The week that was

Crested Butte After school science club members Oliver, Chase, Grace, and Nola embark on a wild flower hunt.

Ben visited our club this week, he found the wild crocus first.

The first butter cup of spring.

Crocus

this weeks ID challenge

There's a little patch of open ground in Gunnison right next to the five points thrift store.  These Prairie dogs are everywhere.

Mule deer are a regular along the road that leads home.

Alone with my thoughts about a cat

It's still snowing in the Rockies, not a major storm, more a shower to bring alpine flowers.  I have plans to visit Gunnison that may change into swim trunks and take a right turn to our Jacuzzi.  I've food and libation aplenty, plenty of firewood.

O is traveling with a friend from Nantucket to NOLA for the Jazz Fest.  This is not a complaint about her being away, it's more a precursor to my soon to be homicidal feelings for her cat complaining about her being away.

We have a big house, an A frame.  The ceilings can really ring with a howling banshee losing her cat damned mind and I've reached the rim of my gorge as I reach for her tail on the second day.  The windmill in my left hand window sits muted, covered in snow.  Suggests a peaceful resolution no matter how satisfying a kitty rocket could be. Swegen at my feet feels a shift in my weight, thinks it means a walk is imminent and I say no buddy, not just yet.  

Snow and Crocus

May 29th and the snow fall has been continuous since yesterday afternoon. Not much in the way of accumulation as the temperature has been above freezing.  Most of the new snow should be gone by later this afternoon as the temp. should get into the 40's.

Sarah is in New Orleans with our friend Amy from Nantucket, they are at the Jazz festival where it has been raining.  Not to worry they are intrepid travelers and have chosen the venues wisely that they are attending, all have tents and they've managed to stay dry.

I've begun working with the Crested Butte public schools offering an after school science club that highlights the Ranger program that I'll be offering at RMBL this summer.  I have 7 students, all are smart, engaged, and inquisitive and I'm having a blast with them.

I've gotten  the go ahead to start a writers group for poets at the Crested Butte library and that will begin in June and I will be attending a writers group in Gunnison beginning next month.  I have submission guidelines for several local publications and I'll be sending them work soon.

The animals have settled in to the new home and are very happy, as our we, with our new surroundings.

These are wild Crocus and they are popping up in the scrub areas all around us.  Yesterday my students and I went looking for them across the street from the school, I await their written report on the discovery this weekend.  Several of them are very good writers and inventive,  I look forward to some fun reading later this week.

An Auspicious Start

I finally began working here in Colorado.  I'm conducting an after school science club at the Crested Butte Public School and I started this past Thursday, yep, the day Prince died.  As momentous as that was I will mark it clearly as a day in green  for Sir Gawain, as purple as the first crocus bloom.  We photographed and Id'd a butterfly, began tracking the life cycle of an Aspen, we talked about the eating habits of Magpies.  It was a good day, there was music, laughter, and a sense of accomplishment that adds up to past tense.

Tonight I’m Gonna Party

I wore a purple scarf

The day Clemens died

Remembered it was

Sandy Denny’s departure date

As well

Rode into Gunnison

With Swegen in the backseat

His head out the window

His hair blowing

The way I feel

                About death

The big horn sheep

On the side of the road

Indifferent and diffident

To everything

Save the task at hand

Look up as the pup

Says hello

To another round of

Purple rain

Let’s go crazy

Rain

It's raining right now, the first rain we've had since moving here.  I'm in our upstairs office and the sound is wonderful.  The kind of noise that says get a book, go curl up somewhere.  Count your lucky stars you have a roof overhead.  Both the cats have declared peace, this is usually a time of day for chasing each other around the house.  They sit across from each other, close enough to my ears that I can hear them purr.  It's a low sounding throaty affirmation that they' happy.

Swegen, having been well walked (twice) and after a highly spirited sessions of catch, sleeps in the library, all four legs pointing straight up at the ceiling.

It's time for some south sea stories for Somerset Maugham I think.

Jacuzzi and wine relaxed

It's just a little more than a month since O and I crossed the divide.  We both feel exhilarated and renewed by the experience, hell I've been wearing flannel shirts and working out doors.  We've begun a research project on the merits of Mexican Restaurants in the valley as part of our weekly trip to town.  I'm grading tamales, O's all about the tortilla chip. It's part of this rural life's ritual, obligatory dump run (You gotta see/smell the dump), stop by with our circular in hand at the City Market (insert South Park reference if you must), cruise the thrift stores, then back home. Come warmer weather we'll add yard sales and fishing to the list. Oh, there's people fishing now, they's crazy.

This is the off season for the valley, Crested Butte has this and next week off for spring break, Gunnison does not, they just returned.  Saw a poetry slam in Gunnison at the Arts Center this past Friday.  Nice space, I bar tended the event. It was a College event and the slammers were students. The next night I got a slot in the open mic. event at the Crested Butte art center, an even nicer space. Both community spaces are major contributors to what is a throwback (IMHO) to a time when FM was just beginning, giants sat next to you in crowded roadhouses and everything was everything. I like it here.

The second floor of our house is office/library, bathroom, bedroom. This is my half of the office, O's still un-packing. Pictures to follow when she signs the release:).

Swegen's library on the first floor.