Barela Picnic

We were honored to be invited to the Barela annual picnic this year.  Our friend, Carlos, owns 10,000 acres just east of town.  (Can you even imagine??  10,000 acres!)  Every year he gets together with some neighbors of his and they butcher a pig.  They roast it to perfection and then everyone brings something to eat.

We met with our friends in town, then caravaned out to the picnic.  We went maybe 15 miles out on a dirt road.  The land was flat and treeless.  When we finally came upon the gate to the driveway where the hosts lived, we turned in and drove about another mile or two. 

Just as we came over a small rise the farmhouse and barn lay before us surrounded by huge elm trees and a little stream.  It was such a lovely, bucolic setting for a big picnic. 

I'd say there were nearly 200 people there coming and going.  Some were playing horseshoes, some were hiking the surrounding area, some were playing ping-pong on a table with empty pop bottles for a net.  People here are unpretentious and very laid back.

There was so much food!  Virtually all of it was home-made, too.  My friend Angela told me a story about how, a few years ago, she had been recovering from an illness just before going out to this picnic.  She didn't feel well enough to bake a dessert so they just went to Safeway to buy a pie.  She placed it among all of those home-made goodies and at the end of the picnic, her pie remained untouched.  How funny! 

I brought over 4 dozen deviled eggs I made that morning and they were gone quickly.  It's chili time in this part of the world so there were lots of dishes with green chilis and some with jalapenos.  Many salads, fruits, vegetables, beans, rices -- the tables were packed!

I peeked around the corner to see several teenage boys, completely covered in mud from 4-wheeling, hovering over the dessert table.  They wanted to make sure they got all of the good stuff first.  But that was fine... there was plenty for all.

One of my favorite parts was to see a big, old, Ford pickup completely loaded with pumpkins, watermelons and cantaloupe.  Everyone was ordered to help themselves to all they wanted.  This part of the country has some of the best cantaloupe and watermelon I have ever tasted.  We've been enjoying that watermelon for a few days already... yum!  And I'll be cutting into the cantaloupe later this afternoon.  Oh it's so tasty and sweet.  Delightful!

Fall

Well... September 22, 2010 fell upon us with a cool, crisp grasp.  Nights are very cool, getting into the 50's and even once or twice the 40's.  Days are still on the warm side in the upper 70's and low 80's. 

The leaves are starting to turn.  We see patches of gold and orange on the mountainsides as the aspen trees get ready for their winter sleep.  What a beautiful sight!  Near the river the cottonwoods are still a deep green, but they'll be turning soon, too.

This will be our first cold winter in over 30 years!  While we both grew up near Chicago, we haven't been in the ice and snow for a whole winter in a very, very long time.  I'm not too concerned, though.  Our little brick house will probably be quite comfortable.  Of course, not as comfortable as our cozy strawbale home, but that will come... eventually.

Up to this point, I haven't closed the windows yet.  We like sleeping when it's cool outside.  I don't mind having the windows open at all.  I'm sure Les will let me know soon enough when it's time to close them.  Cool, fresh air!  I LOVE IT!

Les is looking forward to one more motorcycle ride up the road pictured above before winter.  Last year, it had already snowed by this time.  This year it's a little warmer.

I'll keep taking pictures and posting them as fall matures. 

More later...

Labor Day Parade

Don't you just love a parade? 

Labor Day brought with it the annual Labor Day Parade in downtown Trinidad.  Les and I grabbed the dogs and walked 2 blocks toward downtown so that we could watch our first Trinidad parade.

The atmosphere was one of excitement as the crowds gathered.  Of course, it could have just been me as I've been imagining watching this parade for 5 long years.  It started right on time with a fanfare of emergency vehicles all waling away with their sirens.  Police cars, fire trucks, rescue vehicles and search ATVs -- just to mention a few.

There were many displays of horses as this is a ranching area.  There was a big, black cow pulling a cart and even an alpaca came to show off.  The floats consisted of a flat-bed trailer, bales of straw and cardboard exhibits.  There was even a big cement mixer with American flags on the front fenders and a smiling driver throwing candy out the windows at the crowd. 

We saw some local school marching bands, a dance troupe from the local studio, and many, many happy, smiling faces.  Small town parades -- I'll take this over the Rose Parade any day!

Working on the Driveway... Take 4

Now this is getting ridiculous!  But I think we've finally got it.  Remember the big storm from a couple of months ago?  That  deluge gave us our first clue that the driveway still wasn't right. 

Our little community is called Prospect Canyon.  We have an association, but as associations go, ours is very informal.  Its purpose is to keep the roads.  To get to our property, you must leave the relative safety of the city streets and travel a mile or so up a county road.  From there, you move onto private roads for another 2 miles as you wind your way up the mountain.  Our little Ranch Owner's Association consists of maybe 20 property owners. 

Yearly, our friend Jim, the ROA President, calls a meeting to discuss the road, dues, etc.  We haven't had the pleasure of one of these meetings yet as we haven't been here at the time.  Next year, we will. 

Anyway, it is Jim's job to head-up the care and maintenance of our roads.  Back to the big storm....  When it rained so hard that day, the entire mountain had excellent drainage.  No-where did the water cross the Prospect Canyon roads except for one place.  You guessed it... our driveway.

Talk about an exhausting thing.  So let's review.  The first guy cut the road in entirely the wrong place.  It was too sharp of a turn and way too steep.

The second guy cut some of the steepness off of the entrance to the driveway and put in an extra 20' of culvert so that the turn wasn't quite so sharp.

The third guy smoothed out what the second guy did, cut drainage on part of our driveway, and then put down nearly 300 tons of the wrong gravel.  During his attempt to "smooth out" what the second guy did, he succeeded in removing all of the drainage on the hill entering our driveway.

The fourth guy came today, pointed out all of the many things the other guys did wrong, and then went about fixing it for a very fair price.  Of course, we'll probably have to buy another couple thousand dollars of gravel way too soon, but at least we won't have to watch all of our remaining gravel wash across the road and down into the canyon.

Some of these things, you just can't research enough.  Every time we hired someone, we thought they knew what they were talking about and we really liked them.  Until you live with their work, how would you know?  Try looking up "Building a gravel road," on the Internet.   Yeah, there are a few forums like http://www.tractorbynet.com/ or http://www.askthebuilder.com/ but finding the right person is really, really tough!

We're hoping that the 4th time will be the charm.  Especially since Leroy, our latest dirt guy, spent some extra time and carefully placed some really big boulders on the sides of our entrance.  Les and Leroy worked all morning today and Les took me up after his hard day's work to see my surprise. 

It felt like I was coming home.  I mean it.  Les, Schultz, Mindy and I spent about an hour just sitting in our chairs, appreciating our view, and talking.  What a wonderful end to a busy day.

Labor Day

In my previous life Labor Day was always just a day off to look forward to.  Today, I learned a different meaning of this "end of the summer" holiday. 

In Trinidad Colorado, Labor Day means the Trinidad Round-Up.  This is a rodeo that has taken place in this diminutive little town for the past 100 years.  No lie -- this year is the Trinidad Round-Up's 100th anniversary!

OK, so we haven't been over to the fair grounds yet this weekend, but we expect to tomorrow, Sunday.  In the meantime, we've taken a walk downtown. 

One of the lovely little treats of living in our 1923 home is that it's one block off of Main Street.  Yesterday, Friday, we walked the 4 blocks down to the bank.  We then walked 1 block over to see a friend whom we haven't seen in quite a while.  I had a package that needed to be mailed so we then walked 1-1/2 blocks over to the post office.  We walked back toward home down Main Street and perused a store that I've wanted to see.  Then we walked home.  All the while, we held hands. 

Life in Trinidad... I'm so happy here.

Saturday evening, we went over to a friend's house for a BBQ.  We arrived a little late because I took a little nap first.  (Another perk of a less hectic lifestyle.)  When we arrived there must have been at least 50 people laughing, talking, eating, drinking and having a good time.  Jeff was busy at the grill and Jeanine was making sure all of their guests had plenty of food. 

DJ joined us.  He was here for the entire weekend.  It was really good to have him here.  He just relaxed with no agendas most of the weekend.

Back to the party... when the sun started to go down Jeff lit a bonfire.  That's one of the many nice things about living on 35+ acres... you can have a fire pit and there's no one to complain about it.  When it was completely dark we were treated to fireworks.  These weren't just ordinary sparklers.  These were full-blown shoot up in the air and explode into colorful star fireworks.  Jeff works in the explosives field, so we were all in good hands.

We stayed several hours forging some new friendships and strengthening some that were already started.  I've never been one to reach out to people for friendship, but I'm thinking that maybe it's time to start.