Hking!?

I never thought I would really be hiking, as in with poles, backpack with water bladder, etc. What can I say, this place has gotten to my mind... Mark & I went to climb Crested Butte Mt., yup, a big ole mountain. We made it up maybe 2/3rds of the way using the cat trails/roads that switchback and forth. It was hard work. Once Mark realized we weren't going to make it all the up, the goal (his - mine was just to get back down in one piece) was to go up 1000' vertical feet from where we started. Did that, alright! We made it to Upper Park for those who know the ski areas. What fantastic views! Lots of bear scat, but no animal of any kind sighting. I think next time we will take the chairlift up and hike down. We could barely move after getting down, but did not have the expected soreness the next day, amazingly. There will be more hikes down the road for sure.
Oh, a quick aside, we tried to go down Ohio Pass from the other end (Crested Butte) no sign, so we started in. Whoops, mucho snow still there and they have not plowed. We had to back out - sooo frustrating. Let us in!

Water, water, everywhere

Spring runoff is crazy here if you haven't heard... Extra warm temps have caused much higher than normal levels. So, we tried to go up (via jeep) high enough to creeks that are normally small to see if the water was fishable for Mark. Went up above Taylor Reservoir and the jeep trail started to turn into its own little creek. No luck anywhere right now.Oh, and Ohio Pass is still closed - should be open, hmmm. Mark will just have to have patience and play golf instead.
We had a terrible traffic situation also. Going on our shortcut road headed north on hwy135, we encountered a big slowdown. Barely missed poop on the car. Gotta love life here...
The elk babies - oh my. We watched a mommy elk lead her baby down our hill to hide in the shrubs while she went across the road to feed. We think she left that baby all day (we were gone for part of it) and then came back at dusk to get it. All it wanted to do was nurse - so cute, but too dark & too faraway to get a photo. We've seen a group of mommies lead a few babies over the next hill at dusk too. And, I must point out - pregnant female elk look no different than non-pregnant. Too big? (800 lbs). Last tidbit on elk. I bonded with a mommy elk yesterday on my morning walk.(see pic) I have named her Nellie - I got awfully close before she saw me...

Jeeping

First, before I talk about anything else, I must shout out a great big thank you to all consumer forums on the web. If you saw my post yesterday, I discussed how blogger went down. What I didn't say was there was no help or status update on their site - I had no idea what was going on until I found a Blogger forum. Next, this morning our DirectTV went down. Again, Mark could not get anything but an automated message on the phone, nothing posted on their site, DirectTV consumer forum to the rescue. The forum had a solution that worked - hurray!
Okay, on to fun things. We went jeeping again yesterday. Now isn't that a great word - it denotes adventure, freedom, dare devil moves with shear drops over cliffs barely avoided. Everything fits except the dare devil stuff. No death defying anything was going on. We went up to the back of Red Mt. for miles & miles (Mark thinks around 16) Unbelievable views, gorgeous flowers, and wildlife. Lots of water too, which was a surprise. Saw shy elk, deer, coyote, and yes, they are everywhere, even at over 10,000 ft - cows. We had to go through some gates and make sure to close them. I guess the state leases some of the land to the ranchers. We, of course, thought we were all by ourselves, and lo, another cowboy appeared, I'm sure to check on the cattle. The cowboys rule here...

Bouncing things & growing things

So the coyote woke me up not once, but 4 times during the night. Quiet down kids! And Mark saw another amazing thing (I guess I need to get up at 6am to see all these events.) Two deer, one inside our fence by the driveway, and one out with a coyote in between. The deer converged on the coyote and it ran away howling. Weird!
I went to a fascinating garden workshop that was held in someone's front yard in Gunnison. 20 people (all women) showed up using transportation of choice (bike, feet, car) The moderator was the owner of Thistle Whistle Farm in Hotchkiss. He is a passionate organic farmer who thinks flavor is the most important thing (as opposed to "pretty") He supplies some of the restaurants in Crested Butte & Gunnison. Love that! He had so much information that it felt like a class (in a good way) I left with head spinning on seed companies,pest control, plant cover, and some herbs and local tomato plant. The main info is gardening here is hard: cold nights, short growing season, winds, deer - aaugh.... I shall try anyway. And Mark, of Thistle Whistle (great name) is at the farmer's market in both Gunnison & Crested Butte. I will definitely be there.
Everything & everywhere now is drop dead gorgeous. Deer, elk, coyotes,and birds are clearly in their element. Come on out! Elk photo courtesy of Mark by the way.
And alert: this post should have gone out yesterday - Blogger went down late yesterday and didn't come back up til this afternoon. The world we live in!

Issues and projects

The first sighting of bear activity, as in bear scat at the top of our driveway. Mark cooked salmon on the grill -perhaps that caused the pass-by visit. At any rate, bear spray & alert eyes are now in order when walking...of course there was only one real sighting and that was last July!
Never had taken a photo of the one room schoolhouse for the miner's families. They built it way away from the main Baldwin town - probably due to unhealthy influences, i.e. saloon and dance hall...
The big deck staining project is finished, with little help from moi. Mark spent hours yesterday doing the second half while I helped to hang art for the show that starts Friday at the Gunnison Art Center. I have two paintings in it, but before you think congrats are in order - it's an open show, meaning any fool (oops,I mean talented artist) can enter. It's a sweet center on a small scale, with more emphasis on dance (yes, Krissy!) than anything else. I'm happy to be involved on the visual art side. The gallery "opening" is tonight - I'm dragging Mark along - should be entertaining.
Back into the routine of getting my hair cut at the little house/salon in town. Sooo inexpensive compared to Naples, and homey, really homey. She did a good job today - happy about that...hair is a big pain in the you know what, I think.
Our water guy came back for the second time in a week. We were noticing a metal smell & taste and not happy. He is adjusting some things but said that it really could be as simple as the spring runoff from the mountain snow melt. What?? Don't really know what our well is tapped into - all we know is it goes down 400 ft - hmmm... The peak runoff should be over soon, so we'll see.
Finished book #32. Really good novel that has recently come to light 60 years after it was written. Not a light subject though, France during German occupation in WWII. The book is unfinished as the author was sent to a concentration camp and unfortunately died there. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky.
Ben our fence guy just showed up in an ATV just to check out any winter/animal damage. Everybody is service with a smile around here.

The birds and the bees

Wow, can it be June already? We've been here almost a month and, boy, has it flown by. Everything seems centered around the outdoors now. The bird report (yes, I know, it's a new thing) is as follows: one pair of Orioles is still here (the other left while we went to Colo Springs) and yesterday I watched the female try and pull pieces off our ropes that are staking the larger aspen trees.(Nesting here?) Those two seem to want to do everything the easy way...
A bluebird couple is definitely making a nest nearby. The female has been seen with nesting material in her mouth on the deck a number of times. Not so for the male - he doesn't participate? Hmmm...anyway, the female is a bit on the dense side as well. For days she has been banging into our window and we can't seem to scare her away.
Mountains of hummingbirds around, although we are confusing them just a bit. We're restaining the deck and moving the feeders out of the way temporarily. And by the way, the deck staining is NOT a fun job as it turns out.
Before that project got started I would sit in the chair (see pic) with my coffee in the morning. Ah, bliss...
Mark saw a newly born shaky legged baby elk with it's mama yesterday and I sadly was not with him. Since I have absconded with his camera, he didn't have that either. I will hope for other sightings - June is the month!
What a sight when we were walking yesterday -a deer with a radio collar. First time we've seen that - somebody's tracking her - a biologist?

Happy Memorial Day!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend. Can't believe it's the end of May. We've been here almost a month and out of state cars are starting to show up. The weather has been gorgeous the last few days with flowers popping out by the hour and the aspen are almost fully leafed out. We see deer & elk everyday and feel so lucky to have the magnificent scenery around us.
Hummingbird mania is upon us - up to twice a day fillings. They feed all day until the sun goes down.
Had to talk about the magic spring a little distance down Ohio Creek Rd from us. It is the purest water around and as you can see ,someone put a pipe on it and people in the know come to fill up. Even our guy who did our water system at the house will fill up a jug or two. If he says its pure, I gotta believe it.... Pure untreated mountain water - fabulous!
Finished book #31 - The Chinese Nail Murders by Robert Van Gulik. Murder mystery set in China in the 11th century. Interesting and lots of info on how people lived then. No idea where I got the author's name - definitely behind on my book reading!