More Signs of Spring

It is really warming up again, thank goodness.  It was still very cold this morning.  I awoke early, about 5:30 a.m., got up and started the fire in the wood stove.  I read for a while but then got sleepy again and didn't make myself get up and put more wood in the stove.  By the time I got up the fire had gone out.  I had run out of fire starters so had to tear up a cardboard box for kindling.  I finally got a fairly decent fire going about noon and by that time it was starting to warm up.  According to NOAA we were supposed to have a high of  44F degrees today.  It's still 40F degrees at 6 p.m. so it probably got higher than that.

Dixie and Jimmy visited and, as usual, Jimmy left and Dixie stayed.  It was warm enough she was able to sleep on the floor.  About 3 p.m. I decided I needed to get water at the spring in Caribou Canyon so I cleaned up, loaded my water jugs and Dixie into the car.  First I went to the post office.  If you've followed my blog from the beginning you know I've been fighting with Sears since before Halloween trying to get them to make things right for some failed auto repairs made at their Longmont, Colorado, auto service center.  We had finally settled on a dollar amount and I had signed the release form February 17.  I've been waiting for the check since and was most recently told it would arrive today.  I was not surprised to find it was not there.  I'll give it another couple of days then start rattling their cage again.

Returned a book to the library and picked up two more, then went on to the spring.  Saw a fox on the way.  It is so nice to be able to actually set my jugs down and allow them to fill now that all the ice has thawed from around the spring.

One day I'll follow that pipe and see how it's rigged up to the water source.

On the way back to Nederland I saw a startlingly blue Mountain Jay.  I noticed it was a complementary color to the orange willow branches toward which it was flying.

I stopped at Ace and got fire starters then dropped Dixie off at the Blue Owl Bookstore.  I think the proprietor noticed I was wearing one of the new scarves I had purchased at her store last week.  I know.  I was only going to get one, but she did give me a reduced price.  Here's the one I wore today.

I think I'm going to have to touch up my scarf model's imperfections.  They are somewhat distracting.

I stopped at the supermarket and got one of the Wednesday night special broasted chickens for $4.99.  What a deal!

When I got home I unloaded the car.  I think I can start keeping some of this water outside.  It's supposed to get down to 25F degrees tonight, but with the highs in the high 40s and 50s coming up, I'm going for it.  It will be nice not to have this taking space up inside.

After that, I picked up the little trash wood left where my first wood pile was last fall.  It's wet now, but will dry quickly once inside by the stove and will make great kindling.

Apollo came to visit while I was unloading the car.  I think he smelled the chicken and, yes, he got some and, a first, he allowed me to pet him and scratch around his ears today.  Second breakthrough of the week with him.

Have you had a breakthrough recently?  Teddee

I Got Out!

What a difference a day makes.  It got up to 40F degrees today and did it early.  Sunny.  A little breeze, but not bad.  So I got bundled up, did my outdoor chores and started digging out.  Soon had to take my coat off.

The only way to approach this is one shovel full at a time and don't think about the project as a whole.

Made it to the car.  I don't know if the snow plow operator thinks he's helping by shoving this snow up against the front of my car or what.

This really wasn't fun, but I finally got the car dug out and made sure I could drive out onto the road.

Cleaned up a bit then drove to Nederland and returned two library books and checked out two more I had requested.  Went to the spring and filled a couple of jugs with water.  Dropped off some recyclables at the town dump.  I would guess this is the only town dump with a view like this:

Stopped at Ace and took advantage of a 20% off sale to get a couple of boxes of Safe Lite Fire Starter Squares and the bits and pieces I need to make a pot rack.  More about that in a future blog..  I dropped off some plastic bags at the recycle bin at the supermarket and bought myself a chicken sandwich and Diet Coke at the deli.  I was starving after all that snow shoveling.  Got my mail and was pleased to find I had received two books I had ordered, based on the recommendation of Karen Anderson who does readings at the Blue Owl Bookstore in Nederland.  They are DNA Demystified and DNA and the Quantum Choice both by Kishori Aird.  I am interested in exploring DNA reprogramming and am really looking forward to getting started on these.

Decided that since I had freed myself from my snowy prison I'd drive on down to Boulder.  The Salvation Army store had been having a 50% off sale since yesterday.  I figured things would be pretty well picked over I was getting there so late, but found a few things.  I couldn't believe no one had grabbed these two Victorian? Edwardian? engraved silver napkin rings.  Loved the little bracket with the hooks for a hanging sign, what I guess is a silver wine bottle holder and the beautifully colored sphere with the leaves and fruit.

I also got this lapis skirt and Chico's travelers top:

The grand total for everything was $8.77 with tax.

And I got back before dark.  How did you spend your Saturday?  Teddee

85 mph Winds

It has been deceptively mild so far today and right now it is almost too quiet.  It had been windy this morning, but not intolerable because the temperature is almost 40F degrees (64F degrees in Denver).  But when I pulled up the NOAA forecast at about 8:30 a.m., I stopped everything--didn't even have my coffee--and immediately set about doing my outside chores.  We are supposed to get winds as high as 70 mph later today and 85 mph tonight.  If you hadn't had access to the forecast, the western sky might have been an indication:

 
Something happening up there on the Divide.

Tomorrow the temperature is forecast to drop precipitously (NOAA always slips in that little down arrow as a clue) from a high of 20 F degrees, which is supposed to be the overnight low tonight, to a low of 9F degrees with a wind chill Thursday night of -13. 

So I bundled up and got out and filled the wood box, emptied the slop bucket, the stale dishwater, some vegetable peels and the pot (You can see I'm using binder clips to keep the lid from blowing away)...

...and this is why you need a pot de chambre:

Brrrr!

After I'd cleaned up a bit, I got my sister's hiking ski pole and made my way out to the car through the snow drifts with the water jugs, three library books I had finished and an envelope containing a letter and some clippings for my brother. 

Stopped at the post office, where I think it was actually windier than it was here and the parking lot was an ice rink.  Waited behind a man who was picking up what must have been a pair of skis and a pair of boots based on the shape of the boxes and the REI logo.  Mailed the envelope to my brother, picked up my mail, skated back out to the car, made my way to the library, returned the three books I'd read and picked up three more. 

Drove from there up Caribou Canyon to the spring, another skating rink, and filled my water jugs...

...then stopped back by the supermarket where I bought a few things including a container of light sour cream to mix with some chipotle blue cheese dip I had purchased last week that is so hot I had to mix it half and half with something in order to eat it. 

I unloaded the car, four trips using the ski pole each trip, and put the meat in the cooler in the wood house, along with a very large piece of icicle...

...even though with these temperatures I probably don't need to worry.  Some country style pork ribs I'd had stored out there for at least two weeks are like a rock.

Fed this neighborhood dog, which I am having a lot of trouble befriending.

After all these months, he still will not allow me to touch him.  I think he is having a bad tail life.


So, I've got the fire going again and am finally having my coffee with some veggie chips and diluted chipotle blue cheese dip for lunch...[Those hot peppers sure are making the coffee taste odd]...and I'm just waiting for the winds.  The western sky is getting more and more menacing:

What are you waiting for?  Teddee

The Importance of Water

You don't take water for granted when it isn't piped into your home.  I grew up without running water.  We didn't have an indoor bathroom in our farmhouse in Missouri until I was in the seventh grade, so hauling and carrying water isn't totally foreign to me.  Since this is a one-person household, I don't need a lot of water, but since the water from the creek that runs down the canyon just across the road from the cabin is no longer potable (and that's a long "o" not a short one--one of my pet peeves), which it was the first time I came here when I was nine years old, I have to haul water from a spring in Caribou Canyon, the next canyon north of the one in which the cabin is located.  I don't know the story of this spring and will attempt to find out who installed the pipe.  I do know that my family, along with many other area residents, have collected free water from the spring for years.  A year ago last fall, as I was filling my water jugs, a large black SUV with darkly tinted windows drove up as I was going about my task.  The driver didn't get out and chat like so many people do if they arrive at the spring together.  When I indicated to the unseen driver that I was done, he emerged, and with a very Germanic accent and unpleasant demeanor, said he should start charging for the water, that the spring belonged to him and, although he had drilled a well for his cabin (I suspect it is the very large chateau-like structure I occasionally glimpse further up Caribou), he still had to come to the spring for water because the water from the well was so full of iron it made it unusable.  He wanted to know where I lived.  I told him I was living in a family cabin in Eldora my father had built in 1939 and that, in fact, my Dad had attempted to dig a well by hand on our property, but had thrown in the towel or the shovel when he encountered solid rock, so I really appreciated "his" water.  He didn't seem mollified.


This is the spring.  It looks unsavory, but I and others use the water as our sole source of drinking water and suffer no ill effects.  I understand the Boulder County Health Department occasionally comes out and hangs a warning tag on the pipe indicating the water isn't safe to drink because of possible giardia ("beaver fever") contamination, but most people just ignore it.  I did have a fellow water-gatherer tell me one day, when we converged on the spring simultaneously, that the only time she and her family, including young children, don't use the water is during spring run-off.  I could not determine last spring, after record snowfalls, exactly the duration of spring run-off.  I boiled the water for drinking for about a week when I discovered the water coming out so forcefully that I had to hold my jugs horizontally in order to capture the water, but found it a nuisance and quit. 

Do you give much thought to water as you make your morning coffee, wash the dishes, take a shower or luxuriate in a bubble bath after a long day?  Teddee