Castlewood

 We snuck a quick hike in at Castlewood Canyon today before the snow and cold come back tomorrow…

I felt like we needed some outside time before being stuck indoors for the next few days. (It’s not supposed to get above freezing until Friday.) 

Castlewood was absolutely stunning… 

…the blue sky, the bit of snow on the ground and decorating the peaks in the distance. Including, of course, my favorite peak: Tava. I really have a hard time with Tava being “discovered” by Zebulon Pike back in 1806, when it had already been well known and revered by native tribes for hundreds of years before Pike stumbled upon it. It already had a name too, when they named it after Pike. I much prefer it’s original name Tava (meaning Sun). 

Speaking of Tava. Here it is dominating the horizon to the south…

I love how it looks in this photo, framed by the two ponderosa pines. 

We call the smaller mountain just south/east of it (almost hidden behind one of the pines) “little sister” but it’s really Almagre  Mountain and is over 12, 000’ high! It just looks small next to stately Tava…

We had a lovely hike… it was wonderful to get outside and hike a little after the snowy January we’ve had. 

Snowy day walk…

 It was a snowy day and R and I decided it was just too beautiful out to stay inside, so we bundled up and headed out for a walk in the snowstorm. 

The wind wasn’t bad until we got to the top of the hill, then it hit us full force and was COLD… so we quickly turned and headed for home. 

As we got close to home we saw that the front yard had been completely taken over by deer while we were gone. We counted 14 of them, none of whom seemed very concerned about our intruding on their little get together.

We were pretty cold when we got home, but the wood stove warmed us up quickly. 

There is nothing like being cold to make a person really appreciate warmth!

Early morning beauty…

 I woke up this morning to hoarfrost covering everything…the sun was back out, after a foggy day yesterday, and it was breathtakingly beautiful.

Brrr…

 It’s been cold the past few mornings!

Mother Cabrini Shrine

After making a few trips up to Lookout Mountain over the past year or so, snd becoming familiar with the area…R decided she wanted to climb the steps up to the huge statue of Jesus at Mother Cabrini Shrine. We’d visited the shrine before but never made the trip up to the top… I knew M wouldn’t even try because of his anxiety around steps, and I didn’t feel right leaving him behind. 

Yesterday though I decided we’d just give it a try. M was unusually agreeable to going and I reassured him over and over that he didn’t have to climb the steps… he could wait in the car, climb part way and wait for us on one of the benches along the route, etc. Incredibly he didn’t argue, or insist we go somewhere else, so up we went. 

M did end up waiting below while R and I climbed to the top (300+ steps) and he did fine… The trip up was definitely worth it.. the view was SO beautiful, and it was peaceful, serene, at the top. It felt like a holy place. 

We stayed long enough to say a prayer for the family of a dear friend of ours who passed away last week then made the trip down. 

I’m pretty sure we’ll do this again.. After seeing the stairs and the photos I took from the top, M has decided he might like to try going at least part way up next time, and R definitely wants to go again. 

It was a lovely way to spend the day… 

Nighttime stroll

 The kids and I decided to take a walk after dinner..

It was already full dark when we left the house and the moon was amazing… big and full on the horizon. 

We found Jupiter and Saturn in the southern sky, and looked for… but didn’t see… the Milky Way. 

I tried to get a picture of the moon, it was so beautiful…

…but didn’t have much luck. 

M did have fun with the flashlight, making scary faces at us. R and I didn’t want to bring the light, surprisingly, it seems easier to see without it…just letting our eyes adjust… but M was nervous about being out in the dark. We ran into nothing scary however, except one poor deer who thought she’d found a lovely private spot to bed down for the night but ended up frightening M to pieces (and frightening her to pieces at the same time!) when he mistook her for a mountain lion. 😂

Early birthday morning walk…

 

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S

Metamorphosis

 Today was a big day….

Walter, the little caterpillar we’ve been raising inside (to keep the birds from eating him), emerged from his chrysalis today.

He is absolutely beautiful… Unfortunately we missed him actually emerging from the chrysalis, but found him shortly afterwards…hanging upside down, slowly opening and closing his new wings getting them ready for the long flight to Mexico.

He stayed on the back porch for a just a little while before flying away. 

It was such a treat to raise another caterpillar again…it’s been a few years but it never loses its magic. 

Mother Nature’s August “snow”

 We had an unexpected hailstorm yesterday and a nice rain. We ended up with almost 1” of rain, and as far as I can tell the hail was too little to have damaged the cars, etc. It did make an impressive noise though, especially the pounding on the metal roofs and skylights. 

Once again the barn seemed to be on a little island in the middle of the rushing water. I’m so glad Annie and Carl placed the barn carefully. Despite the water all around it, the barn (and the hay inside!) always stays dry. 

Wildfire sunrise

 

Snow storm...in May

 Nothing else needs to be said.

Pasture walks

 I’ve been taking a walk in the pasture each day... kind of a mental health break towards the end of the day (when M finally settles down to watch his favorite TV show). Although we don’t have much land, I’ve found that each day I see new things... things that I’ve always been too distracted or hurried to have noticed before. This post is devoted to those things...

Like all the deer trails cross-crossing the property. I try to walk on different ones each day... try them out, you know. 

And the dogwood (?), why have I never noticed that some have reddish orange stalks and leaf out later in the year, some have brown stalks and leaf out early? They are definitely different plants!

And my favorite little twisted pine.... I hope it survives.

And the holes the woodpeckers have made in the old tree on the east end of the gully. I wonder how many birds call that old tree home? (It makes me think of the book, Wishing Tree.) 

The first wildflower of the year...

And finally, a few raindrop diamonds on the big ponderosa... such a lovely majestic old tree. 

Super moon!

 

"squirrel-proof" bird feeder

I bought a new bird feeder a few months ago. I mainly bought it because it was advertised as being "squirrel-proof"... It's made so that too much weight on the perch lowers the perch and closes off access to the bird seed. I thought the idea was ingenious (and the bird feeder cute) and since I'm tired of the squirrels eating everything in sight (including the chicken feed!) I bought it.

 I looked outside the other day and had to laugh at the resourcefulness of our squirrels...






Who knew he could stretch that far?



I have since moved the feeder another foot or so away from the trunk of the tree, and the squirrel is back to hanging out with the chickens, eating their food!

diggin' out... catchin' up

The blog's been quiet the past week or so... there is no particular reason, good, bad or otherwise... except maybe Joe's current work schedule which requires me to get up (so I can get HIM up) at 4:30 each morning. 

That's too early for me. 

By an hour or so. (I'm SO not looking forward to "springing forward" with daylight savings time in a couple of weeks!) The early mornings tend to be my blogging time, but at 4:30 I'm not awake enough to think, much less write. Which has resulted in a quiet, neglected, blog.

I do eventually wake up though, and have been getting things crossed off my home project to-do list...

I pinned this photo the other day, thinking it would be the perfect way to store my old tin measuring cups. 

After over-thinking it for days, and almost deciding it would be too much work and skipping it altogether...

... I had a burst of energy, adapted the idea for my kitchen, and got it done. I do love how it turned out. 

The mudroom (which is in our tiny basement, off the garage) has been getting a mini-makeover in preparation for building and hanging a barn door to close it off from the spare room.  Here's the new almost done rack for barn coats, it still needs another row of hooks across the bottom... Can you guess what the wood base is made from?

 

The track for the barn door is up, and I have a plan for how I want to build it...

... next up will be buying the lumber and getting it built and hung. 

I've also been spending a fair amount of time shoveling snow and hauling firewood. We had a pretty good snow storm over the weekend (a foot or so of snow on the ground; a high yesterday of 9 degrees) but the trail to the barn is shoveled, and the house is warm. 

It's supposed to be a cold, snowy week... I'm guessing I'll being seeing a lot more of the snow shovel before it's all said and done. 

Stay warm!