Bear, One Way, flowers, and dry-aged beef

Surprise- I'm back again. Grand there's so much to blog about here at Star Mt. You will see the bear photos above and below. We were on Ohio Pass for the first time this season and lo and behold our first bear sighting of the summer. Scared him up a tree - I've seen claw marks on trees but never before actual animal climbing.

Lots happening in town - CB that is. Restaurants flinging open their doors and adding tables out on the street. The main drag (Elk Ave) has been turned into a one way, one lane road to allow for more pedestrians and restaurants able to serve outside which is the safer option right now). We've made it to Secret Stash once for outside lunch. Caution is the key. And fyi Secret Stash and others have been literally feeding those in need with a weekly farmers market type set up for months now. Bravo. We will support all those restaurants gladly.

It's just gorgeous every direction now. Our flowers are peak or just past - Star Mt. is always earlier than other areas. We'll do some exploring soon to investigate.

still a little snow on Carbon Peak

Here is the new patio. We expect to get a lot of use out of it. The animals are not so sure. Keeping a wide berth so far, and since we just planted flowers that are supposedly deer resistant, probably not a bad idea.

Normal changes around here. The cattle are in, 120 or so, and everyone had to run and close their gates. They're here until early October. Ahh the joys of manure in the road...

Annual window washing happened thank goodness. Can you believe we tried to do this ourselves when we moved in 11 years ago. A bit of insanity there...

We dry age beef, did you know? So easy - cheesecloth, small rack, and stored in the frig. We started doing this many years ago with great success and then couldn't find the time or the right kind of beef, who knows...  Anyway grand success - 28 days. There's a lot of waste as you can see.  I think is part of the crazy cost to buy dry aged, which of course now is completely ridiculous due to all the virus, meat packing plant situation.

That's it for now. As always these days, wishes for everyone to be safe and healthy.