Perfection in the mountains

And summer marches on. We/I am in between guests (human that is) and just reveling in the fabulous weather and constant wildlife. Enjoying a number of rainy afternoons bringing much needed moisture along with spectacular booming mountain thunderstorms. Mark reluctantly left to go back to Florida but will return soon.

I don't know if cattle qualify exactly as wildlife, but nonetheless, I'm going to talk about them for a moment. Two hundred strong and are quite the messy bunch, they leave "cowpies" everywhere and it's hard to maneuver the car around it all. I'm visiting the car wash much more often and that's only to take a layer off. Impossible task to keep cars clean here. Those steers, which is what we have which are kinda boys, bellow and moan on a regular basis, and as you see, love to congregate at the gate on our upper driveway. They will literally stand, moan, and stare in for hours. Why do we have them, you ask? We lease all of Star Mt. all summer and early fall to a local rancher for the magic ag exemption. Mucho reduced taxes for our community.

It is all about deer season here. Fawns everywhere. We have our resident buck as well (see last post) He has been under our deck for hours every day since I took that photo. Mark has a theory he is related to Flap, our beloved doe of much errant behavior. It's certainly possible,we've seen her every year since we built - 8 years now, and she's had babies that we've seen almost every year since.

FLAP

She just showed up a couple of mornings ago very early as I got up. I saw her strolling up the driveway and on a hunch, went to look out the front. Oh yes, she had eaten all the day lily blooms before 6am. The only deer I know of who eats day lilies and other plants that none of the rest touch. I'm not even mad anymore, it seems a proper thing to have happen in Flap's "later" years. Don't know how old she is really...at least 9.

Elk chewed aspen up the road

We walked our woods which is a bigger undertaking than you might think. Our property is 35 acres and probably 20 or so are totally wooded. Happily we discovered quite a few baby aspen ( hadn't seen any for quite some time) as we have a fully mature aspen forest with unknown time left. We also saw a lot of chewing/scraping of downed trees of some unknown animal. Hard to say what, we have a myriad of creatures that roam in the woods - porcupine, fox, coyote, bear, mountain lion, deer, elk, weasel, badger, marmot, and the endless teeny creatures.The bottom photo is to show the difference between the mystery critter and elk chewing.

Cashmere goat farm in Gunnison. Been here going on 20 years. The owner is incredibly active in the community and supports the kids 4h programs. Wish I could get my hands on that cashmere! It goes elsewhere I'm afraid.

The last of our sunflowers are going. I'm sad but then I see the flocks of finches swooping down for the seed. The patterns remain the same every summer which is nice. Our bluebirds under the deck are grown up and flown out of the nest, and the second nest of robins under the deck seem to be almost ready to fly. A little mystery on why we don't have our usual giant number of hummingbirds. I've filled all 4 feeders for them while I'm gone anyway.

A bit of an interlude coming up for us.  A trip to Vermont planned to see friends. I'll be gone a week, hope all the creatures can survive without me!

Hot air balloons, deer, and jeeping

Hot air balloon rally for 4th of July. There's our alma mater W peeking out in the background.

Brush Creek jeep ride to see the wildflowers. It was spectacular and very Switzerlandish. This is also mountain bike central and we had to maneuver through the bikers. All friendly, we went super slow to avoid having them eat dust and we had waves all around.

Changing gears, we went to an early, 6:30am early, hot air balloon rally in Gunnison 4th of July morning. Gorgeous stuff.

"Our" elk have moved off Star Mt. with their babies but they're surely part of the enormous herds that are roaming up and down Ohio Creek. It's quite the awe inspiring sight.

One breakfast restaurant review. After having been to the lackluster opening of the "new" Paradise Cafe some years ago, had not been back until a few days ago at Mark's suggestion. It was fabulous, the most amazing breakfast and service. We highly recommend going - and Bloody Marys are optional.

where is my baby?

Coming Mama!

My first sight of the buck lounging under the deck as I drove into the garage. Looks like art sculpture right?

The beauty

Lots of deer action happening right now. Interestingly no sign of Flap since the first few days I got here. She's somewhere around though, maybe with new babies. She'll show up again I'm sure.

And the cattle are in! Roaming Star Mt. until mid October

Ohhh the summer is already going too fast. Every year I wish for time to slow down, but not to be. Mark is back in Miami and was sad to leave. Me too! The one good part of time moving too fast - he'll be back again the end of the month, be here before you know it.

Penny and Juliet part 2

Amazing how much we did and how much we left on the table even with all the extra days that Tiffany and the girls were here. Just goes to show there's always more to do.

Crested Butte for shopping and Camp 4 Coffee. The girls thought it was interesting but were not in for the coffee.part.

Frozen lemonade - the girls were ecstatic

Secret Stash

Montanya

Blueberry lemon ginger drink (Jules had one too)

We made it to a lot of restaurants but not all made the picture cut. Yes, that's Montanya Rum and Distillery. They serve some pretty snazzy non-alcoholic drinks along with nice appetizers. Most of us enjoyed the food except Jules who was insistent she wanted a "real" dinner.

Camping dinner! Well, that's what we call it. No camping, just dinner, but lots of fun. We picked a place down Carbon Ck Rd this time. Hamburgers, hotdogs, and of course S'mores.

Playground in Crested Butte

playground in Gunnison

Lots of playground activity. There are great ones around here and we hit all the major ones. Rock climbing classes are everywhere too as you can see. It's a big activity here including bouldering  (without ropes) Ha, not on any of our lists, that one.

last morning before we drove them back to Denver to catch a flight

It was grand and fun, fun, fun was had. Only sad thing was Chris was not here. You were much missed!