rural living
Everyone who hasn’t felt any stress this past week, please raise your hand. To avoid stress you would first have to totally avoid all news sources. We have had a virtual smorgasbord of hate and violence both nationally and internationally this week. Take your pick.
For others, like Meryl Baer, it can lead to thoughts about our next election: Politics and the Presidency is everywhere these days. Speculation has already begun about who the 2020 candidates might be. Will the current President be the standard bearer? If not, who will be the Republican nominee? What about the Democrats? Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting throws in her two cents on the topic in 
Naturalist report from Spanish Peaks Colorado
In a summer of many terrible wildfires in the West, we are fortunate to have received over 12 inches of precipitation from March through June in our area. How do I know? I measured every inch of it myself for COCORAHS. We are also fortunate to have such vigilant volunteer fire fighters patrolling our area at all times.
Our temperatures are not too bad at 7,000 foot elevation, and our solar home is keeping us nice and cool this summer. The highest temperatures here have been in the low 90s and our well-insulated stucco home hasn’t gone up past 76 degrees inside yet, with no need for AC. Every room has a ceiling fan when more air flow is needed.
Our greatest surprise has been the plethora of different birds stopping by our bird feeders this spring and enjoying our bird bath. Mike also built a bird house to Blue Bird specs this spring, and we did have a few Mountain Blue Birds check it out…
but in the end a pair of Ash-throated Flycatchers laid eggs inside. We were thrilled to watch them so close to our home, bringing bugs back for the babies to consume. Mike looked inside the nest a few times while the parents were away.
Then we were so disappointed to find they had all flown the coop while we were up in Fort Collins this past week! In fact so many of the birds we’ve come to expect at our feeders are not around anymore…
I had another surprise in my garden recently. I LOVE to see so many lovely cacti (common name Cane Cholla) around this region. This photo was taken along I-25 on July 2nd on our way up to Fort Collins. I read that if you cut off a small section and stick it in the ground, it will begin to grow immediately, so I tried that this past May.
The other day I was messing around in my native plants garden, and was shocked to find that my tiny seedling was already flowering! You go girl!
Keep your eye out for a major bloom along I-25 north and south of Pueblo soon!
All in all, I am quite pleased with the turn out in our new native plants garden in the southern Colorado foothills. Note the Mirabilis Multiflora that volunteered to bloom right in front of Buddha… Life is good!
Lala Land: A Musical Done Right!
I have always loved a good musical. Even as a child I loved waltzing along with Anna in The King and I or singing along with Debbie Reynolds in The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Mike is always astounded when I burst into song with all of the right words from so many old musicals. One of our favorite games as kids was to create a talent show in our garage, so I was quite anxious to see Lala Land. I figured I would either love it or hate it. Since we have no theater access to new films here, I’ve been borrowing all my movies from the La Veta Public Library, and they finally got a copy! Now I’m going to have to buy it…
I found this lovely film to be a delicious and delightful cinematic tidbit, a triumph of mostly non-verbal communication. As an overly verbal person who can too easily get caught up in analysis paralysis, this film helped me to escape my analytical mind and just experience the music and settings free of reality. That is what a good musical is supposed to do! I loved the way it was mostly based in “reality” but then these two lovers suddenly danced off into the stars…
Lala Land captured better than any film I have ever seen, that magical feeling of falling in love. That joy at knowing, “How did I ever get so lucky? I’m finally at the right place at the right time!” I didn’t want any of it to end. The artistic freedom of the creators of this wonderful escape into lala land was amazing. Only today can we feel so free with creativity! I am so glad this film finally got made!
I also related to the other theme of following your dreams, and especially the fact that they captured the negative as well as pathologically optimistic part of that experience. When Mia’s play flops and she feels completely discouraged, I was reminded of my attempt at having a launch party for my first book. Nobody showed up! I just wanted to quit, but I didn’t.
I even liked the realistic ending to this story. Sad to say, most young love stories don’t turn out well, but that is not to say they are not one of the best experiences of your life. Being young is often depressing and can be so disappointing, but we all go on. Live and learn. I used to facetiously call this: Pushing on to greater failures.
I loved the way these two smiled at each other at the end, as if to say, “We turned out OK.” If you can love another person this much and still feel good about it not working out, you’ve got it made!
If love hasn’t ever worked out for you, perhaps you’ve lost faith in love. I realized how disillusioned I was age 49. I knew my greatest wish was to experience true love again, but I didn’t believe in it anymore. So, as a therapist, I found ways to get back to that wonderful feeling of trusting others and self love. Then I met the perfect partner for me! My book: How to Believe in LOVE Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom is a summary of how I got back to believing in love again. Please send me an e-mail. Let’s talk! I’d love to hook you up with any of my books, at a great price!
Email: MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com
Sunrise in southern Colorado
I woke up very early this morning, in time for the sunrise around 5:30…
… the light over the Spanish Peak is SO BEAUTIFUL at this time!
A Double Rainbow This Evening!!!
Amazingly long-lasting double rainbow up here tonight!
Easy Rider: The view from 62
I was 14 years old when “Easy Rider” came out. I decided to see it again this week. So glad I did, if only for the music!
Wikipedia describes it as a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers (played by Fonda and Hopper) who travel through the American Southwest and South after selling a large score of cocaine. The success of Easy Rider helped spark the New Hollywood era of film making during the early 1970s. The film was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1998, a landmark counterculture film and a “touchstone for a generation.” Easy Rider explores the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960s, such as the rise of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle.
Although I know this film hasn’t changed in 48 years, watching it showed me how much I have changed, and most of my changes have taken place since moving to rural Colorado. For example, when the riders pick up a hippie on the way to a commune, they eventually ask him where he’s from. His answer is simple and so true: “A city.” When pressed for more he says it doesn’t really matter what city, because cities have the same effect on us as people. I so agree now. And if you don’t, I challenge you to move to the country for a few years. Then we’ll talk.
I have also learned a lot about my biases and judgments of people I don’t know. For some reason, moving here has lightened my load of judgments on those who don’t look like me. I know in ‘Easy Rider’ the country people in the south hate hippie-types. There’s a great line in there from George, the local drunk played wonderfully by Jack Nicholson, who tags along with them on their journey to New Orleans. He says many just don’t appreciate the freedom these two bikers represent. When they see it they want to kill it. Nice foreshadowing.
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 