A crispness in the air

It's September and around here it's not possible to ignore it. Haying is just about done and now the big cattle moving is happening all over. Ours, well, not ours, are still here for a month before they'll be pulled out. They're so fat now they can hardly get around, and there's a mystery steer we've seen exactly once that is monstrous in size. Heather was here for that sighting so there are three of us who swear it was a steer on steroids. I'm on the lookout.

Flap solo napping in our grass

Maybe Flap's fawn maybe not

Four huge bucks outside our gate

Jump over, the grass is great

The colors and the air are changing by the day but not the aspen quite yet. The deer are right in the mottled stage turning from brown to gray. Flap's been around quite a bit and we think she had, surprise, a fawn possibly twins this year. She's such an odd one it's hard to say, she seems to forget she has offspring half the time.

Mark and I had a fun outing to the Cochetopa headwaters, fishing for him, reading, painting, and photography for me. It's a fair distance, a two hour drive plus a 1.5 mile hike in but well worth it with lots of great scenery. Great fishing for Mark, he caught 60 or so fish!

One thing I will say though is the dreaded beetle kill is happening in this area and its tough to see. It kills the tallest and strongest pines with a 80% mortality rate and some of the forests look exactly as if a huge forest fire ravaged the area. Millions of acres are affected all over Colorado and it's slowly creeping to the Gunnison area. Solutions are not great, burn and thin.The logging industry at least is getting some benefit from this but they have to harvest fairly quickly or the wood is no good.

Love this valley. A bit of everything from double rainbows to magnificent vistas to bucks at your doorstep. And we get to share - Tiffany, Chris, and the girls fly in tomorrow for a week, with Lisa and Charles joining us for the fun for a few days. Crib, highchair, and a lot of toys coming out...