Merry Christmas, everybody!

image from Wunderground.com

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We stumbled into
Efrain's of Longmont the other day, a far cry from the one in Boulder. The food was as good (I always get the beef tostada with the Paul Newman-like dressing) but the ambiance was totally different. Our waitress from Guadalajara let us know that it's "Eff-ray-een's", not "Eff-rain's" like we thought.

We were walking the pups along Upland Ave when Lo and Behold, a peacock crossed the street. Another one shied away from us in a front yard. When some neighbors came out to chat, we learned there used to be a peacock farm there years ago. The owner died and the remaining peacocks lived on, roaming the area. The problem with peacocks, as we saw, is they settle on roofs and make a lot of racket. They are beautiful, though.

The chickens at the CSA farm are still busy. We extended the season with a Fall Share and this week we got some great greens and root veggies plus fresh pork and honey.

It's not all been flowers and mountain lions and snow lately. People have been moving out, in with their fiances and moving away to big California cities. When Sugar came back from LA, the business picked up so we're having a little off season boomlet (thanks Google Ads). I have a feeling the market is slowly recovering - we're not doing a lot of huge jobs (some) but a lot of middle sized jobs. And, I'm making a little money trading stocks! Pocket change, really, but what a change of viewpoint - to look forward to stock prices going down so I can buy some more. Sort of like running toward a disaster while everyone else is running away.

GOD'S ARCHITECTS trailer from Zack Godshall on Vimeo.

People who are driven to create monuments to God fascinate me.

The last of the zinnias.

An eye-catching memorial to a fallen biker.

Getting to the end of the season.

I hung some koi windsocks along the garden fence to help keep the deer out (hopefully).

They're used in Japan to celebrate Boy's Day. It's been a Boy's Day festival everyday at this house for a couple of decades but soon it'll just be an occasional thing.

Yesterday we took a ride up Sunshine Canyon, past Gold Hill, into Nederland and down Boulder Canyon, looking for any early aspen changes. We saw a few gold medallions but not a lot. I was surprised to see the snow in some of the mountain crevices leftover from last winter.
This week was our highest ever for the business, amazing for this economy. We spent a few days getting the condo ready to rent and found a couple who signed last night. I realized I misestimated the integrity level of a long time friend after I found some unadmitted damage he had done. Lesson learned. The Maximillian Daisies are blooming again, so fall is around the corner. They start now and will bloom till the first frost. The garden gate is getting there - one post is firmly embedded in the ground. Sweetie is likely to move back in with this sweetheart later this week; Honey finalized his plans to go back to LA and Sugar made his reservations to visit his big brother in WA this week.

Well, the week ended with a mountain lion sedated in my neighbor's driveway. It was a young girl who had been tagged before so who knows what will happen to her. She must be interested in all the deer and little dogs around.

While all the police/open space ranger hub bub was going on, some kind of hawk perched on the fence post but she got away safely.

And the bees left our yard because the keeper wanted to move them to some field where the second alfalfa bloom was starting. After he left, I discovered a nice little jar of honey on the front stoop. Funny, we had gotten attached to the little buzzers.

Today, some chard and radishes are going into the garden.

Oh man, the smell of fresh basil is easily rivaling petrichor in the 'favorite fragrances' category. Yesterday, Cure Farms came through again with a massive end of summer CSA distribution. Basil, carrots, tomatoes, edamame, cukes, lettuce, squashes, corn - all amazing quality.

Sunday morning: The Gospel Train on KUVO, a stag in the yard adorned with a string of Christmas lights in the antlers, a cup of coffee and a cool fall breeze floating by. The sun moved into the sun space a couple of days ago so I know the dog days are coming up!

My interest in vernacular art has been growing and I've been considering becoming a full blown eccentric with the yard. I love the wolf in sheep's clothing and that waving mannequin in the background. At the very least, we're looking into scarecrows to decorate the garden area.

Photo from http://beautyeveryday.com/

The zinnas came back in force with a little attention.

The garden is awash in chicory this year. Maybe all the moisture?

I moved an old compost heap to a new location and planted cherry tomatoes and potatoes where it used to be. What a prolific crop! This is next the fence along our property perimeter so I secured some wire fencing over the top to keep the deer out. They love, love, love my tomato plants. Seems to have worked. We got some Yukon Gold potatoes from last year's kitchen trimmings, too.

50º at noon in high summer! Normally, high 90s would not be unusual. This has been the coolest, wettest summer here in years.

After a month away in Hollywood, I'm back to summer in Colorado. This has been probably the wettest season in years and everything is lush! The grape vines have taken off and actually have a few little grapes (first time so far). The garden that I left behind was virtually untended so the first few days back, I spent sorting out the weeds from the plants. So far the onions & cherry tomatoes have been the most successful crops but I haven't given up on the cabbage and eggplants.

The bees seem have been quite busy. Funny what long shadows they cast. Nice to be home.

I started walking again, by myself and not for the dogs, around the lake nearby.  The space itself invigorates.

 This is one of the irrigation ditches that run into Boulder County from the mountains.  Pure snowmelt.   The next day after I took this picture, the ditch was dry and smelled like bogs that I've known in the deep South.

I'm so glad that Spring is in full bloom.  The last snow has come and gone and we are ahead of ourselves in average precipitation.

Getting ready for the dog park.

The Flatirons.

Now this is a dog park!  Acres for the big dogs, an acre for the little dogs and acres for the combined area.

I love riding on trains. Since I have the Amtrak credit card, I have a round trip Sleeper sized trip waiting for me to take it. The dilemma is that if I pay for a trip on May 9th, I'll get quadruple points which is Amtrak Point heaven for me.  I just noticed that Amtrak has partnered with 
Zipcar in the points program which is cool except that there isn't a program nearby.
I know the economy is bad but there really are some good deals now. We just found a little pickup truck for exactly the price we wanted and in better shape than we expected.   It doesn't hurt to have some savings on hand for times like this. 

You know, winter hasn't been so bad, but now that the birds are back in Boulder, I hear what I've been missing.
The last few months have been spent getting to know Sweetie's Sweetheart and their doggy; lots of volunteering; some work; reviewing all the old "Big Love" episodes and starting the new season.
I'm grateful for the family and home I have. I know some people are going through tough times and I feel singularly blessed.

January Thaw at the Dog Park.  What a gorgeous day!  Luckily there were some piles of snow to cool down in nearby.

I glanced outside while feeding the dogs the other day and saw a herd of deer in the yard.  Good thing the little Scottie girl dog didn't see them or she would have gone ballistic (she had to run a big buck out of the yard not long ago). The last count was 15, though I only caught a few in the photo.   I'm pretty sure the reason they dropped in was because there was a fire nearby the night before:

This was taken from my upstairs room, looking northwest.  The winds were 30-50mph by that time, down from 100mph gusts earlier.

It doesn't really convey, but the whole Front Range north of town for several miles was burned down. Luckily, it was mostly grasses with a few sparsely placed trees and homes. 

2009 ~ we've turned a corner.  The year in my mind goes left to right from January to May, then down to about October, then curves around to December - sort of a right angle but not really.  January is definitely up and and the front.    

We spent the afternoon putting up some lattice on the back yard fence to help us pretend that we're invisible on our highly visible corner lot. Hoppin' John, hoecakes and greens for lunch should ensure a properous year for us.  It was 50º today and will be warmer tomorrow.  Hope everybody remembers to hope and dream and make the dreams come true this year.

I was home today when the lady and man from from the zoning office came by. I just hate to see an unannounced car from the city parking outside my house. It's funny that they parked in order to come in our back door, as the rest of the world seems to do. Our front door is clearly a front door - we just don't use it since the back door is by the driveway. Given a choice between an un-gated nice concrete sidewalk with flower beds on either side and a gravel driveway with an old gate with 2 territorial Scotties making all sort of noise, which would you choose?

Long story short, we can't park our trucks here or have any employees come here ever again. The trucks are normally parked at another location but we are known to leave one here overnight from time to time. As they were speaking, my mind wandered to all the home businesses that we have around us with employees coming in all the time.

The notable point of this is that we've been doing this here for 15 years, and for a long time we parked our trucks here. It's only been since a neighbor moved in nearby that we've had any complaints about our lifestyle. Most of our neighbors love us as we do them. I guess now is the time to start loving the new guy, too, so he won't feel so lonely.

Yesterday I took part in a hospital emergency drill.

Nobody told me ahead of time that it would involve a 'vertical evacuation' meaning: they needed to test some equipment going down flights of steps. I got to try out (as a 'patient') a chair with some kind of slide mechanism on the back and something called a chute. The chair was not too bad but a little 'heads up!' about flipping me backward and bumping on the stairs would have been nice. The chute was corrugated plastic that I was strapped into and dragged down 2 flights of stairs in. It was really pretty funny - bumpity, bump, bump. Glad I bundled my coat under my head.

The two teams I worked with were interested in learning how to use this equipment but one team told their 'patient' volunteer that they didn't have time to do the drill.

The things I do to keep from getting bored...

Boulder is settling down and getting ready for winter.  Today was in the 50's, warm enough for some yard work but now the chill and clouds are rolling in.  Snow clouds have a particular look to them and these are a little too high to qualify.  

This year, I've taken control of my yard and I'm asking more out of it.  A second compost heap is next to the north fence and it's filled with leaves from all over town.  Sugar borrowed the rototiller that we gave to a friend and broke open an area to garden that's about 6'x24'.  When we fence it in against the deer,  the dogs will have a larger yard to sniff around and protect from evil joggers and strollers.

I'm going to be a mother-in-law!  I have 10 months to get used to the idea.  I'm lucky to have a lovely daughter-in-law-to-be.

Yesterday ended 2 weeks of early voting at CU and what a trip!   We thought we were hot at the end of the first week when we processed 500 voters with 3 election officials.  Yesterday, the count was 1500 and thankfully, we had a full staff.   It was an amazing experience, helping all those first time voters.  

I'm exhausted.  Try saying  "What's your last name?  Ballot goes in the box face up, arrows in first, green stripes sticking out the top.   No, other way.  Yes, now the back page, too.  No, almost, yep you got it, now spin it around, arrows go in first.    Great!  Here's your sticker."  several thousand times with a smile on your face  and you'll know what I mean.  

I think half of Boulder has already voted.

picture came up on 'exhausted puppy google search'