Life Transplanet

Last night was my friend Kelly’s birthday so a few of us went out to celebrate in Fort Collins with a girls’ night out. We hit up the Rio and then went to a couple of night clubs including Zydecos, Suite 152 and the Drunken Monkey. We had a pretty good time and danced a lot. It’s amazing how much busier Fort Collins is on a Friday night than Greeley. I am also beginning to notice how I can’t party like I used to. We were yawning and ready to come back to Greeley by about 11:30pm. Still, it was a fun night.

At Kelly’s House: Marjorie, Kelly, Gina, and Me

At the Rio in Fort Collins

It was a busy four day weekend. First we had our party on Wednesday evening, then we had to clean and recover on January 1st. Then that evening we went out salsa dancing at Suite 152 in Fort Collins. We got there early to go to the lessons, but they weren’t open so we went to Lucky Joes (I think that’s the name of the bar) and had appetizers and peanuts that we got to throw on the floors.

Eating Peanuts at Lucky Joes with Shana and Lorena

Salsa dancing at Suite 152

We got a merengue lesson that could be a Larry David moment, I swear. Eets so seemple! There was reggaeton, salsa, hip-hop, techno and merengue played there. We were some of the oldest people there since it was 18+ night. But it was fun. I love to dance, Britton, not so much. We are also planning to take salsa lessons here at the Greeley FunPlex starting tomorrow night to prepare for our trip to Puerto Rico. 

Then, Friday night, Shana invited me to temple and then to Island Grill to watch a co-worker’s husband play in a band.

Shana and Me at Island Grill in Fort Collins

Some of the girls: Lauren, Mary, Shana and me

A magician was even there to levitate some paper

Turn down your speakers because the sound quality on this is horrible…

Britton and I went to Fort Collins last weekend to see a movie because it wasn’t playing in Greeley but we got lost and missed the early showing, so we decided to go up to Horsetooth Reservoir and hike around a little bit. It was beautiful and perfect weather, probably the last nice weather (you might notice no coat on Britton) of the year.

Britton on a rock

Beautiful Vista of the Reservoir

The weather has definitely changed and the temperature has dropped. This weekend we hardly left the house -just for groceries and lunch on Sunday. It’s only about 40 degrees! Kitty kept trying to run into the house and the chickens kept fluffing up their feathers outside Uggh! Times like these remind me how much I want Puerto Rico! We keep checking the temperature differences (40 here, 84 there). Just wait till we get the snow..Brrr.

On Sunday Britton, Torrie (his sister), our niece and nephew, my mom, our friend Shana and I all went out to the Sustainable Living Event in Fort Collins that is in conjunction with New Belgium Brewery. Afterward we went to the Holistic Fair in Loveland before returning home. It was pretty cool. Our nephew kept saying this was where all the hippies were, which was somewhat true if your definition of a hippie is someone with long hair, or locks, and who cares about the environment. We learned a little bit about solar power, wind power, recycling, composting, gardening, and much more. There were plenty of interesting people, good food and beer as well. There was even a booth with chickens! There was definitely an underlying political atmosphere that was pretty cool. We seem to have had a lot of opportunities for training in Puerto Rico lately.

The Group minus Cassie

Britton, Cassie, Char

Char Covered in Buttons

Britton and I went on the Tour De Farms events from the Rocky Mountain Sustainablilty group on Saturday. It was pretty fun. We loaded up the bikes in the Honda Civic and met at the Farmer’s Market in Fort Collins. There we had a discussion about local food economies and the benefits of eating organic. Then we looked around the Farmer’s Market and ate some Grand Junction peaches.

At the Farmer’s Market

From there we headed off on bike as a group to a couple of urban backyard gardens and discussed the importance of this.

In an Urban Garden

Then we rode a little more and saw a couple of commercial operations including an organic nursery and greenhouse operation that is part of a larger farm out in Wellington and a Community Supported Agriculture farm that has over 125 members.

Rows of Food with a Mountain backdrop

It was pretty cool to see over 50 people in a row on bikes going from farm to farm in a 5 mile radius in Fort Collins.

Biking to and fro

The last event at Happy Heart Farm was probably the best. We talked about the importance of transportation in the equation (biking) to reduce our carbon footprint and even had a bike courier deliver lunch from a local co-op. It was definitely a pretty hippie and awesome day. The speaker even talked about moving from a “locavore” society to a “bike-a-vore” society. Which made me think, who eats their bicycle anyway?

Even the sandwich choices were either vegetarian or vegan -that’s pretty rare. I would have liked to have seen a few animals as part of the discussion on farming -especially for the kids to play with, and maybe a little more diversity in the people who turned out for the event, but overall, it was a great way to spend a morning. And we ended up at New Belgium’s again which made Britton all the happier…

Hanging out at Happy Heart Farm under the old tree arch

When we came home, we hung out with Matt and Jamie at our house for a little while and then slept out in our backyard in a tent to complete the hippie day.

Britton by the tent

The whole day overall was yet another training for Puerto Rico. I believe there are very few organic farms or CSAs there. It would be wonderful to create a farm-stay program where people could stay at the place, work and eat. It gave us renewed vigor and strength that this is going to be one of the coolest things in our lives. We probably would do it here in Colorado except, well, we have a winter season that goes from about the middle of October until the middle of April. I am ready to live like this -well maybe not the whole tent thing – year-round.