Miracle of birth, bear, and mountain outdoor fun

First, the biggest news of all. Our granddaughter has arrived! Penelope Louise at 7lbs11ozs. Beautiful, lots of hair (not known on our side), and mom did a fantastic job. Penny (don't you love the name) is currently healing from an infection that caused her to have a hard time breathing through her little nose. She is very healthy in all other aspects, so hopefully she will get over this very soon. Mom and Dad want to take her home!

Darling Penny Lou

Backing up a bit, there has been a bear sighting by our neighbors up the hill last week. And here we thought not a one was anywhere near. I'm back to taking my bear spray along with my camera on my morning walk in the woods. Yes, I'm being careful...

Mexican Hat - some of the summer's last wildflowers

Friends Gail and Steve took me to one of the free outdoor concerts that happen in CB most weeks during the summer. The schedule is almost done and I'm so glad I got to see what it was all about. All American family fun - everybody brings picnics, spread out on the grass, and all the children from toddlers to teenagers play and dance.

This was my greeter when I went to pick up eggs from the farm. Another world over there...

Finished another book too. Great one - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Written a few years, won mountains of prizes - a historical novel on Thomas Cromwell. Thumbs up on this one.

Deer, hummingbirds, and precious summer days

A day in the life - coyotes howling in the night, along with hoo hoo from the owls. Deer show up at dawn surrounding the house eating a buffet of clover and wildflowers. I wait to walk until I can sneak out without disturbing them, and tiptoe out of the shower and to be quiet at the bathroom sink. There are usually multi deer at that window. Sorry furry friends, sometimes I just have to use the hair blower.

Flap and twins

Clearly it's time to exert some patience: a package delivery is two days late, the waiting area to obtain a new driver's license mobbed with 16 year olds and their parents (did a fast turnaround - back when school's in session I think) , and a person who'd made a appt to meet me at the house was 3 hours late. Ah well, there are much worse things...

traffic jam

The hummingbirds continue to be crazed, and needing their sugar fix all day long. Sugar is flying out of this house. The craziest of them all - the orange Rufus - are apparently starting to leave for the long trek back to Mexico. Last to arrive and first to go - no explanation.

Mark's back tomorrow for the weekend. Hurray! And more company on the way next week. My youngest brother with his wife and son. It's been too long since we've seen them. Fun to come.

Baby watch on active alert - 8 days til due date. We'll see when she decides to grace us all with her precious presence.

Reunion and mountain adventures

Our week of company is all done. Our last guest (Duane) left this morning. What a great time we had and what a terrific event to have a reunion of sorts between friends/relatives. Can't think of a better use of our place.

Took the group up to Gothic, happily including Mark, as he was able to break away from conference calls for a bit. We intended to go all the way to Emerald Lake, but alas, the road had a barricade the last half mile. Highly unusual - it clearly is going to be closed the whole season. Thinking the road must have been badly damaged by all that April snow.

Forgot to set down the date the snow finally melted off Carbon Peak. July 26 - amazingly late in the summer. I do realize even mentioning the word snow sounds ludicrous to many - especially the many who are having massive heat waves. Duane, Mark, and I took a jeep ride down Carbon Creek his last day. We bounced him around quite a bit, but being the trooper he is, never complained. Saw the side of Carbon Peak with lots of rock strewn down its hills, and then ventured up a side road to a new area close to Red Mountain. Saw an amazing view of the back of Carbon. That's a huge crater in the photo. Carbon was formed by a volcano a while ago, say somewhere in the 40 million years ago range. It's a baby compared to some others in the area - they're 70 to 80 millions years old. We humans are just passing through, dust in the wind as they say...

back of Carbon Peak

The jeep (aka the Rock) is stepping up -has a wench now!

Tomato plants are huge now and some tomatoes are forming with lots of blossoms going on. They can't form fast enough - we could, although it doesn't happen every August, but could have frost before the month is out. Oooh...

Mark and I went for a walk in our woods, and it's been months since we've done that. What a crazy summer we've been having. We spooked deer all over the place including the buck in the photo. This is our same snowshoe route in the winter - just a tad different at this time of year, but the gorgeous views are still every direction.

Lastly, yet another delay in reporting books read. One was before this group of company and the other finished today. Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin. Sounds sexy, yes?  Not really, older couple meeting after a trillion years to revisit the memories of a young romance. I've read all of hers and they are good, but tend to dwell in the morass of it all... The latest is State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Great book, terrific read, and she's running up in the top ten on the NY Times book list.The Amazon, natives, experimental drug research and adventure.

Mountains with fun company

Oooh, giant delay in posting. Just haven't sat down to do it with all our company here. Part have gone (Lisa and Charles) sorry it was so short, but loved having them here. Lots of fun, plenty of deep discussions, beautiful drives, and lots of eating and drinking going on. What's not to love?

We took the whole group to Secret Stash - first timers Dave, Helen, and Duane loved it. Hard to describe, hard to leave, and always seem to be taking leftover pizza home.

Enjoyed the farmers market in CB. Just a fun place to go. And coincidentally, same day to take down my paintings at the gallery. Lisa came along to help. Time to get back to painting - haven't done a thing in recent weeks.

Took Duane, and Dave & Helen to dinner at Le Bosquet. They seemed to enjoy one of our cute CB restaurants. Very crowded. All our vacationers have certainly not gone home yet. And we made the drive up to Taylor Reservoir with Duane, Dave, and Helen while Mark was on conference calls. Pretty drive, but by the time we got to the water it was pouring, hailing, and 48 degrees. Whoops, my tour guide skills fell down on the job there.
Had to include Flap pictures. Can you believe it, as soon as I decided we were crazy to think she'd had babies, there they were outside our bathroom window. No mistake now, they were nursing.

Went to the crazy animal store in Gunnison. These are the members of our group that did not wish to see dead mounted things. Ah well, can't please everyone...

Mad the trip up Mill Creek road. Awesome drive and gorgeous views.