Happy Halloween!

Hardcore Fishing

Mr X didn't feel like he'd gotten the opportunity to fish as much this summer/fall as he had wanted to. So last Friday while I was working (he had the day off) he decided to head up to his favorite fishing spot one last time.

It takes about 45 minutes to hike there on a normal day. It took him longer on this day due to the fact that it was a winter wonderland up there. Despite the cold and snow Mr X trudged on - a very determined fisherman.

The path to our fishing spot.

The views along the path were pretty incredible. I'm so glad Mr X took the time to snap some photos for me.

This is the little stream that runs down from our fishing lake.

And here is the lake. The very frozen lake.

More frozen lake....(Mr X was walking along side of it to get to the mouth of the lake, where he loves to fish.)

Here is the mouth of the lake - and he was pleased to see that there was a tiny bit of unfrozen water in which he could fish.

 

So this is where Mr X fished. He said that sometimes his fly would get hooked on the edge of the ice and he couldn't get it off, so his solution was to dig for rocks and toss them at the edge of the ice until it broke off and then he'd reel in his line and detach the cumbersome chunk of ice.

Mr X told me that it was 18 degrees up there. Ouch! But he was determined to fish - I believe he said that he caught one fish the whole time. He tried for a while, until the cold cracked his fly rod during a back cast. Dejected, Mr X packed up and headed home. Poor Mr X. I felt so bad that his beloved fly rod was broken.

Not a Whole Lot of Exciting Happening Here

It's always rather difficult to blog when you don't really have anything to blog about. It's the shoulder season here and nothing too exciting happens during the shoulder season. The mountains are wet and muddy and snowy so hiking and biking and exploring them in general kind of dries up a bit for us because we're not that hard core. But there's not enough snow do begin doing our beloved snow sports yet. I'm trying not to just abandon blogging entirely until the shoulder season is over. So as a result you get somewhat sporadic, rather dull posts like this one. *shrug* But this is the sort of thing we've been up to lately: Prepping for the winter.

We have a wood-burning fireplace. The last few winters here we've been purchasing a bundle (or two or three) at a time from the grocery store when we go. At about $5 a bundle that gets expensive if we want to have a cozy fire burning in our fireplace with any sort of regularity. So this year we decided to buy firewood in bulk. I've estimated that the cost will be about half of what it would have cost us for this much wood at the grocery store. We purchased a quarter cord of red cedar. We may very well need a bit more than this, but storage space was as issue - both in our car and in our townhome. We'll see how we fare with this amount this year and we'll supplement from the store as needed. If we need more than this next year we'll have to have our supplier deliver it to our home.

Loading up the car.

Driving home in our very fragrant and jam-packed car.

Now for the unloading.

Our garage smells so good these days with all of this cedar freshening it up. I love it!

The final result. It seemed like a lot when our car was filled with the wood. Now, stacked up in our garage, it seems like so little. Oh well.

The Yearly Trip to the Apple Farm

Each fall here I drag Mr X to a local apple orchard and farm so we can take home a half bushel of apples. While there we usually feed the giant horses some carrots and feed ourselves an apple cider doughnut or two (or three...) and maybe sample some freshly pressed apple cider. Some days later I make and preserve applesauce - with Mr X's help.

I don't have an applesauce recipe. Each year I just make something up as I go. This year I threw some cinnamon, vanilla, ginger and bourbon into my applesauce. Mr X and I both thought it turned out great.

Photo courtesy of the interweb.

 

Photo courtesy of the interweb.

Photo courtesy of the interweb.

Photos of my applesauce, courtesy of me. Mr X and I prefer our applesauce rather chunky. No paste-like baby food consistency stuff is allowed here.

Yay - It's Here!

Around here we usually get our last snowfall of the season in May and our first snowfall of the season in October. We're 4 days into October now and I've already been chomping at the bit for our first snowfall. I woke up this morning to a light blanket of snow everywhere. Woo hoo! I was delighted. Of course it will melt here at our house quickly, but not so in the mountains and that's the most important part. 

1st Snow of the Season - Peaks Only

On September 23rd here in Colorado the mountains got their first dusting of snow for the winter season. We didn't get any here at our house but  I was still giddy with excitement. The peaks looks so beautiful in the distance with a dusting of white on them. 

I really hope that we have good snowfall this year. The past two seasons the snowfall here has been disappointing and as a result the state has plunged deeper and deeper into drought. This summer was cooler and wetter, which we needed, but we are still technically drought-stricken so I hope that we are blessed with a great snow pack this winter. Plus, it'll make for a spectacularly good time on the slopes. 

We usually get our first snowstorm of the season sometime in October so it really could be any day now. I can't wait to wake up one morning and look outside my window to see a white blanket of snow. Here are some photos (courtesy of the interweb) of the results of our first dusting of snow at the local ski resorts:

Water, Water Everywhere!

Most of you, if you watch the news at all, probably heard about the devastating flooding happening in Colorado. I can assure you that it hasn't been exaggerated at all. Mother Nature really knows how to put us in our place. We are so small, insignificant and powerless. Luckily for us our home has been spared. However, our town has not. My heart goes out to those whose businesses or homes have been damaged and destroyed. I pray for those who have lost loved ones.


Mr X and I took a drive a few days ago around the area in which we live. This is what we saw:
 

Many, many homes were flooded even worse than this one pictured above.

This was formerly a small, gentle creek. Now it's a brown, dirty, smelly torrential river which is swallowing everything in it's path.

This home was completely surrounded by water - no way to get in or out.

This was once a lovely little park.

Once again, what had previously been not much more than a ditch is now a wide powerful river.

We saw bridge after bridge that was covered in water and debris. This particular bridge is actually a road. Not so much anymore.

I haven't seen a river rushing like this since the first spring we were here when this area experienced a record amount of snowfall. This river is rushing like this because of a few days of truly unbelievable rainfall, not because of the melting of 8 months worth of snow.

We were supposed to go on another backpacking adventure this past weekend in RMNP. We had been watching the weather and made the decision based on all of the rain not to go. Later we learned we had made a very wise decision when we saw that the entire National Park was being shut down and people were being evacuated and escorted out due to the flooding.