Little red battleground

The hummers have been really active up in the Rockies this late summer. At least going by the action around my feeder. The first few days I was here this guy, or someone like him, was keeping everyone else away and the sweet liquid I was providing lasted a while.

Then, all of a sudden a couple of days ago, either he decided to be nice, or else all of his extended family heard about the goodies and came to join him. I've had to refill it at least once a day since then!

The chittering, skirling notes of their raucous debates have been a constant soundtrack to my relaxing and working, joining the lovely sounds of the rushing creek down below our deck.

And their ferocious conflicts (ounce-for-ounce as epic as Agincourt and Hastings!) have provided as much entertainment for me as the Olympics.

'Round about Garfield

I've been having a very relaxing time up here in the mountains, reveling in the 40° nights and 80° days. Although I've also gotten a lot of work done on our place (more about that later) as well as on some personal projects.

Not that I want to make friends sweltering back home feel bad or anything, but I thought I'd share some of the sights and activities I've been fortunate enough to experience here near 10,000'...
It's late enough in the summer that the wildflowers aren't too abundant, but there are still some:

fireweed

The skies have been particularly impressive, with clouds such as you see above. Here is a shot looking the other way that evening...

...and on another day, after a little rain:

There was also the Perseid meteor shower, which was hyped to be one of the best in years. I was lucky enough to have clear skies after moonset on the night of their peak and I stayed up until 1 am to watch (this is quite an achievement for me in and of itself). I logged 11 in the half hour I sat out on our deck. This may not sound like much but it's probably more than I've cumulatively seen before in my whole life! A friend later reported that he got up around 4 that morning and saw many more. Wish I'd been able to do that.

And we've had showers of another kind: a fairly heavy rain of hail…

A great feature of our location is its proximity to great hikes and paths. Just a few miles up the road is the Continental Divide and I took my morning stroll there a few days ago.

the path

a sample view

It's not only a great hiking path, but is considered one of the premier mountain-biking routes in the world! Since I was up there on a Sunday, I saw lots of bikers...

There are nice hikes closer to hand, too, and I've taken advantage of them and their interesting and lovely sights...

caves!

Hi, Clover!

our deck from the creekside below

And here’s that wonderful, noisy creek:

I'm not the only one up here who's been busy this summer, either. I've seen several new homes in various stages of construction in our little village. Here' a pretty spectacular place that's almost done:

You never know what you'll see around here. On one walk I was buzzed (not really, but they were loud) by two military-looking helicopters (only one shows up in this hastily snapped shot). Perhaps on a training run from Peterson AFB in the Springs?

I did discover something unsettling, especially noticable on the walk along the Divide. The pine bark beetle disease, which has devastated some areas of the Rockies, has found our valley at last. We were hoping that the diverse nature of our woods would keep it from denuding our hillsides, and I still think it won't be as bad here as in some other forests. But it looks a lot worse this summer than it has before.

Wordless Wednesday: Lancaster or York?

Mapping history

One of my summer "bucket list" items was to see the Witte Museum's Mapping Texas exhibit. I just love maps, especially old ones, and what they can tell you about history, while keeping geography in mind. So this visit was a no-brainer.

It was a great exhibit, with lots of really interesting maps of early San Antonio as well as early Texas and the southwest as a whole.

I was expecting to enjoy the urban aspects of the maps, seeing when different cities began to be shown, and how places looked when what are now near-downtown streets were the outer boundaries of the towns. 

But what was a surprising treat was seeing how rivers that I am very familiar with were treated from decade to decade. Changing names (the Rio Grande wasn't always known by that name; see all of its various monikers, as well as a lot more of its fascinating history, here at the Handbook of Texas), and even changing courses. Or, at least, changing ideas of a river's course.

I thought the label on this map—I have outlined part of it in red—was amusing. Where there are established landowners, the course of the Guadalupe River seems fairly well set. But after they peter out (perhaps when it enters the canyon where it eventually became Canyon Lake?) they just drew a squiggly line and labeled it "Imaginary Course of the Guadalupe River." Cartography by punting, sort of like "here there be dragons," just a little more whimsical.

One river on the maps of the greater southwest that allowed me to get my geographical bearings easily was the Arkansas, which appeared on the maps earlier than I expected it to. I'll be near its headwaters soon!

Another mission was part of my Witte visit. Since we now have a little one who loves seeing and learning new things, I wanted to get a family membership to this great museum. (A side benefit is that it will also let me in to the wonderful Denver Museum of Nature & Science, as well as others around the country!) So that has been checked off my to-do list. I even did a little exploring to see what they might have on offer for toddlers, since it will be a while before Nix is old enough to get much out of a lot of their interactive exhibits.

Sure enough, they have this playground downstairs, masquerading as a delightful garden of over-sized fruits and vegetables. I can't wait to bring her here to play!

Wordless Wednesday: sittin' by the dock of the bay (sort of)

Best way to beat the heat

We still have water! Our wet spring is the the gift that keeps on giving through our Hill Country springs, so although the upper Guadalupe levels have been trending down, they're still high enough that we can pick and choose sections to paddle.

Last weekend we went from James Kiehl Park to Zoeller Lane (see above) and the week before from Zoeller down to Sisterdale.

Does this look lusciously cool!? And it was.

Besides the nice water, there are always other attractions. Like interesting trees, living and dead...

...and evidence of busy hands...

This lunch spot on the way to Zoeller even allowed passage almost all the way across, when usually in the summer we have to hug the left overhung bank...

I'm glad I had two chances to take advantage of this good water, since I'm about to embark on another trip and when I return, unless unusual rains intervene, things won't look nearly so hospitable.

But I'll have plenty to show you while I'm gone. Stay tuned!

Maine woods, part 2

So many beautiful, quirky, and generally photogenic trees in and around Portland!

The one above is in the kids' neighborhood and I got pretty familiar with its oddness as a landmark on our walks. 

Then, around the Back Cove, there are a series of lovely linden trees, some, maybe, among the originals planted in the early 1900's. Like this old-timer, for example:

Almost all of them have these amazingly-textured trunks, and some also sport a bounty of gorgeous blooms, too:

It's not too surprising that many of the town trees that impressed me so much were in the Evergreen Cemetery, a site I've written of at length in a previous post. This stately row of hemlocks lines the edge of the cemetery near the entrance we usually used...

...and I found striking specimens of other species almost everywhere I looked...

The fabulous trees just above adorn a small hill in the cemetery where we spent a lot of fun playtime with the Amazing Granddaugher. What gorgeous, gorgeous trees! My Maine-native daughter-in-law thinks they are Norway Spruce, but, as the bard says, who cares?!

Their branches are so stately, and their bark makes the trunks into works of art:

The arboreal landscape is just another reason to love this great city! I can't wait for a return visit.