Meemo Is Back In The Mountains!

Looking over the ranch from the old airport hill.

And POOF! Powdered diet hot chocolate all over my face, down my front all over the counter and my shiny waxed kitchen floor.  Yep, I know we are back at our "cabin" in the mountains!  We have been here a week and I am beginning to get re-programed to our "high life" (as in 8500 ft. above sea level , all my 60's era friends).  I'm still puffing as I haul my laundry upstairs to the Blue Room to get washed.  My lips are getting over their dry air chappedness and I have caught my first fish from the pond so we know they didn't winter kill.

One of my favorite spring flowers, the Dog Tooth Violet

Here are some more fun adventures we have had this first week back home after 6 months on the road.  As usual the humming birds greeted us within 15 minutes of our arrival to let me know they needed their feeders put out.  The Canadian Geese are our alarm clock for a month or so before they head up to Canada.  We have spotted about 20 head of deer, mostly Does up on the ridge road and of course the antelope greeting committee was here as we came off the county road.  There are at least 2 Woodpeckers that have been pecking away on the house every morning and I have to go out and shoo them away.  Since the family spent Christmas up here without us and Thomas has been here several times over the fall and winter, I have to take stock of what is in the larder and what changes have taken place due to family members making repairs and leaving food up here.

An elk print in the mud.

My buddies, the humming birds are back!

As we come home from our winter wanderings, we have always made a stop in town at the local grocery store to pick up the basics before heading out the 25 miles to our home.  Imagine our surprise when we walked into the store and the shelves were bare!!!  Nobody managed to mention that to us over the winter.  They did have some basics but we were saddened to hear that they were in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and only could buy some basics for the last couple of months.  It does not look good for this community having a grocery store any more.  People are having to go to Laramie, Steamboat, or Granby at least 60 miles away to get their groceries.

The elk passed by here....

Signs of spring--some bear scat.

We spent a week using the staples left here and the meat brought up from Danny's and the shrimp and oysters from Rockport that we had brought up from Texas.  I made bread and we had fresh trout.  Someone had left some delicious cheesecake bites in the freezer and Mudslide and Pina Colada mixes in the fridge.  By the end of the week we were running out of fresh veggies, milk, cheese and peanut butter so we definitely needed to make a grocery run. We decided Steamboat was our closest store so we headed for City Market yesterday and picked up a couple weeks worth of food and wine, hopefully.  Bob got some shotgun shells and we picked up prescriptions at Walgreen's.

AAAh!  The buttercup up close.

 I love the drive over this time of year.  The leaves are actually out over there.  Still no sign of them here but give them a week or so.  I love the Yuppie grocery store over there, too. They have some great cheeses and lots of gourmet choices.  All come at high prices, of course.  One thing missing was the little peppers that I have written about in a previous post.  I also miss visiting with neighbors and friends while doing the weekly shopping.  But wait, we ran into two friends I used to teach with who happened to be visiting a teacher friend in Steamboat!  I hadn't seen them in many years!  I think we will be running into more North Parkers there too, as the checkout lady said they are seeing many people from over here.  They even furnished me with dry ice for the frozen stuff at no extra cost.

Spring flowers up in the trees

Back here, we had a few adventures as well.  We got the 4-wheeler out and took a ride up to the Little Jessie headgate to open it and get some water out on the meadow.  The Harvat's had beat us to it, but Bob was determined to set it right.  Since his Parkinson's Disease he has lost some of his balance(although his "miracle pills" are helping him tremendously).  I got him a walking stick and he made it to the dam but as he was climbing up on it he went over backwards.  I caught him and broke his fall a bit but he ended up in a pool of water so he was soaked but not hurt.  Nothing would do but he needed to see how far we could get up to the St. Joe headgate.  The ride was great. The buttercups and Dogtooth violets were forming a carpet  and we saw lots of sign of wildlife.  We made it to the "thinking rock" hill before we saw any snow.  About halfway up the steep hill was a huge snow bank.  It was time to turn around.
 

I love walking in spring!

A carpet of buttercups

I got off the 4 wheeler and decided to walk back so I could take pictures and Bob headed home to get out of his wet clothes. I had a great walk home, my first of the summer and got some nice artsy pictures along the way.

Crossing the Little Jessie weir so I don't get my feet wet.

There are lots more things to get done, like getting all my embroidery stuff set up, but we are pretty well set for another great summer.

I love my Dog Tooth violets!

June 1 Hike to the Thinking Rock and the Headgate

The new Headgate which is not opened yet.  I guess we'll have to go back up....

**You can click on the pictures to get a better look and then click on the back button to get back to the blog!  It is worth it!


Yesterday Erin, Brent and I went for a walk up to the National Forest.  It is one of my favorite hikes and we just HAD to see if there was any snow up there.  On the way up I took a few pictures of the dog-toothed violets and the snow banks we had to traverse to get to our destination.

The first flowers of the spring.  Dog-toothed violets!  Don't they just brighten up the mud?  They are blooming as they stick their heads out of the snow.  I love them!

A whole carpet of them out among the trees.  So pretty.

The first snow we encountered was at the big hill going up to the thinking rock.

Looking down the hill.  Notice the slash pile from the clear cutting at the bottom of the hill.

We made it to the "Thinking Rock" with very little snow but were amazed at all the trash of twigs and branches around the rock.  We could hardly climb up it because of all the sticks and "stuff".  But, of course, we did get on top of it and sat there and thought for awhile.  Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that none of us were acclimated to the altitude yet and had to catch our breath after the first hill climb.

Brent made it!  On top of the Rock!

Erin and Brent with that old dead tree still leaning up there. 

Then we decided to head on up to the headgate to see what Richard had done to fix it.  We came to some trees in the road and heard some scary creaking in the woods as the the breeze blew through but pressed on.  At the National Forest gate we came to another huge drift but we could walk up it pretty easily without sinking too deep.

OK, now we're getting into some serious snow!

Erin, you're going the wrong way!  You have to come UP the snowbank.

We made it to the weir and saw the big new ditch.  I had to do a little back tracking

to figure out what had happened to the road but finally figured it out and made my way to the top of the hill.  Erin and Brent chose to walk up the ditch--which was not running yet.

The new ditch,  Does it look like it is going up?  Must be an optical illusion!

Brent and Erin standing on the old headgate.

Look at that snow in the trees!  This is June 1!

More snow pictures!  Those drifts look deep.

Not much bare ground.

The leaky old headgate.

The shiny new headgate!

  I walked back down to the headgate and took these pictures.  It was incredible.  The whole north face of the hill on the other side of the creek was covered with snow and huge drifts.  My pictures just couldn't do it justice!  The creek is rushing but not as high as I've seen it. Seeing all that snow tells me it will be a lot higher the first really warm day we get! 

Brent surveys the snow drifts.

The old headgate and more snow!

Water is leaking under and through the old headgate.

Way Up At The Headgate

We had a wonderful weekend!  Thomas, my grandson, and two of his friends came up to get away from Casper for a few days.  They had all kinds of plans for things to do while they were here but we had a few plans for them to help us out, too.

The most pressing chore was to go up to the headgate of the Little Jessie ditch and see why there wasn't much water coming down it.  Bob was taking the Cat and Thomas and I were to follow him on the 4 wheeler.  The other boys were going to town to buy supplies for their camp out later that day.  Thomas and I lasted behind the 2 or 3 mile an hour Cat just past the first ditch and then went around him so we could do a little walking around and exploring on the way up.  We checked out the Thinking Rock and the big washout and then cruised around looking for cool camp sights.  We continued on up the mountain and did some more exploring (OK--I kind of forgot where the headgate was so we did a lot of walking up the ditch.)  With so many trees going down from pine beetle damage we had to go off the trail to get around them.  Bob just pushed them aside with his big play toy!  One tree was way too big so he had to go around it, too.

 Thomas heads up the hill to the Thinking Rock

 Looking down on the ditch and then the river

 Thomas stands on the edge of the headgate with the river behind him

We finally reached the headgate and discovered someone must have been messing with it and pushed it clear shut!  There must be some crazies running around in the remote parts of the forest is all I've got to say.  Bob showed Thomas what to do and we got it jacked up (it's an old wooden one with no wheels to turn just leverage!)

 Bob explains to us how the headgate works.

It's an oldie!

 Bob is still giving us instructions!

  The river is running higher than Bob has ever seen it in all the years he has been up there.  I took pictures but with the roaring of the water it was much more impressive!

 The Beaver Creek is really roaring.

  We hiked back up to the vehicles and I walked along the top of the ridge and checked for leaks in the ditch.  There was one suspicious place so we walked down to the weir so we could cross it and go back up to the leaky place to fix it.

 Coming up the hill from the headgate.  Notice all the beetle kill.

 I love this picture!  The trees aren't dead and they smell divine!  That is the canyon going up to Aqua Fria in the background.  Still lots of snow up there.

When we got to the weir, we discovered we had opened the gate too much and so Thomas and I walked back up to the headgate and lowered it by 1 board.

 Thomas is closing down the headgate a little

  That was enough for the water not to go over the top of the leaky part so we finally could come back home.  It was such a gorgeous day we just enjoyed it to the hilt!  One sour note--I killed 3 big mosquitoes filled with my blood!  This is way too early for those pests!

Here comes the Cat.  Notice the dead tree I'm standing near and the live little ones along the trail

Looking over the job.  The river roars on down.

The Cat is headed home.  He about wiped out the fence in the foreground as he came through but it made it unhurt.

Speaking of irrigating, today I decided it was time to go pick rhubarb.  I set out walking (since I really need the exercise and I wanted to take some pictures along the way).  I had not even got out of the driveway and I noticed a lot of water had been running down our road cutting a little trench.  I'd never seen this before so I went back and got Bob.  The water has been so high the last few days that the ditch closest to our road went way out of its banks and ran down the road.  It had gone down enough that it was no longer running over, but we decided to go on up and check out some more ditches.  Luckily I brought the camera with me and took some pictures of springtime around here! The ditches were doing OK so it was an enjoyable ride!

Bob's doing a little irrigating

A question for the Manville kids.  Where is this?  What is the building in the background?

Look at that blue sky!

Kathi and Danny, I hope one of those isn't "your tree!"

We drove around and couldn't see the writing anywhere so I hope we just didn't know where to look.

More about my rhubarb adventure, fishing, and Springtime in the Rockies in later blogs.