Archive for the ‘Summertime’ Category

Greeley Freight Station Museum

Saturday, June 18th, 2011

We think Britton has West Nile Virus. He’s had a headache, fever and body aches for a couple of days. He decided to stay home sick and work from home Friday. He’s been feeling a little better but still kind of strange he says. Anyway, since he was in Greeley I asked if he would meet up with me and my co-workers down at Lincoln Park for a free BBQ meal the Greeley Stampede was putting on. I don’t know if it was to butter us up because of last year’s new policy to charge admission, but I’m always up for free food. Some people said they may not charge admission this year (2011), but according to their website they are still planning on it.  In any case, it was actually pretty good for a bbq and fun to see all sorts of people from Greeley come out! We even ran into one of the people who used to rent the basement bedroom from us, our friend Bob!


With some of my co-workers -Andrew, Marjorie, Kelly and me

Since we were downtown we thought about and  decided that Saturday morning we should ride our bikes down to the Farmers Market since we hadn’t been yet this summer. So we did! There really wasn’t too much in the way of local produce yet, but we picked up some tamales and a pretzel. Then I thought we should swing over and visit with my friend Michelle who works at the Greeley Freight Station Museum! Britton’s grandpa used to have a huge set in his basement, so I thought Britton might get a kick out of it.


The Building for the Train Museum

It is located right next to the Farmers Market Square, or the old Train Depot (680 10th Street). The museum building looks like an old warehouse or something, but inside it houses 20.5 scale miles of miniature railroad track and lots of mini trains that are set in a scene in Oregon in the mid 1970s. There are a total of 2,000 train cars!


In this part you can see logging and an old Greeley Monfort Feed Lot Train Car

For the set, the attention to detail is unreal and must have taken the staff and volunteers a ton of time to put together. In addition to all the mini trains, there’s also a full size caboose that you can climb in and check out. From what I understand a lot of this was the private property of the former owner of the Greeley Tribune (Greeley’s newspaper). When he sold the paper and a few other newspapers, he ramped up his train set. Eventually he decided this was something that the public should see and started a museum. It is set up to eventually become a Greeley public museum when he dies.

We had a lot of fun and thank Michelle for letting us visit it and her!


This is the city scene…down the street you can see my face in the mirror like a billboard -lol


Me at the Greeley Freight Station Museum


Britton in the train museum

 

I Love Summertime!

Saturday, June 11th, 2011

Summertime in Colorado is the best. It is warm, everyone is outside enjoying the weather, and the days are much longer. There are bbq’s and get togethers, concerts, bike riding, gardening. Everything is green and flowering. The chickens are laying lots of eggs. Everything is alive! It reminds me a lot of how Puerto Rico is every day.


We eat lots of fresh food like strawberries and lettuce from the garden


We go to concerts: Britton in downtown Greeley at the Blues Jam


Cassie outside the gates to Greeley


We ride our bikes everywhere


Chickens give us lots of food: Henrietta on an egg

Hooray for summer!

Out and About

Sunday, May 8th, 2011

The baby chicks aren’t really babies anymore and really don’t belong in a (human) house all day long. So, we’ve been letting them spend most days in the greenhouse when we are at work and then we take them in at night since it can still be down in the high 30s at night

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This weekend, though, it was such a nice day that we decided to let them out in the main yard. We weren’t sure how the big chickens would treat them, and I was (am) a little overprotective of them. They are still only about 5 weeks old. But they are looking little miniature chickens now already! They grow so fast!

The chickens were much more interested in their food than they were in the chicks themselves. It does look as though we have one that will be competing with Henrietta as the top chicken. She is the barred rock (black and white one) in the video. She is still being told who’s the boss of the yard, but it will be interesting to see how that pans out as she gets bigger.

Also, here are a few pictures from around the yard. This weekend we finally got some nice weather -it has been so windy for all of April.

I think these are called grape hyacinths


The tulips have been blooming for about a month!


So have the dandelions

Spring Tease

Saturday, January 29th, 2011

The weather has been in the 50s all the way to the mid to high 60s which is pretty unusual for Colorado in January. Britton and I are pretty happy about it though. We love summertime and this weather makes us feel like we’re in Puerto Rico -except that they would be freaking out about it being so cold -ha. But we’ve been out walking, cleaning out the chicken coop, we even thought about taking out the bicycles again!

It’s really making us have even more alegría about Puerto Rico and this potential new deal. And the chickens who have taken a two month vacation from laying eggs have started laying again! The sun is staying in the sky just a tad longer in the evenings so when I leave work it’s not complete darkness. Life is good! :-)

Even the sunsets which are usually pretty grey and dark in the winter have been more vibrant and colorful.


The sunset from our backyard looking out towards the twin peaks

But…and this is a big but…this is just a spring tease. Next Tuesday temperatures are supposed to drop to a high of 15. A HIGH of 15 accompanied by snow, wind and the like. Uggh. But at least we have this weekend; we have Puerto Rico excitement to keep us warm; and we know spring and summer will eventually arrive even if they keep teasing us for the next few months.

Fire on the Mountain

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Lately we’ve been hearing lots of news about the wild fires in the mountain ranges near us. Up in a canyon in Boulder near where Britton works and even closer, in Loveland. Colorado is really dry and arid and so when it gets hot like these last few months, the chance of fires really picks up. Plus with all the problems from the pine beetles, the trees are more susceptible than ever.

It’s made the skies turn hazy and during the worst of the fires you could smell “campfire” all the way down here in Greeley. A few people had their homes go up in flames, but overall, for now the blazes have been contained. The one good thing is that we get some awesome sunsets and an orange sun blaze.


Grateful Dead, Fire on the Mountain