Winter Scenes of Durango

What Petey is up to lately...

Well, the threat and promise of snow continues and will through late next week. Time to turn our attention to being indoors and for Petey whose been taking guitar lessons for most of this year, it's practice, practice and more of the same. He's actually sounding darn good, in my estimate. His focus has strictly been on blues chords and the new electric guitar & amp are working for him!
Sorry, no sound bites just yet!

Fall Came, But It's Gone Now!

Just a few images to prove I did get out and away from the books and projects early this fall, I think it was Sept 25th. We even made it all the way up to Silverton and had breakfast!

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We also made a trip around a portion of the Alpine Loop in late summer. It's an old one lane, bi-directional mining road in the high country. Here a link for all the images: Alpine Loop trip August 2010 - Silverton to Lake City, then round trip to Durango via Creed

Here's a few images from that trip...definitely better done in a jeep style 4 x 4 vehicle, or by Donkey!





Yes...this is one of MANY beaver ponds!
We also saw two moose, but on the early part of the trek.

The Power Project!

Looking from our driveway down to the worksite. Petey coming up for some ice tea.



A little ice tea refreshment!









View looking east from the ditch area


View towards the north looking up at "The Cabin"


View towards the westerly


Petey on his way back to the "barn"

Here's a parting shot one evening after Petey put in 12+ hours working on the trench for the underground utilities one august summers eve this year.

My Latest Art Project.

Title: "Gone fishing, Again"

Just you try & fit into these hip waders! made from sheet metal and recycled stove pipes for legs. What a lot of fun it was building! Peter asked me on several occasions..."What are the other student using for material, could you have picked something a little more difficult?" My reply..."Why? This isn't this difficult enough!"



Final clean up before going public.



First public showing at the Fort Lewis College Scholarship banquet. Three artist were invited to show works, this was the only sculpture that arrived, we mostly showed paintings.

The Cabin & Late Summer Goings On

A few photos around the property.
This is our camp area we affectionately refer to as "the cabin"




The fire pit area - looking South.



Roughly standing in the same area looking SE.



Photos from the BLM land & hillside behind our property overlooking Vallecito Lake area to our north and the Weminuche Wilderness area.






Looking east towards the continental divide & Pagosa Springs

YIKES....It's June, Already.

No confession necessary on how delinquent I've been in updating my posts. The proof is on the page! Lots to mention, recap, etc., and swap out that old-warn-out snow image at the top too! Hal, its embarrassing that you'll look at this outdated thing, but thanks for kick in the pants reminder by asking about the blog. Soon!

Happy summer to all!

What I'm loven' now...

My Juicer!
I'm in the throws of a head cold and I owe my juicer a bit of thanks as its faithfully carried me through almost two decades. Okay, so I've NOT used it everyday, as I'd like to think I'd do, but...I'm thrilling with the fact that I'm juicing again and it just may be the reason my cold is abating so quickly.


My new fave recipe:
1 bunch spinach
2 small carrots
two celery ribs
handful of parsley
1 small garlic clove

What's your fave recipe???
Share it!

The Sunshine has Retuneth

Enough of the topic of snow falling, lets switch to the sun shining and while I'm at it I'll include a photo taken from the back of the house looking westerly. Ahhhh.
Petey has also been working from home for "the company" and I really like having him home. However my time at home is short these days since I leave for classes by noon that run until 5:30+... Yea, and I'm savoring the fact that I've only two semesters remaining. Yes, I'm enjoying the process! Believe me. More on the school subject later.
So, the report is...the snow skiing was great yesterday on Purgy and last nights temperatures dipped down to 4 degrees keeping the snow nice and dry.

The Snow Subsides...

We got a reprieve, only awaking to roughly four inches of new snow this morning. Unfortunately it has also warmed up and what is melting will freeze into an ice skate rink on the ground. However, more is expect..of course...and our predicament to where to put it all continues. Peter went up skiing with neighbors and found the snow to be really wet. They said you have to find really steep terrain just so you could let gravity pull you down the hill...so much for swishing down. So, they came back after only two ski runs!


Its become a work day...but we'll get out the snow shoes and do a little cruzing.

Two Inches of Snow Per Hour....

Okay, you've all see that great photo at the top of this blog...well, we've now surpassed that amount of snow shown in the photo. At 4pm I'd just completed clearing ~6 of new snow and presently its 10:30 pm, and we've just finished clearing off another foot of snow since 4pm. I knew it was serious when I found Peter using a snow blower offered by what has become the neighborhood snow clearing brigade, and within a half hour he's cleared the snow in half the time it takes me to do the same work with the shovel, okay, possibly it would take me a little longer than the one hour, but not much. The predicament we're now having is that the snow banks are SO HIGH...pushing 6' at the edge of the driveway we're not sure where we're going to put the two more feet the weather service is predicting we'll have by Sunday!

10:00 PM Friday Night... we finally break down and use a snow blower!Okay, here's a shot taken from the front door. The snow doesn't look all that high in this photo, but we're only clearing off the walkway.Here's Jake coming around the corner, back towards the front door.


We're expecting to go skiing tomorrow. We'll do another posting if we wake up to another 2ft. of more than our share of fresh snow.

And to all my family in Southern California...I hope you're all high and dry and safe - and not floating off into the pacific.

Proof Petey Played Hooky...

As the fresh snow continues to fall here with the latest of three storms having arrived in the early hours, Petey played hooky on our first good powder day this month. Armed with his handy mini-cam he caught his ski buddy Chip while tree skiing. Safe to bet you can expect to see more action video's as he get's better with his tiny video camera.

View the the video link below... of tree skiing!

Petey's next new toy...or so he wishes!

Yup, he's got one of these in his sights, but ....$35K+ is a bit much!
However, we have been shopping on Craig's List...again...and have found it to be a good source for used skid steers!
We recently went to Denver to pick up a flat file cabinet for me, another amazing find on Craig's List, and while there we looked at skid steers from Craig's Listings. The news is...we may be buying one next month. Its a 99' John Deere, and the best news is... it is being sold with a backhoe attachment! It doesn't have a full glass enclosure like the one in the photo below, but it does have clear canvases that snap/velcro inside to keep the wind or rain off the operator...Did I just say RAIN??? Oh... let's revise that to SNOW.

Anyway, the versatility of this type of equipment will be great on the property...one day.
We'll keep you posted for late February should we bring the beast home. And we're still looking for a snow blower attachment...there are SO many attachments for these skid steers its amazing. Ladies, it surpasses the kitchen gadget addiction by MILES.

New Snow...

New snow always presents new adventures in negotiating travel...currently at 11:20am we have approximately 10+ inches of fresh dry powdery stuff to be shoveled from the driveway...BEFORE I go to my afternoon painting class at the college. The roads are plowed, and hey...and those plows are going by as I write!

Petey left for work early (as always) with about 5" new snow...having shoveled out from behind the truck...which makes my side of the driveway 10" and I'm in no hurry. This photo is looking from the front porch across the driveway.
This evening we'll both stay in town and go for dinner with some friends and all will be attending a gig at the Abbey theater in town tonight for Tim Reynolds of Tr3 from Dave Matthews Band...with our local favorite Kirk James. Should be fun but not without the added adventure of lots of snow on the road and parking areas. But its joyous fresh stuff!

2009 - An Overview

Welcome all to this new decade of 2010!
Yup, it 's been quite a while since our first and last post... We-is-going to try it again.

Much has gone on in our past two years, and still new to the Durango Colorado area. Currently we're sitting tight with jobs and school, trying to muster up some creative energy to design our new home site. The many opportunities of ample snow railroad us away from good intend projects.

The brief overview of our 2009:

• Peter goes on a long ski trip with brother Nick and their long time childhood friend Jon Adams.
  
  
  
• Tori begins her first semester at FLC at the art department - as student! while simultaneously starting the Colorado Master Gardener program.
• March we buy a great used toy hauler travel trailer for camping on the property, and trips etc. We also buy our F250 truck from a Craig's Listing....too cool.
  
• April comes and Peter buys his first road bike: Triumph Speed Master...nice bike.
  
• May arrives brings the beginning of visit with family...Penny Berg arrives.
• June brings Georgie and Larry and they/we trip off to various location around the southwest, including Taos Pueblo.
  
  
• Camping at the property. Peter kayaks the Animas river and Tori kayaks the local lakes. All summer.
• July arrives with my cousin and her wonderful big family - Lori Henderson, Annie & Rubin + 3 kiddies. Mega-fun had by all! This is Alex on Peters' new bike.
  

• More camping at the propert>y + we saw a Mt. Lion, bear, elk, coyote, and fox.
  
• August we drive over to San Francisco to visit friends James "scooter" and Peg with the twins. Sweet but WAY too short. Then on to San Juan Island to visit friends (too numerous to name) and work on the property. Brought our boat back from the island "safely" and with a new trailer (not the rusty one in this photo!)
  A special thank you to Ross and Shona.
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• September-December Tori goes back to school... Fall Semester...
  Did you know semesters are f-ing marathons?
• November is still the honorary birthday month - you all know whom you are!
  
• December: skiing, Christmas and all that fun stuff. Tori graduates from the Master Gardeners program...whew!