Getting Fit

If you are following this blog sight you may have noticed that high on my bucket list was losing some weight and exercising. I have started to do both but very slowly!. I have found that as I get older, I take longer to get back in shape! The last 2 days I've been walking "the basic mile" with Leslie Sansone. Tomorrow I will do the first 2.5 miles. Maybe this afternoon I will break out the snowshoes and walk up toward the Luck Penny ditch and on up to the forest fence. I can take some good pics up there and I think I will find some moose footprints up there too. I really love to exercise once I get started. It's just the getting going that seems to slow me down. Now that I'm "in the mode" I think I will be OK.

The food part of my fitness program has gone a little less well. I have been planning my meals daily and writing them in my journal on fitday.com. I've figured the calories and stayed under 900 calories in the journal. Unfortunately some mighty high calorie foods have been calling my name the last few days and I have answered the call! Fortunately a lot of those foods are now gone from the house (due to me eating them--oops!) and I will not be buying any more! The other problem was our visit to Fort Collins last weekend. We had some mighty tasty eating that I didn't plan in my journal! I didn't have to account for it either because the hotel charged $9.95/day to hook up to wireless there! I was too cheap to do it! Well, enough of my rationalizing. I will follow the plan today because I promise to in this blog and that should do it for me!

In Kathi's blog today she posted some beautiful pictures of the sunrise in Nebraska. I took a picture of the sunset here on Christmas day so I think I'll share it on this blog. I'll also share a picture I took about 5 years ago that is one of my all time favorites, taken in the early morning on a very cold January day.

Having problems with pics so will try to move them later!

Some Memorable Moments in Poudre Canyon

As we were driving home from Fort Collins yesterday I started thinking about some of the more memorable trips I have had up or down the canyon. There is plenty of time to think about these, since it is at least a 2 hour trip, and in winter when it is icy it takes even longer. I realized there are many trips I remember so there may be many posts about this.

I think I will start at the beginning. I first went up the canyon when I was a freshman at CSU. It is a beautiful drive in any season but it is especially lovely in fall with the golden leaves. We used to go up into the canyon a few miles and climb onto the rocks beside and in the river (which was very low in fall) and study. We also went up on dates and had picnics and cook outs. There was a popular place up about 10 or 15 miles that we went to for parties on weekends too (not Mishawaka--It was farther up) It was a log cabin type place that burned down. Now there is a huge house built there behind a tall fence so you can't see it very well. The water works was also a very popular place to go--now it is all changed. There was a rope with a cart that went across the river and you pulled yourself across. One of the local Drs. claimed that cart made him rich tending all the injuries from students at the college!


Back then the paved road only went up to Kinnekinik(sp?) and was a one lane dirt road up over the pass and down to Walden or maybe it was dirt to Gould and then paved, not sure. It was not the road to take to Walden for sure! We had to drive up to Laramie and then over Woods Landing and into Walden. About the time we were married, the decision was made to pave the Poudre canyon road all the way over the top and into Walden. It took years but they finally did it and it is a great drive, if a little slow.

One of the most memorable trips I took over that road was while they were still working on it. My Uncle Ed was visiting us at the ranch and he needed to go to Granby for some reason. He and I drove over there early one morning and decided to go over Trail Ridge road to Estes Park and then down the Big Thompson to Loveland and back to Fort Collins and see how the paving was going on up the Poudre. We went right along until we got up to the very summit of Cameron Pass. As we started down the other side it became very dicey. Construction equipment was all around but it was still dirt and very narrow--one lane--and very slippery. We got to one of the curves with the huge drop off and no such thing a guardrail. I stopped and said I was ready to turn around but Uncle Ed said he would drive it across the bad stretch. I said OK, got out of the car and walked it after he drove across it! Bob still calls me a wimp because I was too chicken to drive across it! We made it home without incident but what happened the next night still sticks in my memory and I always associate the 2 events. Uncle Ed and his son, Bob, left the next day--Bob and my birthdays. The next morning was a Sunday, my clock radio went off as usual and I was snoozing when I realized the music was not playing and the announcer was speaking frantically. It was the morning after the Big Thompson flood! We had just driven down that canyon and now it was a disaster area! Many lives were lost that night and the canyon was changed forever.

Wildlife Right on Our Porch

Minky eating our biredseed and here he is on the post
Well, Minky was back eating birdseed this morning very early (for him). The sun was just coming up and it was about -20 degrees! I think it was really Minkette because she was smaller and very shy. Maybe it was a new one. I tapped on the window and she was gone.

Speaking of wildlife around here, we have been enjoying the 3 squirrels who tend to come and eat all the best stuff before the Stellars Blue Jays are allowed to come. The squirrels have been very entertaining. There is Alvin, the medium sized one, Biggie, and then there is Blackie a small black squirrel with a much longer tail than the other two. He is definitely the odd man out of this trio! Biggie is the boss. When he gets in the frying pan to eat no one else is allowed. Alvin is the chatterer, although Blackie can last longer at it than even Alvin. Alvin sits on the porch swing or the porch or in the evergreen branches we have piled up from trimming the bottom of the Chrismas tree(see yesterday's post). He chatters and stomps his feet and shakes all over trying to get Biggie to move. Sometimes Biggie will go up in the box hanging from the porch roof and then Alvin can get in the frying pan to eat. I don't know why Alvin won't go up in the box when Biggie is there. He does when he is alone. Meanwhile, Blackie will show up and begin chattering too. This bothers the other two who will chase him down into the trees and sometimes they even fight out in the snow. I really need to figure out how to video them . Alvin is the one who sat up in the upstairs window when Minky was here one morning and chattered for over an hour. The window was right above Paul's bed and he was very irritated with Alvin!

We have a "squirrel proof" bird feeder, but whoever designed it did not have mountain squirrels in mind. One day I saw Biggie trying to figure out how to get in it. He tried from the rafters and from one of the support posts. I ran for the camera and got back just as he was making a leap from the rafters. He missed and did a flying dive to the ground. I wasn't fast enough to get him flying. He worked at it until he figured it out and I did get pictures of him in the cage. The guys down at Wildbirds Unlimited in Fort Collins said "no way" but here is the picture to prove it! There are some feeders that would work but they are very expensive ($60+) and we enjoy watching them too much to let them not be here! As I am writing this, Alvin is chipping away up in the window. I got up to look and sure enough Minky is back eating.


Biggie in the squirrel proof cage

The chickadees are not very shy. They will come and eat no matter who is out there. Even when I go out to feed them they just wait patiently on the porch swing or in the rafters for me to get the job done and then go back to eating.

The Blue Jays are very shy and very beautiful. I would love to get some close up pictures of them but they fly away as soon as we move toward the windows. There are at least 9 of them that sit down in our hummingbird tree or in the dead pines and wait for me to bring on the chow. They scold me from the trees if I don't get with it! There are some bossy ones who run every one off (the males?) kind of like the hummingbirds. Others will eat together up in the box. They are so blue with that jet black topknot--very pretty.

Yesterday I looked out the window about 7:30 AM and there was a young male moose on the pond dam. He had some small paddles but still looked quite majestic. We had been seeing his footprints crossing the pond and down by the creek. He was moving right along so I didn't have time to get his picture but I do have one of him or another moose from last spring.



The moose on the left is trying to get the best grass under the gas tank out in front of the cabin.
The moose's picture on the right was taken from our porch.

I will have more on our wildlife friends as the seasons change.

Christmas Tree Stories

Last night Carla called and said she had hurt her back carrying the Christmas tree down to the basement to store for another year. I still haven't taken ours down but it got me to thinking about some of our experiences with Christmas trees.

When we were very young, we never helped get or put up the tree. It just appeared on Christmas morning all decorated with presents underneath it. That's just the way it was. As we got older we put up the tree a little earlier but only a few days before Christmas, as I remember. One time we were having so much company that Mom hung the tree from the ceiling to give us more room! Another time when I was a teenager I remember Mom and I were shopping in Marshal Fields and we saw a beautiful display tree. Mom decided she wanted it along with all the decorations on it. The clerk didn't know what to say so she got the manager and he sold it to her lock, stock and barrel. I have no idea how much she paid but I bet it was a lot because some of the ornaments were quite beautiful. Mom and Dad had that tree for many years--I wonder if it is still in the attic in Florida?

Once we had our own family we always went out and got our own tree. There was always a lot of argument about what the perfect tree was but in the end Bob would just cut one down and that was it. There are several memorable times, though, that I can think of.

1. One time Ozzie and I left kind of late in the afternoon to find a tree up near Hidden Lakes. We found a really nice tree and got it back to the pickup but discovered we were royally stuck! Not many people go up that road in winter when Buffalo Pass is closed so we were thinking it was going to be a long walk in the dark to get help. Suddenly we saw headlights coming down from even farther up the road! It was the Lions Club folks who had been getting trees to sell in town. They pulled us out and it was a happy ending.

The next day Ozzie proceede to set up the tree. It was too tall so, much to Carla's horror, he cut the top off! She threw a fit--you never cut off the top. You cut off the bottom! Ozzie(it was his first Christmas spent with us) quietly continued to set up and decorate the tree. On Christmas morning (and almost every Christmas since) Carla received a beautifully packaged Christmas tree top as a present from Ozzie. In subsequent years she received as many as a dozen tree tops per Christmas. We still give the original (which is now just a stick) in it's original box.

2. On a rare year when Bob and I were at the cabin with nobody coming for Christmas, Bob decided we didn't need a tree. I insisted so he just went out and cut one on the pond dam. It was about 3 feet tall and a true Charlie Brown tree! We put it on a coffe table and I decorated it. It really wasn't that bad, I guess.


Bob and the Charlie Brown tree

3. The first year I taught in Wendover, Bob got a job in the casino and could not go home for Christmas. Everyone was coming to the cabin so I went back, I flew in to Denver and took the shuttle to Laramie where Danny picked me up. I was the first Christmas Danny and Kathi were going to spend with us at the cabin. Danny and the dogs went up early the next day, but Kathi and I had to wait for the kids to get out of school and had to get the groceries. It was late by the time we got to Walden and we had planned to meet Danny at Harry's so we could all go out together in case the roads were bad. They were so bad Danny had not been able to get to Uncle Albert's buildings. He was stuck as well as a county plow! It was colder than Billie Blue as well! We decided we had to stay with Harry and Donna that night complete with kids, dogs and groceries in their mobile home! They kept that thermostat turned way down and I remember it as one of the coldest nights I have spent!

The next day Danny and Harry went out to see what could be done. By noon Kathi was ready to head back to Laramie but Carla and Jim and family were already headed up to Walden from Casper (this was before cell phones so no way to get a hold of them). Finally about 4 PM Danny and Harry returned saying no way we could drive in. Danny and I still wanted to try it and finally Harry said he and some friends all had snowmobiles and they would haul us all in from the back way!

I wish I had a picture of us going in in the dark with sleds piled high with all our stuff, kids, dogs and food! It looked like the Grinch's sled! After about 3 trips and some spilled food including the turkey which we had to dig in the snow to find, everybody made it in. I made the spaghetti a la Pug, we ate it and got the kids to bed by midnight--but no tree!

Having no tree was unacceptable to Carla, Jim, Danny, and Kathi so they took snowmobiles out into the very deep and unstable snow to get a tree. They had one flashlight which got dropped in the snow during one of the many times trying to pull someone out from being stuck. It couldn't be found (until the next summer--and it still worked). They were only out on the dam by the pond (about 100 yards from the cabin as the crow flies) but it took more than an hour to get there, get the tree, and make it back to the cabin. We decorated it and had a very nice tree for Christmas just like when I was a little girl!

Some Thoughts on Snowing

I'm looking out the window and the snow is really coming down! A few minutes ago, the sun was shining! That's how it seems to go up here. The wind is really blowing now, too. I was thinking of going out and taking a picture to add to this blog, but, it looks too cold and blowy right now!

Whenever it is a very snowy day it is really strange but I get very excited. I think it stems back to a time when I was young and looked forward to a snow day or more from school. Because I taught for many years I still looked forward to snow days as I got older. Of course if we had to drive somewhere on days like this, I did not look forward to that!

One of my memories of being snowed in is from way back in 1949 when big blizzards hit a lot of the country. We lived in Milwaukee and I was in third grade at Jefferson grade school. It was a Wednesday and I had Brownies after school that day. It had been snowing all day but at that age it only meant more fun!

Sue, my best friend and next door neighbor, and I stayed after school waiting for Brownies to start. Somehow I missed the message from Mom to come right home after school. Our leader never came and we were laughing about how everyone was too chicken to come to the meeting. About 15 or 20 minutes later, the school cook found us and told us to wait right there while she got a ride home for us (1 mile and 2 tenths from school). We thought she was really "dumb" for thinking we couldn't walk home but she insisted it was too bad outside for kids to be walking home. It was also getting dark by then (Milwaukee is pretty far north so it got dark early there).

About a half hour later her high school age son, David, came and got us. I remember it took us over an hour to get home. When we got there my sister, Lynn, who had left right after school to walk home wasn't there yet! Neither was Mom or my brother. David drove back the route to and from school looking for Lynn. He found her sitting beside the road about 2/3 of the way home too tired to go on. She was really lucky he found her! Mom and Tip got home shortly after David dropped off Lynn. They had been looking for both of us along the road, too. I don't remember when Dad got home.

Sue's dad did not even get home. He was stranded in downtown Milwaukee in a streetcar station I think it was almost a week before he made it home! It was a huge blizzard and our whole neighborhood was snowed in for more than a week! I will have to tell of all the fun and excitement we had during that time in another blog!

I finally psyched myself to go out and shoot some snowy day pics so there is one on this blog! Yaaay for digital cameras!

Minky, Our Christmas Breakfast Visitor

Last week on Christmas day, Bob looked out our breakfast window and saw a strange (to us) animal eating the birds' seeds. I ran for my camera and got some pictures of him and then decided to try taking some moving pics of him too. Carla came the next day and he came back She got a lot of pictures of him too. He was so cute with a tiny catlike face and a beautiful long tail. He was brown and had a white chest. (Carla thought it was kind of a fox face) Off and on all day he came back and we finally realized it was more than one. We knew this because the markings were different on them. We think there were 3 of them and they each had a different personality too! The squirrels who come to eat did NOT like them and hid in our upper story windows and chattered loudly at them. We looked them up on the web and found out they were minks. They do not stay in one place long so after 2-3 days they were gone and we haven't seen any since. They are carnivores and one of their foods is squirrel! No wonder our Squirrellys were acting so funny. They must have been really hungry since they cleaned up all the bird seed! Notice how beautiful their coats and tails are. I wanted to pet them but they are quite shy and also have very sharp looking teeth. We named them Minky, Minkette and Minker.

A "Fun Family Adventure" Christmas Time 2009

This year the snows came early and we were snowed in in October! The snow did melt away and we were able to drive in to the cabin again until December 9. After that we had to use the Argo. We have used it for 3 winters now. I love it but it really needs a cab on it to make it more comfortable when the snow is powdery. It fluffs up and freezes your face and the people in the back--or the stuff you have in the back gets covered with snow.

Last year I had one uncomfortable feeling that we might get stuck coming out of the draw when Bob went off the trail, but we were leaving for the south and weren't coming back until May so I kind of forgot about it. Then this year we had been coming and going just fine but Bob had a bad feeling about getting stuck. We had a lot of problems with water running under about a foot of snow down by the barn so we kept trying new routes and finally we sank down into the water, got high centered, and were royally stuck. Sharon happened to see us and came down to see what we needed to do. She got her tractor that was chained up and pulled us out but not without a lot of spinning wheels on her tractor.

We were going to Nebraska to stay with the boys and then in about 5 days come back up with them for Christmas. The weather turned bad in Nebraska so we decided about noon a day early to come back to Colorado. We got up to the Argo just about dark.

We had groceries, luggage and 5 people to get into the cabin. Bob only wanted to take one trip in the dark so we got the groceries that would freeze, computers, and a gallon of floor wax and loaded up--no suitcases or duffel bags. We would rough it for one night.

We got down to the meadow to the east of the one we had been stuck in and made it as far as the far gate and sunk in more water but got out of it and made it to the dry meadow. We were going along fine up Beck's big hill and were about 2/3 of the way up when Bob went off the trail and we were high centered. Chris, Colton and I went over to the grove of trees and got sticks to see if we could dig it out but it was way too dark to see what we were doing and sticks just didn't get the job done.

Sooo we gathered up the 20-25 lbs. of groceries--in our trusty freezer bag--that Chris and Colton took turns carrying, the computers and Skyler got the floor wax. I had my purse and my computer and Bob had a walking stick. We set out under an almost full moon that had a light cloud cover but it still showed the trail at times. It probably was 1 1/4 miles to the cabin. Chris and Colton were in the lead and would stop every so often to let me catch up and change carriers. Bob and Skyler (who had hurt his knee in wrestling) brought up the rear.

Finally when we got to the draw I told Chris and Colton to go ahead and see if they could get a snow machine started and come back for Grampa. I waited for the other two to catch up with me. It was not that easy to stay on the trail and we kept slipping off into the deep snow. I kept getting ahead and finally just kept going too.

When I was on top of the hill above the cabin I could hear 2 coyotes howling pretty close and I was visualizing myself fighting them off with my computer and purse! I kinda laughed at myself seeing this 70 year old lady swinging wildly with purse in one had and computer in the other, dressed in all my winter garb! The coyotes would probably laugh too. It was really a beautiful night. Not too cold and no wind so for me it was kind of a nice walk!

About the time I heard the coyotes, I could hear the snow machine coming up the hill and Chris came by on the Bravo with no headlight so he had found the famous flashlight that was lost many Christmas's ago (but that is another story), and was holding it while driving the machine. I continued on down the hill and Bob came along on the snowmobile. Chris rewalked the rest of the way with Skyler and we all finally made it to the cabin.

It was an adventure Bob did not want to repeat so he called Hughie that same night and got him to plow open the road all the way to the cabin. Paul and Thomas and Carla got to drive all the way in and the weather cooperated so they could leave their vehicles in until they left. Now I have been driving the Argo out on the road and it is much better than going cross country. I hope it stays that way for a while!