Sunday Afternoon Photo Album

Snapshot:
In a trick of light and color, the deep green of the pines covering the mountainside contrasting with the shining white of the billowing clouds shows up the irregular patch of sky between them in the deepest possible shade of blue, almost the color of new blue jeans.

Snapshot:
Sitting at the picnic table with her brothers and sisters, Michelle is smiling, looking out the corner of her eye at Jon who is teasing her. A tendril of her brown hair is curled around the stem of the red flower she has tucked behind her ear.

Snapshot:
The soft green grass beneath the aspen grove near us is knee deep and sprinkled with sweet smelling yellow wild flowers. Catherine wears a crown made of them on her head and the dappled sunshine under the trees picks out the bright yellow against her blonde hair as she darts in and out among the trees gathering a boquet for the table.

Snapshot:
Aunt Donna and Aunt Nina laugh and chat with the little ones, helping make chicken salad sandwiches, passing out chips and cookies. They don't realize how the children flutter around them like moths around a flame. Love has a magnetic power.

Snapshot:
Dan and Dominic, heads down, are deep in conversation as they walk back from the dumpster after cleaning up the picnic. Dominic is taller than his Dad now; his blonde head inches just over Dan's. They walk an arm's length from each other, but glance often at one another as they talk -- my mother's heart sees the mutual respect and affection. They're probably talking about the Rockies.

Snapshot:
Dan is climbing the steep rocks of the wide main trail, our youngest child in the baby backpack on his back. He reaches back to grab hold of William's little sneakers and leans his head back to say something to him. William laughs and says something about being a chipmunk.

Snapshot:
Gabriel finds a beautifully straight little walking stick with a curved hand-hold, just his size; he hops and skips with it over the roots and stones in the way. At one bend in the trail, he points excitedly with his stick to a perfect letter "A" formed in the velvety green moss on the side of a boulder, then raises his walking stick above his head in victory. Woohoo! The letter "A"! If you are five years old you know this is the best find of the day!

Snapshot:
The low places of the rabbit trail we've meandered onto are springy with bright green moss and shaded dim by a thick grove of aspens. The trunks of fallen trees crisscross our path as we climb up onto the hillside toward the sunlight again. The sun-filtered path here is strewn with lichen-covered boulders and landscaped with thousands of wild strawberry plants that sparkle with little white flowers in the shade at our feet.

Snapshot:
Jon, who's been trail blazing at the front of the family, stops to hold up a sapling that is blocking the way. Every one of us stoops to pass underneath as Jon, tall and strong, plays pillar for us.

Snapshot:
Dominic points out the abundance of yellow flowers poking up through the grasses all around him as he explains the eye-spy game he's starting for the little ones. Each child has a certain colored flower he or she has to look for along the path. Nobody gets yellow to hunt because the woods are crowded with golden banner and yellow arnica.

Snapshot:
Anna's looking for blue flowers and is having a hard time finding anything pure blue (not purple) until she sees a lone bluebell hiding in the deep grass; Gabriel has found several of his white flowers as Queen Anne's lace and white yarrow are scattered about; Michelle has found some purple larkspur; and Cathy has had no trouble finding mushrooms -- at one point, we even stumble into a fairy ring!

Snapshot:
Anna lags behind, as she leans over a spray of white phlox to add to the little boquet she's collecting in her hand. We are close to a streamlet of the Roaring Fork river and a breeze rises from over the wildly tumbling water, brushing her bangs back from her forehead. I tell her she needs to hurry along; she can't pick every flower in the forest, and she looks up at me and smiles a sweet, smile. She knows she can't, of course.

Snapshot:
Using the tip of an old rusted hatchet she found at an abandoned campsite, Michelle stands on a boulder trying to carve something into a towering aspen along the trail. She looks so tall and slender, like a young aspen tree herself. She furrows her brow in concentration as she leans into the tree. We're ahead of her on the trail and can't see what she's carving.

Snapshot:
Six of my ten children tramp down the last leg of the trail to the campground where our car is parked. Walking sticks swishing and swinging in the brush and pounding the ground around them, they laugh and chatter. Anna picks one last flower for Mommy to put behind her ear as Gabe retrieves Lester, the stuffed monkey, that Mommy's been holding. Jon, who is taking a turn carrying William in the backpack trots a little too quickly down the hill; Dominic passes him up, running headlong, and Michelle hurries to catch up. My husband takes my hand and we stroll after them.

*I left my camera behind today and was really bummed about it at first. Dan said he thought he'd be a wealthy man if he could charge me a quarter for every time I said, "I wish I had my camera." But in retrospect, I think it was not such a bad thing not to have it. I used my eyes and employed my memory differently because I didn't have my camera. Still, next time we go hiking, I'm going to be sure I have it with me!

Ha! Found my camera!

Thank-you, St. Anthony! It was in the zipper pocket in the bottom of the baby backpack that we took with us hiking on Sunday.

I had to wait until I could download the camera to show you what we've been up to. It was definitely a "pictures-worth-a-thousand-words" kind of weekend.

We baked all day Saturday...

Remember these?

We turned them into these:

*Apple walnut bread (sugar-free and yummy!),

*Pumpkin bread

*Peaches and cream bread

*Apple pie

*Peach pie

*Baby pumpkin muffins

*Peaches frozen for cobbler later

Then, after Mass on Sunday, we stayed for the parish potluck (to which we brought some of our baked goods) and Catechism classes with the traveling Sisters.

While the Sisters were here, Catherine got to be tested for her first Holy Communion. And, guess what?! She will be receiving Our Lord for the first time on Christ the King Sunday at the end of the month! We're so excited! That was the hilight of the day, but we still had more fun to come.

After the potluck, we changed into play clothes, packed ourselves up, and brought ourselves and the rest of our baked goods up to the mountains to celebrate the season with some of our oldest and dearest friends at their annual fall outing. But, enough words; I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking!

On the Way

At the campsite at Chicago Forks

On the Trail

(This trail is called "Hell's Hole Trail"! Can you believe it? Talk about a misnomer!)

It was a lovely day!

Some pictures, etc...

I thought it'd be fun to just change out the header every couple of days with some of my more clear shots from the weekend. In the header, above, is a shot of the San Juans over Ridgway, Colorado. Isn't it breathtaking? (And doesn't that lack of an "e" in the middle of Ridgway drive you nuts?) Can you see how the high winds on the top of the mountain are blowing the snow up into a white fuzz? It's a gorgeous setting, any time of year here! Many movies have been filmed in Ridgway, including How the West Was Won and True Grit.

It's also a fabulous place for antique shopping. I found the best old book there on Monday! I'm going to have Michelle type it into the computer to share with you. It'll serve as typing lessons for her and I know you'll enjoy it! It's a 1904 edition of the children's manners book, Goop Tales by Gelett Burgess.

Below are some of the poorly focused shots I got, due mainly to the fact that I was driving the car while I took them... Don't worry, though; I was going about 4 miles an hour. After my weekend adventures, I was definitely driving prudently!

Below: Some mountain goats, taking a leisurely stroll down the highway on the way to Ouray.



Icicles coming off a redstone cliff on the side of the road. I wish I could have gotten a picture from further back, because they completely covered the wall of rock up about 25' or so.

Our Lady of the Snow.
Deer roam freely through the streets of Ouray. They are practically tame and so smart! They have figured out how to keep warm by standing close to the houses in town on very cold days.

These guys have uncovered a patch of grass from under the snow and are nibbling away.

...
My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.
...
I nicked six nicks on the door-post
With my penknife's big blade—
There was a little one for cutting tobacco,
And I was six Christmases of age.

My father played the melodeon,
My mother milked the cows,
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary's blouse.

From Patrick Kavanagh's poem, A Christmas Childhood. The whole poem is lovely, and can be read here. The photo was taken out our back door Sunday morning. The camera couldn't quite catch the sparkle in the branches...

Moving...

OK, so now we're really going... We're packing this week, and I'll be scarce on the computer because of that, um, "distraction." And then, a week from Monday we're loading the trucks and heading east, over the Rocky Mountains, back to the farm on the high prairie.

=sigh=

I've been saying goodbye to my beautiful valley for about two months now. We had the option of moving in September, but my husband, because he's a kind and thoughtful man and he knows his wife's heart, postponed the move for me to see the fall color in my valley.

Isn't he wonderful?

And we did get to see the aspen change in the mountains and hills that surround us here. We got to go through the corn maze up on the mesa behind us, and taste the fruit of the orchards around our town. We've had the pleasure of watching the yearly procession of deer that meander down from the hills in herds to fatten on the leavings of the farmers' fields before the winter cold draws them back in to the high country. They come early every morning and at dusk to check for fruit under our fruit trees, and follow the river south to the harvested fields of hay and alfalfa just beyond the town. Though we see them often, the deer are never commonplace to us.

While on a rosary drive last week, just as we rounded a slow corner up top of the mesa behind our house, a grand, three-point buck stepped out of some trees, walked majestically into the road right in front of us and stopped. He looked at us, as we slowed almost to a stop. Then, out of the woods, leapt one beautiful doe. She cantered across the road and into the field opposite, and was followed by her "husband," her crossing guard. We were awestruck. My goodness, God has made a beautiful world, and filled it with such wonder and grace!

(Not the actual deer, though a reasonable facsimile...)

Though we'll be glad to be closer to our family and old friends, we're sad to have to leave this place. After two and a half years, we're only just now getting familiar with all the geographical placenames: Grand Mesa, Garnet Mesa, Sunset Mesa, Peagreen Corner, Shavano Valley, Tabeguache Trail, Log Hill... And we've only just begun to explore the vast forested wilderness of the Uncompahgre Plateau.

We're absolute suckers for a beautiful view, and there are plenty here, in every direction

But it's not just the natural beauty, we've fallen in love with. It's also the slower, country pace. Though it's growing to be rather a big town, with a population of over 16,000, Montrose still has a small town heart. One day I watched rush hour traffic come to a dead stop on the main road through town, the highway that connects the rest of the world with Telluride, in fact. A little old man had inadvertently stranded himself on the center median, as he was very slowly crossing from the grocery store. He was not even at an intersection, but traffic stopped for him. Not a horn was honked. In fact, many people smiled and waved at him as they proceeded past him after he'd crossed.

You understand, I grew up in the suburbs of large cities where this would never have happened. It brought tears to my eyes. I half expected Norman Rockwell to appear with his pipe on the steps of the courthouse across the way.

Everything here in this tucked away little corner of the Rocky Mountains feels like a shadow of another time rests upon it. It's a modern town in many ways, with a super Walmart and even a good handful of popular restaurants, but more than half the local businesses are closed on Sunday. The only two drive-in theaters in Colorado survive here in this one valley. And cars full of little kids in pajamas fill them up on warm summer evenings. The carefully preserved Egyptian Theater in the next town over still employs ushers who walk the aisles during movies with little flashlights, and fuss at you if you have your feet on the seats or are talking too loudly.

Strangers ask you how you are and are interested inyour answer. And they don't stay strangers long. Friends congregate in the aisles in the grocery stores coffeeklatsching and the check-out clerks make a point to know you. It's unusual for the driver of a car passing on the side roads not to wave at you as they pass. Neighbors look out for all the neighborhood children and expect you to look out for theirs. Life revolves around the football games at the local high schools. And everyone, Catholic and nonCatholic, knows and loves the sisters that teach in our little Catholic school.

Our teaching sisters. We'll miss them so much! And our sweet little chapel with the cherubs all over the altar. And the school children at weekday Mass in their neat blue-plaid uniforms and navy blue berets. And the friends we've made here.

So I'm saying goodbye to my valley. Goodbye, at least for now. I've taken its chin in my hands and looked it in the eyes with you, somewhat sentimentally here. I hope you understand that love has smoothed over the faults and is fondly forgetful of any troubles we may have had. And it's not like there aren't many beautiful places in the world, and many we've been to and enjoyed thoroughly. But this is a place that's touched my heart; I'll always think of it as "my valley."

We'll be back, if nothing else, just to vacation and see our friends. We hope to retire here someday, if God wills it. But right now, He's got His hand on our backs and is moving us back over the mountains to the farm. There must be something important there that He wants us to do, or that He wants to do for us. You just never know.

And if He wants it, it's good. That's the only thing we can rely on in this life.

So, we'll be up to our elbows in packing boxes this week and physically moving next week, then settling in the week after that.

Ugh.

I may be scarce here on the blog for a while. But, I'll take pictures and pop in when I can. I'll have to see what everybody else is up to, if nothing else!

Blessings to All!

And, please, pray it doesn't snow next week!

Our Little Prairie Chicks

So, we're living Little House on the Prairie these days. Using the Prairie Primer unit study guide as a roadmap for ideas and "prairie chicken paths" to follow, the girls and I are having too much fun to call it school.

Two little prairie chicks, Theresa (8) and Anna (5 this week).

My time and attention span being limited these days by our upcoming move, we're not getting in as much of the cooking and sewing, and deeper study that I'd like, but just reading these books together is such a wonderful bonding thing for us. We all cried together today, for instance, when Laura found her dear ragdoll, Charlotte, abandoned in the mud outside the house of that dratted neighbor child, near Plum Creek ~ and Charlotte was missing one shoe-button eye! =sniff=

(Above, a pic of 7-year-old Cathy, showing off her beloved ragdoll, Audrey Anne ~ This child, who almost never gets teary-eyed, definitely empathized with Laura's sorrow!)

A shot of the high prairie near where we live ~ west and over the mountains from where Laura's little house was on the prairie.

Especially since our girls were born on the prairie, and will be moving back there in a couple of weeks, we can associate with so much of the nature in Laura Ingalls Wilder's books. And her descriptions are always so perfect, so poetic. Everything about this read is good learning for the girls. The corner where we read about Laura's adventures every morning.

What better way to learn to write well than to read well? By reading the rhythm of words well written? These books are so alive with a sense of place and time, too. How better to gain an interest in natural science? And in the homemaking arts? In frugal living? In proper manners and respect? The Little House books are full of lessons. Every time I read them, I appreciate that more. They're a little blunt sometimes about the harshness of life in the days of our ancestors, but how better to learn the truth of history? The real-life characters who people these books suffered and sacrificed, but exhibited great patience and faith through it all.

What a good example they are to us who feel put out when the vcr doesn't work right!

And, talk about "prairie chicken paths" to follow! There's a Little House Cookbook, more than one Little House craft book, miscellaneous guides and historic accounts and picture books. There's even a Little House Paper Dolls book.

Paula at A Catholic Harvest suggested A Tribute To Charles "Pa" Ingalls, a recording of Pa Ingall's fiddle with Bruce Hoffman playing. We checked it out, ordered it and got it yesterday, then listened to it today while we worked. Even our little two-year-old danced to the fiddle. And it was perfect background music for our theme.

Goin' to a Punkin Chunkin Extravaganza!

Have you seen those competitions on TV? You know, where they have the catapults and trebuchets, and compete to see who can launch their pumpkins the farthest? We've been enthralled by the very idea ever since we first saw it a few years ago. So, when we heard there was going to be a competition near Denver this weekend, we started packing our bags.

What's the draw?

We're not an especially mechanically-minded group, nor is it the physics of the feats that interest us. I think it's more the asthetic interests we have. The panorama of autumn scenery. The backdrop of the October blue sky, with the brilliant orange pumpkins flying through it. Sailing, high overhead. It's the thrill of the flight! Yeah, the poetry of flight and the arc of orange against blue...

Nah. Actually it's the smashed pumpkins at the end, I think.

We'll take pictures, I promise.

Hope you all have a smashing weekend, too! See you next week!

Oh, Deer

It's getting so a deer can't get up early enough in the morning to avoid the Paparazzi. (This is a "bright-eyed-deer.")

Looking both ways before crossing the street...

Sunday Drivers

The idea Sunday afternoon was to head out to a pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins, but the little boys needed naps, so we took a little drive around the outskirts of town, up the Uncompahgre Plateau while they slept.

This is how the trip started, with lovely autumn scenery...

This is what we drove into. Suddenly it's winter!

The Pumpkin Patch

Theresa and Anna visit with one of the farm's friendly draft horses.

This hay pyramid was a big hit with everyone!

Getting ready for the hayride. We got a good tour of the
extensive grounds, which include a Christmas tree farm

So many pumpkins to choose from!

Happy Fall from the bunch of us!
(Well, most of us... That gap right behind the little girls
should be filled in by Paul, Kevvy, Jon and Dominic.
See what you're missing, Guys??)