Under a Red Roof

Wait, What are We Looking At?

August 15, 2018 in Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

Hello! Juniper models for our latest bit of progress. I spread the remainder of the mulch this morning, woot! What a relief to have that behind us. And now, we are t-minus three days to the reason for the BIG push to get all these home projects completed. We’re hosting our cousin’s seventh birthday party this Saturday. Cake! Cupcakes! Yummy snacks! Lemonade and laughter!

Wait, what are we looking at? Thataway is the rock circle, where we plan, on lovely evenings (when there is no fire danger), to have our fire pit going.

This little river actually flows! At least when there is a downpour, and not perfectly, as I am neither God nor a hydrologist, so my skills are in need of improvement. That said, I give it a ten based solely on appearances. It works for supermodels!

View from the fire pit. I’ll show you our fenced orchard another time.

Oh lordy, this was our worst weed patch. I would dig and dig and dig, and weeks later it was so bad that it didn’t look like I’d done anything. Insert big blue streak of curses. I am thrilled to finally have it tamed and mulched and planted with what I hope will be happy shrubs.

Juniper’s patch of grass! Send your best thoughts for healthy growth, won’t you please? I’d LOVE, and really can’t wait, to see more flowers and green than mulch and fence!

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Oh, and if you are local – I am mostly a perennial xeriscaper, as I don’t want to start from scratch every year or have thirsty plants in the high desert. For this reason, I buy the majority of my plants at Phelan Gardens and Desert Canyon Farm. They have the best selection of what will grow in our area, with many that are out of the mainstream, especially Desert Canyon. Though it, rather sadly for me, is only open for a couple of months a year (about mid-April to mid-June), but is well worth the trip to Canon City!

Tags: Colorado Springs, Gardening + Nature

Monday’s Blossoms

August 8, 2018 in Gardening + Nature by Colleen | Permalink

red hot poker

volunteer sunflower

foxglove

horehound, with bumble bee

crocosmia

milkweed

echinacea

rudbeckia

evening primrose

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We’ve entered the sun in the morning followed by afternoon rain pattern of my dreams. Well, except when it hails. I used to think a wicked wind was my least favorite of the elements, but now, as I coax this garden along, it is most definitely hail. We’ve been spared as of late, thankfully. Yesterday, as deluge number five began dropping wretched ice bombs, I darted to the sliding door and shouted, “NO damaging hail! You hear me, storm? NO damaging hail!” And you know what? It stopped that instant. At least at our house. The Zoo was annihilated with softball sized hail, making cars undriveable and killing three animals. Good grief.

But I do, as you well know, love the rain, and it’s been marvelous to have our daily bit, and especially to walk the garden afterward, when every leaf and flower is gorgeously saturated, air sweet. The best.

We are on the home stretch with this year’s garden projects. Most mornings, we get up around six, feed and walk Juni B., then get cracking while there is blessed shade. The hubster goes in after an hour or two to earn our daily bread (thanks be to remote work!!) while I soldier on, until either the shade or task runs out. Tuesday, it was a rock border out front, each stone brought from the back, one by one, to and fro, to and fro, digging out dirt as needed, blowing displaced ants from my limbs, muddying myself as I wipe the sweat from my brow. Honest work. Meditative, too.

And while I garden, Fleetwood Mac “Sara” has been playing in my brain, and in between chatting with the land lubbers and flying things, resident and visitor, I sing along. And sometimes cry. It’s that kind of song.

Tags: Gardening + Nature

Painted

November 26, 2017 in Cooking + Baking, Eating, Exploring by Colleen | Permalink

Perfectly painted skies for the beginnings of our Thanksgiving adventure. West to Buena Vista!

Breakfast, mmmmm…bacon.

We followed Cottonwood Creek on foot and by car to its namesake lake; dancing sun pennies, enveloping ice, ruby red rose hips, and the silence of near solitude every bit worth the effort.

Forgoing the hullabaloo of large family gatherings to enjoy a Thanksgiving for two (+ one beloved pup) in a wee cabin in the woods. Stuffing in progress in my favorite cast iron pan: apple, celery, cranberry, minus the onion I left at home. It doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. True that. The pie, however, was both, my best yet.

Feeling nostalgic for the wooden cabins of my youth – humble dwellings of strong character, flanked by massive tanks of propane.

More humble dwellings and every manner of delight at Cottonwood Hot Springs – fish jumping, lily pads floating, creek rushing, crows soaring. We soaked for hours and hours, sunrise to the waxing crescent of moon and sky thick with a ribbon of Milky Way stars. My love for this life and this place ever-expanding, like the universe itself.

St. Elmo – slipping, not only from the Buena Vista temperatures of spring-like warmth, but more than a century in the past. Sneakers sliding on full winter ice while gawping at Mountain Lion tracks – the wonder of a single day.

Playing with darkness, eager to do some book and youtube learning to capture the wonders of night. How crazy is that green?!

Tags: Colorado, Gardening + Nature

Quilt

January 19, 2017 in Quoting by Colleen | Permalink

I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.

Lewis Carroll

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Tags: Gardening + Nature, Quoting

Looking Ahead

January 7, 2017 in Gardening + Nature, Hiking + Walking by Colleen | Permalink

2016 was a beast of a year. We moved into our sweet ranch on March 1st and plowed through the upstairs remodel as though our lives depended upon it. Which it did. Our comfortable lives, anyway. We did not want to wash dishes from a giant bowl while kneeling in the nasty basement shower for one moment longer than necessary or cooking on a wobbly ikea table in the laundry room, though we did it for three months. Oy. Like camping, only in a basement. When organizing a kitchen space, it is said that the most efficient layout is a triangle. The hubster laughed, “Ours was a pyramid – sink in the basement bath, burner and toaster oven in the laundry, refrigerator in the dining room!”

And then there was the floor, the complete gut of the kitchen and bathroom, painting every last wall – upstairs and down, painting the doors, too, replacing every light fixture and adding four more, because L I G H T. Installing bookshelves in the living room and drying racks in the basement, because our clothes have never tumbled in a dryer. Digging, planting, assembling, destroying, dumping, and building. Do it. Do it again. Yeah, that was us. Wide eyed. Diligent. Exhausted.

And then there was that bit of soul searching. You saw it. Maybe it frightened you. Maybe it got you thinking. Who do we allow into our lives? The people we strive to be. The kind. The joyous. The affectionate. What about bullshit and drama? Little, dear reader. Very little. We have had plenty. Thankfully not from each other. Glory be. We are solid pillars, leaning somewhat toward center. Better to hear a whisper. For lips to graze a cheek. For laughing eyes to dance together. Better, better, better.

So today, this hike an invocation for 2017. Embracing and inviting all that is out in the open, all that is unseen. Fox and coyote and pronghorn. Wee, small birds. Prairie dogs. Rabbits. US admiring the peace, the beauty, the wonder of the world. Standing our ground.

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