Falling into winter

Already we have had more precipitation in the last two storms than in the last two months...and the snow is wet. The trees branches are cracking under the weight. The red and withered crab apples peek out from under a pile of snow covering them. A little kestrel kept a close eye on me when I was waking the dog. I believe it was scouting the wide open fields around the buildings here. Although covered with about 6 inches of snow, the weeds have enough bare ground around them that mice and voles are probably visible to the little predator's beady eyes.

A few shots of this lovely little bird: from a local biologist
and from one of my favorite wildlife photographers on the East Coast

Fall in the Foothills

Went for a hike on the Legion Park trailet. It was really crispy. Not too much blooming there.

Went for a hike on the Chatauqua trails. Crispy again. The little and big bluestems were fried, no blooms this year. Although their leaves were a lovely fall russet.

Drove up to the Brainard area. At least, the plants were still thriving up there. I ate the only two blueberries I found, and they were OK. I have had much better in the Poudre Canyon. I tried the gooseberry currants. Bland.

If I was depending on these for dessert, I would lose a lot of weight!

Ripe wild plums

Walking the dog, I noticed that now there are the tall coyote scats full of plum pits. For some reason or other, the dog thinks these are great. He totally ignores the regular scat with rabbit hair and other bits, but plum poop!

At any rate, even though the plums are a little sad in the whole, there are still large patches of lovely sweet ones. I ate a few, and offered one to the canine companion. He turned his nose up at the nice raw plum, full of sweet juice and filling the air with its lovely rose-like scent.

But the composted ones! How interesting.

I am glad I am not a dog.

And in other weather related news....

We have more moisture and more cool weather. My evening primroses are putting on a new show! My roses have mildew! I either overwater (it is raining!) or underwater (sudden hot spell). Sigh.

The wild plums look pretty sad this year, with galls, insect bites, and sun-burn. However, chokecherries are abundant. I should go out and gather a basket full to make pancake syrup with. The last time I tried to make jelly, we ended up with syrup. So maybe if the goal is syrup, it will work out well.

We also need to go into the Boulder Canyon and see if the grapes look good. If so, maybe some grape jelly is in order.

On a side note, I went to Hotchkiss this weekend, and stopped on the way at the Grizzly Creek rest stop in Glenwood Canyon. There, everything looked nice and green. The dogwood was blooming and in fruit at the same time. I don't know that I have seen that before.

The Colorado had a nice water flow going, and lots of people were out rafting and canoeing.

July! July!

and the living is easy...Went hiking up by Blue Lake and Mitchell Lake this weekend, and had the pleasure of being pelted with rain, snow and hail. Since we were a little ways below the tree line, we did have some trees to take cover under (I know, I know, lightning strikes trees! but what was our choice?) sort of...if we wanted to scrunch down under the not so tall spruce and fir. But then the sun came out...and all was well until the next stormling.

The flowers were beyond wonderful. I did not take that may photos, due to the distraction of the DOG. He tends to want to sniff things as we go along, and I may practice my best Cesar Millan dog whispering, but that DOG is so obstinate! So he will yank on me at the worst moment.

Meanwhile my spousal unit is off taking landscape photos, and trying to catch a shot of flying birds.

Just as an aside, there were tons of flowers (well, lots of flowers) on the mountain blueberries. Bodes well for this fall. It has been a long time since I have them covered with blooms like that. The bog laurel was magnificent too. Violets were everywhere. Parry's primroses lined all the streams. Virginia bluebells joined them, along with marsh marigolds. It was enough to make one forget about the steepness of the hills, the angularity of the rocks on the path and the streams to cross.

Dang that rain anyhow

So we are now getting what we used to have in this part of the country, the regular evening showers after a nice moisty day. The good part is that the plants are mostly happy. The bad part is that my beautiful xeriscape flower garden is now a beautiful leaf garden with flowers peaking out from the leaves. The evening primroses look very coy, but not spectacular as they have in the past. The roses are hidden behind large plumes of grass. The Russian sage is looking pretty intimidated, but it will have its day I hope, later this summer.

It is interesting to hear people gripe about the unusual weather. Of course the weather reporters on TV (one cannot call them meteorologists with a straight face) babble about how unusual this all is, but looking at them you realize they haven't lived in the area that long, especially since they all look about 25 or so.

And summer is soon upon us. What this will bring we shall see.

End of drought for a while, I guess

Haven't written for a while. This year has been a little traumatic, we had a couple of layoffs at work, and the last was the worst. I don't know if that situation will improve, but the weather on the Front Range has! Real spring monsoons! Real thunderstorms! The weeds (let us call non-native and invasives, weeds, the others, ruderals) are leaping up for joy. My garden looks like a jungle. My vegetable garden needs some upkeep, but I have started the tomatoes, the peppers, and other spring/summer stuff. No earwigs this year, but! Elm tree bug nymphs!

OK. The wild flowers are also in great shape this spring. If you look at my Flickr account, you will see some of my photos. I missed some this go round, but that leaves more for me to catch next year.

Strangely, the wild plums seem to be attacked by some (blight? gall?) disease that made a lot of them hollow shells of themselves. They turned yellow and disgusting looking.

Chuck and I have been out learning our new cameras. It has been both fun and frustating. Chuck is learning the joys of bird photography (it isn't as easy as one would like). Flowers cooperate much more, although this morning I sat next to a prickly pear and it threw its glochids at me. Got more in my hand this afternoon rescuing the dog from a patch of cactus. Not fun.

So much for now.

Blue jay territory

Some research shows that the blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata ) does cover this part of Colorado up to the foothills. I simply have never seen them in this area at all. Stellar jays, scrub jays and gray jays yes, blue jays no. This is a mediocre shot of a jay trying to avoid my camera. About 15 shots with blurs, blobs, branches and finally!