Momilies

I’m a little behind getting these posts up from Mom and my’s trip to southern Colorado a couple weeks ago.  We had such a wonderful time, and I will remember this trip for a very long time.  There was so much to see and do, and we packed in as much as we could over our three days.  I wouldn’t change a thing!

We took off south just before dawn, hoping to get through Denver rush hour traffic before it got bad.  So far, I’ve yet to leave the house early enough to actually avoid Denver traffic, so I’m starting to think that there is no such thing as “no rush hour.”  We crept through downtown, but this allowed Mom a chance to get a picture of Sports Authority Field and Mile High, which sits right along the highway.  Finally, we cleared the traffic and zipped south, stopping in Colorado Springs to get breakfast.  After weeks of on and off icky, rainy, cloudy weather, we were in glorious blue skies.  What a mood-lightener that was!

Then there was this, in the parking lot of the McDonald’s.

We are just not sure what was going on there.  Had they guy camped in the parking lot overnight?  Or did the tent just stay on there all the time and he was an off-roader/off-gridder?  Hard to say, and we did not see him (her?) leave.  The truck was gone when we came back out.

When Mom had brought up going to the Great Sand Dunes, I was dubious.  It didn’t sound fun or spectacular.  But I’m glad we made the drive, which was close to 5 hours.  Seeing sand dunes loom up out of the flat lands against the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, with no warning, was breathtaking.

As we drove, we passed mountain ranges like this one:

There was evidence as we drove of the snow that the mountains had received in the previous days.  In fact, when we got to the Great Sand Dunes, we found actual snow.  We were at about 9,000 feet, although peaks in the park top 13,000 feet.  This snow patch was about as big as my hand.  I told Mom it was my first snow of the season!

The visitor’s center:

I want to mention the visitor’s center, because it was unique unto itself.  What looks like windows along the sides of the building are actually passive solar collection points.  Behind the panels, warm air is trapped and fed throughout the building to heat it in the colder months.  Deep overhangs over doorways keep the interior cool in the hottest part of the summer.  It was chilly when we were there, in the upper 50’s and low 60’s, with a breeze.  But summers there can get very warm, often over 90 degrees.

After leaving the visitor center, you take a small road downhill to the sand dunes themselves.  Summer activities in the area include swimming in Medano Creek.  The creek washes the sand south, and winds pick it up and put it back on the dunes, in a perpetual rebuilding of the dunes.  This time of year, the creek is quite low, and you simply walk across it to get to the dunes.

You would think that would have been slimy and slippery, but Mom, me, and little Sophie the dog walked right across it.  The water was no more than a half-inch deep this time of year.  In the summer it is considerably deeper.  The dry sand was much harder to walk in than the wet sand.

The oddest thing was seeing the sand dunes laid right up against the mountains, as if they had been brought in by truck.  The wind that adds sand to the dunes makes them tiny bits taller every day, so the sand dunes are still “growing.”  The tallest is about 750 feet, but they change shape every day, so elevations change, as well.  People were walking to the top, some kids were even “sledding” down on sleds they’d carried up with them.  We did see two young men taking snowboards up with them, but we didn’t get to see them come down.  We assumed they had gone to the other side.  Mom and I only climbed a few feet up one dune.  The sand was very hard to walk in.

For me, just sitting on the sand and looking at the view was enough. It was like being in a huge sandbox.

Sophie enjoyed it with me, but this was about as still as she ever got.  She had a blast running around us as we walked or sat.

From our sitting vantage point, the opposite mountains were covered in color – green pines, red and grey granite, yellow aspen, and snow at the top.

After we had roasted ourselves in the sun, we drove around the rest of the park, taking a look at the campground.  This is the view back toward the dunes.  What a fabulous place to camp!

We thought we would take a little walk on the loop trail off the campground, but there were several male deer hanging about, and it is rutting season, so we decided against it.

It was a wonderful day, filled with things we hadn’t seen before, talking to some very entertaining and amusing park rangers and volunteers, and just enjoying the sun and sand, with no ocean in sight!  Because of the time of year, there were no crowds, and while the drive was long, it was beautiful and not difficult.  I’m glad we decided to go.

And, there was a bit of a bonus!  I love old abandoned buildings, and anytime I can get a close look, I  do it!  I like to imagine the history, the family that lived there, the work that was done there.  This was a small farmstead right alongside the road as we traveled.  I don’t remember exactly where, unfortunately.

Someone got creative with a skull…

This is the time of year when I get just a bit homesick for St. Louis.  More specifically, I am homesick for my friends and all the fall activities we used to enjoy together.  In less than four weeks, the picture above is likely to be what we will see here along the foothills of the Rockies.

Fall is a wonderful time for me, overall.  The weather is generally perfect.  Our toasty days have cooled, and our nights dip into the 30’s and 40’s.  We all sleep a little better for that.  I get to take out the winter clothes I’ve not seen since spring, and it’s like getting a whole new wardrobe, at least for a few weeks.  Our skies are clear and crystal blue – the kind of blue most people only dream of.  The leaves turn yellow and gold and red.  And snow starts kissing the tops of the mountains in the distance.  On a cool fall evening, it is common to smell wood smoke, as fireplaces get their first test-runs of the season.  A person’s thoughts turn to warm drinks, bowls of savory soup, and all those oven meals you can’t cook in the hot summer.

And I think of our parties.  40 people crammed into our little house and spilling into the back yard, our kitchen counters covered with all kinds of tasty goodies, and plenty to drink for all.  Outside, the firepit would be going, there would be some drumming, and laughter and happiness would fill the night.  I think of Halloween and our madly decorated front yard, and all the kids who would come by for candy and to see if the still figures on our lawn were “real” or just dummies.

This is our fourth Halloween in Colorado.  I think I am melancholy because I still don’t have a group of friends that I can host a party with.  I built a firepit in our back yard, but have no one to sit with around it.  No potluck parties, no drumming.  It doesn’t help that this is our third house in the three years and three months we have lived here.  It is an unsettled feeling, in a way.  I hope we are where we will stay for the next 5-10 years, but who knows, right?  We don’t have any idea how many kids (if any) we will get for trick-or-treating.  I am sure it won’t compare to what we had back home in Missouri.

But I make the best of it, because I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth.  My mountains are covered with snow, the aspens are all kinds of colors, and our air is crisp and wonderful.  I can put wholesome, filling, warm foods on the table, and while I can’t cuddle up to a fireplace (this house doesn’t have one, unlike the townhouse we had to leave), I do have warm clothes and comfortable furniture and a well-heated home, so it is all good.

Soon, we will have our first snowfall.  We have already had two frosts.  My garden is waning, and my free time is waxing.  I will have to find things to fill up all my newly-found free time. Time to crochet up some more things!

So, my mom and I were driving up in the mountains.  We’d visited Lake Isabelle (that will be a different post), and were headed to the Royal Gorge, when we saw this:

“Mom, look at the ladder.”

“Huh?”

“Why would there be a ladder up there?”

Suddenly, there was a castle.

Uh, what?

Bishop Castle is built on the side of a mountain at 9200 feet above sea level, along Colorado Highway 165, 25 miles or so west of Pueblo, Colorado.  It’s history is…interesting.  Jim Bishop has been building the castle (with help from friends) for the last forty or so years.  It started as a cabin, but quickly grew to something different.  Like all people with a hint of lunacy, there are quirks, questionable decisions, and some dangerous construction.  The county would like to see him and his castle go away, but I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.  Jim Bishop reminds me a lot of the late Bob Cassily, the inspiration behind St. Louis’ City Museum.  Jim uses a lot of recycled materials, including ironwork, glass, stone, and lumber.  What has been created is a marvel – stone archways supporting the base of the building, 12-inch logs supporting the upper floors, iron-work steps, railings, and embellishments, huge windows paneled with stained glass, and even a metal-plated dragon watching over it all.

Visitors are encouraged to climb the spiral stairs, some made of iron, some made of concrete, to reach the upper floors.  I climbed to the first floor on a tightly-wound set of spiral stairs made of concrete, and climbed to the second floor on a wide but narrow-stepped iron mesh spiral staircase.  Outside the second floor, I walked around on an open wire-floored walkway with twisted iron railings and banisters.  The view from the second floor of the castle was magnificent.  There were at least two more floors above, all with outside staircases, but I ventured no higher.

Mom stayed on the ground, not unsurprisingly!

There was a small gift shop, heated with a cranky-looking homemade wood stove, and guarded by three tame roosters.  In summer months, there is a secondary building (built of the same wood/stone/iron as the castle) that houses a small restaurant.  The entire grounds are covered with the detritus of the work – lumber, stone, mud, concrete, iron, and plenty of winches and small cranes to lift things.  The entire thing was a wonder to see.  You could see and feel the madness of the creator, but you also couldn’t help but marvel at the creation of the castle.

Bishop Castle is free, they just ask that you behave, don’t break anything, and have a big donation box.  We were happy to make a donation.  And as for that ladder on the side of the cliff?  We have no idea why it was there, as it was just standing there, not leaning on anything at all and at least 20 feet from anything else.

The whole castle.

Bridge archway – this looked like someday it would have a moat under it.  Or maybe not.

Iron archway over entrance to steps I took from the ground floor to the first floor.

Wooden logs used as beams overhead on the front portico.  These logs are presumably local pine, and about 12 inches in diameter.

Stone archways that support the second floor.  I’m standing on the first floor. Note the iron work inside each archway.  There were 8 archways total.

Stained glass windows on the first floor, looking east. 

The stained glass window on the second floor, after I climbed up open wire and iron-work spiral steps to get there.  Scary!  But the view.  Wow.

Cantilevered windows on the second floor, facing north.  I was able to open and close them with my foot by pushing the bar furthest to the left next to the mounting pole.  Really great work on this feature.

For those cold castle nights – a fireplace!

Me on the outside walkway.  Mom took this one

Stained glass window from the outside.

Sitting outside the gift shop on a seat carved from a single log.  No, it wasn’t all that comfortable!

Close up of the outside of the castle.

This little wooden castle was on a trailer off to the side of the castle.  Maybe it was a model of how it was supposed to look when it is done, but we aren’t sure.

Mailbox out front. 

I’ve been so busy this summer, it has been hard to keep up with the things I like to do.  Like writing in this blog.  My work responsibilities have changed, as my former boss was finally let go from campus.  I’m taking over some of her duties while they figure out how to distribute them for the long term.  I am getting differential pay for the work I’m doing extra, but it is still a lot of work and I find myself completely drug out when I leave work each day.  It is also the busiest time of our year, so I’m adding extra work when I’m already somewhat overloaded.  I also have been doing more work on the side than I have done in the past.  This will ease up soon, but in the meantime, I’m working when I’m working, and working when I get home, too.

Somewhere in there, I managed to edit a novel and get it to a publisher, where it now sits with an editor.  I would sit here and fret over that, but I don’t have time to.  I have a garden to maintain!

We did have our first frost last week (along with a little snow), which to some extent ended the growing season for us.  I had covered my summer squash with row cover the evening of the freeze, and it survived and is still thriving now that we are in the 80’s again.  The beans and tomatoes, however, did not survive.  I pulled them up and composted them.  Today, I spent a couple of hours in the garden, pulling up the kale, harvesting the rest of the turnips, harvesting some of the beets, taking down the giant sunflower (the stalk is as big as my arm!), and spreading out the dirt that came from the potato basket.  I was amazed at the condition of that dirt.  It was basically compost from the garden, straw, and alpaca poo I just kept putting in as the plants grew big taller.  The dirt is soft, loose, and dark as river dirt.  As I harvest the rest of the beets and parsnips over the coming weeks, I will spread that dirt into my lowest-lying areas of the garden.  It should give it a good start next year.

Tomorrow is the first day of fall, and I am ready.  Cooler nights, cooler days, and frosts will put my gardening to bed, and I can take some regular work off my plate.  I love the fresh veggies and working in the garden, but I am also tired.  I’m ready to have slower, quieter nights, where I’m not running off to the garden to get things done.  As it is now dark just after 7 pm, there isn’t a whole lot of time to work in the garden in the evenings to begin with.  I anticipate pulling much of what’s left in the garden within the next two weeks.

This week I’ll be making and canning apple butter from apples that were picked at the garden, and some that I purchased.  I do the apple butter in the crock pot, which is easy and takes no thought, and because I’m lazy.  I already did one batch as a test, and am happy with the result.  What I make this week will be used for gifts, and I’ll send a handful on with my mom when she leaves, too.  I have six bags of green beans in the freezer and a head of cabbage.  I have a huge bag of turnips to send back to my brother in Missouri (mom will take them for him).  We will get summer squash for at least another week, and there are still some peppers to be picked as they get bigger.  But overall, things are winding down, and I’m thankful for fall.

Potatoes!

Apple butter!

One of my mom’s goals when she is visiting us this year is to get some jelly or jam made.  We had thought we’d do plum, as my brother has some great plum trees.  She was going to pick there, do the initial process and freeze the pulp, bringing it with her when she came out.  Well, the date for picking plums got past her, and there weren’t any.  So I suggested the grapes growing at the community garden.  Anyone can take them and use them, and they are sweet and delicious, so why not?

So, on Labor Day weekend, Tater and I went over with basket and a big bowl and picked about 15 pounds of grapes.  About half were ripe, the rest not quite ripe, but that wouldn’t matter for grape jelly. Champagne grapes are small, green and have a small seed.  The skins are tough, similar to, but not as tough as, a concord grape.  They are sweet, but not overly so.

I rinsed them well, and Tater and Klown sat at the dining room table for over an hour, picking out the “raisins,” and taking off the stems.  Then I spent the next 12 hours freezing them.  I laid them out on cookie sheets and put them in the freezer until they froze as hard as marbles, then put them in containers for longer-term storage.  I only have two cookie sheets, so this took three runs in the freezer.  The grapes would freeze in about 4 hours.  Safely frozen, we could wait a couple of weeks for mom to get here and start working on them.

Finally, the day to make jelly came!  We dumped the frozen grapes into my big stock pot, added 3/4 cup of water to keep them from burning before they could thaw out, and cooked them until they were just a big pile of mush.  This took about an hour.  Once that was done, mom manned the food mill and I manned the strainer lined with the fabric from an old tshirt.  She mashed the grapes through the food mill, and then I poured the juice through the t-shirt, squeezing it through.  I found the food mill, which looks brand new, at the local Restore for $8, a steal!  It is an Osco brand, and very sturdy.  The juice was hot, but that’s the best time to be straining, so I just kept working with it.

When we got done, we had a wonderful grape skin and seed mush that looked like this.

Nasty looking, but smelled amazing.   This all went into our compost pile.  From the 15 pounds of grapes, we got 18 cups of juice that we strained twice to get as clear as possible.  A basic recipe we found called for 3/4 cup of white sugar for each cup of juice, and we went with that. While we waited for it to boil, I washed the jars and we sterilized the lids.

We started with 8 cups of juice, and cooked it and cooked it and cooked it.  The foam was green, which was a bit concerning.  Something that looked this bad, even though it would taste good, would still be bad.  Fortunately, as it cooked, it turned a beautiful amber, and the foam turned pink and brown.  We were relieved.

The first batch got overcooked.  We hadn’t done this in a while, so stopping at the right point didn’t exactly happen.  The first 10 4 oz. jars are going to end up being like candy instead of jelly.  But the second batch, made with 10 cups of juice, came out perfectly.  Why?  Because I got out the candy thermometer and used it judge when the juice was done.  From that batch we got 8 half-pints of beautiful, amber jelly.  You can see the overcooked jelly in the back, in the smaller jars.

We sealed them using a newer method.  Pour in the hot juice, wipe the rim clean with a wet cloth, put on the lid and ring, and tighten.  Turn the jar over and let sit until cool.  They turned out very pretty, and what little bit we’ve eaten has tasted amazing!  The rich grape flavor comes through.  It is slightly tart, but plenty sweet.

Champagne Grape Jelly

10 cups juice from fresh/frozen grapes (80 oz.)

7 1/2 c. sugar

Yield: 8 half pints (64 oz.)

Lots of work, but a beautiful result.

It’s been a few weeks since I made an update, and I apologize.  I’ve been busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, as they say.

After the big garden to-do on the 23rd, my whole life seemed to wind up to an incredible level.  We were getting ready for my mom’s annual visit, classes started on the campus I work at, leading to a massive increase in workload, and two of my private clients sent me huge amounts of work.  I seem to spend every spare moment catching up on that contract work and keeping up with the garden, while my workday is spent trying not to lose my mind from the incredible workload.  There is a lot of juggling going on to be sure we have food in the house, clean laundry, and for me, at least a few hours of sleep a night.

But fall is coming, and in fact, here in Colorado, I would argue that fall has firmly arrived.  There has been snow in the higher elevations, the leaves are starting to turn, the garden has slowed production to a crawl, and the nights are brisk.  The weather forecasters are gleefully tossing around the “snow” word this week as we are expecting a dusting on Thursday night, when the temp will drop into the low 30’s for the first time since early June.  This may spell the end of the growing season for me, at least for the majority of what I’m growing.  The kale, cabbage, and peas will do fine, but most other things will be goners if we get close to freezing.

And that is fine by me.  I could use the rest!

So Mom arrived on the 4th, and she’s settled into the guest suite in our lower level.  Her Florida blood is thin, and we turned on the heat for her.  The suite has heated floors, as well as hot water baseboard heat.  This is a wonderful luxury.  There are warm spots all over the floor.  I won’t need my slippers and a space heater to spend time in my office this winter!  It gets pretty cozy down there pretty quickly.  Since it is going to get pretty chilly in a couple of days, it’s good to know she will be warm.  We have the heat ready to go in the rest of the house, as well.  This will be the first time in a long time I have had water-based heat.  The heaters are on baseboards in all the rooms, and there is no blowing air.  That part may mean the house stays clean longer.  And I’d be okay with that, too.

Mom brought with her the antique secretary she has had for many years.  It has been in storage for several years, and she was finally ready to part with it.  The piece is a curio cabinet on one side, and a set of drawers and a fold-down desk on the other side.  The glass in the curio side is curved, and expensive.  Her biggest worry was getting it here in one piece.  It arrived safely, with no damage. It now sits proudly in my bedroom, filled with my prettiest chickens.  I love this piece and am very happy to have it.

She also brought with her the china I bought from my friend Patricia.  It was her grandmother’s, and I’ve been waiting for it to make its way west since January.  It is so pretty and delicate, and looks lovely in my china cabinet.

And speaking of Patricia, she and a friend flew to Colorado for a vacation this week.  I drove up to Estes Park this morning to have breakfast them.  It had been raining, and it was dark, and the highway up to Estes is the one that is still under construction after the floods, but I made it, and up that high, it was sunny and beautiful.  I was just up there 10 days ago, and just in the last ten days, it has turned to fall.  There was also snow on the flat-tops, which you can see from downtown Estes Park.

Yes, fall is coming.  Winter will be here soon.  And I am thankful for the change of seasons.

Yesterday evening, the community garden hosted its largest potluck event.  Fliers were distributed throughout the neighborhood, artists were asked to bring their artwork to display, and gardeners made fabulous dishes with their garden produce.  I made a pasta salad with more veggies than pasta, and a batch of coleslaw with homemade creamy dressing.  I also supervised the grilling of massive amounts of brats, hot dogs, and slider-size burgers.  I had some great grilling partners, all men.  The youngest of them, one of our gardeners who is as cute as he is smart, asked me if I’d teach him how to grill better for next year.  I’m always willing to share what I’ve learned from my dad.  August and his wife Marion are about the cutest things.  She’s from France and has a sweet accent, and the two of them came to the garden the same time I did.  They have two plots and some amazing production, including the kind of tomatoes I can only dream about.  And this year, they have grown some squash that are as big as bushel baskets.

We had over a hundred people attend our event, noshing on wonderful food, sitting around folding tables laden with jelly jars and juice glasses filled with sunflowers.  Tater and I made the bouquets, using sunflowers from all around the garden.  Earlier in the day, I had visited the Goodwill’s half-price sale.  For $5, I had two dozen little jars and glasses to fill with flowers.  They looked so cheerful running down the center of the tables.  At the end of the event, I told people to take a vase with them.  There was no way I needed 24 little vases of flowers in my house.  Besides, there are still plenty of sunflowers in the garden.  If I want some, I’ll just go cut some!

An event like this takes a ton of hard work, usually spread over just a handful of people.  There were perhaps a dozen people in all, getting things ready.  There were canopies to put up, tables to put out and layer with tablecloths, chairs to set up, barbecue pits to roll out and get fired up.  There were tiki torches to fill and place in buckets of sand, painstakingly filled by hauling sand from the kids’ sandboxes.

This morning, there were four of us breaking things down and putting them away.  The canopies had been broken down last night and moved inside the garden from the street.  The tables and chairs made it inside the fence as well, before dark.  This morning, four of us plus Tater packed up all the canopies into their zipper bags, repacked all of the paper/plastic products, rearranged the shed so we could get things back in, emptied the fuel out of the tiki torches, picked up trash, etc.  It would have been easier with more people, but we managed it in 90 minutes or so.  And surprisingly, we didn’t find too many “lost and found” things.  I have a set of children’s glasses and someone’s red silverware, but that was about it.  Not too bad for such a big event!

This is the first time I’ve participated in a large event for the garden.  I enjoyed myself very much, although I’m exhausted from a weekend of cooking, setup, and teardown, in addition to my regular chores.  A woman’s work is never done!

Pretty flowers all in a row…

Entertainment.  This guy was right next to where we were grilling, so I got to hear it all.

Grillmasters.  August is on the left, and the guy on the right was named Joe.  The guy trying to duck the camera on the left was also grilling with us.

Artwork on the fence.

Garden visitors – people taking a look a the garden plots and what was growing.  The sunflowers on the right side of the photo are in my garden.

Plenty of bike parking…

Eating in the shade, enjoying the artwork.

Woke up to 53 degrees and clear skies. I couldn’t wait to get up and dressed and on my way to the parade!  This is my favorite parade of the year – the Boulder County Fair Parade.  The fair itself kicked off last night, but the parade is truly the highlight of the whole thing.  The weather this year was going to be perfect, and like a little kid, I just couldn’t wait to get to Main Street, grab some snacks from the Simply Bulk Market and Winchell’s Donuts, and settle in to my lawn chair.

The next door neighbor, Al, along with  and his buddies were getting their antique cars ready. Phyllis, his wife, was windexing the windows, pink curlers in her hair as she gets duded up to ride in the parade. By the time I biked to downtown, an hour before the parade began, the side streets were already filling up with parked cars, and the park where lineup starts was already filled with dancers stretching their legs, horses prancing impatiently, and antique cars revving their engines.  On Main Street, in front of Barbed Wire Books, I met up with Klown and Tater, and soon the Perfect Child joined us.  Tater quickly found a friend and wandered off to sit with her instead of us, and that was okay.  That’s the kind of town this is – you know your neighbors and it’s okay to let your child go on her own to visit with her friends.

While we waited, I had a very enjoyable conversation with a couple sitting next to us.  They were in their 70’s, we got to talking about gardens, making pickles, how to cook kohlrabi, and how annoying it is to try to grow tomatoes here.  I love Longmont’s rural roots, and how those roots still show plainly in a day and age when buses, air conditioned houses, and big-box stores are on every corner.

The Boulder County Fair is small, but it shows our rural roots clearly.  There were at least four 4-H groups in the parade.  There were also tractors, farm trucks, and political candidates walking in cowboy boots and hats.  As big as our town is, we still act like a little town.  For all our urban sensibilities, we are still a rural place.  And I love that.

The only sadness of the day is that I will have to wait a whole year to see the parade again.

Tomorrow I’ll go hang out at the fair.  Tater can ride the rides and roll around in the giant hamster balls in a pool of water.  I’ll look at goats and chickens and bunnies, and ooh and ahh over the quilts, fabulous cakes, and giant vegetables with blue ribbons.  We’ll eat ribbon fries and funnel cakes and frozen chocolate-dipped bananas, and watch the cowboys practice for the rodeo.  And later this week, we’ll go back to watch the demolition derby.  It’s that kind of town.  And I love it.

Parade of Flags – first year I’ve seen this in the parade.  It was kind of awesome.

Our favorite hardware store, locally owned, always has their little car in the parade.  I spend so much money in this store I should have an assigned parking space at the front.

What would a parade, and fair, be without goats?

Of course there were horses…lots of horses…

And a truck that thought it was horse-powered… (click the picture to see a video of the horse “running” with the truck)

And there have to be firetrucks.  Especially old ones.

Plus stiltwalkers, and the world’s most famous clown.

Gotta have some Red Hat Ladies, too.

The Hover House Ladies…

And from the Old Mill Park, a recreation of the olden days…

Hispanic dancers, one of my favorite parts of the parade.  Click the picture to see a video of the dancers, mariachi band, and dancing horses from the Mexican rodeo…

There were lots of baby farmers…they will be growing our food someday.

And we saw that not all cowgirls ride horses…

It’s not a parade without a marching band.  In this case, the St. Vrain Valley School District All-District High School Band!

Antique cars…of all kinds…

This beauty hangs out at a house on the next block from ours.  I saw him washing it in the alley last night in preparation for today’s parade!

Every possible old truck was also here, including farm trucks and trucks that were not yet restored.

But the stars of the parade – the TRACTORS!  First, a Gibson.

A red Farmall…

Then there were the John Deere tractors – my dad calls them “poppers” because of the way they sound when they run. First here’s the old Deere…

And a small Deere…

Followed by a bigger Deere…

And finally, the biggest Deere…

You know he parade is over when you see the street sweeper…

Until next year…I will wait as patiently as I can!!

I haven’t posted as much about my garden this year, but worry not, I spend two evenings and part of a weekend day there each week, keeping things going.  I wasn’t as organized about my planting this year as in the past, so “rows” don’t really exist the way they should.  My squash are growing all over the place, and before them, the kohlrabi.  The peas refuse to stay on the fence, so are draped like wanton women all over the kale, beans, and cabbage.  A giant “Russian” sunflower, a volunteer plant I left grow once it sprouted, towers over the garden like a soldier.  At one point it started to lean, so now it is staked like a tree, to keep it from tossing completely over. It is easily 9 foot tall and covered in buds.  Crazy plant.

And to add to things, I have a small “kitchen garden” next to the back door of our house, as well.  I have one cucumber, one volunteer cucumber (and it tastes AWFUL), one green-striped zucchini, and one honeybear squash.  I also planted parsley and basil, and have thrown down some beans.  Earlier in the season, I had also planted half of that garden with lettuce.  We had a lot of salad before I pulled it all up because of the heat.

Within the last three weeks or so, things have really started to produce.  I pick three or four summer squash every time I go, and at least three cucumbers.  I have picked all the peas now, but we’ve had two big pots of fresh steamed peas, and I have enough in the fridge to do one more small pot.  Peas are great to plant because they boost the soil, but the yield is small, and then there’s the whole shelling them thing that takes forever.  Still, fresh-steamed peas are a wonder to behold.  I have cabbage ready to be picked, the surprise broccoli (they came in a six-pack of kohlrabi plants I bought), and the beans are blooming. The pumpkins are late, but I have at least five set, and more blooming, so they might just pull through after all.

At the house, there is also a nice flower garden I put out front, and two rose bushes I’m babying along (and are getting ready to bloom for the second time this summer).  I’m building a raised bed along the fence in the side yard.  My peonies and clematis will go there, and maybe a few other thing.  Also at the house is a small apple tree that is producing fairly well.  We are just now picking them, and they are sweet and soft, probably a green delicious.  The squirrels and birds love them, but unlike the apples at the other house, we don’t appear to be having a problem with worms.  for this, I am grateful.

I have made soup with kale to freeze for winter.  I have also made soup with Kohlrabi to freeze for winter.  My kohlrabi, the majority of which were plants purchased from one of my plot neighbors, have produced tremendously, with most of the 9 plants producing two or three bulbs.  The summer squash is producing well right now, but the winter squash doesn’t look happy.  They got a late freeze, well into June, and have had a hard time recovering.  My peppers, as usual, are tiny and producing very little.  This year’s eggplant are not producing at all, unfortunately.  And the tomatoes are small in stature, but loaded with fruit.  Still it is nearly August, and we aren’t eating tomatoes yet.  This is hard for me to get used to, especially since in Missouri tomatoes were a never-miss.

So, without further ado, here are some pictures:

The 2014 Apples

Beans.  They are finally blooming, and there are baby beans!

Kale.  I’ve harvested pounds of it, and given pounds of it away to plot neighbors.  I like it but am running out of things to do with it.

The last two kohlrabi standing!

One of my six cabbages.  This one is ready to pick.  These are Savoy, my very favorite!

Buttercrunch lettuce in the shade of the giant Russian sunflower.

Weedy beets.  The alpaca manure I got this year from the garden is full of purslane seed.  I’m fighting it, but not winning!

Beets in various stages, which is why some look big, and some small.  As I pull them, I plant new seed.  I love beets!

Broccoli.  Surprise!  They were with a pack of kohlrabi I bought from a garden center – they were supposed to be kohlrabi!

Cucumbers.  I bought three plants, a variety called “patio.”  They grow very small vines, and can be grown in containers.  They are hearty producers, however, and I am picking 10 or more every week.  They are very tasty!

Pumpkins.  I am growing these in a corner of a plot that belongs to someone else, and I have them hemmed in as best I can with some 3-foot-tall fencing. They were slow starting but are taking off now.  There were some cosmos that reseeded in the same area, so they are sharing space.  I love cosmos!

Pumpkin flower – so pretty!

This one is the size of a honeydew melon.

Another pumpkin, this one bigger than a grapefruit.  I have at least five set pumpkins now, which is plenty.   The two I’m showing here are the biggest.

I even have melons!  I don’t remember what kind, but know it isn’t cantelope.

Parsnips.  They take forever to germinate, and they are planted in the area that is overrun with purslane, so I can’t weed them or I’ll pull them up!

Summer squash.  This is yellow zucchini.  It is producing gangbusters, despite the squash bugs I keep killing on it.

Papaya Pear Squash.  Yes, that’s what it’s called, and it makes small (3 inches in diameter) pear-shaped fruit.  Tastes like zucchini.

Tiny peppers.

Tomatoes.  Lots of  fruit, very small bushes. 

Turnips. Planted these about three weeks ago, and thinned them earlier this week.

Potato basket.  Still waiting to harvest these!  They seem to be taking forever…but I want to know the results of this experiment!

A typical harvest day.

The garden alongside the house. Beans in the foreground, then cucumbers, then two squash plants.

Honeybear squash.  Supposed to be a summer squash but it sure doesn’t look like it!  Also, a very slow producer.

Flower garden in the front of my house.  Along the back are two day lilies my mother bought me last year, along with some snow on the mountain, which should really take over after this year.  I also planted decorative tobacco, dianthus, rose moss, petunias, and purple allysum.  This was a dirt patch when we moved in.  It’s come a long way in just a couple of months!

As part of my community garden rental, I have to put in 10 “workshare” hours.  I spent two hours in March chopping the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of the grape vine that was threatening to take down our shed.  I chopped probably 3/4ths of it down.  You sure can’t tell now!  However, the grape production is phenomenal.  The chopping really helped them!

Loaded with Champagne grapes!

Here in Longmont, Colorado, we are in the hottest part of our summer.  Long, hot, dusty days string out in front of us, with the occasional high-based thunderstorm that brings us a lot of wind and lightning, but only a few raindrops.  100 degree days give way to 55 degree nights, as the air is so dry it can’t sustain heat when the sun goes down.  If you’re outside, you’re looking for shade.  If you’re inside, you’re still wishing you were outside.

That is Colorado.

We are a land of cowboys and farm boys, their big straw hats shading their weathered faces from the sun.  They come to town to wash their pickup trucks at the local do-it-yourself car wash, then spend money at Monarch’s buying supplies or a new pair of boots.  It is not unusual to see one in Target, a red basket in their hand, their button-down shirts pressed and clean, but their boots caked with mud.

We are a land of cyclists, muscling their way up and down canyons, their bodies tall and thin, their calf muscles looking like iron cables beneath their skin. They hide their eyes between bug-like sunglasses and hug the shoulders of the road like race car drivers.

We are a land of old Hispanic men, dressed sharply in pressed shirts, black jeans over shiny silver-tipped boots, bolo ties at their throats, and immaculate straw hats on their heads.  They look at you with sharp, shiny black eyes and smile a toothy grin, and open doors for you with a “Buenos Dias.”

We are a land of community gardens, thrift stores, veterinary offices, roadside farm stands, hand-made textiles, alpacas, sheep, enormous hawks, moms with babies in slings on their bellies, Subarus, Tacoma pickups, and months that can bring both snow and warm temperatures.  We are a land of art, nature, and an appreciation of simplicity. We are a land of independence and self-sufficiency and survival.

We live in a place where on daily basis you can hear “it’s the Colorado way.”

I love this place.  I love the cowboys and the cyclists and the polite old Hispanic men, and the thrift stores and the community gardens and the cool nights and the warm days.  The sun is brighter here.  The air is clearer here.  The mountains are high, the valleys cool and filled with streams.  We live through extremes every day here, and we are a tough people.  I tell my girls all the time, “Buck up, you’re a Colorado girl now.”

I am blessed to live here.  I am blessed to have all of Colorado out my front door.  I live a good life, full of possibilities and blessings.  I am thankful.