Black holes and Miracle Plants (Wildfire Part 4)

Here's how the burn area looks today:

 Holes created form burn-out tree roots made walking in the snow interesting...
some of them are big!

pioneer crocus flower - taking the lead in forest restoration

the meadows are coming back fast

bluebells also taking the lead 

Things that go Bump in the Night...

We had a visitor last night. I awoke when our motion-detector light went on outside the bedroom. Even half asleep, I registered that I had not heard the noisy dog-door...it wasn't a dog. I listened....silence. Then, 'boom, bang, clatter!' By the time I got to the window, I could see a huge paw wrapped around a tree, then a big face turned toward me. A bear was shimmying up the tree to reach our hummingbird feeder! The feeder is strung 15 feet above the ground and between trees, so despite his best efforts, it was out of reach.

In the time it took my husband to get kitchen pans for the farewell party, the bear shimmied down the tree and checked out the pond. No fish. Only puny tadpoles. Bummer.

I wanted to throw him a bag of dog food. Poor guy must be hungry. But I never would. "A fed bear is a dead bear"

I wasn't fast enough to get a photo of him, but he left this behind.

Raging Wall of Fire (Wildfire part 3)

There was no stopping it. Driven by 60 mile-an-hour gusts, the wall of fire consumed everything in its path. Almost.

We had been evacuated and living with friends for 3 weeks (generous friends!) when we got the news. I could tell by Paul's tone of voice... after three weeks of moving in all directions around our house, the wildfire had finally devoured our home. The firefighters wisely fled to get out of the way of the inferno. They told our neighbor that the fire was so hot and so fast, no houses could possibly be left up there.

We found out two days later they were wrong. 

Another 10 days of waiting and we returned home. It had, indeed, swarmed everywhere on our property. It burned several outbuildings to the ground. It kissed the house on all sides. A birdhouse two feet outside the living room window was reduced to a pile of ash. Scorch marks, like war tattoos, adorned the legs of our deck and nearby trees. But the house was fine- not even smoke damage.

A Fire "tornado": shovel handle (above) burned, along with the rocks, but the cardboard two feet away is untouched! 

Incidentally- there really IS such a thing as a fire tornado!

Colorado Pantanal

We've had around 40 inches of snow in the past 3 weeks. Which was, mostly, fun.

Here's the progression from the latest dump:

May 1- Snow? really? It's supposed to be "April fools", not "May fools!"

 May 2 - Sun's Out!

Frost Anemones!

Icicle stalactites by the waterfall

May 4 - happy moss...

Colorado Pantanal