The Big Bear Caper

I always wondered why, when I'm at the top of a mountain ridge, I never see any wildlife. It doesn't make sense. I see the elk, deer, cougar and bear scat on the ground. But, when I'm hiking and look down on a distant meadow, they are always empty.

Except this one time...

We were hiking up a steep, rocky ridge near our house, and when we reached the top, as usual, I scanned all the open meadow areas for critters. Nothing. Then- ah! Some movement! As I squinted to see what it was, it came right out into a clearing. A bear!  A BIG bear!

I was so excited, until I realized that it was making a bee-line for our neighbor's house. Now, these wonderful neighbors are retired. They feed half the hummingbirds migrating through Colorado, I'm sure of it. They normally have 8 feeders out, and by July, every feeder has a bird at every station. It's a wonder no one has gotten an eyeball skewered walking around their porch, there are so many birds swarming.

On this particular day, our neighbors had mentioned that they would be in town. I knew their feeders would be out (they go in at night) and calling that bear like a honey-lullaby. I also knew he would break every one in the process of drinking them, worse, associate humans with food. So, quick as we could, we scrambled down the steep rocks and grassy slope, jumped in our good 'ol truck and drove up to the neighbors.

When we got there, 10 minutes after we saw the bear, our neighbor came out smiling.
"Hi! What are you two up to today?" She said, blissfully unaware.

"Rescuing your hummingbird feeders from a huge bear because you're not home." I replied.

He was probably sitting up the hill listening to us and planning a midnight raid, but we'll never know. None of us saw that bear again that day.

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 

What Would You Take? (Wildfire, Part 2)

 (photo courtesy Jeff Stahla)

We had only minutes to decide. A wildfire was headed our way. We had time enough to take whatever would fit in our two cars. So, what to take? The answer surprised me.

Some things were obvious: my harp, music-in-progress notes, computer, favorite photos, toothbrush and a change of clothes. Then other things...the chain saw, in case trees fall over the road and we can't get in/out; my small file cabinet, which has important papers (like proof of house insurance!); our passports (I'm a travel addict).

The next day, we were allowed to return, briefly, that day to get our truck. Naturally, we thought, "We'll load it up!"

Here's where it got interesting: We got to the house, looked at each other and said, "What do you want to take?"  Walking around the house, we couldn't come up with much. I love my books and plants, but, they are all replaceable. Ditto for almost everything else. We realized there was nothing else that we cared about all that much. In fact, it occurred to me that it would almost be a relief to NOT have most of our stuff. (And we're not talking about a lot of stuff....our house is just over 1,000 square feet.)

Einstein once said something like,"Each of my possessions is like a stone in my pocket, weighing me down."  I feel inclined to agree- and it was interesting to have such a visceral experience of it.

We didn't get long to ponder this.  As we were loading a box of paintings (irreplaceable-painted by friends and family), a wall of smoke engulfed us. Time to go. Having no way to know where the fire was, we had to assume it was close. So, we left with an almost-empty truck.

It's true that, without insurance, we would have been urgently motivated to take necessities - cooking pots, blankets, clothes, and so on. And I don't for a moment dismiss the deep pain and loss suffered by many people who did lose everything in that fire. My prayers go to them daily. I just found it interesting to observe that the idea of less stuff was so liberating to me.

What do you all think? If you had an hour to pack your car, what would you take?

Bang, Bang, Lights Out (Wildfire, part 1)

The explosion of sound hit me with such force I thought the windows of the house might shatter. I sat bolt-upright in bed, my heart leaping out of my chest. I had been sound asleep when the lightening strike connected, but its bellow would wake the dead. The lights that were on in the next room - my partner was still up - went black. When I realized what happened, my first thought was..."Oh, no, I hope our (newly upgraded) solar system didn't just get fried."

Little did I know, this was the LEAST of what was to be fried.

That lightening storm ignited the spark that ultimately caused over 130 square miles of Colorado to burn.

Three days later, our neighbor, a veteran fire fighter, stopped by. He pointed to the fluffy cloud beyond the hill. "You see that cloud?" Yeah, we saw it. "It's not a cloud, it's smoke from a fire. I'm packing up my car and getting out of here."

As luck would have it, we were having a new propane cooking stove delivered that day. Right after the neighbor left, I called them to suggest they postpone our delivery. No answer. Minutes later, the delivery guys came walking up the road.

"Hi. Sorry we're late. Our truck broke down just a short way down your road."

You mean in the section that's one-lane? Where there's a rock wall on one side and trees on the other and only room for one car?

"Yeah."

Seriously bad timing. The next hour was spent helping the guys move the truck so we and the neighbors weren't blocked in. They brought the new stove up, via our truck, and installed it. In the two hours those guys waited for their replacement truck to show up, we became buddies. Since it was already evening, we threw sausages and potatoes on the grill for everybody and sat in our 'patio' furniture, to watch that cloud that was not a cloud.

"Sure is quiet up here." One of the guys commented.

Little did we know it was the quiet before the storm....