Louis L’Amour and Golden Aspen, Autumn in Southern Colorado!

September 19, 2018September 20, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

I’ve been enjoying a Louis L’Amour novel this fall, while also indulging myself in some amazing quaking aspens.

Up above Cuchara near Cordova Pass…

and up by Blanca Peak! Now is the BEST TIME to see these beauties!

Have you ever read the novel Conagher? A friend bought me a copy and said I had to read it, so I did. She said it reminded her of her dilemma since she moved here a few years ago. She loves the silence and isolation of her new life in the mountains, but sometimes craves companionship with someone special.

I thought Mr. L’Amour only wrote about the men of the West, but this novel is about a lonely female settler in rural New Mexico in the late 1800s who finds an ingenious way to connect with lonely cowboys. She even finally finds love way out in the middle of nowhere and just by chance. I love Mr. L’Amour’s descriptions of the beautiful but lonely West. Here’s a few lines from the main character Evie:

“She never tired of the morning and evenings here, the soft lights, the changing colors of sunlight and cloud upon the hills, the stirring of wind in the grass. Out here there was no escaping the sky or the plains, and Evie knew that until she came west she had never really known distance.”

I find it interesting how this character somehow captures my own feelings after just a year or so of living here, giving a marvelous explanation of how one adjusts to the silence and beauty of this powerful and yet desolate landscape:

Sunrise through snowy trees January 2018

“Evie Teale suddenly became aware of something else. For the first time she was at peace here, really at peace. She had believed the land was her enemy, and she had struggled against it, but you could not make war against a land any more than you could against the sea. One had to learn to live with it, to belong to it, to fit into its seasons and its ways…”

A Healthy Approach to Cannabis & THC

September 16, 2018February 19, 2019 / Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

My introduction to marijuana was not early, and my experiences kept changing throughout my life. My first time was unfortunately at the top of a steep rock climb. I was probably around 18 years old. I enjoyed the relaxed feeling and the camaraderie it seemed to create in the group, but looking down from that height was not reassuring! I survived and in the process realized that the effects from THC can be subtle and friendly.

I’ve never really liked the effects of alcohol at all. Nope, I’m not looking to a depressant to cheer me up, plus it mostly just made me feel stupid and then very sleepy. Then there’s always the fact that alcohol can cause cancer. I know! Why is a substance that is highly addictive, definitely causes cancer and kills thousands on the roads every year considered legal and OK in this country, while various forms of THC are considered so bad for you? THC has a number of proven medical uses, not true for alcohol. Alcohol is just very addictive and a liver killer.

In my experience, I rarely smoked marijuana in my adult life, only when someone around me had some. I never bought it because I didn’t know where one got it and I wasn’t all that crazy about it. I generally got a small high from smoking and I coughed too much.

I have NEVER gotten high in public places or while driving.

Then in 2000 Colorado started allowing the legal sale of marijuana for medical purposes. I’ll never forget the first time I walked into a marijuana dispensary in Fort Collins. I said, “Now I’ve seen EVERYTHING!” I started smoking a bit more after that, but still wasn’t convinced that it was a good thing for me. I hate smoking anything!

It was only recently, with my introduction to the highest quality of chocolate bars with THC, that I understood what all the excitement was about. Now I can eat the smallest piece of excellent chocolate and about an hour later feel WONDERFUL, in a very positive and thoughtful way. This high makes me happy, and my thought process goes wild with ideas I could have never thought of while normal. I have to write down these ideas to remember them for later. I have always believed that drugs accentuate your present state of mind. This one helps me see how happy I truly am, and how much I love my life. Lucky me!

I did have one BAD experience with lower quality edibles a few years ago, and that is why I caution everyone to start out with miniscule amounts at first. Too much can make you feel terrible and it goes on for hours! With high quality chocolate it takes about one hour to feel it, I feel great for a few hours and then I feel sleepy.

This works better than any other drug I have ever tried and no, the makers of Koala bars did not pay me to say this!

How does change & trauma help us grow?

September 2, 2018December 3, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 12 Comments

Less than 2 years ago I wrote this about my own life goals. Back then, I didn’t mean what needs to happen in the next year or two, but what needs to happen for me to feel satisfied in the long run. I wanted more love, acceptance, appreciation, access to pure silence and to be surrounded with solar warmth, natural beauty, music, wildflowers, peace, contentment with ever increasing relief from guilt and shame.

So what’s different now? I would say my greatest achievement has been acknowledging how much built-in shame and guilt I have lived with for years, and also how clarity and awareness can help me let that go. I used to think I was probably stuck with this feeling, and unable to free myself from its grip. But with time and introspection (and much encouragement from Mike!) I have found my way out of most of my guilt about just enjoying my life and feeling good. I do whatever I choose everyday now, and that my friend is a gift.

To what do I attribute so many changes in my internal dialogue?

I spent years studying the way our minds work, both through personal counseling and graduate-level training at Naropa University. What a gift to understand so much about the human behavior we are surrounded with everyday. Nothing like a higher level of “people skills” to help you understand the true motivations of yourself and others. I would add that my traumatic brain injury in 2008 has played a role. Shaking up so many brain connections really does change you, and it takes a few years to fully experience and get comfortable with your mind’s new openness.

Sunflowers on a county road

With a major change in lifestyle from city busy to rural quiet, I have changed immeasurably. Now, with the luxury of so much more time to myself in nature and the quiet, I continue to learn more about myself and my apparently endless capacity to learn and grow. Moving out of the city was key to seeing beyond the limitations of urban life. City life can keep you so busy worrying about the next thing, that you don’t have time to be present with anything that’s happening right in front of you. I had to leave the city to learn about living in the present.

I am still processing the results of our recent trauma here in southern Colorado, when some complete idiot one county west started the Spring Fire, which consumed over 107,000 acres near us. The evacuation was shocking. Talk about a sudden life event that makes you consider all of your past decisions and future plans! The randomness of it all confounds you. Is it really simply weather and wind direction determining whether I have a house still? I found there came a time when I lost all composure. I could no longer pretend this was not happening to me and my home. This experience I did not choose, offered me new opportunities to explore deeper levels of that old “illusion of control” we think we maintain over our life.

I have been transfixed by a quote from Arthur Rosenfeld recently.

Perhaps you will also find his words insightful:

“…we all know how this ends, so rushing through life is senseless. As our inner life grows ever more luminous, the chatter of the speed-and-greed world slowly fades, leaving us with greater peace, tranquility, quiet and contentment.”

Life without ready access to the Internet

July 30, 2018August 31, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

How long has it been since you didn’t access the Internet everyday? Since we experienced a wildfire in the mountains west of us and were evacuated around the end of June, we have had no access at home. That’s about a month now!

At first, after the fire fear was over, it really bothered me that I couldn’t jump online at any time and check everything. Habits die hard. But now, a month later, I am missing it less and less.

I have to drive into town to use my friend’s laptop a couple times a week, and the rest of the time I simply forget about it. Yes, it is possible in this day and age to space out the Internet. Instead I focus more on my garden, exercising and on my life in general. It has helped to bring me out of my post-fire slump and return to my daily goals.

So why don’t we have the Internet yet? Because the local company we prefer, lost a key pole up in the mountains west of us, and they can’t even get in there to fix it yet. The area was destroyed by fire, in some cases the soil was even sterilized and the roads impassable. Providers are limited out here and we don’t like our other options, so we’re going without.

It has been an interesting experiment for me and I’m beginning to see the benefits of never having the Net to turn to when bored or uncertain what to do next…

This seems to bring the focus back to me and what I need right now!

Gratitude for everything, wildfires and all!

July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 6 Comments

So of course it had to happen. One of my readers met with me this week and asked me one more time if I am still pleased with our decision to move to a rural part of southern Colorado, one that is prone to wildfire. As strange as it may seem, I am happier than ever to live where I do.

great Mike photo of snow and Spanish Peaks

The winter view of the Spanish Peaks from our solar home

First of all, the recent fire gave us a chance to live in town for a week because we were evacuated from our area between La Veta and Walsenburg. La Veta feels noisy and crowded to me now. My favorite quality of rural life is the absolute silence at night and on a cool clear country morning. Seeing the stars after I turn off the lights at night is also something I have never experienced before.

Returning to our home after evacuation was a marvelous treat, a timely reminder of how lucky we are to be able to live in nature on our own terms with neighbors far enough away to basically ignore them.

The sunrises are as amazing as ever. What’s not to like about this every morning?

First a record-breaking Colorado wildfire and then flash flooding – Never a dull moment here this summer!

July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

Ever since a wildfire broke out west of us on June 28th and I called 911, I feel like I’ve been riding a bucking bronco of disaster and devastation here in the foothills of southern Colorado! We were evacuated from our home the afternoon of June 29th to La Veta, where we spent one week worrying about losing everything.

Returning home on July 7th we felt only gratitude that our beautiful new solar home was saved by the valiant efforts of so many local and federal firefighters and their support staff. At one point we had 1805 federal employees including the national guard here helping to control the third worst wildfire in Colorado history. The fire ended up burning over 108,000 acres and destroyed at least 250 homes.

Then last night around 11 pm all hell broke loose at our house! The floods came with an amazing array of lightning and thunder. Nobody could have slept through that! It rained for over three hours and brought us as much rain as we have had in the past four months in one big fat storm! It’s feast and famine around here. I have been measuring precipitation for COCORAHS and the Weather Service for over twenty years now, and I don’t believe I have ever had 2.28 inches in one storm here in Colorado.

The Cuchara River that runs through La Veta has been bone dry for over a month now, but this morning it is running strong with black water flowing from the burned areas up around Cuchara and Pinehaven. Sure hope there were no worse mud slides or flooding up above here. I have seen rivers before full of black slurry after severe mountain fires. The water runs just like velvet.

I am unable to provide new photos on here because we still don’t have the Internet at our home! I have to run into La Veta to get online…SECOM is definitely on my shit list!

Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts

Beauty is the garden where hope grows

Living a free life