High in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains: Foothills versus Mountain Living in Southern Colorado

July 24, 2016August 19, 2020 / Laura Lee Carter / 12 Comments

Yesterday was so interesting! We visited some new friends who have lived up above 8,000 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains west of here for the past few years. Loved hearing their stories about living up high.

I know many have romantic visions of life up in those beautiful mountains, but remember this too:

The approach to their house is a windy, dirt road off of a major highway, a road they and their few neighbors must maintain, unlike the county road we live off of, 15 miles west of Walsenburg. Once they came home a few years ago and there was 6 feet of snow on this road. They couldn’t go home!

We heard stories about when the deep snows come, and the big state highway snowplows plow their road closed! That’s why they need to maintain snow-moving equipment themselves….imagine that!

I asked them how deep the snow gets up there, and they decided one picture was worth a thousand words!

WOW! We have had a few snows of a foot or so, but nothing like this! They told us stories of a few snowstorms where they shoveled for eight hours straight. If they didn’t have heavy equipment they wouldn’t be able to get out for weeks!

Their property includes an old straw-bale cabin on a mine site plus 100 acres. Their water comes from a spring nearby, and what delicious water it is! They heat with a large wood stove, which requires a great amount of log splitting to prepare for the winter cold. They have electric service, mainly because the costs of returning renewal energy back to the grid here requires outrageous fees and insurance requirements, and going off grid presents other problems with reliability and initial installation costs. We are stuck here until better energy storage solutions are developed worldwide.

The natural beauty of their landscape is beyond words and, did I mention, they have no water or heating bills… They maintain a number of wildlife cameras and see so many different animals around their home. Bears are so commonplace that they have named a few of them! It’s a wonderful place that requires a lot of work to maintain.

Postscript: This home was lost in the Spring Creek Fire , July 2019.

We recently built a passive solar home right at 7,000 feet and are told by our new friends that we are really saving a lot of money in the winter by absorbing the sun’s heat directly into our insulated slab, which helps to hold the daily sun’s heat within our home overnight.

We hope to add a few of these solar thermal water tubes to our home soon to increase our thermal mass and help to moderate temperature swings both in the winter and summer. Beyond solar, we depend on Cadet forced-air electric wall heaters on thermostats for all of our winter heating needs. They usual turn themselves on during the night and turn off soon after the sun comes up most days. In the summer, the positioning and excellent insulation in our new home keeps us cooler than most without the need for air conditioning. We have ceiling fans in every room.

We have rarely been “snowed in” this past winter, but we did purchase a Subaru and love how well it works on steep snowy roads. Overall, we’re glad we chose a lower elevation, especially since our home survived the Spring Creek Fire in 2018!

We are newcomers to rural Colorado, so after two years I compiled a book about the total experience of moving here to build passive solar in the foothills: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado Please feel free to contact me directly for copies of any of my books! MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com

A Few Lifestyle Differences Between City and Rural Folks in Colorado

July 21, 2016February 10, 2021 / Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

After 60 years of living in cities, I moved to rural Colorado 2 years ago. Here are some of the differences I have observed between those who choose to live in or near cities, and those who seek out the rural areas of our country.

The most obvious difference is a love of silence and nature. We had my brother John here for the past few weeks and he spent almost all of his waking hours sitting outside observing the birds, the plants, the bugs, the clouds and the weather. I told you before that I call him “Mother Nature’s Son” and for good reason. Rural America is only for those who greatly prefer a natural setting to high stress, traffic, noise, hustle and bustle and an incredible array of shopping options.

Our sense of time and relaxation is different here. Sure there are lots of hard-working people in the outback, but time takes on a different meaning here. The only people here who are in a great hurry are the outsiders, the locals live on a more relaxed schedule. No hurry to get on to the next task, take your time and do it right. As I mentioned previously when I wrote about the only time we went back to Fort Collins in our two years here:

“I saw people everywhere waiting for something, a place to park, a place to sit in a restaurant, a chance to go through the next stop light, an opportunity to pay for their purchase.”

Even today, I still find myself sometimes getting anxious when I’m preparing to go somewhere in town. Will it be crowded? Will I be able to get in? And then I arrive and there is hardly anybody there. It takes time to adjust to little traffic and no big rush.

One wonderful, interesting result of no longer sitting in traffic with my foot on the brake constantly, no more right knee pain! I injured that knee in a ski accident in high school, and was planning on treating the long-term pain with surgery before I moved here. Now, my knee is fine.

One discovery for me has been how important religion is out here in the country. I have found one of the great delineators between people is what church you attend, or if you are even religious. In discussions with new people, church almost always comes up. My religion is nature and the earth is my church. Some here can understand that perspective and many cannot. They would prefer that I come to their church.

The other important issue locally seems to be whether you smoke marijuana or not. In some cases I have begun friendships only to find them backing away when the subject of marijuana comes up.

As far as new friendships go, I would say rural people are more hesitant to welcome newcomers into their life. I have heard that they like to wait a few years to see if you will be sticking around before actually becoming friends. And then there are those who came here for the purpose of being alone permanently.

Overall I am surprised at how different rural living can be. It has certainly changed me in so many good ways. I have so much less anxiety and stress, that I almost cannot tolerate how bad I feel when I go to even small cities. I feel my anxiety level rising immediately…

I now fully embrace my love of silence and nature, so I will continue my quest for like-minded souls in this area.

I’m new to southern Colorado. After two years I decided to compile a book about the ups and downs of moving from Fort Collins Colorado to west of Walsenburg to build a passive solar retirement home: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado

Please contact me directly to order your own signed copies of any of my books! Cheers, Laura Lee (email me: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)

Oh, the lives that could have been…

July 14, 2016October 11, 2016 / Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

Isn’t it fun to fantasize about the other lives you might have had if your mind had been more open, and you had known yourself better in your 20’s, when you chose your first career?

I love working with living things and color!

Rooting and transplanting different kinds of plants and succulents is one of my favorite pastimes now, and I love growing all sorts of plants!

I see only now how much more fun I would have had if I had found some kind of work in some artistic field like floral design or gardening. I feel I could have expressed my full being through a job like that.

It seems to me now, that I was so pre-programmed to work in universities. I do completely enjoy reading, thinking and the freedom of my own intellect. I love intellectual exchanges with others. But I also love the beauty and freedom of light and color.

Perhaps I could have been a painter in another life or a musician. I have fantasies of playing the harp lately. No, not something practical like the guitar, the harp! What does that mean? Perhaps I’m headed for heaven? Or is hell looking for a harpist.

Of course, there’s still time. It seems like everyone presently moving to this rural Colorado county wants to become a ‘grower.’ Perhaps I can still run a greenhouse eventually, and put my green thumb to good use. At least I can plan how glorious my new gardens will be here, after we get our patio done!

It’s never too late to find out who you might have been!

I am filled with gratitude that I can now live like this forever. Please go learn more about our move from Fort Collins to here in my new memoir!

Free Your Mind… It’s OK to Relax!

July 8, 2016December 19, 2021 / Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

One of the BEST lessons I have learned from my husband Mike is how to truly relax. I have a natural guilt around sitting around spacing out. If you are anything like me, you will first need to be convinced that it’s OK to relax.

Consider the long and arduous history of mankind on this earth. Yes, they had to keep busy looking for food and protecting themselves from anything that wanted to eat them, but I feel certain they also knew how to relax. I just can’t see a caveman or woman being all stressed out over their to-do list. Primitive tribes today still know how to spend hours doing nothing.

It’s healthy to relax, stare off into space, and enjoy this present moment. In fact, it can even be ‘productive’ in its own way. Did you know some of our most creative ideas came from spacing out? Ask Newton. That’s how he first noticed gravity.

So the next time you are feeling pressured to get too many things done, remember relaxation can be very good for you. De-stress and embrace the ‘F’ word, FUN! You do enough. You are enough. You have enough…

I’m a newcomer to rural southern Colorado. After two years I decided to compile a short journal about the ups and downs of moving from a good-sized city to rural America to build a passive solar retirement home: A Memoir of Retirement: From Suburbia to Solar in Southern Colorado

Please share this information with your friends if they are considering similar life changes. Feel free to contact me directly to discuss any of these challenges…

To order your own signed copies of any of my books. Cheers, Laura Lee (email: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com)

Hailey Carter, Emerging Artist

June 30, 2016April 13, 2019 / Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

At the risk of sounding slightly biased, I feel the need to share with you the art of my niece Hailey. She’s a beautiful young woman who has already fought a few very tough battles at age 20, and still she persists as a talented writer and painter.

She visited her Dad, my brother, this past April by coming out to Arizona for the first time from the East Coast. She stayed in Mesa and then drove out to Sedona to spend some time with John, at his camp along Oak Creek north of Sedona. I’m so happy they were able to get together after many years apart.

This is Hailey’s interpretation of her drive from Mesa Arizona to Sedona through the eyes of a person who has never seen such amazing natural beauty.

I love Hailey’s sense of color and movement.

Her style reminds me of Georgia O’Keefe‘s early works of the southwest after she first started traveling to Abiquiu New Mexico in 1929, where she eventually bought her Ghost Ranch. Georgia has always been a muse for me personally. Her strong sense of purpose and independent spirit inspires me even today!

We originally considered retiring on land near the orange buttes of Abiquiu ourselves. To me this land is magical. I introduced Mike to the area when I first met him in 2005 and he loved it too.

On our first trip we originally planned to stay there for just a day, but ended up spending a few days enjoying it and looking for land for sale. Perhaps I’ll share an essay I wrote about our first trip together there one of these days…

What is a palisade anyway?

June 28, 2016June 28, 2016 / Laura Lee Carter / 11 Comments

Yesterday was so much FUN! My brother from Sedona Arizona got a ride up to Taos, New Mexico the day before, so Mike and I drove down there to pick him up.

This is a beautiful drive from where we live, through lots of mountains. On the way there we took the direct route west to Fort Garland, and then south to Taos, but on the way home we drove further south through Red River, Eagle’s Nest and Cimarron New Mexico. Along the way we found some incredible “palisades.”

I have never known what this word meant although I’ve seen it used all over Colorado. Turns out it originally meant “a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.” But the common usage in the U.S. today is steep cliffs or buttes…

Like these! Is that cool or what?

We just came around a corner and boom, they were right in front of us!

We, of course, had to stop and enjoy a walk down to the river and take pictures:

This is Mike and John enjoying the scenery…

So there you have it, that is your English language lesson for today. Now go find your own palisades to enjoy!