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Lots of news

 There is a wildfire burning up Red Mountain Pass near the avalanche shed.  The highway is closed from Ouray to Ironton Park.  Not that I'm particularly worried about this fire, but it looks like it's going to be a long, hot summer, perfect for wildfires.  Mike and I are accumulating in one spot items we need to take on a moment's notice, important papers, meds, food for Dempsey, anything that is irreplaceable.   Scary stuff but the price we pay for living in paradise. Mineral Farms Lane has been graded and gravel spread.  There is more to come on the upper part of the road, but for now, it's so much more driveable.  Mike, the pothole man, is happy. Camp Bird Road is open past Engineer Pass, but last I heard, it is not open on the Telluride side.  That could have changed in the last few days. I got out our plat map the other day, because I'd forgotten the names of our two ponds.  The upper pond is Miser's Dream Lake, and the lower is Mis...
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Almost summer

 After last week's rainy days, we're now into full sunshine and warm temperatures.  Everything is fully leafed out, and wildflowers are blooming.  Unfortunately, deer have eaten my blooming and almost blooming columbines, so I'm not a happy camper.  This is our fifth summer on MFL and the first time this has happened.  I hate the thought of putting up fencing around my wildflowers, but I'm going to miss those columbines so much.   And speaking of wild, we have a new neighborhood pine marten, and he/she is making a mess of the dumpster.  Dustin got the surprise of his life last week when he opened it up and the little bugger jumped out at him.  Steve has taped shut the drainage hole on the dumpster so the monster can't drag trash out and leave it for the bears.  He/she is impossibly cute but research says they are mean. Town is hopping, and I don't know if most of you know that there is very short-term parking behind the post office, acce...
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June!

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 Time flies fast when you're having fun.  I'm back from the Jersey Shore, where spending time with my sibs and assorted others is a lot for this introvert.  Laughter and self-deprecation are the default for my sibs and me, making it so much fun. Mike and I have been algae hunting in the lower pond.  We weren't able to finish up last fall because of my impending foot surgery, so we started last week.  I think we have it all, but we'll stay on top of whatever shows up. The flowers are blooming, along with what my father called "the children's flower," dandelions.  It's a different way of looking at what we think of as weeds.  Mike and I were up the trail on Thursday, and the pasqueflowers have bloomed and are now replaced with yellow, purple, and white flowers.   Barb and I went up today - she's trying to get her mountain legs under her - and even more are blooming. Oh, and a bear!                ...
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Snow and sun

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Sunday night, we got an inch of snow, bringing our season total to 138.5 inches, and it was well below freezing two nights in a row - flowers in!  Looking back, this isn't the latest we've had measurable snow.  May 21, 2022, we had 2.5 inches of snow.  I'm so happy I've kept track the past four winter seasons.   Camp Bird Road is being worked on hard this week, with flaggers and machines, lots of gravel, potholes gone, the area of damage repaired.  I don't know how long they'll be on the road, but I am grateful for all the repairs.  It was getting bad! I found out just today that there was a bear attack in Ouray last Friday night into Saturday.  A woman was walking home behind the Beaumont when she came across a bear with three cubs.  She survived after screaming for help but had to be taken to the hospital in Montrose.  Mike claims there are more bear problems in town that up here in Mineral Farms. The pond is filling up nicely, but we ...
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More spring news

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Ouray County is finally starting work on Camp Bird Road.  They have a lot of equipment in place to do both repairs and maintenance.  They've done the section from the water tower down to the Ice Park and put down a layer of mag chloride.  The damaged section is still blocked, and although Mike says they're not working today, the equipment is still there.  I suppose they'll start again next week. We had some corn snow the other night, and it got below freezing later that night.  The forecast calls for more freezes Sunday night and Monday night.   H eadline in today's Ouray Plaindealer,  "Skimpy snowpack slipping away."  It's looking like a tough summer for wildfires in the southeast section of the state. Mike and I went to Box Canon Falls earlier this week.  I like to go in the spring when the runoff is high, and it did not disappoint.  The power of that waterfall is something else. Looking up at the Perimeter Trail bridge
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Spring news

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 We have two geese making their home on the upper pond, and as a result, there is a lot of goose poop on the dam road.  It seems a small price to pay for such interesting visitors.  The number of crawdad carcasses seems to be diminishing, but maybe the live ones have just gone deeper.  There have been no dead fish seen - yay! After much work on the spillway, the leak continues.   Maybe someone visiting this summer will be able to figure it out.  In the meantime, Mike thought he had spotted some algae on the spring stream feeding into the pond, so we went to scoop it out.  Turns out it's mostly grass, and we scooped out as much as we could.  The stream otherwise looks healthy. Mike and I hiked the Perimeter Trail from the Visitors Center to Cascade Falls last week, and it's completely clear of snow.  The Ouray Trail Group had done a lot of work on that section earlier in April, and even though Mike talked me through what they had done, I ...
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On Veenstras' trail

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Mike and I walked up the trail this morning.  This is when I miss Mirabella the most.  She would have been lying in the few patches of snow around, frolicking and splashing in the swampy area, and going off on adventures only she understood.  She was definitely the ringleader as Dempsey goes with us, but he doesn't go far from the trail.   New snow on Abram The wildflowers are starting to bloom all the way up to the overlook.   buttercup field of pasqueflowers pasqueflower  mountain pennycress I got a video from Barb today.  It's from their webcam at their house here, and it shows two big bears meandering across their front yard.  Aaron reports he's only seeing foxes on their webcam.  We saw no evidence of bears on the trail, but the voles are building underground cities.
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