The Glow of Autumn

This week has been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and warm.
We could use some rain, but aside from that it has been
perfect.

Brandon has been here the latter part of the week and
has cleaned the area between the road and the rock wall
in front of the house. Next spring I shall plant the whole
area with sunflowers. The few I planted this year have
done beautifully without any attention from me!

Ezequiel has built a fantastic wall in back of the barn.
We need another on the side of the barn between the
barn and the street, but we are hopeful the county
road crew will do something there. It is their pile
driver that has weakened the old wall, at least that
hasn't helped.

I post the following pictures. I think the spider is
a wolf spider which is venomous, but not lethal. It
seemed huge and ran out from the garden and
startled Brandon and me. It seemed gigantic.
We were examining the destruction some critter
had done to "our" garden. Brandon had planted
close to 40 daffodil bulbs and something has been
digging them up. I knew they would eat the tulip
bulbs; they ate the ones I planted last year. I
thought that daffodil bulbs were poisonous, even
to rodents, so they wouldn't get eaten. We'll see
how many come up next year. I have put screen
over them now.

Wolf spider















This is an assortment of the Sunflowers















Garden-in-a-box















New rain gauge and sunflowers by the road















Sunflowers in the yard

Gothic, September 2011

Gothic, Colorado.....RMBL

Rustic, but a beautiful setting!












We hit the Aspen world at the perfect time.
The colors were perfect, but even as we left the leaves had
started to blow off the trees. We were there 4 days and the
weather was perfect; a bit cold at night, 24F is cold.

Robyn and Janis, Carl, Martha and Gabby plus Robert and I
were all there. The Cowleys stayed in "Pumpkin," Robyn and
Janis spent days at Gothic, but slept at Robyn's place in
Mt. Crested Butte. Robert and I slept in the Van.

Gourmet meals were served each evening; we all took turns
cooking and the clean up. Lunches and breakfasts were "on
your own."

Robert and I spent a very lazy weekend. Aside from short
walks the only thing we did was a tour of the new Lab
building that both Robyn and Janis have had a hand in. Janis
did some grant writing and Robyn helped Ian, the Director of
the Rocky Mountain Biological Labs (RMBL), convince the
Board of Directors and NSF that a new Lab was necessary and
desirable. She is, of course, also the Project Manager for
the design and building of the new Lab. It is going to be a
fabulous addition to RMBL. This winter Robyn and her
Architect friends from Idaho will be planning a new dinning
hall-conference center to be built next year. Robyn is
gradually dragging the Lab, kicking and screaming, into the
20th century...no, not the 21st. One step at a time. First
they must relinquish the strangle hold on the 19th century
rustic infrastructure.

If the infra-structure can be upgraded Gothic could be
a destination for conferences and tourist-type activities.
This would double RMBL's ability to raise money from the
site itself.

The site is really beautiful and the amount of traffic this
weekend made it clear that a cafe and/or tourist
accommodations would certainly be used.