Season updates 2006

These beets from our hoop house went into the borsch for our Christmas Eve Wigilia. The pre-holiday storms caboshed Denver produce deliveries so no fresh produce was available for Christmas. We prepared an elegant centuries-old menu based on winter root and fermented vegetables, no problem!

End of the Year

December was snowy and cold but we stayed warm. Max has been working on a quilt for her son Nikolas, making soap with real beef fat rendered into tallow plus website work. If you want to take a fine trip to the Ukraine to visit organic farms ahead of where we are organically - this is how to do it!

Wink has been working on the books, chopping firewood and championing a new source for milk, raw milk that is. He's also managed to go skiing several times!

It had to happen sooner or later!

We've become civilized. Or at least we've removed the freestanding toilet from our kitchen pantry in preparation for our fancy-smancy French winetasting dinner.

November
After Thanksgiving, an Arctic blast lowered temps to minus 10 and dumped over a foot of snow on the valley. See more snow on farm pix.	With the harvests in and the October rains abating, we got outside again and prepared the farm for winter. The cabins and grounds received a face-lift with fresh paint and new, insulated exterior doors. Max planted spring flower bulbs and garlic in the new planting bed. We continued whittling away at the brush piles and tidied-up the orchards and around the place. And, we enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving respite with family and friends. Rain days, snow days, and cold mornings were opportune for desk work; assessing the past year and planning for the next. We are reasonably satisfied with the practical and financial results of this, our first full year on the farm: the peaches were gratifying, the apples did better than we had hoped (despite significant Coddling Moth pressure and dire predictions of the demise of apples in the North Fork), the tomatoes and greens were a tasty surprise, and the wine is shaping up to be quite quaffable. We are excited by our plans to improve on this year’s experience: better horticultural practices for higher quality fruit, more garden produce to broaden our selection at farm markets, an improved intern experience to help meet our labor needs, and new record-keeping systems to improve our review and planning functions. - W
Improving our self-image, preparing for winter and beyond
At the end of October we resumed our herb and flower bed in front of Badger, picker unit #1. Several people worked on the dry rock retaining wall and by the end of November we'd not only finished the wall and planted 300+ bulbs but also painted Badger and primed the picker cabins (named American Dipper, Kestrel, Marmot and Heron). The exposed board is now safer from the elements until the weather warms up and the painters can continue, hopefully sooner than later. Wink replaced all seven doors so now the air leaks aren't 60mph! Another lingering project was the final honey harvest. We secured the hives for winter and left the bees two full deep supers for winter food – no casualties this time either! Other stuff we did in November: visit the Business Incubator in Grand Junction for an accounting class and consultation about producing value added products; buying and applying frost cover for the hoop house; budget and planning for next year; still messing with the GD well; and continuing search for our winter clothes. Thanksgiving was our impetus to clean up all the messes from construction and get equipment tucked away. When our guests arrived we looked positively leisure-laden! The last day of November began the first brown bag lunch of the season at Rogers Mesa Research Station, subject "Codling Moth (CM)." We are still debating where to take the farm in terms of apples and the worms who love them. Farmer-side words like "pressure" and "hammered" were used frequently. - M

Honey & Bees We didn't filter or pasturize the honey, in some jars a few bits of beeswax remain for the delicious chewiness of it. After we finished, we took the extractor back to the bees for cleaning. They did a great job of taking honey, wax and propolis back to the hive.

October musings

Unseasonal October rain and cold dampened fall colors, but not on this apricot tree. The orchards are harvested, wine's cooking, we dug a well and put up solar panels! We even talked about the farm on the Paonia's KVNF's monthly VOGA program! (Seeds for Thought, 10/13/06)

Late September on the farm.

Before we picked all the apples, the first snow of the season arrived Sept 22. We finished apple harvest before the rains arrived in October but weeks of autumn rain has resulted in delayed harvests throughout the valley.

During the summer, we hosted a wonderful group of interns and guests to our farm – we all learned so much! We visited and admired other North Fork farms and enterprises as well. We'd like to share our explorations in these photographs.

Our last batch of interns left for far away places. Andrea and Julia to Argentina, Amanda to NYC, Romana to Italy, Greg to New Mexico, Erik to Oregon, George back to finish school in Colorado Springs. They moved the farm forward this year in so many ways! We miss their tireless energy for tackling new projects and finishing the old ones.

We miss them but we know they are exploring new pastures and will brighten their surroundings just as they enlivened our farm.

Projects for the fall are: making soap, starting a quilt, a barn, and irrigation system. In other words, all things big and small that aren't driven by plants, bugs, or weather. - M

Sun

We like to think of our farm as a 36 acre solar collector. The trees and plants gather the sun’s rays and convert them to food and fiber. This season we are proud to have begun harvesting the sun in a new way and year round – photovoltaics or PV.

Brad Burritt Wink on the roof of Badger.

Our interns hand up the solar panels. In the waning days of September our friend Brad Burritt of Empowered Energy Systems took advantage of a few days' break in the rain to install 14 PV panels on the roof of our cabin, for a total potential output of 2,300 watts, and tie it into the electric grid.

Brad and Wink finishing the job.

Now when the sun shines our electric meter can be seen to be spinning backwards, taking kilowatt-hours off our monthly bill. See Wink’s article on the Zero Energy Home for further discussion on this topic. This is a big financial investment for us and a big step toward our goal of zeroing-out our net climate change emissions. We are motivated by our commitment to the environment leg of sustainability and by the satisfaction of helping to create a little more hope for our children's future. There is, in addition, a more personal satisfaction for Max and Wink. Back in 2004 we worked on the campaign for adoption of Colorado’s citizen-initiated Renewable Energy Standard. Our installation helps meet the State's goals and we qualified to sell our Renewable Energy Credits to the utility which improves the financial payback for us.

There is still plenty of room for us to reduce our electricity demand by improved insulation, new windows and doors, efficient appliances (our new refrigerator and freezers are Energy Star rated), and replacing light bulbs (and remembering to turn them off). - W

Water

Our farm is on the edge of the desert. Rogers Mesa was desert until the farmers diverted the rivers and creeks a hundred years ago to provide drinking water and to irrigate their crops. Water for any purpose is a scarce commodity here. We don't even qualify to apply for the lottery for the opportunity to purchase one of the very few water taps that occasionally becomes available. Therefore we need to provide our own water source for the home we hope to build. Many people here haul water in tanks on their pickups from a public tap in town – not a very sustainable solution.

Wildcat Drillers, Billy and Brian set up to hit water. "Where? How about here?" We chose to drill a well – a chancy and expensive proposition in its own right. The good news is we hit water. The bad news is it is a marginal flow rate and not much water storage in the well casing. Our solution is to install a low volume pump powered by a DC solar panel which won’t exceed the recharge rate of the well.

Positioning equipment.

More set up.

Drilling begins

The pump will fill a cistern whenever the sun shines and will produce more than 500 gallons on an average sunny day. The 1700 gallon tank and mechanicals will be enclosed in a well house which Wink had better get busy building.

The marginal production from the well will be a continual reminder that "water is life" and must be stewarded whether is comes out of the ground or a municipal water system.

The most interesting thing about our water well is that it breathes. When I noticed air rushing out, I taped a trash bag over the well stem and it immediately inflated. This kept up for a few days so we thought maybe we hit a gas pocket. Then the weather turned cold and the bag was sucked down into the well and plastered firmly to the sides. On warm sunny days it breathes out and on cold cloudy days it breathes in.

We don't know yet whether the well's responding to air temperature or barometric pressure or some other differential. All we know at this point is that people find it "interesting" and are willing to float any number of theories about the cause (some plausible, some far-fetched). Nobody we’ve talked to has ever actually seen this phenomenon before. Lucky us… - W

NOTE: One of our friends sent us this link: the Canadian Ground Water Association has investigated "suckers and blowers" because they have resulted in deaths. At the foot of that article is a pdf report with diagrams.

Our farm stay project is launched!

August, September, and October we hosted four families for visits of three to ten days. They came to the farm with various intentions: reviving a hands-on relationship with fresh healthy food – conveying to their children a taste of farm experiences the parents had gleaned during summer vacations on their grandparents' farm – deepening the father-daughter bond as the latter prepared to leave home for college.

Judging from their enthusiastic entries in our guest book they found this and much more. After observing our prodigious population of Mantises and pondering our discourses on beneficial insects and the value of a balanced agri-ecology, one 12 year old resolved to become an entomologist. Our prospective Dartmouth freshman was proud to provide invaluable Spanish-English-Spanish translations in the orchard as she picked peaches alongside Mexican laborers.

All our guests worked hard, got their clothes dirty, ate and laughed well, and slept the sleep of those who have done a physical, honest, and rewarding day's toil.

We are pleased to offer these opportunities and to share this learning place with folks who are eager to experience our version of small-scale, organic, sustainable family farming. The cross-pollination of ideas goes both ways: we gain as much from our guests' enthusiasm for what we are doing as we offer in opportunities for growth and understanding. - W

Harvest report (see vegetables for greenhouse report)

Peaches: We sold our peaches retail, wholesale, and outright to the local organic packing shed. We also canned, froze and ate peaches in salsas, jellies, and ice cream.	Wild plums: Right after peaches, the wild plum called – beautiful sweet sour with a BIG pit. After canning a dozen jars, jam pronounced a "bitter" failure. Max will try different technique next year.
Farmers market : We attended a couple of Paonia farmers market including Mountain Harvest Festival because we had extra help to man a stand.	Apples: After the Galas were taken to the shed by Labor Day, we had a month of apple respite, then picked Golden Delicious and Winter Bananas, the majority going to Big Bs for cider. More>>
Pinots: The day after we picked it snowed. We combined the pinot noir and pinot gris (crushed and pressed, no skins) to make a Blonde Pinot. More>>	Honey: The bees were ready to share honey at the beginning of October, then the rains came and 3 weeks later we still haven't finished extracting "rent."

In August, Erik had the two day job of sawing out tent caterpillars from the apple orchard and burning them.

Our first Agritourists arrive!

In late July we cleaned up the joint, filled in the giant hole in the courtyard and removed the caution tapes – proving that it's always good to have special guests! The Elder family from Colorado Springs helped us rediscover our farm and work.

We were lucky enough to have two other special guests at the same time. One Gus Brett, who is a fabulous original musician and primo chef who cooked us several very special meals. And our sometimes-resident Doctor of Philosophy, Robert Hill, who alternated handweeding of the new vineyard with flyfishing – good opportunities for deep philosophizing.

If the birds hadn't been rather noisy, we'd never have discovered their nest in the heart of this old apple tree.

July

We are busy in the orchard and vineyard and the tasks are bearing fruit however. (Sorry!)

One of the joys of working in an organic orchard, possibly more so than conventional, is the birds and insects we encounter. In one of the old golden delicious apple trees, a cavity in the center of the trunk provides the perfect nesting place for a family of flickers.

Wink's been concerned about irrigation water — will we have enough to insure a successful harvest? Will there be enough late water to put the trees and vines "to bed" for the winter? That would help prevent winter freeze damage. So he's scoured the neighborhood to lease additional water and would like to buy a few more shares eventually. This year's water is "normal", that is about 70% of the full measure. Asian dust settled on the snowpack this year causing early melt and runoff but the ditch prez claims the reservoirs will go the distance. - M

June

Theories are mixed on "weeds" - even when it's agreed which are the bad ones, cheat, quack grass and bindweed for example. Is it better to leave habitat for the bugs instead of driving them up into the trees with mowing?

We mowed the orchard (we bought an offset mower!) to keep grasses under control, and make it possible for soil amendments to reach the ground. As I was clearing the tall grasses around the smaller trees to cut down the competition, a large bird flew out from under my feet – there was a nest with 13 perfect buff-colored eggs!

I left the grass for cover, and the hen pheasant has since returned. She insists she is invisible even when Wink mowed so close he swore the mower touched her. She has nerves of steel. Even when we stare through the grass from several feet away, we know she's there and we can't see her.

We've been watching to make sure she doesn't abandon the eggs, otherwise we'd become foster parents. Yesterday we saw 3 bitty striped baby pheasants motionless beside the mama. Soon they'll leave this nesting site. - M

May

Congratulations! Wink's daughter, Andrea (aka Anno) receives diploma from Colorado College prez Dick Celeste. He gets dollar bills from graduating seniors in return for AppreCCiate scholarship fund.

Congratulations, Melissa! Melissa Morris, one of our interns, interviewed local women farmers for her Senior Thesis, Colorado Organic Women Farmers and Feminism: How They See Themselves and Their Work (pdf). "Abstract: According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of farms operated by women has more than doubled since 1978 (Moskin 2005, 1). The 2002 Census of Agriculture found the number of women who were principal operators of farms increased 12.62 percent from 1997 figures, and the Organic Farming Research Foundation reports that 22% of organic farms are operated by women. To understand why women are increasingly attracted to organic farming, I conducted a qualitative study on the ideologies influencing women’s choice to farm organically...."

Congratulations! To all the farm CC interns who graduated this year — Aiden, Amanda, Becca, Erik and Kristin — we've enjoyed your help during weekends and block breaks and look forward to your visits later in the summer when you can taste the fruits of your labor! May the transition from student to Experienced, Wise, Practical Wage Earner be an easy one!

Neighboring Mennonite farmers came through on horseback the other day looking for stray calves. When they couldn't locate the runaways, they resorted to overhead surveillance. We were amazed and pleased they had such resources at hand! I hope they found their livestock.

Temperatures have been record breaking, no rains, soils are broiling. Sometimes we all need a break.

April

April was the busiest month yet. To quote neighboring farmers it's "spraying season", "busy as harvest", and finally "I'm tired!"

Helpers continue to show up at the best times. Chris and Becca did a lot of the work on the new hoop house. The last weekend of April, Maggie, Derek and Paula worked tirelessly pruning the pinot noir vineyard. We took a breather for Maggie's birthday.

Our bees traveled from California to Colorado Springs. Here they share tight car space with Monty to make the last leg of their journey to Hotchkiss.

Last week (4/24) we installed four bee hives below the hoop house. The conflictual angle of farming became perfectly clear when our vulnerable hives were attacked by invaders! The queens had not yet been freed from their matchbox sized cages and the bees were stressed by moving thousands of miles — it was a rude welcome when the neighbors tried to steal their food and kill their sisters!

A quick check on the internet led to an emergency fix of a few minutes — reduce the size of the entrance so the bees have less space to guard and hope for the best. Later we were able to reach live beekeepers who said we'd done the right thing.

The southernmost hive was fairly decimated by robbers, or so it seems to us, and it remains a mystery why our hives were invaded in the first place. Plenty of flowering fruit trees in the neighborhood provide nectar and pollen! We'll soon check to see if the bees are making comb and the queens are laying eggs.

NOTE: We combined the southernmost hive with another hive, putting newspaper between their boxes at first so they would become used to each other. That decimated hive had a weak queen who laid mostly drone cells. We hope the best queen won – there's never room for more than one.

Melissa chopping wood.

We pruned the peaches, sprayed for mildew, sprayed lime sulfur to thin the apples, picked up dormant grapevines from Grand Junction and buried them again, constructed a 26'x48' greenhouse, began vegetable starts, moved remaining stuff from previous home in Colorado Springs, installed bees, and barely kept up with the learning curve.

Bees are pollenating the fruit trees which buzz continually with our bees as well as those which have been temporarily stationed in neighboring cherry orchards.

Fortunately we had help from willing college students who are eager to participate in organic farming. This has been a fantastic, immeasurable boost towards a successful harvest — we hope to see them again!

NOTE: The soil tests came back and our amendments are here waiting for application — compost, organic fertilizer and sulfur. Plus we have a start towards next year's compost with chicken manure. - M

March 23, Wink's Rock Festival

More signs of spring, cattle moooving to greener pastures with the help of all family members. They're heading down mainstreet Hotchkiss, aka highway 92. SEE HOTCHKISS PANORAMIC PHOTOS

Reflections while prying-loose big rocks and watching birds. It came to me this afternoon that I'm enacting a ritual that has been performed by farmers for millennia when bringing a new field into cultivation: that of clearing the rocks, and in many cases timber, to make space for the crops. It seems a particularly apt way to get in touch with the soil (so to speak).

I notice that this soil is deep, rich, and red in color; very soft before the tractor packs it; looks like at least 2' to the caliche in most places — which isn't particularly pronounced. There are lots of large earthworms. This block was last planted to Rome apples which were removed about 3 years ago. The stumps were bulldozed and the soil was deeply ripped in the conventional manner — which we have questioned. But this example seems to have resulted in beautiful soil. The ripping has brought up an immense quantity of rocks both big and small. These will be hard on the equipment and the eventual veggies. They have to go and the time is now.

It is rewarding physical work. Except that it is also a particularly downward-directed activity. On a Colorado day such as we are blessed with this week, it is always also rewarding to occasionally take a break and raise one's eyes. I was watching a pair of Kestrels, for instance, perched on the blade of the wind machine and intermittently diving after unseen (to me) prey. Then, one rewarded me by gliding over to the Kestrel house in the Galas and hangin out at the entrance in a most proprietary manner. I trust they have taken up residence.

And two days ago, a familiar raspy croak drew my eyes into the morning sky to see a flight of maybe a hundred Sand Hill Cranes heading westward. They were a couple of days late for the annual Crane Festival at Fruitgrowers Reservoir in Eckert (as were we). We are awakened these mornings this equinox week by the joyous songs of Meadowlarks and Robins. Pheasants, Canada Geese, ducks, and Bald Eagle sightings have all become commonplace as the seasons turn, the birds return, and we turn-to the tasks which have been awaiting dry weather.

The forecast is for continued warm, dry weather so, with the rocks pulled, we will till the greenhouse plot and adjacent garden space this weekend. Max is starting starts indoors for transplanting. The growing season is under way. - W

The technique's been perfected, tractor pulls apart pile for easier chainsaw access!
See roots heaved! dialup video | broadband video

Wink's Brush Removal Company

I sometimes think I sound disturbingly like my grandmother Winship: full of platitudes and aphorisms about “pride goeth”, “stitches in time” and the virtues of perseverance, patience, and the learning curve. This work has ample opportunities for such reflection. When we first cast our gaze on the Lower 12 acres as the site for the next grape planting (coming up in May/June) we were confronted by the need to remove four enormous piles of tree carcasses. Some folks said to burn them in place, others said this would sterilize the soil, others opined that the ashes would be good for the grapes. Our friend Eames advice resonated: “I see firewood as money in the bank.” Other friends, the Hansons, were eager to burn the stumps in their large, high-efficiency fireplace. With this encouragement we resolved to put this resource to good use and to save the air from open burning. An efficient, clean-burning fireplace became part of our dreamed-of new house.

Gala apples have been pruned and prunings windrowed in readiness for tractor brush raking.

We needed to disassemble these piles which had been haphazardly placed by the bulldozer that “pushed” the trees. Disassembly is an adult version of pick-up sticks in which the stumps and limbs are entwined. Where to begin? After the first pile had disappeared I added up the hours spent and wondered whether we'd be able to finish the task by spring.

With the help of the Hanson family and Eames Petersen, the second pile went faster. Saw chains suffered in the dirt that suffused the piles. The tractor was invaluable in extricating several trees at a time. We stopped making firewood and started making-the-makings of firewood. The Hansons' dump trailer greatly facilitated moving the high-graded piles to better storage locations. Even Monty helped by terrorizing the mice that scampered from their destroyed condos.

Before the end of February four piles have been moved. We are one-third finished and complete for this year. The next brush challenge is the apple prunings which are strewn haphazardly throughout the orchard and are particularly heavy this year since the trees were scantly pruned last year. Again, the conventional approach is to pile and burn. We value our air quality and the ideal of closed resource loops and have thus decided to chip this biomass for compost with a rented chipper. This will also be an opportunity to chip the small branches from the carcass piles. We'll let you know how this turns out in a future update.

Gathering the prunings begins with forking and raking them into windrows in the lanes. This is yet another of those tasks that seems immense before you begin, which provides ample opportunity to ponder the full meaning of grandmother's wisdom, and which turns out to be not as bad as it seemed in the imagination.

Next comes cutting-back 220 Red Delicious trees in preparation for grafting next spring. Oh, yes, and doing '05 taxes. Remind me of my philosophical optimism the end of next week… - W

Winter has arrived

January 2006

We attended the mid-January Horticulture Convention in Grand Junction recently. The amount of info was incredible! The obstacles in fresh food production daunting! Speakers offered solutions, encouragement, and humor to cheer on the intrepid farmers.

Here comes a news article from the BBC: Mental health link to diet change which states "the way food was now produced had altered the balance of key nutrients people consume." and "...unless there is a radical overhaul of food and farming policies there won't be healthy and nutritious foods available in the future for people to eat." - M

Season updates 2005

December 21 — Solstice Sunrise

EA Ranch cabins in Dubois, WY where we picked up the tractor

December 17

Snow blower, bucket, blade and Kubota 24 horse tractor

Winter on the farm. Truly, it is here. Long nights, low temps commonly in the single digits, a skiff of snow. All fall Max has been looking forward this time: extolling the virtues of hibernation, of enforced inactivity, of long evenings to read by the wood stove, a chance to catch up on patching and sewing and learning the many functions of her new Singer. Oh, yes, and to develop and maintain our Green Colorado website. Inactivity, she said. Well… maybe soon…but first… We'd better get on with this hibernating thing if we're serious about it. The solstice is but a few days away. The days will be getting longer and it's almost time to start pruning the apples.

Inside main house at EA Ranch

But FIRST, inasmuch as there's finally some wiggle room in the calendar, we've gotta go get that tractor in Dubois, WY! Just a quick up-and-back. It's just as well that we didn't hit the road on Monday, as initially planned, because we awoke to 2” on new snow. So I had a chance to get the studded tires on the truck and Max to get ahead on clients' web sites. Tuesday was a perfect day for traveling through the Rockies and there was evidence a-plenty of the challenges that yesterday's travelers faced. After over-loading both the trailer and the Toyota with assorted metal we made it home again in a 13-hour drive-a-thon. 1,200 miles round trip in 2 days, mostly at 50 mph.

I got a taste of hibernation Friday night collapsing after dinner and a backrub from Max. Now we're back to those few tasks and projects that stand between us and the chimera of deep winter relaxation. Including the ever-present firewood gathering. - W

December 14-15

Gift from the past! — Once upon a time Wink had a tractor and loaned it to one friend for a decade, then another friend in Wyoming for a decade. Peak moment: Traveling north to south while crossing the continental divide with full moon rising in the east and fiery sunset in the west - perfect crossroad of earth and sky, humans and machines! - M

What does this icy canal look like in the summer? Luckily we took a picture (click).

December 12

Last week Wink went for his first backcountry ski day.

We are debating the pros and cons of keeping the apple orchard. After talking to the pruning horticulturist at Orchard Mesa Research Station, we realize the best goal out there at present is not to lose money! We still have to talk to the local farmers near us who have apples to get more information. If we take the apples out then we don't want to spend money pruning in January.

We spent this weekend "wine"ing around — Saturday as guests os the monthly local wine club up the road at Yvon and Joanna's B & B, Sunday at Eames Petersen's winery for a barrel tasting. I couldn't believe the finery at Eames' winery! Decking the halls would be an understatement. We discovered a couple of great cheesemakers as well. We are constantly amazed at the quality and variety of local ag and food products. - M

November 30

The first snow got us going for this early morning walk with Monty (the dog) and camera. Fire Mountain Canal was partially frozen. We couldn't see the mountains. The usual laz-abed attitude dissolved in the semi-light of magical transformation and desire to be part of it! - M

November 29. Tuesday.

The weather still cloudy and cold, Max and I stayed indoors again this morning catching up on desk work. By afternoon, I had to get outside or go stir crazy. So, I spent a couple of hours picking rocks, stumps, and limbs in the lower acres in preparation for spring planting. - W

November 28, 2005

Monday. Ice covers Fire Mtn Canal this morning. Yesterday Monty and I spooked up 8 mallards that were taking refuge from hunting season in the open water of the ditch. Eerily quiet today, the water slipping soundlessly beneath the thin, reticulated surface of the ice. No ducks could find sanctuary this morning. Nothing seems to be stirring. The trees' bare limbs emphasize the winter sleep of the orchard.

A hint of wood smoke is carried down-slope to me on the breeze. The fire is coming alive in the cabin. I had stirred the ashes and thrown on some kindling before leaving the cabin.

This morning's sun is obscured behind the clouds of last night's storm lingering over Lamborne Peak and the West Elks. We were told to expect a foot of snow but didn't receive even a dusting. The avalanche report says the real dump was to the north, around Steamboat, up to 24".

We're just back from Thanksgiving in Colorado Springs, with dinner at the Finca, and happy to be home. And safe. It was a white knuckle drive most of the way from Denver on I-70: Eisenhower Tunnel eastbound was closed; Vail pass closed behind us due to low visibility and a TV-camera-crew-jam; black ice in the shadows in Glenwood Canyon and up the Crystal River canyon; McClure pass so slick that it seemed we would slide all the way to the bottom if we got stopped. - W

November 16, 2005

We completed the reinstallation of our wood stove just in time as the storm roared in and darkness fell last Monday night. I stoked our first cozy fire as wind driven rain pounded the west side windows. By morning the storm had moved along leaving the West Elk and Ragged ranges freshly white and, at the farm, our first hard frost. Tonight promises a third night in a row with the mercury around 20, the ground is beginning to freeze, the mountains are bright in alpenglow, and we are busily winterizing Badger cabin, equipment, and irrigation lines – hope we've remembered everything.

This was the second wind storm in about a week and the leaves are off the trees. - W

October 2005

In October we turned our attention to the picker cabins after mowing weeds, burning dotter, and turning off the irrigation water. We knew it wouldn't be long before our friends stopped in, and we wanted to be prepared. Plumbing, electrical, paint, and repairs have taken up a month or more. See October rehab pix >>