~with no intention of quitting~

The zinnias and the sunflowers I planted back in May never made it all that much out of the ground.  It wasn't for lack of trying, on either their part or mine.  They just couldn't manage to figure out how to live.  Last year when it happened I was crushed momentarily.  This year I just pulled out the few scraggly remnants that were foolishly trying to hang on and found something new to take their place.  There was no sense in trying any further, some how or another seeds and the Colorado soil here in our part of the neighborhood just don't mix.  I'm not giving up on the idea of having one of my favorite flowers from Kansas growing here along the Western Slopes.  Next year,  I'm going to learn how to start them indoors in a more hospitable soil mixture and then dare to transplant them into the clay filled soil that surrounds our house here in the country.

A sole survivor and if it would have made it, my guess is that it would have been a purple one.

A few weeks back I planted rose moss into one of my mom's old angel food cake pans, a tradition I've kept up since 2007 after she passed away.  Mom could grow rose moss from seed and when it had sprouted enough, she would pack it carefully into the soil filled old cake pan that had long ago lost its ability to hold any cake batter.  She was a child of the Great Depression and learned early on that the idea of "waste not, want not" was a good one to live by.  I was with her the day that she left a message in black magic marker that instructed us to never throw away the cake pan but instead to plant flowers in it for as long as we could.  I always tried to listen to what she told me and rather than throw away the pan, it became a planter for the years ahead that would follow.  It was looking pretty good, that pan filled with rose moss until one morning I went out on the porch to find that our friendly neighborhood ground squirrel that lives underneath the deck had decided to eat it for a midnight snack.  I was not happy with that member of the rodent family but I decided to replant new ones and then move it to the other side of the house.  At least if he was going to eat it, he'd have to make the journey to the other side of the yard to do so.  So far, so good but then it's only been a few days.

Before the "raid" on the porch by the ground squirrel.

Finally, a year after moving here to the south western part of this good state, I am able to acknowledge just how beautiful the scenery is.  The mountains look so pristine in their current still snow covered state and because of our late in the season heavy snows, Mike says it could be July before the San Juans are completely barren of the white stuff.  I speak with friends and family who are amazed by the scenery just around our home here and they are right when they speak of how varied and colorful all of the views are.  I'm glad now that I didn't give up and return back to Kansas last summer after the first waves of homesickness were just about to take me under with them.  I would have missed out on a lot of life by so doing. 

Yet even in all of this beauty, there are many things that we all have to be aware of, dangers that could if they wanted to catch us off guard.  Last summer was my first experience with wild fires, something that back on the plains of Kansas I had little knowledge of.  Although no fires made it to our neck of the woods, all we had to do was look off into the horizon at any given point in time and see the evidence of those that were burning.  It made travel back and forth to Kansas during July and August a bit of a challenge.  We had to be aware of where the fires were burning and avoid them at all cost.  This summer will present the same potential for blazes to be happening and now more than ever, folks need to be careful and use sense when burning outdoors. 

The sign down on Townsend Avenue that serves as a reminder to folks to be careful and use extreme caution.  Seemed as if it stayed between the orange and the red for most of the summertime.

Right now, because of all the melting of winter's snow from high on the mountaintops, the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers are running extremely fast and very high.  The danger of flooding is all around us.  Just last week as I was returning from Kansas, I couldn't help but sense that the rivers and creeks were way higher than they were on my trip out from the Western Slopes just 8 days earlier.  You could hear the powerful sound of the rushing water as you traveled along and believe me, I was just glad to get back to the other side of the Continental Divide.  There are mudslides and rockslides here as well and if you need something else to be cautious of then add in looking out for wildlife that happens to be along the roadway, any time and any where.  It gets interesting. 

At times all of these things can get unnerving and make a person wonder if they really belong here in this place along the Rocky Mountains but I have not given up.  Some how or another, I am learning to thrive and survive in this place that is so far away from life as I once knew it.   I would say that it is easy but that would be lying.  It is not always so but this much I DO know~it gets better each day.  I owe thanks to a lot of people for that but perhaps most of the gratitude for those around me should go to Mike for not giving up either.  One thing we wisely came to the conclusion of, things go a whole lot smoother if we just work together on them.  Life is not perfect here but I don't think that is always a good idea either.  If things were indeed 100 percent "ok" we might never continue to grow in who we are as people.  That is something I intend to do for as long as I shall live.  I find myself on God's "anvil" each day as I continue to become the person that I was intended to be. 

Well the day is beginning here and at only 5:30 in the morning daybreak is thinking about arriving.  Time to begin yet another day of life.  I woke up this morning and I take that as a sign that there is something yet for me to do, my destiny as such.  If you are reading this, then you too have received the "go ahead" to get out and look for yours.  May this day be filled with peace and happiness for you and should you find a rough patch or two to go through, I hope that it won't last for very long.  Life is really good, even on the bad days.  Love you dear friends and family, ALL.

Back in April I planted some seed potatoes from Smith's Market back in Hutch and was sure that they would not make it.  Just when I was ready to try something else, they arrived!