Last photos of Palisade and Pets

Well, this is it - the last photos of the garden and pets. It's already May 29th, and moving day will be June 5th. Marco is moving back into the house so he doesn't have to pay another month's rent on his apartment. It's fine. We're getting along. He lined up some friends to help me pack the moving truck on moving day. Kate will be flying in from San Jose to help out and drive with me all the way to Oregon. I've made the discovery that Central Oregon is HOT in the summer. The Willamette Valley (Oregon) isn't as hot as Western Colorado, but it's hot enough, and it's more humid. I'm not going there. I don't know where I'll land, but it won't be another place where I can't go out and enjoy the summers. I've been looking at temperatures online now that summer is settling in. Beth suggested I check out the Oregon coast, so I've been doing that. It's weird knowing that I have one week to decide where I'm going to live, and I can't go there to check on it. I have about enough space on my credit cards to get moved and take care of basics. So, which of Oregon's coast towns will be right for me? I guess I can even decide when I get there. The one that looks most promising may be Astoria, with some depth, history, and a community college. My other concern at this point is that I have a lot of stuff to pack into the moving truck, and I dread doing that on a hot day. It could really mess up the rest of my week, and I'll need my health. This is stressful and scary, but also exciting.

Here's Elvis on the hummingbird feeder. We're supposed to hang a bottle on the stand, and we've done that before, but I'm not going to risk the birds when she looks so eager! Here I've exposed the picture for Elvis. See below for how it really looked.

Here are a few more pix of Elvis on the feeder. She was so cute (and creative).

Yeah, Hi Elvis. Where are the birds?

Here she looks like a weather-cat!

The back yard in the evening with roses and late-day sun on Grand Mesa.

Leila enjoyed lying in the back yard about this time of day.

It's not quite the same pose. You'd have to click on it and then look at her carefully. Indulge me. These are the last pix I'll ever take my lovely dog. I think it would be unfair and confusing to come back and visit. Once they get over missing "Mommy," that should be it, I think. The thought makes me cry, but what can I do?

Sweet Leila.

Leila and Elvis doing their thing. I'm not sure why I don't have any pictures of Pterelas today. Maybe he was asleep on the couch. Going around taking "last photos" is no fun, so I probably was trying not to think about that.

Counting the days, enjoying the flowers

The days were counting down to moving day early in June. I still didn't know where I was going to end up. I was thinking that someplace near my brother in Cottage Grove, Oregon, would work. Maybe Eugene, as it had more potential. I was reading about some aspects of living there. I'd taken one of the most important (to me) for granted, and that would turn out to be a mistake. Meanwhile, the riot of growing, flowering plants was my delight. Here's one view of the front yard here on Milleman Street.

Here's another view. I've never been a fan of plain tract-looking houses like this, but the location made all the difference, and the flowers were the icing on the cake. We always got weed ordinance notices, though. As you can see, it's not manicured.

It was an ongoing struggle between getting something to grow besides the iron weeds and having that something go crazy and look like a jungle. I didn't mind the jungle so much, but there were times that the only cure that would keep away the weed ordinance wolf was a lawn mower. The neighbors liked us better when it was trimmed, too, especially the retired ones who seemed to have nothing to do but make their yards look perfect and give us the evil eye.

Last time for the flowers

The old digital cameras really don't handle contrast very well, do they? Nevertheless, this is the memory I have of the garden coming into full bloom in May 2001. The roses are out now.

The roses surrounded the small deck on both sides. They kept me busy pruning. I've never seen roses grow so crazily fast. There were a lot of suckers to pull out as well as just keeping the regular stems trimmed. That wasn't too bad compared to the white dusty stuff that would get on them later in the year. We were set against poisons, so we tried various natural or less harmful remedies with limited success. But it was fun to see them, so bright and colorful. I'm not sure what the water jug was about, except that we made sun tea once in awhile, so maybe that's what it was.

More roses with a big rose stem sucker begging to either be cut or run rampant. I sometimes filled whole garbage bags with them from this one little patch of roses. In the background, the moonlight scotch broom has lost its beautiful light yellow blossoms, but it seems to be adapting well. And the fence is now covered with lush, growing vines. Only a few weeks ago they were brown and dead-looking.

Here's another photo of the yellow rose. The planter box around the deck had several colors.

Purple wallflowers in Palisade - it's jungle season

Ah, the purple wallflowers are blooming in the front yard. The wallflowers come in all colors and you never know what each year will bring. They're tough, too. They find their way by themselves. I do love the times here when the flowers start coming out. The flowers grow, the weeds grow, everything takes off and blooms or exudes or twines or mushrooms for the short happy season before it's baked dead. I always let the garden go a little crazy, but soon I'll be trying to cut and pull it back into shape - usually without much success. I'm delighted so see something with color in the front yard where the rocks and herbicide ruled for so long.

MAY: I could be starting a suburban legend, but it seems to me that every May 2nd, something happens here. It's the first day all year that you can feel the summer heat at some time during the day. With that, for me, comes a momentary depression. The time is over when I feel elated the whole time I'm outdoors. That feeling is basically over until October. From the second on, it can be hot, but there are a few days left when it won't be too bad. But this year will be different. I'm leaving all this and I'll be in Oregon in about a month.

Pix to remember the garden by, and first boxes

I loved and hated this yard. I mean I really did love it because of the scenic mountains we could see from here, and it was so large it was great for the pets and it buffered the neighbors, so we could feel that we had our own space. But the weeds were terrible and it needed a lot of water. I might try xeriscaping if I were to do it again. I understand now why so many people here landscape by putting down black plastic with rocks over the top and not having plants at all, or having a few peeking through, but I don't like that, and I wouldn't do it. We tore out all of the old black plastic but then the weeds had a field day. Once I found out that kitchen sage grew well, needed little water, survived winter, had purple flowers, and kept down the weeds, I began planting it everywhere. Unfortunately, I had to leave before most of the plants got big enough to do what they were supposed to do. The ones in the planter here are getting a good start, but they're still having to cope with the weeds, and the weeds were too much for me.

Here Elvis, Leila, and Pterelas are all enjoying being outside. Whenever I came out to work, I had lots of helpers.

The catnip has sprouted way up since last photo. I can't say Elvis pays any attention, but I like looking at it.

The plants in the front are sage. I even put one in the empty spot in the box with the rose bushes.

Happily-growing sage plants.

Here's another view of the garden facing west. Mt. Garfield is just behind that house. The grass had become a big problem. The gound got hard, as it will eventually since the soil is mostly clay. The weeds grow and the grass doesn't. It looked good when we moved in. It seems we needed to learn about lawns. I don't remember that lawns were such a science in California. You watered them and mowed them. This seemed to be a different set of rules.

Here are the first four moving boxes. I love bankers' boxes. They're so easy to stack and store. They're big enough to be useful and small enough not to be cumbersome. I got the bright idea to order a whole lot of them for everything that would fit in that size box, label them carefully, and place them on two-by-fours so they wouldn't get wet. It worked extremely well. I didn't realize it yet, but I was investing in furniture for my future apartment, too.

Fried mini blinds

I'm just taking odd shots here of things to remember. These mini blinds on a south-facing window got so hot during the summers that they warped and twisted. I don't know how old they were, because they came with the house. I replaced them with white mini-blinds that should last for awhile, anyway.

Forsythia in March

One thing I've come to love about the Grand Valley in springtime is the forsythia. One day everything looks like winter, and then without warning every forsythia plant in the valley blossoms screaming yellow.

I've waited a bit long to take this picture, because now the grass is turning green, too. Sometimes yellow is the only color you see. I took this photo across the street from the post office in the parklike patch of grass next to my dentist's office. I love those big rocks right in the middle of town. And you can still see a little snow on Grand Mesa there in the background.

Spring storm, Palisade, Colorado

Here it is the end of March already. Not all of the trees have leaves, but the globe willows are glorious in their bright pale green. This is some of the first color in the trees each year. I love it. I love the wonderful contrast between our globe willow, the sky, and the Bookcliffs on a day like today.

These are all taken from our front yard on Milleman Street.

Amazing sky: Palisade, Colorado

Some days you win the jackpot, and this was one of them. What a magnificent storm. All four photos were taken from our house on Milleman Street. Wow.

Snow in Palisade and a contortionist dog

The Palisade weather report today is about melting snow.

The view from my garden. I'm getting Spring Fever and am looking forward to turning the dead stalks into flowers again. That means most of them are probably going to have to be re-planted, but I look forward to it!

I liked this picture because the light on the snowy and wet branches glistens around the edges. Also, note the pale outline of the mountains wrapped in clouds. Nice.

Here's an unusual phantom cloud clinging to the Bookcliffs.

Indoors, Leila the Contortionist Dog is doing her thing - taking an upside-down nap.

Dogs, cats, and kitchen sage

Pterelas and Leila are wonderful dogs. Everyone thinks their dog is wonderful, I guess it's some kind of dog magic that happens. Both are some mixture of Labrador and chow, and Pterelas, the one whose nose is in the camera, probably has some shepherd or something on that order as well. More about them another time. It seems there are a lot of Lab-Chows in this part of Colorado for some reason, and that's fine with me. The camera didn't know how to handle the contrast here, but it's a nice picture of PT.

Here's Leila looking pensive - it's her usual look. She's built like a little bull and has especially soft fur and a very gentle manner.

I was really happy to finally discover kitchen sage for my yard. It looks droopy here in winter, but IT'S ALIVE. I won't have to re-plant it in spring, and it grows well but not out of control as many plants do here if they survive. Nothing really likes to grow under it, either, so it's a great discovery for weed control. I began planting sage all over the front and back yards, envisioning practically a sea of them when they matured. They seem to die after two or three years, but that's a heck of a lot better than planting annuals all the time. The purple flowers are beautiful, and you can cook with the leaves :)

The side yard of the house became a collection site for old wood and branches. Most of it ends up in our wood stove at some point. The chickens are gone now, having lived their happy lives, and we took out the fence so the side yard now connects to the back yard. There's Elvis checking up on things.

Wood stove, copier, and life in a hot/cold climate

This isn't one of those elegant scenic photos, but it certainly does depict what my life is about much of the time. I love the wood stove, and I love working in this room with Marco and the dogs and Elvis. It was supposed to be a family room, but it's our office. I suppose we use it as a family room, because working is what we do most of the time. I was really pleased when I got my own copier, because it made Club Tapir a lot easier to produce, saved a lot of trips to the copy shop, and gave me an alternative to making do with slow scans or (gulp) copying on the fax machine. I figure it will pay off eventually. Just above it you can see wiring that leads to one of my favorite things in the whole house - the air conditioner. It may sound trivial to people who live in certain areas where AC is standard, but we had a shock when we moved here. It was every bit as hot as California, but here in Colorado what the folks do is install swamp coolers. These can lower the temperature in a building 10 or 20 degrees in dry weather and if they work right, which ours did not. But they also don't work that well any more in the 21st Century. The humidity of the valley has been raised by the population influx and the planting and cultivation (irrigation) of all kinds of vegetation and crops, so they say. Any anyway, when it's a hundred and five out, eight-five to ninety-five is still freakin' hot inside. I had trouble convincing Marco of this. He's from the Philippines. Anyhoo, we got a good AC, and it's wonderful, especially after trying to sweat it out for a few years. My body doesn't deal that well with heat.

About the red bag, I'm still trying to remember (as I write this later) what was in it. I remember that red was symbolic for something-or-other. I'd bought a bunch of bags on eBay made with a variety of wonderful fabric, and then had more made up. I used them for everything. What in the heck would be hanging on the stand with the fire utensils? Oh, yeah! Matches! Red for fire. Good.

Views from the Bank, Palisade, Colorado

Every photo of the Bookcliffs in Palisade seems to have a different look.

From the parking lot of Palisades National Bank, you get a better idea of the openness of Palisade's location and the grandeur of the cliffs. Yes, let's be confusing. The town changed its name a few years back from Palisades to Palisade because someone thought it sounded hipper and more modern. This may be true, but it left a lot of businesses and organizations with a name that no longer matched the town's name, and a lot of confused visitors (and possibly residents). Town = Palisade. Bank name = Palisades.

This is looking west toward Mt. Garfield from the parking lot.

This is looking east toward Grand Mesa from the bank parking lot. The building beyond the white fence looks for all the world like a ranch house for a horse farm, but it's actually a pharmacy and doctors' offices. It's almost brand new, as is the bank.

Taking a photo of the bank itself must have been an afterthought, because I didn't bother to get out of the car. It was probably also an experiment with the camera.