August 2018

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Hello! Juniper models for our latest bit of progress. I spread the remainder of the mulch this morning, woot! What a relief to have that behind us. And now, we are t-minus three days to the reason for the BIG push to get all these home projects completed. We’re hosting our cousin’s seventh birthday party this Saturday. Cake! Cupcakes! Yummy snacks! Lemonade and laughter!

Wait, what are we looking at? Thataway is the rock circle, where we plan, on lovely evenings (when there is no fire danger), to have our fire pit going.

This little river actually flows! At least when there is a downpour, and not perfectly, as I am neither God nor a hydrologist, so my skills are in need of improvement. That said, I give it a ten based solely on appearances. It works for supermodels!

View from the fire pit. I’ll show you our fenced orchard another time.

Oh lordy, this was our worst weed patch. I would dig and dig and dig, and weeks later it was so bad that it didn’t look like I’d done anything. Insert big blue streak of curses. I am thrilled to finally have it tamed and mulched and planted with what I hope will be happy shrubs.

Juniper’s patch of grass! Send your best thoughts for healthy growth, won’t you please? I’d LOVE, and really can’t wait, to see more flowers and green than mulch and fence!

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Oh, and if you are local – I am mostly a perennial xeriscaper, as I don’t want to start from scratch every year or have thirsty plants in the high desert. For this reason, I buy the majority of my plants at Phelan Gardens and Desert Canyon Farm. They have the best selection of what will grow in our area, with many that are out of the mainstream, especially Desert Canyon. Though it, rather sadly for me, is only open for a couple of months a year (about mid-April to mid-June), but is well worth the trip to Canon City!

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Worn

 

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!”

Hunter S. Thompson

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red hot poker

volunteer sunflower

foxglove

horehound, with bumble bee

crocosmia

milkweed

echinacea

rudbeckia

evening primrose

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We’ve entered the sun in the morning followed by afternoon rain pattern of my dreams. Well, except when it hails. I used to think a wicked wind was my least favorite of the elements, but now, as I coax this garden along, it is most definitely hail. We’ve been spared as of late, thankfully. Yesterday, as deluge number five began dropping wretched ice bombs, I darted to the sliding door and shouted, “NO damaging hail! You hear me, storm? NO damaging hail!” And you know what? It stopped that instant. At least at our house. The Zoo was annihilated with softball sized hail, making cars undriveable and killing three animals. Good grief.

But I do, as you well know, love the rain, and it’s been marvelous to have our daily bit, and especially to walk the garden afterward, when every leaf and flower is gorgeously saturated, air sweet. The best.

We are on the home stretch with this year’s garden projects. Most mornings, we get up around six, feed and walk Juni B., then get cracking while there is blessed shade. The hubster goes in after an hour or two to earn our daily bread (thanks be to remote work!!) while I soldier on, until either the shade or task runs out. Tuesday, it was a rock border out front, each stone brought from the back, one by one, to and fro, to and fro, digging out dirt as needed, blowing displaced ants from my limbs, muddying myself as I wipe the sweat from my brow. Honest work. Meditative, too.

And while I garden, Fleetwood Mac “Sara” has been playing in my brain, and in between chatting with the land lubbers and flying things, resident and visitor, I sing along. And sometimes cry. It’s that kind of song.

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Greetings from the Protestant Nave of the Air Force Academy Chapel, probably my most favorite work of Modern Architecture in the world and in the neighborhood, too. Lucky me. We took our cousin Cynthia (Hello!) for a tour, who was here for a most fabulous few days of adventure, good eating, and stellar conversation. Thank you Walter Netsch, brutalist architect extraordinaire, for your imagination and vision for this tetrahedron masterpiece. Indeed.

The Catholic Chapel

Jewish Temple

Two by two (hands of blue)…

Polaris Hall – named for the brightest star.

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Past

The past is beautiful because one never realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

Virginia Woolf

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