My Colorado Bucket List Journey~sometimes I wish

Hello to you, my dear friends and family on this beautiful 26th day of June, 2013.  The sky here in south western Colorado is still a nice shade of blue and the windsocks are blowing rather lazily towards the western horizon.  The leaves of the old cottonwood tree next to the clothesline are shimmering as they sway in the easterly breeze.  The deer parade has ceased to come through the front yard now for over 5 days, mostly because the alfalfa has been cut and baled.  With a field barren of luscious green protection, those beautiful animals have chosen a different route to travel through each day.  I miss them and the distraction from being homesick that they provided me for my first month here.  Mike says, "just wait", because they will surely as shooting return here sometime soon.  I hope so~

Soon, as the weeks of summer continue to pass by, the alfalfa field will grow once again into a lush carpet of green.  I've gotten used to this idea of flood irrigation here, a new experience for me.  The hay was baled Monday evening and by early yesterday morning it was being loaded onto the back of a flatbed semi and taken away to be sold.  By the early evening hours, our landlord Bill and Mike were setting up the irrigation system to once again flood the earth with badly needed moisture.  All night long the water ran and from just outside our bedroom window we could hear it~the last  sound I heard as I went to sleep and the first sound I heard upon awakening this morning.  I told Mike that the rushing water's noise, while very peaceful, can also be a lonely one for some reason.  Not sure I could explain that notion to you if I tried.  Maybe some of you will yet understand.

Everywhere you go around here in this area, this is the sight you see.  I honestly was never aware of it back home in Kansas but for farmers as well as anyone who wishes to keep a lawn looking at least half-ways green, flood irrigation is the route that is taken.  Without the water that is pumped in regularly from the reservoir near here, Montrose could not survive.  I thought it was dry in Kansas but in the month's time that I have been here, virtually no rain has fallen.  Makes you consider even more so how much water you could potentially waste each day without even really trying.  Still waiting for what Mike promises will be the "monsoon season" here in Montrose, come sometime during the month of July.  For every drop of water here, just like back home in south central Kansas, we should surely give thanks for whatever might fall from the sky.

I have been working on ideas for a continuation of my Kansas bucket list in finding a way to make a new one for my life here now in Colorado.  You know, I've been working on a bucket list for the better part of two years now and I've done some mighty fun and interesting things.  At the urging of one of the truest friends I ever had in this life, I took swimming lessons back at the YMCA in Hutchinson.  The ability to give up my life long phobia of getting into the water was a real blessing for me.  I've ridden the Bike Across Kansas, power parachuted and saw the most beautiful sunrise and sunset in the world, TWICE!  Right before leaving Kansas back in May, I accomplished my lifelong goal of learning how to sew something for the very first time in life.  I did it thanks to the kind and loving heart of my dear young friend, Stephanie Wilson.  I reconnected with Facebook friends and bought them something to drink while talking about life for a while and made a 4,000 mile round trip to see a lighthouse in Maine for the first time.  So many things that I had made my mind up to do before I died and the weird thing was that even after going through 3 complete bucket lists, I still wanted to do more.  And that desire to do more was really a wish to continue living life to its fullest each day that was afforded to me by God above.  That's why I've always maintained the idea that a bucket list was not a "death wish" but a wish for life, and life full!  I still hold to that thought, perhaps even more today that when it was first thought of by me back in 2010.  

At this point in time, on the bucket list formerly known as the "Miller Bucket List of 2010", I have only one thing that I need to do and you know, if I can do THIS then my life will be a whole lot more the way I wish for it to be.  Perhaps if you have ever been homesick for a place that you used to live in, then you will understand why this one is so important to me.  Here it is~

"Miller-Renfro Bucket List Item #1"
To make peace with life here in Colorado, to make friends and put down roots here.  To become familiar with the land that lies between Hutchinson, Kansas and Montrose, Colorado as you travel on Highway 50 and to know that I can travel safely to and from the two places where my heart resides at the same time.

If I can do THIS, then I can do anything.  I will never give up trying.  Have a great day everyone out there and know that I am fine and being well cared for and loved by a most wonderful man, Mike Renfro.  Thankful for the gift of the "blessing".  Take care everyone of yourselves and each other.  In the end, that's all we really have anyways~each other.

While I was back home in Kansas this past weekend, Mike figured out a way (thanks in part to our good friend in Grand Junction, Mel Southam) to help me hang up my bike.  There were a couple of times, after my infamous curb jumping incident back in 2011, that this would probably been the best position for my bike to be in forever :)  Thankfully I didn't let that happen and even though I haven't ridden much out here, in the future I am sure that I will.  Me and "old lefty" might have been out of commission for a few months, but we came back strong as ever.