More white stuff falling out of the sky, and camping plans

Snow is baack... What craziness is this?  So happy Mark was here to experience this week's deck shoveling. Everything melts off quickly and the grass and flowers keep on popping out anyway.

The poor hummingbirds though. They tried to feed but it was a rough go. They're probably regretting leaving Mexico for this. Surely we're about done.

Egg pick up at the farm today. Animals out and about. The Great Pyrenees dog was off duty today. The farm has two and they protect the chickens from foxes etc...
Saw the first deer at Star Mt. yesterday and four more were in our woods this morning. It's great they're coming back but whoops, my daffodils are just now forming buds. Maybe the deer won't notice...
And in anticipation of the summer to come, we have ordered a tent. Oh, yes, we are going to try camping. I can't believe I'm excited about this, after nixing that as an option for a million years. (I think it might have been 1974 when we last did this). Now this is not days of backpacking carrying your own gear camping (I'm not that crazy) but taking the Rock, aka the jeep, and bouncing up to out of the way places with beautiful vistas. Should be lots of fun - I'll let you know...

Animals everywhere and quiet roads

While we've been enjoying nice weather,watching the greening up of everything, and the massive thawing goes on, we still were caught off guard by blocked roads. We tried to check out Spring Creek Reservoir - saw big horn sheep on the way, and Mark threw a line in just for fun, but snow blocked our way up. Amazing to have this much snow still around...

Everywhere is still so quiet. I am the only car on the road quite often. In CB the restaurants are just now starting to open preparing for the tourist season. We met friends Steve and Gail at Mcgills for breakfast Sunday with the place half empty. That is actually something to relish, in the summer the line is out the door...

We walked through our woods for the first time. It's been a snow packed,muddy mess up until recently. It's a magical place with a life all its own.. We think fox and coyote have babies in their dens right now. Startled a red tail hawk while we meandered. They nest high up in the aspen in the same place every year. No deer yet but soon we expect. Chippies are everywhere and the bluebirds are building a nest under our deck right where they did last year. And yes, the hummingbirds are back. Let the sugar water madness begin.

The giant group of elk have gone missing. We've only seen a few since the day they covered the next hill over. I'm counting on seeing their new babies in a few weeks. They better come back. I want things to be exactly as they have been over the last two summers. Pretty silly of me I know...

Elk and the magic spring

Sun and blue sky back along with Mark. His new commuting schedule to Detroit every other week is something I'm definitely not used to yet. We'll see how it all evolves...
He missed the massive elk sighting two days ago. They stayed on the next hill over all day and more kept streaming out of the woods as the hours went by, for a grand total of 72. Never seen so many all together.I didn't even drive to get the mail so as not to disturb them. (We have to drive a mile to our mailbox for those who don't know) Well, how important could that mail be anyway - bills, advertisements, certainly no letters. Who does that anymore? Well, come to think of it, I do have a friend who writes me every once in a while - long letters too. It's a lost art for most.
Anyway, took a lot of photos of the elk, but still couldn't quite get the whole scope. Where are they now? We've only seen a few since then. Maybe finding their hidden places to have those babies. Still a couple weeks away for that if last year is any indication.

I forgot to mention the grouse in my previous wildlife sightings. There are a whole group of them up the hill in the woods and this little fellow strutted in front of me for quite a distance to lead me away from his nest.  Love his fake "eye".

We went to fill up containers at the magic spring. Boy, is it running full blast. Mark got nicely wet along with the filling. It's fabulous to have that pure mountain spring water available all year. Fountain of youth maybe - I'm game. We tried to go further down the road to the end (Ohio Pass) which we knew was still closed, but didn't even get a half mile. Road still covered in snow. The pass opened late last summer; they don't clear it, just let nature do its thing, so can't imagine how late it will be this year, given the record snowfall that came down in April.
Have put up one hummingbird feeder - zero so far. They were here last year at this point hmmm....

Snow and inviting fire in the fireplace - in May!

Well, this really should not have caught me by surprise. All I had to do is look back at my May posts last year to see that in fact around here snow comes in May. So we have snow, actually quite pretty, but because it's a wet heavy spring snow I had to shovel the part of the deck where the show slides off the roof. Only had three inches but snow off the roof was two feet. Oh poor me, Mark is in Detroit, had to do it myself. Boo hoo...

Lovely fire going all day. That is also a "thing" that Mark usually does, so my fire starting skills were a little rusty, but got it going finally. More snow coming tonight. Shoveling skills probably needed tomorrow.

Elk on our next hill yesterday morning and then back late afternoon until the light was so dim I couldn't see anymore.No sightings today - probably hiding in the trees wondering what happened to the warm sunny weather.
Farm pickup yesterday. Eggs and the first monthly mixed meat pickup. I was very curious to see what the meat would entail  - smoked ham, bacon, lots of ground beef, and lamb shank. Hmmm, know what to do with all of it except the lamb shank. Recipe search coming up.
Lastly, have to add 3 books that I somehow finished in the craziness of leaving Naples. #10-12 Mystery Mile by Margery Allington written in the 30's, good, a little too stylized for me however. Slayer of Gods by Lynda S. Robinson - another in her Egyptian murder mystery series - always good. And Love and Louis XIV - the women in the life of the Sun King by Antonia Fraser. Really well researched book with lots of new information I didn't know. They were all nuts back then - that I already knew...

Melting snow, calves, elk, and Nepal food

Snow is melting like crazy with impromptu little creeks popping up everywhere. We took a drive up to Taylor Reservoir to check it out and it's still iced over, but they've opened up both pipes full throttle to let out water to prepare for the onslaught of the high mountain thaw. That is the really big stuff with flood potential since the April snowfall was record breaking this year.

The hogtrough was jammed with fishermen as it's almost the only game in town right now. Had to laugh at the gentleman in the photo with the giant net - lots of confidence there, Mark commented.

Tons and tons of weak kneed little calves in every field. They're so cute! The ranchers are very busy now with branding, flooding their fields with diverted stream water, and raking the immense amount of manure throughout (done here for many years, but now called sustainable ranching.)

Went to Sherpa Cafe again. It's the Nepal restaurant owned by a family that lived near Mt. Everest. The daughters were cooking and serving that night. Great and different food served in this teeny place (no more than 8 tables). Momo's, Vindaloo (very spicy!), and Tibetan noodles. Yum.

Mark took elk photos from the car as we drove back into Star Mt. Good for him, they're so hard to catch!

Boxes, wildlife, melting snow, and no mine

Oh, yes waayyy too much stuff. All the boxes arrived (good) and all the boxes arrived (BAD). I have unpacked them all and yes, some more giveaways are going to happen (mostly clothes and mostly Mark's - ahem).

The weather started warming up the minute we got here and the snow is rapidly melting. Where the ground is exposed it's turned green and there are even tiny little flowers popping up. Spring has sprung - now that doesn't sound quite right, oh, well.

Wildlife sightings on Star Mt. Elk every morning - a whole lot of pregnant mamas. They are super skittish - had my camera ready on our walk this morning and they scattered in the woods way before I could snap a picture. Our walk, by the way, has gone well since day 1. No stopping for the massive huffing and puffing and I can't breathe thing. Happy surprise - can it be that the 3 weeks in Feb. skiing, showshoeing made a difference?
Mark saw a porcupine yesterday, I saw a very glossy, healthy looking coyote,  a red bushy tailed fox this morning, along with an owl swooping across the road in front of us in the woods. And of course the chipmunks and ground squirrels have surfaced. LOVE all this.

Fishing report - well, there's not really one. Every river we've seen is the fun chocolate milk that happens in early spring. For the time being, that's actually a good thing for Mark. He's been glued to the phone on conference calls and flies off to Detroit late tomorrow for most of the week.

Went to one of our favorite restaurants last night for our anniversary - Le Bosquet. Unknown to us, it was their first night open after closing for off season. Good timing. And really, we sound quite ancient - we've been married 39 years! We were children of course...
And lastly, a bit of local news. We missed this in the hysteria of closing on the Florida house and packing up. The largest investor (Thompson Creek Metals) in the proposed moly mine in Crested Butte has pulled out! Hurray and evidently impromptu celebrations with a parade down main street in CB happened. Really though, it only means a delay, maybe years delay, while they find another investor. There is too much of this molybdenum mineral in the mountain (Mt. Emmons) to ignore. Happiness for the time being...

Yippee we're at Star Mt.

On route in New Mexico

Well, we made it after a bunch of days on the road, with not an inch to spare in the car. That's after mailing 18 boxes - hmmm, is someone saying perhaps too much stuff? And our buyer bought all our furniture,dishes, and linens. Seriously going to have to consider  All went smoothly and we made a short stop in Santa Fe to see Lisa & Charles. Love that town. What a wonderful place for them to live in. The food, the stores, the art. Snowflakes in the air while we were there.

Lots of late snow for Crested Butte and Star Mt. Happily we could get down the driveway by the front door to unload everything. Melting has been going on, but we have deep snow drifts by the fence that will take a while. 16 degrees this morning - very normal here.A little shock after 90's in Naples though.We saw a dozen elk this morning a couple ridges over. They come back every year to have their babies (early June).

Mark has been on conference calls all day and I've been doing errands, organizing, unpacking etc. One terrific errand was to go to the farm and get eggs. Got a green one in the pack! (different type of chicken). They were moving the dairy cows out of the shed after their daily milking, and other animals roaming around. Such a sweet family farm. Missed it a lot and now I'll have it year round.

Every day new little green things will pop up. Even my daffodil bulbs I planted as an afterthought last fall are coming up. I think(hope) the timing is good and they'll bloom before the deer show up. The deer love daffodils. Yes, spring is very late in this part of the world...