Connie in Ouray

 Just one day, one day I'd like it to be all good news, but we're not there yet.  Bad news:  as of today, Monday, July 6, just under 28,000 acres burned.  Good news:  3% containment!  Yay, containment.  Bad news:  expected full containment date is 10/31/26, which coincides with a high probability of measurable snowfall in the high country.   Good news:  the winds have finally calmed down, which allowed the 800+ firefighters to get that 3% containment.  The bad news:  no winds means the smoke has settled in Ouray, and it's awful.  My house is shut up, no windows or doors open, and I'm wearing a mask.   Some photos from the last time I posted: Looking southwest from Sutton Trail Saturday Thursday night concert in Ridgway. Life must go on? From Ridgway, these just keep popping up Intersection of CR-23 and 550, looking east

18,000 acres burned, zero containment, no lives nor structures lost. A southern portion of Montrose County is now on pre-evacuation notice as the fire continues to move northeast.  Zone 34 is directly east of Colona, pretty far away, and includes Cimarron State Wildlife Area, which is about 23 miles east of Montrose off of Highway 50. As I write this, I'm hearing planes in the air.  Yay!!  As of noon today, we are under a red flag warning for gusty winds until eight p.m.  We cannot catch a break.  Good news:  rain in the forecast for next week.  Bad news:  accompanied by thunderstorms, which means...you can guess, lightning. From Sutton Mine Trail yesterday:

 It's been a hard day as I've come to the realization that some wonderful hiking trails are gone.  I'm thrilled that no lives nor structures have been lost.  I'm less than thrilled with my anxiety level every time I see a whiff of smoke.  Maybe PTSD from the 2012, 2013 forest fires in Colorado Springs. Some photos from today: my panic tonight - this view from Camp Bird Road appeared to be a new flare-up Looking north, a clear delineation between clear sky and smoke from us all the way  to Grand Junction Leaving Montrose, all that smoke was my first  clear realization those hiking trails were gone Firefighters are heroes!  Can you imagine climbing this to get to the hotspot with all that equipment?  Picture is at Whispering Pines Bridge

  from our deck Helicopter!!

 I'm posting everything I know through email posts.

 I have never really suffered from seasonal allergies, but this year is biting me.  Grass pollen is high, trees moderate, so I think the grass must be getting to me.  My doctor advised me to throw everything at it, Claritin, Flonase, Astepro, and I'm keeping the house closed up.  The wind is not helping a bit. Bear activity in the neighborhood seems to be on the rise.  We had two or three of them wandering around our house the other night, and I chalked that up to the outdoor meat grilling we had done.  Aaron and Marchelle have had two bear encounters at their house, both scary.  Bear aware. And we all know know the water issues we're facing on Mineral Farms Lane.  So many have been involved in trying to solve this issue without costing us three quarters of a million dollars, but our options are few.   Mike has been spreading pheromone packets around town with the help of the Ouray Trail Group.  Supposedly, when the pine beetles are...

 I've had a cold the past 10 days, but I finally got out Saturday, and town was jammed with people.  I know, I know, it's Memorial Day weekend, but I'm not prepared for tourists yet.  We want them, but they are so.much.trouble! Mike and I hiked up to the overlook early afternoon.  I'm trying to build my endurance after that cold - it seems to get harder as I get older - and the wildflowers are blooming.  We saw aspen daisies, sedum, larkspur, ragwort and sandwort, pussy toes.  The pasqueflowers are all spent.  There are a lot of dandelions, which my dad called "the children's flower."  Since then, I haven't been able to look at them any other way.

 Two inches of accumulation this morning brings us to a whopping 94 inches for the season.   We have had our two hummingbird feeders out for the past three weeks or so, and Mike is having to refill the feeders almost daily.  We've seen about seven at one time.   Marchelle sent me a picture of a bear above the movie set mine a few days ago.  She said it was medium size, but it looked huge to me.  That could be because Sequoia and Mango were with here.  Bear aware - tis the season!

I'm in Colorado Springs, taking a flight to Syracuse, New York tomorrow.  For some reason, flying out of Montrose was prohibitive, $1300 round trip and arrival in Syrace at 11:30 at night.  Something weird going on there. I did want to report that we got 4.5 inches of snow Wednesday morning.  It was a nasty drive to Ridgway at 10 a.m., but the roads, except the turn from Camp Bird Road to Mineral Farms, were clear.  That turn was pretty dicey for me as we took the snow tires off a month ago.  We are now up to a whopping 92 inches!  Mike was asking if this was the latest measurable snow I've recorded since we moved to Ouray five and a half years ago, and not even close.  The latest was in 2022, when we got 2.5 inches of snow on May 21st.   The possible Super El Nino is still on track to happen, and it appears to be getting even stronger.  Time will tell.

Our very special boy Dempsey died last Wednesday.  We had been noticing a rapid decline these past few months, but the end was still such a shock.  He just...died.  He was 13 and a half, 94 in human years, a good old age for a big dog and a wonderful life with us for 10 years.   We are both grieving so hard. Dempsey at the overlook two weeks ago

 Well, isn't this the most interesting spring, hard freeze over the weekend, a couple of inches of snow - a whopping 86 inches of snow for the season.   I've now gone through a lot of fish food, and there are some really big fish in the pond.  It should be a fun fishing summer for the neighborhood.

 It's possible we'll get this lovely weather pattern starting in the fall.  According to what I've read, the Pacific Ocean is expected to have temperatures 2.4-2.6 degrees above normal, which puts it in the range of a Super El Nino.  This would mean higher than average precipitation for the southwest quadrant of the state - US!  Keep your fingers crossed. Mike and I hiked up to the overlook over the weekend, and the pasqueflowers are out, as are the itty-bitty yellow flowers.  The cactus is greening up, too.  It was muddy on the trail, and there were patches of snow, but no signs of bears yet.

 We had the loveliest day of rain on Wednesday, all day, slow, soaking rain, and then we've gotten three inches of snow over the last two nights.  Additionally, we had a hard freeze last night and another is forecast for tonight.  My little flowers aren't happy, but I'm ecstatic for the moisture. spiked squill before the storm the Ampitheater post-storm

 The snow is all but gone, and the pond is fully without ice.  I've started feeding the fish, and I'm fairly certain we are not going to have to buy fish for the upcoming season.  There are so many fish!  It's too warm, and it's too dry, and I'm too sad about all of it.

 Sadly, the last dump of snow, which put us at 60% of our normal, is mostly gone, and the mud is here...again.  Since most of MFL is dry, Pothole Mike is filling up drainage areas and potholes with gravel he finds.  He has also been filling potholes on Camp Bird Road, because he can.  He is obsessed with potholes.  Seriously obsessed. I think most of you know a ton of work is being done on figuring out our water system.   In the meantime, I recommend having water jugs in storage just in case. Mike and I were up at Ironton on Tuesday, and it is done for unless we get a huge snowfall. When I get back from Las Vegas on the 23rd, it will be time to feed the fish.  

 It's been two weeks since we had any snow, and boom, nine inches Thursday night into Friday.  The forecast now shows no precipitation for the foreseeable future.  We have experienced our fifth mud season on Mineral Farms Lane.  Total snow for the year:  78.5 inches, about four feet below average.

 It has been the oddest winter.  For example, from February 13 through the 20th, we received 17.5 inches of snow, and now there is nothing in the forecast except rain for the next few weeks.  It has been like this since early January - big dumps of snow then nothing.  I think we just started our 5th mud season.   Mike and I went to Ironton yesterday to cross-country ski - Mike - and snowshoe - me and Dempsey.  It was in the 20s, clear blue sky, and great snow conditions because of the cold.  The views never get old. One of the Red Mountains in the background If you have the opportunity, there is a fabulous article in this week's Ouray Plain dealer about the rescue/recovery effort last summer on Red Mountain Pass, where two people were killed and a girl was brought up and airlifted to Denver.  She lived.  The article is titled, "Helping the helpers:  The anatomy of a complex rescue."  Highly recommend. I snowshoed up our trail l...

 I think most of you know about the tragedy Thursday night when Marchelle and Aaron's two-year-old pup Red drowned in the upper pond.  There are no words. We are under a winter storm warning through Thursday early morning.  Telluride is looking at a foot of new snow, and we're somewhere in the mix.  Totals keep changing.  That said, with our latest three day total of nine inches, we now have 61 inches for the season.  I went up snowshoeing Saturday and today, and it's the usual gorgeousness. from our living room after the storm passed heavy, moisture-laden snow

 The original forecast looked good, seven to 12 at Telluride, which is always good for us on MFL.  However, the La Nina is still strong, and the storm is going to be significantly north of us. Mike and I snowshoed at Ironton this morning.  The snow for cross-country skiing is getting pretty bad.  I've been hiking on the Brooklyn Trail but never able to finish the loop, because there wasn't a snow trail to follow.  Today there was, and we were able to make the complete loop.  It is so gorgeous up there, and no one was about.  Dempsey, at age 13 and four months, loves going snowshoeing with me, and to have Mike with us today was icing on his cake. I'm planning to go up Veenstras' trail on Sunday.  I'll go in boots, and I'm hoping to hike some of the Sutton Mine Trail while I'm up there.   The top of Brooklyn Trail at Ironton

 It appears it's going to be one of those winters where we get a big dump of snow and then wait three weeks for another one, with no snow in between.  It's so odd.  I'm taking advantage of what snow we still have, and I've been up the trail and at Ironton several times.  The snow is starting to wear thin in spots, so much so that I actually just walked up the trail this morning. Mike checked the pond drainage yesterday, and there is none coming from under the spillway.  That is good news in that Bumper, who suggested the possibility of injecting something into the spot we think the leak is coming from, will have pretty good access once the pond starts to thaw. In the meantime, some trail photos - just too beautiful for words! heading home our little town I usually come up the trail on the left and eventually go down the trail on the right