An Amazing Week of Spanish Peaks Sunsets!

November 30, 2018November 30, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

Those of you who come to this area just for the summer are really missing out on the best sunrises and sunsets! This week they just keep getting better…

This is the daily view from our home.

Some have suggested that it is the strong winds here that create the complex cloud arrangements over the peaks at dusk. I don’t know…

I just know I love having front row seats to this kind of momentary natural beauty!

Last night I was sitting in my living room trying to resist taking one more photo of our sunsets. I mean, how many do I need? But then this happened right at the end of the day. See what I mean? Who can resist taking a picture of that?

Who can resist feeling gratitude when we are given such fantastic gifts each morning and evening?

Walsenburg and La Veta, a tale of division between two great Colorado towns

November 19, 2018November 20, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / Leave a comment

Ever since we decided to move down here to southern Colorado in late 2013, I have been studying these two towns. Although only 16 miles or twenty minutes apart, they do differ greatly in style and substance. When we moved here to rent, while building our solar home in Navajo Ranch, I preferred to live in La Veta, but it cost so much more than Walsenburg, that we were happy to find a very hard-to-locate rental near downtown Walsenburg.

Yes, I did have a hard time adjusting to life in Walsenburg. The best way to describe my feeling was culture shock. Coming from a thriving and popular city like Fort Collins, I felt initially let down. And yet what I eventually discovered is that what I found most different here, like few traffic lights or traffic, felt both strange and better. I mean who wants to spend the rest of their life standing in line in traffic? I did struggle at first with the lack of places to buy anything besides groceries. My other difficulty was making real connections with town people. I found most friendly, but also quite hesitant to welcome strangers into their life.

One day when I felt lonely in our first summer in Walsenburg, I drove over to La Veta to shop and hopefully meet new people. There I found most folks I met more friendly and open to talking to a stranger. I felt like I fit in a bit better. Eventually I started attending exercise classes in La Veta and made a few friends that way. As I spent more time with “La Veta people” I learned that they rarely went to Walsenburg for anything except groceries. Most knew very little about the small town 16 miles east of them. I also learned that La Veta people are much more likely to go elsewhere in the winter, usually to warmer climes.

Because we live halfway between Walsenburg and La Veta we must choose which way to go whenever we need something. Now that my La Veta friends have left for the winter, I feel more motivated to get to know more Walsenburg people and a recent “Lunch & Learn” put on by the Spanish Peaks Business Alliance seems to be pushing me in that direction.

Here is my dilemma: Why do most of the people in Walsenburg not hang out with La Veta people? There seems to be some sort of great divide between these two towns, which I don’t understand or appreciate. I believe the folks in these two towns could really help each other out if they would start working together to improve the economies of both towns. Those of us who are relatively new here notice this ‘great divide’ more than the locals. I would love to do something about it.

There must be some way to get a grassroots movement going to introduce Walsenburg people to La Veta people so we can all work together for the common good!

Please feel free to check out my memoir about choosing to leave a lively, popular Colorado city behind (Fort Collins) to move to rural southern Colorado. We built a passive solar home for our retirement and love it! So many feelings when you make a major life change like this! This book is available in paper or e-book through Amazon or direct from me at: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com

Cranberry Nut Bread

November 17, 2018November 17, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 4 Comments

Now for something completely different…

I have always enjoyed fixing meals. What’s new is my love of baking. I find that I can change old recipes into semi-healthy alternatives so I can enjoy them instead of store-bought varieties whose main ingredient is almost always sugar.

I’ve been making this recipe since 1976, when I got it from a boyfriend’s Mom. She said I might want to learn how to make it for him. Him I got rid of decades ago, but his Mom’s recipe lives on!

Cranberry Nut Bread from Kent’s Mom

2 cups white flour & 2 cups whole wheat flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup sugar OR 4 packets of stevia plus 1/2 cup brown sugar

2 cups cranberries OR use one whole bag

1/2 cup chopped nuts

2 eggs beaten well

1 and 1/2 cups orange juice

5 Tbsp. melted butter

Sift all dry ingredients together. Add cranberries and nuts. Mix well. Add eggs and OJ mixture and mix until all ingredients are moist. Bake in 2 greased loaf pans at 350 degrees for one hour. Check with toothpick after 55 minutes.

The Colorado Spring Fire: Deja Vu

November 13, 2018November 16, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 11 Comments

As the death toll continues to rise in both northern and southern California, I cannot help but remember this past summer, when we were evacuated from our home for the Spring Fire. For one week we watched and waited to see if our area would survive bone dry conditions and high winds. Luckily we received a good rain just in time to quell our fires and save most of the area, except for homes west of here in the mountains. They were burned down before the nation’s firefighters arrived to save this valley and the town of La Veta.

Words cannot describe my anger at our ridiculous president for criticizing anyone whose home is burning down before their eyes. Or worse, who died simply because the fires came through so quickly that there was no way to escape. Who is this IDIOT, criticizing those who risk their lives everyday to save the lives of others?

Those who are suffering now in California will suffer for the rest of their lives from this kind of trauma. It is impossible for those who have not experienced something like this to truly understand the feeling of loss and hopelessness when everything you know goes up in smoke before your eyes. Think about these poor souls as you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner or gather around the tree at Christmas…

P.S. I feel no sympathy for those stuck in traffic on the East Coast right now. Try burning to death sometime!

Autumn in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains

October 23, 2018August 23, 2020 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

We are having a warm lovely fall here in southern Colorado! We had our first snow in the Sangre de Cristos south of us a couple weeks ago, and then some weather in the 60s settled in to warm our winter-fearing souls.

The 60s are my favorite temperature, just right for sitting outside and observing the many birds and quadrupeds that happen by our home. We have seen herds of deer and a couple coyotes walking by recently…

and the Road Runners come right up to our glass doors.

Unfortunately that first hard freeze did a number on my first crop of lavender.

We have had such a strange summer season this year. The winter and spring, which are usually super wet, were quite dry through June, when the Spring Creek Fire hit this area, destroying over 108,000 acres and over 140 homes and other structures.

This was my first view of the fire as it emerged south of Mount Mestas on June 27th.

Fortunately in July the rains finally came, saving our area from complete devastation, but still for the 2017 – 2018 water year we received less than half of average precipitation.

My brand new foothills garden did not like these ever changing conditions. It died way back in June, but made a phenomenal comeback with the 3.35 inches of rain we received in July! My garden is perpetually a work in progress. We are now waiting to get a bunch of red pavers to place in the lower level around the bird bath.

It gives me great joy to wander around outside and think about how Mike and my brother John worked so hard to help me realize this lifelong dream!

Do beliefs about climate change depend on how old you are, your education level or “groupthink”?

October 14, 2018October 14, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

I will never forget a discussion I had over ten years ago with a woman in her eighties at the Senior Center in Fort Collins. She said climate change was bull and I said just wait. Then I realized and said to her, “Of course you’re not as concerned about climate change. You won’t be around to see what happens, but what about your children and grandchildren?” I’m certain that woman is dead now.

SOURCES FOR THE NEW UNITED NATION REPORT ON GLOBAL WARMING

Today I did the research on this topic. Please go check out this survey that describes concerns about climate change in the United States between 2015 and 2018, by age group. During this period, over 51 percent of adults between 18 and 34 years of age agreed that global climate change will pose a serious threat. Of those over 55, less than one third felt climate change was a serious concern in their future. Now let’s ask the thousands of victims of Hurricane Michael. Why was this the first storm to hit this area in decades and why did it’s intensity increase when it headed out over the land?

Further research suggests:

“Climate change believers are generally younger, more educated, have more money, and are non-white (which means skeptics are generally older, less educated, and white). But all these factors are only weakly associated with climate change beliefs… Instead, political affiliation – Democrat, Independent, or Republican – strongly predicted climate change belief, such that Democrats are more likely to believe in climate change than Republicans…

This might suggest that groupthink, the psychological effect of similar thinking to maintain conformity to a group, guides climate change attitudes, not just ideology alone.” “Understanding Climate Change Skeptics” in Nature Education