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Let's see? If the groundhog sees its shadow that means there will be 6 more weeks of winter....
What about the elk we found hanging out in our back pasture this morning? We are just a tad bit too low from their usual winter hangout across the way on our neighbors hay field- but which in October, got burned out if you recall...
As did the canyon...
a "highway" for the elk and other animals, like my mountain lion, to move from one part of the mesa top to the other, virtually undetected.
Luckily otther signs tell me, let me hope that spring is on the way- like my dogs shedding the amount of a small chihuahua everyday.
Amazing, after we admired the elk at their breakfast we went back to getting ready for the day and minutes later, Jon looked out the window again and the elk were gone. We couldn't find them anywhere, they are huge, way bigger then a horse and some how they move together stealthily, probably back down in the canyon, much to the deer's delight, who make a regular appearance at the hay bales every morning. He did see our "barn cat" Scotty, stalking in the grass nearby, maybe he scared them away?
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!(these are my "sweet" little Kindergarten through 2nd graders)
We made handmade Valentines today. Most of the kids were doing great, diligently going through the steps of designing, drawing, coloring, cutting out and mounting their valentines on card stock and enjoying the assignment...
I had brought in my great uncle's valentines from the 1920's I shared last year
HERE on
Moonflower Musing for inspiration. But as usually I had some trouble from some of my third graders- who had the attitude like the Valentine at the top of the post...
Twenty minutes into the activity- Little Miss Not So Into Art called me over with a long diatribe how her mother prefers less artwork on her valentines and hardly any color. Mr. Whip Through It- let me know that his parents prefer to open their cards from Right to Left instead of the usual way. Miss Always Argues even put a hand on her hip and cocked her head at me ready to argue when I pointed out that no one else was even ready to be done and she had plenty of time to be more thoughtful in how she designed and colored her card and Mr. I'd Rather Make Excuse Then Just Do the Work finally had a good idea at the end of class, but since now the time had gone into lunch, I sent him on his way with an unfinished card.
It takes me 45 minutes to drive up the canyon and get back home, lots of time to contemplate the demise of our world based on how kids make valentines or waste their time asking "Is this good enuf?"
Actually NPR did a great broadcast on such things awhile ago- we always love to listen on long road trips, especially on Sunday afternoons because they have some great programming.
This American Life did a feature- "Back to School" last fall about
Non cognitive Learning Skills- those things other than what is currently being tested that have a huge impact on the success of students both in grade school, secondary school and college. Things like delayed satisfaction, planning, problem solving, etc. The host of This American Life, Ira Class, does a much better job of explaining than I do.
But here it is from an Art Teacher perspective ( and a big Scream Out-
Why Art Class is not just a "filler activity in our schools)...
When I give my kiddos an assignment to "Make a Valentine". They have to..
Develop a Plan
Figure out the Steps of Said Plan
Execute the Plan
Evaluate and make Adjustments to the Plan
They not only use their brains, they use their brains in conjunction with their eyes, connect to their hands, creating muscle memory and dexterity
If these are things they have not done before, they are exercising their brains and making new connections in said brain.
And finally they should be evaluating the Plan and the success of the Plan and using the experience to better themselves the next time they set out on a similar endeavor.
All the above are ways to teach skills that then can be used in many areas of their schooling and life-
But the above can also not be measured on a "standardized test" !
I was definitely not allowed as a kid to ever have an "Is this Good Enuf?" attitude.
I was raised with a "
If You are Going to Do it, Do it
Right" attitude.
Which usually has helped me, though sometimes it trips me up- when 75% would be fine and 110% makes me insane- but that is another post...
Interesting, Laura Ingalls Wilder talks about such things in her diary-
On The Way Home, which she wrote (her daughter Rose Wilder Lane later included her own remembrances) on the journey from De Smet South Dakota to Mansfield Missouri in 1894.
In the diary, Laura Ingalls Wilder calls it "Gumption"- not "Non Cognitive Learning Skills"
Gumption- 1. good common sense and practical judgment; 2. the courage and determination to take action.
She talks about traveling through different areas where the settlers showed some "real gumtion" with thriving fields and well built barns and farmhouses and other areas that showed only laziness and a "good enuf" attitude.
I am beginning to think that "gumption" might be as important to success as knowledge, what do you think? Think we need some Gumption 101 in our schools or how about just guard or reintroduce the Art, Drama and Music classes that teach such things!
Today's our 22nd anniversary. Yes, we were married on Ground Hog Day. We're taking the day as it comes, might go exploring in our pick up truck along some county roads way above the Colorado River, on Grand Mesa, that's what we did in college when we fell in love, explore the mountains and deserts around here.
First we had breakfast at a coffee shop and I sketched this couple. They seemed like they have been coming here, Saturday mornings for quite sometime. I think that is one of the greatest achievements in this life....to grow old with some!
Did this several years ago- Mother Goose flying over Denver, Colorado....
When we were down in Santa Fe, we took a little drive up Highway 76....
to the village of Chimayo, or the villages of Chimayo- it gets complicated...here's the wiki page on the area
(Chimayo).
To say this area is steeped in religion and spirituality is an understatement, long considered a pilgrimage site by the Catholic church....unofficially. (long story- do hit the wiki page above.)
The Southwest is so interesting in the mix of beliefs. The Utes and Navajos are generally very leary of death- going out of their way not to be near it and live their lives away from it and then there is New Mexico- where cemetaries, even the run down ones hold a central place in the pueblos and villages...
El Santuario de Chimayo is a chapel in Chimayo, legend to hold healing properties in its dirt- you walk into the sanctuary and there is a pronounced dip in the floor...
Those needing to be healed have been coming to Chimayo for a hundred years to buy and place candles in the sanctuary, pray at the chapel....
and in a side room, dig some red dirt from the floor, which they might rub on themselves or even digest. The side room's wall, which you can't take pictures of, are lined with discarded crutches, walkers and pictures of loved ones in need of help...
a bright colorful chapel devoted to children and lined with their toys and shoes.
All the way back to Santa Fe, if one looked closely, you could see what others had left behind on their pilgrimages through this amazing, awe inspiring land....
some were close....
and some on distant hills.
But there are many "sacred" places in New Mexico, shrines, and small chapels on the back roads near the Rio Grande river, like the Penitent chapel in Abiquiu, a story for another blog.
we walked up Canyon Road to do a little window shopping and admire the festive lights, Santa Fe style...
peeking through "coyote" fences...
and over gates...
to the private artist's homes and studios and dreaming of possible living here too...
Chilled we slipped into a gallery still open and aglow against the settling dusk....
Then we headed back to our hotel, but not before an inspired game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors"...
My kind of New Year's Eve... and in bed by 9:00!
Starbucks in Santa Fe off the plaza, where we spent much of our time over New Years decompressing from a busy holiday season....
The streets of Santa Fe were snowy on New Years, but for those who braved the cold it was a great way to welcome in 2013. Many celebrate the new year with loud parties at night, but for us it's wandering the streets of one of our favorite towns, snowy or not...
Another great thing about a snow day in Santa fe, is the line outside Pascals is short for breakfast, most days people gladly stand and wait, inside the tiny resturant or outside for more than a half hour to get a table....
The big windows, lined with geraniums and steamy from the people inside....
We ate here both mornings, why mess with a good thing!
Traditions change, we all know that. As a culture, we do things, celebrate things and don't remember the reason why. Such things happen in families as well.
I'm Danish, or a Dane, which ever is correct, well 25%, I'm also about 25% Irish, can you imagine the conflict inside me.
My oldest daughter is named after my great grandmother, Christine who came over from Denmark when she was twelve, with her parents and grandmother. So, I am the sixth generation and my daughters are the seventh, of women making "Sistacog" bread for Christmas and when together, being bossed around by their mother, grandmother and aunts- the main Danish tradition in my family.
Problem is this Christmas, I stopped and questioned what "Sistacog" was and well Googled it! I found it is not a known word, no mention of any variation of it on any site, both English and Danish!
Other people have their ancestral traditions at Christmas, some delicious, some down right stinky and gross like lutefisk. Where did our family tradition of "sistacog" -a buttery, heavy on the eggs and milk, cinnamon raisin bread come from?
In comes Facebook- I hate facebook so hate giving it credit, but I am an honest person. Jon mentioned a post from an old friend describing the delicious bread he got as a gift from a neighbor, a delicious Christmas bread, calling it "Julecage".
I google "Julecage" and the recipe and pictures of the bread are the same as our "Sistacog". Eggs, butters, milk, sugar, spices and dried fruit.
We Google how to pronounce "Julecage" in Danish. The "cage" in English sounds more like "cog" with a little "cow" in there too in Danish. That sounds like how my grandmother would say it.
We discover that "Cage" means "cake" in Danish.
We call my mom, my grandmother and great aunts gone now. She digs through old handwritten recipes and an old Danish cookbook, she verifies that yes, "cage" means cake. She doesn't have much faith in "Google".
But no explanation on "sista"?
So we figure out what "jule: means- back to Google.
"Jule" means Christmas. "Julecage" means Christmas Bread. My mom remembers that my great grandmother would make it all year, but at Christmas she would make it in a wreath shape, put more dried fruit in it and sprinkle it with colored sugar.
Sure enough back to Google- there are pictures of exactly that. I even found a Danish cooking blog and the recipe is the same, except she doesn't put dried fruit in it and uses cardamom instead of cinnamon.
http://mydanishkitchen.com/2012/06/25/vetekrans-swedish-tea-ring/.
This has been a fun family effort the day before Christmas, but I realize I should be getting to the actual making of the "Sistacog" instead of researching it- then it comes to me- "Christmas Bread", "Sistacog"............"Christa.....Cake"......"Cristacage!"
I think once in America, the word "julecage" morphed literally into half English "Christa" and half Dansih "cage" and somewhere through the generations we dropped the "r" and forgot what it meant!
The day after Christmas, when I took the girls over to Durango and were in one of their bakeries, our "hunch"- though my mother still is not completely sold, since Google is our main proof- was more confirmed by this basket of "Christmas Breads for sell!
We are now trying to get "Sistacage" more to sound like "Christacage" though I think we will have look towards the younger generations for that. And in a way, for my love of my mom and grandmother, who I can just hear "poo pooing" such nonsense, it might need to stay "Sistacog"
I've actually been doing a lot for the holiday season, just have not had time to blog about it! First of the month, before the snow, we drove up to Mesa Verde National Park for the local appreciation Christmas celebration. The park service lines the roads and paths around the museum and Spruce Tree Ruin with luminarios, little brown paper bags filled with sand and a glowing candles.
The weather was very warm and we hadn't had any snow to speak off, so the walking was enjoyable down the trail and ever so often we would bump into someone we knew and stop to have a chat, the whole time being serenaded by Native American Drummers down below in the ruin, they were literally sitting in darkness, singing and drumming, so have a listen....
and here are my pictures of Spruce Tree aglow....
and here is a snowy-er trek down to the ruin a couple of years ago...
Thursday we had a real nice, lazy Thanksgiving, didn't eat turkey until like 5 o'clock. But had an olive, cheese and sausage feast about noon...
courtesy of
Whole Foods, which we hit in Colorado Springs last weekend, when Jon was up there to speak at the Colorado County Attorney's conference. Since we don't have the glorious grocery store anywhere near us, when we do get to one, we sort of go crazy...
We got our free range turkey there, and some wonderful chicken to stick in the icebox, and a whole lot of bread, regular sour dough, rosemary sourdough, pretzel bread- if you were wondering. Cheese- Gouda and another stinky cheese.
I slowly and purposefully browsed the aisles as Jon just kept bringing back olives and cheese- said the lady "manning" the free cheese samples" got testy.
I don't like whole olives, but when in LA for the publishing conference, we live at the hotel bar, and they have an olive spread to die for- found it! at Whole Foods- so good with those olive oil crackers or with Peta bread triangles.
Been loving my "peace sign" to go cup, many of our old ones have "just disappeared" in a house of teenagers. Daughter #1 was spying it, but it is still here and she headed back to college yesterday.
Daughter #2 wanted to try to make fried calamari- no place to get that here- so bought some squid frozen and experimented Wednesday night, while Daughter #1 and I tried to figure out popstickers like the kind at
Panda Express- something else that is always a must on a trip since not here in the Four Corners.
It was wonderful, having the girls in the kitchen and Jon helping, even if he did let the "white beast" eat the tops off my homemade rolls.
My pecan and apple pies turned out wonderfully and the dogs didn't get them!!
"The Boyfriend" was around and made it feel more festive, as was Grandpa, though he just came in mostly to eat and then headed back out to his horses and cats. I take that back- a rousing card game of Michigan Rummy was played by all- I don't think I ever got out of the negative numbers!
I love the big Thanksgivings too, where the women are all in the kitchen and many know what and how to get down all the cooking- we need to get over the mountain to be with my mom next year, though she and I were on speaker phone several times chatting, both in our kitchen's cooking.
Friday was lazy where Daughter #1 went to "the Boyfriend's" house for a second feast and then Saturday we were back together and headed up to Telluride, where because of the mild weather, the kids snowboarded and Jon biked the valley floor in shorts- no joke! I spent the day sketching, the above scene of Telluride's Courthouse and the rugged box canyon beyond it. Sat in our truck on the street with the windows rolled down.
Where people were debating between something "hot" or something "cold".
Then it was time to head back home...
Now it is Monday and the challenge is to get ready for Christmas and keep the "bliss" - if I stay out of Walmart, I might be able to!
Hubby was cleaning the kitchen and left for a minute, to have the "hovering" dog sneak in and eat the tops off half the homemade rolls I had spent all day making. Same dog, same scenerio a few years ago, except it was the pecan pie his mother- in- law had spent the day making. Beginning to think this new modern idea of the shared work load at the holiday, really is
Not worth it!
How's your Thanksgiving going? Any stories?
This is an old, old illustration, so old, I know I did it for some sort of a e-magazine for kiddos, but can't remember. Just know it had something to do with the little girl observing and drawing things in her sketch book.
Speaking of trees, here are the trees across the road from our house, after the fire and our first snow...
Somehow they even seem sadder in the stark snow. 300-400 year old junipers and pinons, now burned to charred toothpicks.
The rancher across the road from us, brought his cows home from the mountains and they are wandering his pasture, trying to stay on the grass area and avoid the swirls of chard ground where the wind pushed the fire across the pasture.
I actually did this illustration in 2008, which still for me was such a pivotal time in our nation's history- electing our first African American President, which apparently according to last night results, we still have enough faith in to give him another four years to steer this country in the right direction, or voted for him out of sheer fear of the other alternative!
For me it was a little of both....Romney terrifies me for so many reason that thank goodness are now "mute points", starting of course with his opinions of the Arts and education, which some might argue are not important issues, for those read this.
Watching the coverage, last night, the commentators kept saying that this "could" be an election, where Obama losses amongst whites but still wins.
Think about that- and how for the last 200 years that has not been the case- put another way, up until recently, whites have decided the Presidential election of the United States, no wonder Minorities questioned if it was worth it to get involved.
But that has all changed hasn't it?
We held an election at my school, yesterday, where less then a third of the children are White, most Native American and Hispanic. In the older class, the vote count Obama 19, Romney 3.
Apparently, I, now am also a "mighty demographic", an educated white female! Didn't know that was a new thing, but guess there are enough of us now, the powers that be are paying more attention.
What was the most "telling" for me last night was the stark difference in the supporters at each candidates headquarters...
Romney's ?
White, older, conservatively dressed
Obama's ?
Every age, sex, race and fashion sense
Well, I won't lie, I feel a sense of relief this morning, but I do have concerns for the next four years, I am an Independent, for the fact I can not completely a line myself with a party that supports abortion and gay marriages, but these issues have never been at the fore front of Obama's platform, let's hope that stays the course and I hang my head low as a Coloradan where now marijuana is legal.
Now that I have thrown in my analyse of the election, let me just say, I have never thought change comes from the Top, in policies and the people who head to Washington. I think change happens when each one of us get up in the morning and do "the right thing" on a daily bases, but teachers need to make a living when they are teaching our kids, and soldiers need to be able to get the care they need when they come home, and widows shouldn't be denied health insurance and we are responsible for how we leave this world's environment, for those things I am very glad for who will be sitting in the Oval Office for the next four years!
These are for the firefighters that saved our house this week....
Wednesday...
I had three dogs and many of our treasured possessions in that green car where beyond is a local volunteer fire crew. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and many of our neighboring volunteer teams and equipment were on the scene to save the homes up on our mesa, including ours.
Jon wasn't home and it was up to me and a neighbor to get what we could out of the house and the dogs, one who bit me because he didn't understand, to safety while a cyclone of fire and smoke hurled upwards when the juniper and pinons caught fire right across the road from the house.
While I was trying to get out of our driveway, a skidster, a huge earth moving machine was trying to get in and cut a fire line to save our house.
The whole mesa top was evacuated and we spent the night in a hotel...early the next morning, we went to the ridge and with binoculars could see our little red roof and a island of green around it.
It wasn't until that evening that we were allowed to return home.
Today, we were able to walk around our property...
It's hard to tell, but these are up rooted juniper trees that can live to be over a 1000 years old here in the southwest, these were babies, maybe 150-200 years old. On top of this one is a yucca, upside down now.
The skidster cut a wide path across our forest, to stop the fire from heading towards our house and our neigbors barn...
munching an old porcelain and steel bathtub we had buried to serve as a water trough for wildlife....
The fire did manage to burn some of our back acreage, but fire crews with shovels and chainsaws were able to keep it under control on our side of the road...
And it looked much much better then across the road down in the canyon...
\
Past our house is the mouth of the canyon where the fire whipped into our neighbor's hay fields, before being done....
Tonight we are going to make homemade calzones and watch movie and thank God...
and our firefighters for the blessing of our home!
IT IS FINISHED!! Sorry for the loud capitalization, but this piece is finally done and since it can fit into the Illustration Friday theme of "sky", I present it to the world and there are a lot of butterflies in that there sky!!
If you know me at all, you know I
hate when the first thing someone asks about my work is how long it took to make. I want people to be greatly moved by the image, be in
awe of it's message, not how long it took to stitch, saying that........
I named the piece "Migration in Moab" but I seriously considered titling it "@#$#$@#$ butterflies" insert your most severe cuss word. I was stitching butterflies for over one year, yup, you read right, over one year of small, medium or large butterflies. I refused to count the numbers of butterflies, but Daughter #2 did and she stopped counting at like 168 with still more to go. The piece is like 23 inches by 32 inches, to get a feel for how big that is, here it is laid out with the pattern on my drafting table..
Don't ask me why I decided to make such a huge collage, I can't remember anymore. I think I was looking towards gallery work and wanted to see if I could make something that could own the wall when someone walked into a gallery. It owns the wall, I'm not sure where I am going to put it, I have already entered it in a juried show and shown it to a magazine art director, was thinking of sending it to a few festivals that happen in Moab, Utah as possible festival posters, but don't think I have the heart to try and sell it the actual piece.
Not just that there is a lot of time in it, but more because the model is Daughter #1 ( chronological age, not in importance). I finished the piece just after she went off to college....
The butterflies were actually an after thought. I had the whole thing done by fall of last year, but thought it needed something. Then we went to a lecture at our cultural center on the migration of monarch butterflies and found out that the Four Corners was in their migration path and the two ideas merged together. Put some butterflies on it, not quite right yet, put some more on, set it aside and then realized it needed a whole another arch per say of butterflies, so started overlapping butterflies on top of butterflies....
So now it is done and on it's way to the framers, I think. The two butterflies on the black are actually 3D butterflies, like they have escaped the picture and when it comes back from the framer, I am going to attach a butterfly to the outside of the frame, if I can bring myself to stitch one more
##@$@#$ butterfly!!
Something creeped up on me worse than the mountain lion that had dinner in my back field...
It snuck up on me totally by surprise, while the leaves are still falling from the tree and Halloween is still two weeks away but this time I managed to get some pictures to prove it! The first CHRISTMAS COMMERICAL!!!...
Shame on you....Target!
This is why the mountain lion
(see last post) that was blocking my driveway last night seemed so mellow....his tummy was full. That is a deer we found this afternoon, well what is not edible on a deer, the hide and the bones, in our back field!
What was so funny last night ,was our little barn kitty was at the top of the drive watching the whole thing, maybe the big kitty and the little kitty were having a stare down.
It is that time of year and we had a good year. Not only did we have apricots for the first time in like four years on the homestead, see
HERE for how hit and miss it is, every year, but we got a bumper crop of pears and several varieties of apples.
I got Jon a book on old varieties of apples,
Old Southern Apples, Revised & Expanded: A Comprehensive History and Description of Varieties for Collectors, Growers and Fruit Enthusiasts by Creighton Lee Calhoun. What a title, but it is a beautiful book, with colored plates showing watercolors used to identify the different variety turn of the century before colored photography was even thought of. Many, many of the illustrators were women.
We have a potluck at church, so think we will be taking a few boxes, cause this is just what was ripe today. The fridge in the barn is full of apples, cause next weekend we are headed to Grand Junction, Colorado where there is a Brewing Store downtown, we'll either make apple cider this year or a really scary science experiment!
Our plum rum is already mixed up and sitting in the pantry. We have a half an acre of plums left on the trees, the deer are very happy.
Before I pursued freelance illustration and writing, I wove baskets. Loved it. Days would fly by with me in my studio, wrapping a piece of reed around another, forming a beautiful basket. I quickly learned an important lesson- a tiny imperfection in the first few rows could be a gigantic frustration at the end, every row the gap spreading farther and farther to the point there was no other choice but to rip the weaver out, until I could fix what I hadn't fixed before.
Now, trying my hand at writing a full length novel, I have thought back to my weaving days, because now I guess I am weaving a story and the same lesson holds true, an imperfection in the story structure in the beginning, can lead to great frustration later on. Sometimes days have been spent to "fixing" a problem that I have finally notice, and more times than not, it is something I have not laid the ground work for chapters back. Or truthfully, often the other solution the plot point is just not needed and the delete key is the answer.
Makes me think of life, and how much of our frustrations are the result of not so much something now, but possible something we didn't take care of when we should have, or forgotten to do the things we should way back when, but now it is "big enough" for us to feel it.
Once again, I just feel frustrated and once again it is because I have put aside things in my life that "feed my well", making art and cooking for the ones I love. My kitchen had become a hurried place to grab nourishment. This weekend, our fruit trees were ready to pick, and I made a pear pie to take to a church potluck. I spent the morning, in the kitchen, thinking of the lessons my grandmother and mother had taught me and probably made the best pastry dough I have ever made, sliced pears while talking to my family and held a warm pie in the back seat, while the full car of my family drove to church and enjoyed fellowship and good food.
I am beginning to think there is great power in the "rituals" of life, the things we have been doing for a thousand years, the talking around the hearth, the sharing a meal, the strolls with a fellow traveler, the rendezvous of lovers, the moments of awe, the things that feed our souls and when we don't get them, our "gap" grows wider and wider and we don't know why....until we remember to look back and fix what we hadn't fixed before.
Here is a promotional idea for our library I have been working on.
Like we do most years, for my birthday weekend, we took a drive up to see the amazing colors of the aspen, cottonwoods and oak brush.
This year we stayed close to home and went up river through the Dolores canyon, over Lizard Head Pass and then down towards Telluride on the other side, but before getting there, we took a detour, to the high mountain town of Ophir...
Situated in the San Miquel Mountains, Ophir sits at just over 9,600 ft.
See the white line across the mountains in the back, that is Ophir Pass, a thin little road, over a shale slide and down the other side of that mountain is Silverton and Ouray. We have driven that, me closing my eyes, while Jon very expertly drives over the shale which makes a horrid sound under the tires, but today we stayed on this side and only looped around the little town...
It's really pretty in the summer and fall, but in the winter, snowed in with four or five feet of snow and a snowmobile the only way to get to the highway, "housewives might be looking for butcher knifes!"
Just kidding.... Ophir is a very well organized community and the road is open most days, after the plows go through, here is a run down of their population and stats...
Okay, the avalanches would get to me, not so much that I would be afraid of them burying the town, you can see the chutes where on the side of the hill below the town there is a stream of rocks and just little trees, cause they never get a chance to grow very tall, being stuck on one side of a snow slide for days, that would bother me...
It bugs me enough, here, down the mountain, when the grocery store shelves are getting empty because the trucks haven't been able to get through. But the population of Ophir and Silverton are use to that and have big freezers to freeze milk and bread, though on occasion the National Guard does fly in supplies.
Below Ophir, on the other side of the highway, is the Ames Power Station, the first commercial power station in the world, that's right, the world, the sign says so.....
Why was the first hydro, current generating power plant here you ask? Simple, "Elecricity flows up hill towards money."...
Jon says that about the water diversions around, if rich people want water on the other side of the mountain, or the ridge, by George it happens and in the late 1800's there was a lot of silver and other minerals that a group of wealthy men decided needed to come out of the mountains, and electricity made it a whole lot easier. So it was not London, Paris, Washington D.C. or New York who first had power, it was Ames, Colorado and you are looking at it!
Now down in the bottom of the canyon, some 1,000 ft below the highway, we headed towards Ilium, which the web doesn't even have much info on, other than a place on a map, just a geographical spot, locals use as a reference point, we explored the river...
"planked" on the observation deck, (she is going to kill me for putting this up!) Then headed down the road, taking the long loop around, up to the highway on the other side and onwards to Telluride.
We ended up in Telluride, just from the otherside and strolled around the town as the sun thought about setting and the hills were aglow...
Found a good cookbook in the bookstore, written by Ralph Lauren's wife ( yes, the fashion designer, who's daughter was married to a "Bush" at the ranch last summer, with a "Trump" in attendence.
My mother always says a cookbook is worth it even if there is one good recipe in it. I have tried a few, one for mushroom soup and one for taquito or flauta, tortilla wrapped diced chicken. Changed both up a little bit but it was a good starting point. It also is packed full of stories and family photos.
They live, well, one of their many homes is on the other, otherside of the mountain near Ridgeway, Colorado ( should do a post on their ranch) The cookbook is a little bit posey. It's hard to really imagine them going "camping" when I'm sure they have a little bit of a support staff with them at all times, ( having been one and heard a bit too many stories from friends who are "the support staff" for the super rich when they come to their "cabins" in the mountains ( should write a post on that too! But the names would have to be changed since there are "confidentiality issues!)
Where was I...Telluride
Saw a lost dog poster for a puppy back in Ophir, wish we had known, we would have paid better attention...
and of course we couldn't escape the upcoming election, I'm sooo looking forward to Wednesday, November 7th. I think there should be a law that states "all politcal signage must come down on that day!"
No surprise, Telluride likes Obama, a lot!
Wonder what he would think if he saw a gigantic bust of himself in paper mache? This is not intended to be a segway, but did also see a trained rat...
Sitting on a cat...
Sitting on a dog...
No joke, the guy trains them for party and sidewalk tips, I did tip him well and he told me the one that was the hardest to train to stay was "the flea on the rat".
Ahhh Telluride, it is kind of a weird place...
A mountain lion, was blocking my driveway last night, I had to stop in the road and wait for him to decide to move....
Sorry- I forgot to take his picture.
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Beautiful!