Six Things From April...

Six Things from April....

What can I say?
It's been over a month since I've written.
Why?
I'm not sure.
I came back from Texas and I've been busy?
I've been living life instead of writing about it?
It's been beautiful outside and I can't stand to be in?

I think the answer lies somewhere amongst all of these excuses reasons.

What have I been up to?

1. I had put the word out at the dump that I was looking for a gate. I love my dump. Every Saturday I drive to the little dump/transfer station where I hand over my money and my trash. I had asked them to keep an eye out for some gates as Carlos needs a fence and I wanted a functional gate on the back deck. Not two weeks after putting that bug in the dump owner's ear, I pulled up to see the perfect little gate waiting for me.  For TWO dollars!!  (The mirror that matches my vanity also came from the dump. It's a treasure trove of cast offs.)

Is that a perfect fit or what? 

It took a bit of searching for the hinges but with a little help (i.e. I held the hinges in place while someone else drilled the holes and screwed them in place.) I managed to get the gate installed. The latch part took about 4 trips to the True Value and lots of brainstorming.  After 7 years of having a sideways fence piece held up with twist ties and closed with cinder blocks, I now have a functioning, opening, closing, latching gate.

A Carlos-proof latch.

Next project is the second door on the shed. Neighbor Beverly was over on Sunday and we figured out how to make the current unattached door work without using any major power tools. Yay. Stay tuned.

2. I visited some fossils and dinosaurs. Love a good museum and the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center in Woodland Park delivered. Tons of dinosaur bones, many from the Colorado area. Their signage could use a little work and the Houston Museum of Natural Science is bigger and better in the dinosaur department, but for an afternoon of entertainment- this worked.  (Also, the difference is tiny town private museum and fourth largest city in the US and lots of funding.)
Also visited the redwood fossils near Florrisant, Co. Had no idea there used to be redwoods here...but the trunks are there to prove it. Sadly most of the  fossils and trees had been carted off as curios, but a few remain and are now closely guarded. It was a beautiful day and the one mile trail around the tree trunks was a perfect way to kill an hour.

A huge redwood stump. 

So sad that most of the forest was carted off as souvenirs.

3. For a few years now I've dreamed of an outdoor table. Nothing fancy but I KNEW I didn't want plastic or traditional outdoor stuff. My plan was to buy an inexpensive wood table at the local Caring and Sharing (or somewhere along those lines) and just stick it out in the  yard, surrounded by an odd assortment of chairs. The budget was no more than $50 for the table and no more than $10 a chair. Knowing wood will not hold up for long unprotected under the Colorado sun I fully expect the life span to be maybe two years.   I found the perfect table at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Buena Vista and it was $40.  Even better, it came with not one but TWO leaves so there can be a party! My original thought was to put it on the side yard but one day it hit me. Out front it is level and exactly where the table needs to go. So it did. I found a few chairs at the Amish thrift store in Cañon City and Beverly is donating a few too in exchange for a  "seat at the table" come summer dinners. The whole mess is  going to be painted with chalk paint and it may or may not be sealed. No matter what it is going to look darling and be the perfect spot for summer breakfast lunch and dinner.

It's a start. The table will be almost navy.

Chairs will be shades of blues and greens. 

Doesn't it look like the perfect summer dining spot?

I'll have to teach the deer not to poop in the dining room.

4. I've been to some new restaurants, mostly in Buena Vista. BV is a little town past Salida, exactly an hour from the cabin and since I work there on Wednesdays, I've had the opportunity to explore. There are some really wonderful restaurants...I'll do a review or two soon. For Labor Day Dierks Bentley is doing a country music festival (Seven Peaks Music Festival) there and I am thrilled to be so close. Hoping to wrangle some tickets like I did for the Gentlemen of the Road show a few years ago.

5. And mostly? I've been working. Love my job but it is going through a "transition period" to say the least. Doctors are changing and while the current doctor is out, no one seems to know who will be replacing him. There is no schedule beyond mid June which makes scheduling a challenge and overall there is a sense of confusion. Not a very comforting position to be in but I am confident it will all work out.

 My little desk with no counter space. 

We have been BUSY!

And some of my favorite patients:

 Bailey (L) belongs to a doctor as does Wynn on the right. 

They stay down in oncology most of the day. 

 Tucker (above) and Ringo (below) 

are therapy dogs. 

6. And last but not least, look what I got! 

A fishing license!

The waders are on order. I'm going to learn how to fly fish for real. No. 58 is going to be completed!

So maybe for the summer posts will be once a month. Maybe there will be a hiatus. Maybe I will get back to weekly.
Who knows?
In the meantime...get out and live your life. Get off the computer and the phone. That's what I have been trying to do.

Everything is Beautiful

Everything is Beautiful...Really


I live in the land of beauty. "America, the Beautiful"
(The song was written about the Pike's Peak area, a mere 100 miles away.)

I would love to say I'm an amazing photographer but reality is, I'm not.
I have a very good camera and a decent telephoto lens.
But truthfully here all that is required to take a GORGEOUS outdoor photo is a phone, a throw away camera, a Polaroid. ANYTHING will work. Not even sure eyesight is required. Just point and shoot and pretty much anywhere the camera eye lands will be a good pic.

Today I  thought I would share a few pics with you.
(So you can be jealous.)


First the Twin Sisters. This is the view out my front door.  It is also the view driving up the main road to the house. And the view from across the river at the dump.
Located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range, they have an elevation of a little over 13,000 feet. And they seem like they are literally right outside my front door. But they aren't.
My neighbor calls them the "Twisted Sisters" because a lot of our snow and wild weather comes straight across the top of them.
I call them Belle and Bunny.

I could take a picture every single day and they would all be gorgeous and all be different.
See?

 At dusk.

 As the sun rises.

 Covered in snow.

 Covered in clouds and snow.

 Sunset.

Good morning.

And from across the river, they are still amazing.

Or driving up the main road.  I stop probably once a week just to marvel at this view. Still.

See? Look at that sky. Those mountains.

And this was taken from inside my car with my iPhone. 

While driving.

Then there is the sky. It will stop you in your tracks.

Really. These are the colors. Not edited, filtered, nothing.

Just nature.

And the wild life. The deer are fat, happy and unafraid. 

 Isn't this baby adorable? 

This one, too.

I love this little deer train. 
Four of them? Five?
And this is what I mean. Great photo taken by the game camera.
No human involvement required.

There are American Bald Eagles that live on the river near where Carlos and I go walk.  Usually they are too far away to get a good picture, UNLESS I don't have my camera. One day they were in a tree right above me but I had no cell phone and no camera. That will never happen again.

These birds are enormous.

Once you know where to look, they are very easy to find. 

I was so excited the first time I spotted one.

And these two guys live near the dump. They wander the acreage there and while unbroken, they are obviously not too wild. I spoke to their owner (who owns the dump) and they are descendants of horses that his great grandfather owned, one of which was a U.S. Cavalry horse. Pretty cool, huh? 

"Got anything to eat in there?"

"I'm not getting out of the way until you come up with food."

There's beauty out there. I am beyond lucky to live where I do. But look around. It's everywhere.
Where do you find your beauty?


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O wait!!!!

I forgot my own personal wildlife.

Carlos

#TBT: The Green Acres Kitchen

#TBT: My Green Acres Kitchen


We're continuing with this month's Throw Back Thursdays in honor of completing my second year of blogging.  I'm repeating some of the most popular posts each Thursday in November. And since next week is Thanksgiving, which means many of us will be slaving away in the kitchen, I thought this week I would repost last year's love note to my cabin kitchen.   Ok, maybe not exactly a love note.

But this was one of my favorite posts and a year later, I still love this kitchen. I bake more here than I ever did in Texas. High altitude baking at that. I've gone through a gazillion pairs of purple gloves while doing the dishes. And doing the dishes is in some way a highlight....order out of chaos and all that.

So...here's to spending time in the kitchen.   Food is love.

Green Acres/Redux: In the kitchen with Nancie

Don't panic. I'm not actually cooking anything.

It just cracks me up that I voluntarily left a perfectly functioning kitchen to come to Colorado and fix two to three meals a day in this:

Bunny playing Vanna White in the cabin kitchen.

(And let me say, for the record, my kitchen at home could use some updating, too.)

To be perfectly honest, I love this kitchen. I love the hokey cabinets. It has some nicer features than the kitchen at the real house: turntables, knife drawer, narrow cookie sheet cabinet, slide out drawers inside cabinets for the pots and pans. Many things were scrimped on when this house was built but I get the feeling the wife put her foot down when it came to the kitchen. The kitchen works. 

BUT!

We are on a septic system and we have no disposal. 

This is our disposal:

Carlos is very efficient.

And don't call the FDA.

All dishes get a bleach soak and lots of hot water.

Instead of an ice maker, we have ice trays.  I had to explain to my kids how they work.

At least we have graduated from the metal ice trays of my youth.

Those always stuck to your fingers and then threw the ice everywhere. 

This is my dishwasher:

Those purple gloves have already sprung a leak.

A new pair is on the grocery list.

Much cheaper than a whole new dishwasher.

And the thing that is most time consuming: 

Trash disposal. 

We have to pay to dispose of our trash and we have to drive our trash to the dump.  Now I know we all pay to dispose of our trash but it really hits home when you actually hand over a ten dollar bill along with your two bags of trash rather than pay that utility bill that has trash removal included. 

Here is where the trash goes:

The dump!

The bright spot of going to the dump? Cell service.

Why can the dump get cell service but my cabin can not?

Conveniently located about 10 miles away and conveniently open from 9am to 4pm on Saturdays                                                     ONLY!

In order to keep the amount of trash down we recycle everything.  

Carlos supervising the sorting.

It is a bit like a treasure hunt at the recycling center.  You have to find the correct bin for each item. Plastic in one, cardboard in another, corrugated cardboard in yet another. Brown glass, clear glass, aluminum.  At least the recycling center is open 24/7.  Although I have heard if you go too late at night, you might run into snoopy bears. 

Everything gets sorted by hand. 

Personally. By yours truly.

And truthfully, this is all pretty much the norm here. No dishwashers, no ice makers. If you live in town  maybe your trash is picked up.  But the recycling center is always busy. And it is probably not that unusual in many parts of the United States. But it is certainly unusual for where I come from.  

And here's the thing. This is really good for us. The girls know where to throw their recyclables. While I'm still working with them on the actual washing of dishes, they are good at rinsing. They know not to bring extra trash home. You go through the drive through? Dump that trash in town at the first trash can you see. Don't leave it in the car and don't bring it home. And recycle that plastic cup.

It's good to see how much we throw away. And how much we recycle. It definitely brings home the amount of waste one family can produce.  And if you are hand washing dishes then paper goods sound like a fine idea until you hand over an extra $5.00 that week. 

And the best part? It takes me back to when I was 18 and went to school in Mexico. I rented different apartments with different people and I have such wonderful memories of time spent in those apartments with those -ahem- kitchens.  

I remember the day Cathy and I blew the door completely off the oven when we didn't get the gas pilot lit like we thought we had.

There were ovens with no numbers on the dials. High - maybe 450 degrees- was all the way to the left and 350 degrees was in the middle. We still baked. 

No ice makers. In one apartment there was no freezer at all. Or oven.

There was tons of spaghetti made, not unlike here, for many happy meals.

When we were going through brown outs and had no electricity, we cooked by candle light. Thank goodness for gas stoves.
Scrambled queso con huevos. Kilos of those eggs in plastic bags. Bolsas for our groceries.

And in those kitchens I made some of my best friends.
People who have changed my life.
People who have made my life.

So here's to going back to the basics. 

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An update on Tuesday's tire fiasco.  Hat's off to Discount Tire for redeeming themselves. They called me, they sent me an email and they compensated me for the additional gas required to come back again for tires. 

Bunny's car has new shoes! 

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