new things, but it was 10 pm, almost my bedtime and I stumbled a bit, as I would in an airport unknown to me. This experience conflicted with Kate waiting in the cell-phone lot, ready to pick me up and take me back to the mountains. Odd.

Coming home to Colorado, the first time from away. The Woolly retreat for 2015 now over.

It’s a cliche. Felt like I never left. But true. Slipping back into the physical presence of my friends, my Woolly brothers, was like putting on a comfortable shirt. It just fit. Coming as it did a couple of weeks after the start of the prostate path, it was especially welcome. One friend has had prostate surgery. Another knew many who had. Most of the news was positive. Cures, few side effects. Offers to talk further as the path winds on. So welcome.

I suspect the level of my comfort at Camp du Nord, about a half-hour north and west of Ely, figured inversely to the level of strangeness I felt when returning to Colorado. But. I had no desire to remain in Minnesota, to reconsider our decision. I wanted to get home.

More on the retreat later.

GeekWorld, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West

The Well-Watered House

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Spring                                                             Beltane Moon

Wildfire mitigation. That was on my mind when we went to the Conifer/Evergreen home and garden show. And, in a booth for a product that costs between $20,000 and $30,000 I got an idea that will help us a lot, an external fire sprinkler system.

The concept can be implemented far more simply than the battery maintained, 500 gallon reservoir system Waterguard offers. It’s automated and assumes loss of power to the house soon after the fire becomes a problem. Loss of power is a problem unless  you have a stand-alone, gas fueled generator. Which we do. It’s the first block in our system and needs to get installed soon.

After it’s in, we’ll review the various sprinkler systems available, I’m leaning toward one that is plumbed and covers the house, the garage and the defensible space. Defensible space is about 30 feet out from the house. This space needs special, intensive and unsentimental approaches to any fuel source: shrubs, grass, trees. The two together, a solid defensible space and an external sprinkler system, will bring over 90% of homes through a direct burn.

It will take a while to price and get bids for the system we choose, but we should be able to have it in place before the worst part of the wildfire season in late summer, early fall. I get sprinkler systems, having managed a twelve zone system in Andover for many years, and this makes sense to me.

Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate
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Spring                                                        Beltane Moon

We have significant snow on the ground with only 10 days to go until Beltane. Of course, temperatures will rise. Even with the temperatures in the mid-forties like the last couple of days our magical south facing driveway eliminated several inches of snow all by itself. As Jon says, sweet.

We have limited experience of mountain weather, but what we’ve seen so far we like. Snow against the ponderosa pines looks like the background of a book cover for a Zane Grey novel. The snow itself, until this last one, was mostly powder, light and fluffy, easy to remove when necessary. The fluctuation in temperatures from moderate lows (compared to Minnesota) to warm (compared to Minnesota) mean the cruel burdens of winter like long lasting ice, snow cover on roads, very cold temperatures and snow piled in huge mountains reducing the size of parking lots are mostly absent.