Grasshoppers

If I could tell you one thing about my garden, it is this: the grasshoppers are really bad here in Craig.

NOTE: there is no attached cute picture of a grasshopper. If there were, it would be of a flat grasshopper with its guts spilling out, right after I stomped on it or one hapless individual caught between the lethal paws of Charles the-cat-who-still-bites and who loves the crunch of fresh grasshopper.
So, no picture.

This is the other thing I will tell you: This year, the leaves of my sole green zucchini plant, in contrast to last years overabundant and prize winning, crop of lovely, slender zucchini, is being slowly, painfully eaten to a lacy web of desiccated leaves. It makes me very sad.

The bright yellow flowers are putting up a valiant struggle

Blue Beads

I remember….
Ten minutes.
Go.

I remember the blue cut glass antique Austrian bead necklace breaking just as I crested the bridge on 10th Street over Fortification Creek in Craig. I felt the release, like a kiss on my collarbone; then the beads began moving in all directions. I felt them fall against my skin and slide across my chest, cool, like a kiss. I remember that I stopped the bicycle because, of course, I was riding my bicycle, and picked up as many beads as possible. Bright, shiny blue against the gray asphalt. I probably missed a few, but it was fun to hunt for them.

I remember the time the red cut glass antique Austrian bead necklace broke as I was exiting a metro bus on 15th Street in Denver. In front of the Woolworths there on the corner. I loved that store. The classic epitome of a big city drug store was like. With the smell of people and popcorn, hot streets, sweat, rain, cheap perfume. I grabbed for my the beads sliding across my chest, hot under a sweater. I didn’t’ find as many but I saved some.

Then, I remember riding a metro bus with three small children, a thin woman with three little boys, one just a wee babe in arms. He fussed; she raised her blouse and tucked him into her breast with a loose cloth for modesty. She held on to that nursing baby and to the overhead bar while admonishing the other two little boys to stop fooling around, hang on, don’t tease your brother, etc. that litany of mother-talk.

Terrible: the cat also known as Earl.

This the photo of Earl Terrible that took first place in the Domestic Animal, Digital Photo category at the Moffat County Fair two years ago.

Taos--Blue Door

Clouds over Taos

The Mirror

Guadalupe and Hearts

Terry and I visited Taos, N.M. in July. I had the opportunity to photograph several of my favorite images--hearts and Guadalupe.

The first Guadalupe was on the door of a small tourist/art gallery/trading post across the street from a church.



The heart was part of a painted door at the Sagebrush Inn, where we were staying.



The golden Guadalupe was at one of the historic church, in the stone courtyard.

Taos, N.M. U.S. 2008

Thursday, Terry and I drove to Taos, New Mexico, U.S. and back to Craig, to attend a writing conference there. It was sponsored by the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque; I took a poetry class, mostly focused on the critical analysis of poems, poetic form, etc. and Terry took a memoir class with Rob Wilder, a memoir writer and high school teacher in Santa Fe.



We drove our little Jetta TDI. I think there may be a picture or two of this great little car.
It gets great fuel economy, even though diesel is a higher than gasoline….46+ m/p/g, and she runs great….fast, powerful, handles great, good tires. A fun car to travel in.


We drove through
Meeker,
Rifle,
Grand Junction,
Delta,
Montrose
(overnight on Thursday night),
Ridgeview (
with a side trip to see Dennis Weaver's earthship house),



Ouray,
Silverton (coffee),





Durango (lunch with my brother Arthur),

Bayfield,
Pagosa Springs,
Chama, N.M.,
Tre Piedros, into
Taos.

On the way back, we drove through
Tres Piedros,
ntonita,
Alamosa (where I left my keys),
(not quite) Salida,
Buena Vista,
Leadville (where I discovered my keys were lost and called to have them sent to me), to
Minturn,
Edwards,
State Bridge,
McCoy,
Phippsburg,
Yampa (where we had a chocolate shake) to
Oak Creek, to
Hayde over 20 Mile Road, to
Craig. Hooray


Probably the best part of the Sagebrush Inn was talking to the cook in the kitchen at 5:30 a.m.. He’d worked there 24 years and explained how he’d worked through the Ramada chain and then decided he liked the little town that was Taos and stayed. He smiled; the lines around his mouth were warm and soft, like a man with a sense of humor.

I met, in person, a wonderful woman that I had been corresponding with—Susan Twiet…check out her blog: communityoftheland.blogspot.com.

We had lunch, we talked, bonded. I told her she was beautiful. What a wonderful, gentle soul. Thanks, Susan.

CSI Moment

Charles, the Cat, was busted in an early morning bar brawl. CSI Moment: feathers on the floor suggested mayhem, possibly murder.

Charles remained unrepentent through the day, primarily sleeping and pleading for food.

Bookselling etiquette

I visited two bookstore yesterday and was slightly distressed to find that when I asked about a particular book, both clerks checked their computer rather than taking me to the area of the store where the book would have been. Neither store had the book and neither clerk left me standing in a section where I might have found something else. 07-06-08

Love that dog

Sadie's 11 in this picture, lots of white and still engaging in significant criminal behavior: sneaking up to eat cat food, escaping, running off.

Yampa River. . .

. . . looking north from Juniper Hot springs.
May 2008

Lounging Frog in the Rain

I've had this goofy frog for a long time. He is sitting on a stack of native sandstone in the middle of the raised garden with a sun dial in front of him and while the sprinkler was on...I think it would be more romantic to say it was raining that day, but it wasn't.


July 2008

Wild Horses in Sand Wash

Two bands of wild horses on their BLM reserve in Moffat County, vast sagebrush covered hills and pinon-juniper slopes. June 2008

Crouse Canyon End of June 2008.

The World Without Us...sagebrush hills and fractured fences...

...are the view from this cabin in Daggett County, Utah. June 2008

I squeal every time I see a snake or think I see one, so I was very proud of myself for getting out of the truck to get a picture of this four foot long bull snake. Crouse Canyon, Moffat/Daggett Counties, Colorado.

Find the Bull Snake. 2008.

Charles with Fish

Charles lies in front of the hollyhock and Dame's Rocket in June. 2008.

Four Women Laughing

Stella Craig, Shirley Stehle, Marie Schneider, Janet Kawcak at the Hayden Musuem. June 2008

Five green eggs. July 2008.

We are eating fresh, local eggs from friends or from the Farmer's Market.
These are just cooked, now cooling in a pan. Each yolk is bright yellow, like the sun.

A lovely place to live

Western Moffat County in June 2008.
Taken by Chuck Mack.

Back Porch

The pickets for the faux fence are from the east fence that we had replaced by a nice man named Isidro and his sons. Summer 2008. The iris and grasses in the foreground are in a six by six bed called August Afternoons--a preplanned garden from my favorite seed company.

I've planted a hodpodge of garlic, onion, scarlett runner beans, catnip, pansies, snapdragons and some random wild flower seeds.

Downtown Craig

Looking north at the intersection of Yampa and Victory Way.
2007

Memoir Class

These are the students from the last memoir class in June 2008.
This is an especially wonderful group of people.

Moffat County Fairgrounds

The Moffat County Fairgrounds, looking south to Trapper Mine and the edge of the Willims Fork cliffs.

Crouse Canyon

After 272 miles and 7 hours,
I have seen a beautiful section of Colorado:
Crouse Canyon.

At the end of June 2008, Terry and I (with Sadie, of course) drove through Brown's Park, across the Swining Bridge, up Crouse Canyon, through the wild eastern side of Daggett County, Utah, across a wide valley and into Vernal for lunch.

This bed springs nailed to the doorway of an abandoned cabin was in a sagebrush valley after we'd crossed into Utah. I liked the texture.

Growing Potatoes

I am growing potatoes like my life depended on it.
I have thirty hills of potatoes--two different kinds of white potato.
I bought two 5 lb. bags and planted them all.
Once I'd planted the thirty hills in neat rows, 3 x 10 plants,healthy and green, I just buried the remaining potatoes and parts of potato in the straw/mulch borders around the chokecherry tree.
I couldn't just throw them in the compost; I had to try growing them first and they are growing, bright and green; the two varieties have slightly different shapes to their robust leaves.
Also, there were a few places in the front garden where a wee bit of potato was left in the ground from last year and it has now become a new potato plant.