JUNE -- Heaven and Hell (or damn close by)

Colorado Columbines appeared very early this year

After anticipating our second summer at the cabin since, well, since leaving last summer, it was heaven to finally hit the road and return to our “other” home.  It was a joyful second home-coming, returning to a finished, furnished, and equipped cabin (unlike the first year) where all we had to do was to move in our provisions and settle in for the next four months.  

Lemon glazed vegan gems

Batty for bat boxes (the first of eight)

We were quick to renew old routines and start this year’s special projects, hiking almost daily, fires in the wood-burning stove to take the morning chill off the cabin, catching up with our Colorado friends, tending to the forest, and for Bob, constructing the first of many bat boxes.  There were cookies to bake and the local libraries to visit, and gatherings with friends and family, impromptu or otherwise.  Mountain life is good.

Salads, not soups, as the temps rise

The hummingbirds, mostly Broad Tails, are drinking the quart feeder dry twice a day.  If they run out they fly up to us and hover less than a foot from our faces, essentially ORDERING us to provide a refill, FAST!  Since we no longer seed feed (too much of a bear attractant) we have to work at birding a bit more than we’re used to, but we are enjoying the local birds which are quite varied and interesting even though it is harder to pick them out in the forest than perched on a saguaro.  We enjoy the gyrations of the turkey vultures pivoting in the updrafts in the valley off our front porch.  Chickadees hang upside down on the aspen branches, checking for insects.  Nuthatches walk headfirst down tree trunks communicating to each other with their weird muted nasal calls.  A Townsend’s Solitare sits on a tall snag at the top of our hill every evening at sunset to serenade us with its lovely and varied song.  We’ve had two bears -- that we know of -- outside the cabin...one looks to be the same one from last year, only bigger and with an more beautiful cinnamon coat, and one a small yearling, about the size of an English sheepdog.  I’ve been working with the Bear Aware program here, helping to educate humans about living in bear country.  

Movie night, outside

Despite our elevation of 8,600 feet, we are not exempt from global warming trends.  We’ve had some very warm weather for here -- not as hot as the 109 degree day I spotted on the Tucson weather forecast, but we’ve now had a few afternoons in the low 90’s...nothing to complain about so long as you find a shady spot to share with a cool drink and a good book.  Even here I am at times reluctant to turn on the oven to roast some veggies or tofu or bake cookies.  Last night we decided to watch a DVD outside, instead of in the warmish cabin.  We put the laptop on our little bistro table and us in comfy camp chairs, and watched Sideways (again) with our towering red rocks adjacent to the cabin as a dramatic backdrop -- sort of like a drive-in movie in a dramatic location sans the big screen and the car.  

The heat has had other consequences, aside from lots of salads.  The forest is dry and getting drier by the day.  Wildflowers that were in such early profusion when we arrived a month ago are shriveling now, the scant tenth of an inch of rain we’ve recorded in the past month not enough to sustain their enthusiastic spring growth.  Dry warm air, wind, and a crunchy forest are not a good combination and Colorado is battling several wildfires, a few of them big ones.  We are particularly sensitive to forest fires as this new cabin stands where the original cabin stood for 40 years before burning in the Hayman fire ten years ago.  

The Waldo Fire, two hours old,
viewed from near the cabin

We’ve seen at least half a dozen smoke plumes from fires as near as ten miles away and have been enlisted by the local volunteer fire-fighting force, the Mountain Communities Fire Protection District, as we have an excellent long view from the southeast to the north.  We followed our tireless neighbor Todd -- site manager of the adjacent retreat, father of three (soon to be four), EMT and chief firefighter of our local station -- through locked gates in the back country to last week’s meeting at the firehouse where we filled out volunteer applications.  Before the meeting could start the volunteer firefighters were called out to battle a few of seven manmade fires set in two hours by an arsonist.  It’s one thing to have dry lightning start a fire in a tinder dry forest.  It’s harder to understand someone who’s either clueless or feels that the fire ban doesn’t apply to him.  But someone deliberately setting fires, multiple fires (over two dozen so far)!!!???  Utterly mind-boggling.  Cabins can be rebuilt, but forests could take a thousand years to return to their current maturity.  

The last few weeks have been tough.  Rumors of nearby fires have abounded, some true (and quickly extinguished), and some simply rumors.  We’ve had days choked with the smoke of fires near and far.  The Springer fire between Florissant and Lake George was scary enough, but was soon overshadowed in a huge way by the Waldo Fire on the western edge of Colorado Springs.  

The view from Divide, eight miles west
after being evacuated from Woodland Park,
five days into the Waldo Fire.  Grim.

 Finally I packed us an evacuation bag of a few changes of clothes, things for the dog, important papers and our laptop, binoculars, and cameras just in case we find ourselves in the line of a wildfire and are ordered to get out quickly.  I was glad I had when the Waldo fire blew up the day we were in Woodland Park trying to reprovision.  We could see a thin column of black smoke near the Ute Pass (Hwy 24) driving into town and by the time we’d gotten the bulk of the grocery shopping done it was churning.  We tried to stop at our favorite Asian restaurant only to be told it was under mandatory evacuation.  Suddenly I wasn’t so hungry.  We tried one more shop on the west end of Woodland Park but it was the same story.  Heading 8 miles further west to Divide, I popped into the the smallish grocery to get a few things missing from my shopping list, and in the ten minutes it took me to get out it now looked like Mount Vesuvius was erupting just down the road.  Lunch and the Florissant library evaporated from out to do list and all we wanted to do was get back to the cabin.  A neighbor called saying she’d gotten a reverse 911 call that she didn’t hear all of, but the word evacuation had been used.  I called the sheriff and was told that we were on pre-evacuation and to get ready to leave and wait for word.  This later turned out to be an error on the Sheriff’s department end, but it did tend to focus the mind.  Waldo now seems to be pretty well contained, but we are aware that until we get a good dose of soaking rain we are in a Red Zone fire area.  Forest fires have always been part of life in these mountains, but never has it been so pervasive.

Never too early to indoctrinate the youngest member of the tribe
into the Healthy Forest Initiative tools of the trade

Still, we are grateful to be able to be in our mountain cabin enjoying the relatively cooler weather, our local friends, and visits from Colorado family.  This montane environment is so very different from that other landscape we also love, the desert southwest.  Both places wait for the summer monsoon with its quenching rains, and it cannot come soon enough.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 11

Just a Touch of Cabin Fever, December 28th

We’ve had just a touch of cabin fever the past couple of days.  It came on shortly after a too brief visit from our friends across the lake...just enough time for a cup of tea and a little get-away from their own kids and grandkids, a half an hour stolen from the afternoon they were heading back to town.  They’d bought us a pair of snowshoes to try out, and we had dueling conversations in too small a space, and it left us feeling a little bit lonely when they left too soon.  

The sun set just as they were leaving, shortly after 4 PM.  The winds that had been kicking up for a couple of days whistled around the corners of the cabin.  We thought it would be a good night to pull out the Netflix DVD we’d brought with us, and we set up the laptop on the coffee table and got lost in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.  

Dreaming of the ease of summer hiking...

In the summer we make regular weekly trips to town to provision, poke through a few shops, make a stop at the hardware store, visit the farmer’s market, have lunch, and most importantly, go to the library.  The cabin gets no cell phone reception and we don’t have Dish or a TV.  We have a land line, but no Internet which is the hardest to deal with.  We can go to the Ranch House, a mile up the road, and hope the satellite Internet is working and hasn’t had it’s daily megabyte allowance used up by someone downloading 47 pictures of a new granddaughter.  Even in Tucson we eschew cable, but do enjoy streaming Pandora during the day and an episode of something or the other on Netflix most nights.  We are on the computer at that “other” home quite a bit, and like email and using the web for news and as a reference.  We just plain miss it here, especially without our weekly wallow in it at the library.

...while enjoying the novelty of winter hiking

After about a week of being in the cabin with no trip to town in sight, having fully provisioned for two weeks due to the shortness of our visit and the iffiness of the weather, our joy and the novelty of being at the cabin and the magic of a couple of snowstorms began to collide with missing our normal mod-cons and our primary summer activities that keep us outside most of the day.  

We’ve actually be doing great with outdoor time, walking two or three miles a day along with other outdoor chores like snow shoveling and firewood hauling, but next winter when we come up we’ll have more outdoor toys (snowshoes at a minimum) and some better winter gear so that we don’t feel quite so cabin bound.  We know this is a fast moving “fever” and our bliss will be back soon.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 7

Hard work, and a little patience required

Santa Arrives Early (on a grader!), December 23rd 

It was zero at dawn, and fell to minus 3 before we’d finished our coffee.  We weren’t surprised -- a friend in Chicago had called and checked for us online while we were on the phone and the prediction was for even colder than that.  And the night had been clear, so no coverlet of clouds to keep in whatever heat we’d gained during the day.  With first light the birds hit the feeders and suet block hard, and Bob scattered some seed just to facilitate their breakfast.  The pines and firs were laden with snow caught up in their needles, but it was dry and powdery, and even a Mountain Chickadee hammering open a seed on a branch could send a plume of snow falling to the ground.  With no more snow predicted, we knew this was the epitome of our snowy Christmas -- and yes, it would be white (our first ever together).  

Heading down the driveway

It warmed up to around freezing in the early afternoon, so we bundled up and headed out for a good walk.  It felt terrific to stretch out our legs after and lazy day inside during the storm.  Bob did some shoveling, but abandoned it when we decided to break our way through the snow on the drive on foot and walk along the plowed road below the cabin.  The bright sun was just beginning to do its work, melting a bit of the snow off rocks and plants, and letting the evergreens lose some of their snow load, bough by bough.  We were pretty quick walking under snow filled trees, knowing we could end up getting quite a load of the cold white stuff dumped on us without much warning.  Pictures I’d taken a few days ago, impressed with the decoration of the four inches we’d gotten the day after arriving, were now totally obsolete with the addition of another 10 inches, so there was nothing to do but retake them.

Walkin' in a winter wonderland...

Last summer's rose hips

We made, at my suggestion, an ill-advised attempt to break through the snow to the meadow.  With us tripping over unseen rocks and snags under the snow and the dog floundering in what was chest deep snow for her, we gave it up and discussed getting snow-shoes for next year on the walk back to the cabin.  I’m a little bit more superstitious than my husband, or maybe feel that getting sucker-punched by The Universe is not outside the realm of possibilities, and I figured that getting snow-shoes would mean we’d never see much in the way of snow up here at Christmas again.  It is, we’ve been told, more unusual than it is usual to have a thoroughly white Christmas up here.  And I’d hate to mess with that.  But hey, what about a sled!

Snow and ice; rock and lichen

Shortly after we got home Santa arrived early for us in the guise of our neighbor with the road grader, making short work of clearing our driveway.  It was going to be a Merry Christmas.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 6

Winter Wonderland, December 22nd 

No other name could apply.  We were living inside a snow globe.

It was still snowing at dawn and we had seven inches on flat surfaces around the cabin that had been cleared the day before.  It was 11 degrees, which sounds cold, and is, but so much better than the minus 13 we’d experienced last year.  We layered up, put the coat on the dog, and went outside to clear the decks and shovel a few paths around the cabin.  Bump went charging off down the drive, coming to an abrupt stop when the shoveled path ended and she met a near two foot wall of snow.  

Flocked with the real stuff

The birds were busy at the feeders, flitting around the deck chairs, sheltering underneath them.  One of them caught my eye...it looked familiar, but different somehow.  Our regular Gray-headed Junco had been joined by two other juncos, the Slate-colored Dark-eyed Junco and the White-winged Junco, neither of which I’d seen before.  A Junco Trifecta!  

Near the fire, a Kindle on your lap, a dog at your feet
and a snow-covered landscape outside...bliss!

It was a perfect day to stay inside near the fire, read, and watch the snow drift down.  The loft, always cosy and warm, had a puzzle of Colorado landmarks to be finished, and Bob was up to the task.  By sunset, shortly after 4 PM, the snow had stopped and it’s blanketing whiteness was as unmarred as it would be.  We counted ourselves lucky to have gotten a good snowstorm two years running, at least until we thought about how we’d get the car down the drive.  Oh well, we’ll worry about that some other day.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 5

A snug cabin in which to ride out the storm

Storm Warning, December 21st 

It’s nice to welcome winter in a place that has the quintessential look and feel of winter.  Snow on the ground and dusting the evergreens, a nice contrast and keeping it from looking at all bleak as it might in some landscapes, the temperature in the low-20’s appropriately brisk, to say the least.  Our wireless weather station has flashing snowflakes displayed for a “future forecast” (bit of an oxymoron, me thinks).  The sky is clear and a light blue at the horizon, intensifying at the zenith.  We’re hoping for several hours outside again this afternoon, knowing it might be the last comfortable outside time we get for several days.

Prepared

There’s a winter storm watch on from this afternoon and through tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night and into the following day.  We could get nothing, or we could get the 2-5 inches they’re predicting, or we could get more.  Most assuredly we’ll dip down into single digits (on either side of zero degrees), but our cabin is so snug (thank you builder Brian), and our wood supply is essentially endless.  We’re provisioned well for a month (less well until the spring thaw).  We have little to worry about with a storm, and that is more than offset by the excitement (weather junkies that we are).  We have two big bookshelves filled with fiction, non-fiction, and reference books on nature and cooking, Kindles loaded up with reading material, an absolutely full iPod, NPR on the radio, one DVD to watch on the computer (Snowflower and the Secret Fan), jigsaw puzzles, games, two laptops, a sewing machine with projects galore, three different places to nap (the loft is the warmest), a phone to call family and friends, the chains on the SUV, a good dog, and binoculars near every window for bird watching.  And, thank goodness, we truly enjoy our own and each other’s company.

Sharing the road for a bit

After lunch the temperature climbed to near 40, so we put on a couple of layers plus our fleece vests and headed out for a pre-snowstorm walk.  It had clouded up and was looking quite gray in the northwest, so we knew we wouldn’t be going far.  We headed down the drive and up the main road in the opposite direction to Tuesday’s walk with our happy dog trotting out ahead.  We rounded a corner and found a neighbor’s dog lying in the road, keeping an eye on things.  He joined our dog for half a mile or so and then scenting with his nose deep in some tracks in the snow, headed off into the forest.  Bump took a few tentative steps to follow him, ended up in chest deep snow, and thought better of it, rejoining us on the road.  About a mile along we turned back into an freshening breeze and a darkening sky, and retraced our steps.  The snow scrunched underfoot, and with the increasing chill we were glad to get back to the warm cabin.

This way home...or maybe
we'll walk the driveway

It started snowing around 4 PM, and half an hour later we had an inch on the deck and were losing sight of the features across the valley.  We know that landscape so well that as it disappeared from view we still thought we could see the ghost of the mountain forming our horizon, but it was gone.  I took extra pleasure in making us a hot dinner -- oven roasted potatoes and a Greek veggie-tofu scramble -- which we devoured with a glass of Malbec.  The evening was spent with the porch lights on, watching the snow thicken and the depth increase.  We went to sleep snug under the quilt, unable to shake the vision of swirling wind-driven snow, wondering what we’d see when we looked outside in the morning.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 4

Snowy dawn

Ten Years Ago Today, December 20th

Dawn brought a winter wonderland scene of snow-flocked evergreens and a cloudless sky.  Sometime in the night it had actually warmed up to 16 degrees - a heat wave.  It was clear that at least another inch of snow had fallen during the night, bringing the total  to three or four inches over 24 hours.  There is nothing quite so lovely as a blanket of freshly fallen snow, sparkling in the sun.  It made me think of this same day, ten years ago, the day I arrived in Tucson to take up residence.  This is at odd place to be on that anniversary, at a high elevation cabin in the Colorado Rockies surrounded by snow, but there is a connection.  I’m here with the man, now my husband, who was my neighbor and the first person I met in Tucson, ten years ago today.  As they say, nowhere in my wildest dreams...

Arrival in Tucson, December 20th, 2001

Our cabin retreat, December 20th, 2011

At mid-morning we heard some sort of vehicle, the first we’d heard since our arrival.  We got out the front door just in time to see our neighbor, the site manager of the adjacent retreat, heading back down our drive plowing our road.  This is one of those things I so love about being here at the cabin and in such a remote location.  Neighbors are much more likely to lend a hand, and to do it without being asked or negotiation.  And it all works out.  My husband has helped this neighbor by teaching a few units of science to his home schooled kids, and I’ve baked the cookies that are the post-lesson treats.  We help other neighbors move wood and get hand carved bears in return.  Baked goods change hands, and there’s always a hot cup of tea or cold beer for anyone dropping by.  

Icing

By noon the temperature was just above freezing so we put on a few layers, boots and hats, got the coat on Bump and headed out for a walk.  With the long driveway cleared walking was easy and pleasant, and it felt good to move after being two days in the car and a snowy day inside the cabin.  We headed down the road enjoying our frisky dog’s antics and the warm sun on our backs.  Last summer’s fields of wildflowers were now carpeted in smooth snow, unmarked except for the occasional string of wildlife tracks.  Caps of snow helped define the rocky outcrops.  You could hear the creek gurgling under it’s iced-over top.  

Back at home after an easy two mile ramble it was, at 36 degrees, way too nice to go inside.  We decided to hang our one string of outdoor colored Christmas lights, and made a quick job of it, and still didn’t want to go inside.  I have little experience with snow aside from living in Michigan until I was nine years old, so I am alway surprised how sitting in a sheltered sunny spot in a snowy, near-freezing landscape can be so blissful.  Our south-facing porch is just such a spot on a calm day.  With the afternoon sun low in the sky we sat in sweaters on the Adirondack chairs, basking like lizards, soaking in the sun and were totally comfortable.  Even our once snow-phobic dog settled down in four inches of it just off the deck, laying in the sun.  But the minute the sun got near to setting behind the mountain across the valley, the sun’s rays diffusing through the tops of the pines and firs, we began to feel the chill.

A vegan dinner, the better to have more anniversaries

Retreating inside on this last day of fall, celebrating my arrival in Tucson and our first meeting, we made a dinner of roasted portobello mushrooms stuffed with a savory mix of brown rice, lentils, and cashews mixed with fresh parley and lemon thyme I’d harvested from our Tucson herb garden, and braised brussel sprouts.  We poured some wine and reminisced about the crazy set of circumstances that brought and kept us together.  Neither one of us could have imagined anything more unlikely, or so right.  It almost makes you believe in fate.  We count ourselves very, very lucky.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 3

Let it snow!

Deck the Halls, December 19th  

After a good 8+ hour sleep we woke up to clouds rolling in with the first few tiny snowflakes falling.  Before long the mountain across the valley disappeared in the snow and low clouds, and over the course of the day the snowfall increased, the light powder blowing off the trees and roof in displays of aerodynamic physics.  We put out seed feeders and a suet block for the birds, and didn’t have to wait long for them to show up.  Stellar’s Jays, Mountain Chickadees, White-breasted Nuthatches, Juncos, and and Downy Woodpeckers were soon sheltering in the ponderosa pines near the feeder.  The larger Hairy Woodpecker rode the suet block, hung from our hanging basket hook, like it was a Tilt-a-Whirl.

Bump the Snow Dog, decked out herself!

Homemade soup with Tina's great whole wheat bread

We spent the day reveling in being at the cabin, fortifying ourselves with good from-scratch food like oatmeal with tart dried cherries and toasted walnuts and a sturdy vegetable soup with red lentils and ruffled campanelle pasta eaten with a fantastic loaf of home-made whole wheat bread given to us by our Tucson friend, Tina.  We got out the Kindles and read by the fire, watching the snow swirl outside.  The temperature had descended all day, from 24 degrees at dawn to 11 degrees at bedtime -- and it was hard to get our desert dog, the one with no undercoat, but a real cute over-coat from L.L.Bean, to go outside to do the necessaries.  We all bundled up and took a few chilly walks to the top of the saddle, returning covered in snowflakes, and ready to warm up by the fire.  But we had one other “chore” to get done, one we’d been looking forward to...decking the halls.

Getting started with Frank Sinatra singing carols on the iHome

Last Christmas, for our first stay at the new cabin, we’d brought up a retro-style three-foot tall white Christmas tree with multi-color fairy lights and a tote full off decorations, some new, some old, and most from some fun scavenger hunts at Tucson thrift stores.  We’d loaded some favorite Christmas music on our iPod and played Frank Sinatra for me and John Denver and The Muppets for Bob...our respective traditional tree-trimming music from the days when we shared that job with our children.  With the tree up and decorated, the window sills festooned, and glittery snowflakes hanging throughout the cabin, we broke out some wine, and watched the snow in the fading light, the reflection of our tree hanging specter-like in the front window, merging with the darkening ponderosas outside.  

Finished

We ended the day continuing the Rummikub game we’ve been playing since May of 2006 (our first summer stay at the old trailer); at some point in the distant past I was ahead, but now I am hopelessly behind, but it’s fun and I get whining rights.  My husband is gently triumphant in his near constant victories.  We are nearing the bottom of the second side of the old steno-book page, a relic from Bob’s Dad’s court reporter days, and I wonder if it isn’t time to start anew.  Or, as Bob suggested, we could just get out Blokus and I could whip him consistently for a change.  At least I’m not throwing Uno cards across the table as I have been known to do, albeit with a smile on my face.

Ho, Ho, Home...

The Christmas Diaries, Part 2

Last year's raspberries casting their late afternoon shadows on the snow

Arrival...Sunday, December 18th

We did our typical trying-to-get-somewhere early morning wake-up at the motel, checked in with each other -- “Are you going back to sleep?  Me neither. Let’s go.” -- and were on the road by 5 AM.  We gassed up at Circle K, got coffees, and dug into our friend Geri’s Christmas present of zucchini bread before we’d hit I-25 North.  In the pre-dawn we congratulated ourselves on missing the blizzard that was coming through this area this evening, a blizzard that would, in fact, eventually close Raton Pass, our passage into Colorado.  At first light you could see the snow-chalked ground below the pinon pines and juniper, the white horizontal striping of the mesa ledges.  With some Windham Hill Christmas music collections playing, we watched it get light, enchanted with the snowy scene.  Our excitement mounted with every passing mile.

After a quick stop at our favorite Chinese restaurant in Woodland Park, The May Flower, we went on to Florissant, turned north, and soon hit dirt roads.  They were a bit snow-packed in places, so it was a slow trip in, but beautiful.  It felt like we’d been away for a few days instead of 10 weeks.  When we’d left in early October our neighbor had been fly fishing on the lake below the cabin; now they were ice fishing (and had a beautiful big rainbow trout to show for it) and ice skating through the powder that had fallen over the frozen lake.  

It was all good until we hit our driveway, much of it covered in nearly a foot of snow.  Someone, thank goodness, had driven up fairly recently, so we had their tracks to help navigate the steep, near quarter mile to the cabin.  We made a few runs at it, having to back up a time or two to get further along the unplowed drive.  When the cabin was in sight we decided to leave the car for a bit and hike on up through the snow, anxious to make sure the cabin was alright and that we had power and heat and no frozen pipes.  It proved to be in fine and welcoming shape, relatively warm inside (mid-50’s) thanks in part to the low angle of the sun flooding the cabin with light and the propane heater set to low just to keep the cabin, and its pipes, safe.  

It was great to arrive at a cabin that was fully ready to be occupied.  Both last Christmas and last summer we had either no, or not enough, furniture and there was much moving in and organizing to do.  This time it was turn-key ready, or as turn-key as a cabin like this can be.  We got all the power on, went down in the crawl space and turned on the well pump, checked for leaks, and got a fire going in the wood-burning stove.  My husband went back down the hill and finally managed to get the car up the drive (next time the chains will be put on before trying), and unloaded.  There was a ton of stuff to put away, fire-wood to be hauled up, and totes and duffles to be stowed, but we found time to sit for a short time on the front deck, a bit of a heat trap, where it was, oddly, sweater weather.  It was a mild day with a high in the low 40’s, and we knew the next day would be different, with a predicted high in the 20’s and a few inches of snow.  Perfect!

After an early dinner of some chili I’d made in Tucson and brought up in our cooler, we were in bed by 8 PM -- not so surprising when it gets dark at 5 PM -- and we slept the deep sleep of arriving home after a 900 mile journey.

The Christmas Diaries, Part 1

Somewhere...yawn...along I-25 heading north to Albuquerque

Departure...Saturday, December 17th

After waiting for 10 weeks to return to the cabin, it seemed there was a great deal to do at the last minute.  I’d decided to provision everything we’d need for two weeks before leaving, and when I started packing I wondered if we’d be able to fit it into our Honda CRV.  In the end Bump, our dog, had to be content with just over half of the backseat, and we were on the road early than we’d expected.  The seven hour run to Albuquerque is, frankly, a little boring, but it was good to get there and get settled.  We did have a treat spotting Sand Hill Cranes both flying south and on the ground in open fields along the Rio Grande Valley.  We knew that soon after heading north the next morning, we’d hit the pinon pine forests, rolling hills, buttes and mesas around Santa Fe, and it would be great scenery for the rest of the trip.

From One World to Another

We've been back in Tucson for six weeks now.  I'll admit to having a bit of whiplash with this changing of locations, changing of lives.  Don't get me wrong -- having two wonderful homes in two incredible, and incredibly disparate, environments is fabulously decadent.  It is also a bit over-stimulating, this switching between worlds.  I hope I get better at it.

Blazing aspens in the Colorado Rockies

One moment we were high in the Rockies surrounded by ponderosa pines, firs, spruce, and flame colored aspen.  The next we were streaking across the Navajo reservation at dawn, the subtle golds and sage greens of the high desert working their magic, reassuring me that I did indeed still love arid lands.  Tucson was welcoming, if a little warm, and we were happy to get back to our other "forest", this one of towering saguaros.

Bob dwarfed in our  Tucson saguaro "forest"

During our last couple of weeks at the cabin in late September it was rutting season for the elk.  The nights were filled with the eerie calls of the bulls, exhausting themselves with the work of challenging other males, managing their harems, and mating.  In all the times we'd gone to the trailer, pre-cabin, for a week in late September hoping for aspen and elk, there had never been anything like this, both in fall color and elk activity.  We felt so very lucky.

Elk at dusk in Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

Culling clothes in Tucson

Returning to Tucson meant reunions with friends, getting back to "work" with our volunteer jobs at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Saguaro National Park, enjoying (except when it came to cleaning and maintaining) our much roomier Tucson home, and reveling in the convenience of the nearby proximity of groceries, restaurants, theaters, and libraries.  We had a flurry of appointments with everyone from our financial advisor to our dentist.  We've recognized that to be happy actually living in two places, both have to be simple and streamlined, and we're determined to downsize our possessions in Tucson since we can't come to grips with downsizing our home, despite missing our much smaller cabin and the easy life it afforded.  We've also taken time to hike the foothills and washes near our Tucson home, reacquainting ourselves with the fascinating, but more frugal, fauna and flora of the Sonoran desert.

One of six mule deer we spooked out of an arroyo near our Tucson home

The best part of all of this is that we don't have to give up either of the two places we love best on Earth.  We just need to learn to move between them with a little more grace and a little less whiplash.

One last reading session in the hammock at the cabin

We'll get a chance again soon when we leave in four weeks for Christmas once again at the cabin.

Stellar's jay rides out last winter's pre-New Year's snow storm at the cabin

In the meantime, check back soon for some posts of other end of summer activities at the cabin.

One. More. Month.

Changes...

One more month this year.  That’s what I keep telling myself.  That, and that just about any time we feel the urge, we can get in the car and be here the next day.  It’s impossible to believe we’ve been here, and away from Tucson, over three months.  Four weeks from tomorrow we’ll have closed up the cabin and be heading south.  I’m hoping I’m more ready (much, much more ready) when the time comes.  Meanwhile my plan is to make the most of this last month of our inaugural summer in the cabin...the first of many.

Golden mantle ground squirrel harvesting buds on a flannel mullein

Migrating Canada geese stop for some
R&R on Bear Lake before continuing south

No question about it, fall is on the way.  It’s early afternoon and just now barely out of the 50’s, but clear and sunny with the perfect amount of crispness.  The aspen are beginning to turn, usually the leaves changing to a clear yellow, but sometimes a rich orange.  The grasses are ripening and heavy with seed.  The tree squirrels, chipmunks, and golden mantle ground squirrels are frantically harvesting everything from pine and fir seeds to raspberries and buds off the flannel mullein.  Migration has seriously reduced the number of hummingbirds at the feeder (though for those who are still tanking up for their long flights we’ve increased the ratio of sugar to water a bit to help them out) and we are seeing a big increase in raptor action, including a stunning near pass by a ferruginous hawk a few days ago and a close visit by a great horned owl last night, it’s ear tufts silhouetted by the last remnants of the sunset before flying silently to another nearby snag where it tolerated being nagged by a defensive robin before swooping back into the forest.    The first hard freeze is probably no more than two weeks away and a fire in the mornings is suddenly no longer an indulgence, but a necessity, and snow before the end of September is not out of the question.  I’m taking advantage of the chilly day with a pot of homemade baked beans cooking slowly in a low oven for most of the day, and the cabin is filled with the smell of brown sugar, molasses, onions, and smoked ham shanks.

Many local friends have come and gone over the summer, and this Labor Day weekend will mark the end of the season up here at the ranch, and at the retreat that adjoins us.  Over 100 folks are expected at Sunday night’s end of the summer season barbeque and party, complete with entertainment (someone mentioned polka!).  It’s the first time we’ve been up here for this annual event and we’re looking forward to it.  It’s hard to say goodbye to our mountain friends as they, and before too long we, depart...we see more of them in these four months than we do of many of our friends that live a block or two away in our Tucson neighborhood, probably a function of the simple pleasures we indulge in here and a lack of extraneous entertainments that so distract us back in the city.  Shared meals, weekly game nights, group hikes, the outdoor Sunday services, and pitching in to help each other have formed close ties, some of them unexpected, some several years long now and very dear to us.

Teacher Bob, his five charges, and one mom

As summer nears its end, it also means back-to-school time.  The two families who manage the retreat have five elementary school-aged kids between them, all boys (one lone girl, still a toddler, will have a challenging future with this group).  They are all home schooled by their able and devoted parents, but this year my husband (with his three degrees in science) is teaching them a section of science each week.  Last week they gathered for their first lesson with Bob, and the subject was bugs, a favorite with just about all kids, and these boys were no exception.  They all headed off to the spring at the back of our five acres and were rewarded with finding long thin white horse-hair worms living in the muck.  They headed to the lake down the hill and found loads of bugs and aquatic insects, including a dragonfly nymph.  All the while they were learning bug basics, and another neighbor who was a life-long educator and is working with the parents on skills for teaching reading, provided vocabulary lists for follow-up work.  When they returned from the lake with their jar of mud-clouded water, complete with a plethora of tiny critters all doing the backstroke, freshly made cookies awaited those with freshly washed hands.  Homework was assigned -- a drawing of a bug and a collection of five different bugs to be delivered this coming week, when the topic will shift to birds.  All involved enjoyed it, but no one more than Bob.  Four more weeks, four more topics.

Four more weeks, a dozen or more hikes.  Four more weeks, a temperature drop of 20 degrees or more.  Four more weeks, four more game nights.  Four more weeks, one more full moon,