Life Transplanet

We had just finished paying the bee removal guy and the plumber was almost finished with his work when I saw and smelled some smoke coming from the lower half of the property.

I got up on the deck of the wood house to get a better view and snapped this picture:

So close you could hear the crackling of the fire and flames and see ashes flying thru the air!

Now the way my brain tends to work, I try to figure out how the fire got started and being a problem solver I try to think of how to put it out.   At this point my brain is trying to figure out how a fire way down below could have started….

The canvas the bee guy used in his bee smoker

Being from Colorado when we have fires, they are usually caused by some careless camper that didn’t extinguish their campfire or from hot embers that rise from campfires.  It’s also the dry season here and I’ve noticed a lot of areas around Rincon have gone crunch dry brown.

My initial thought was, “Oh crap, don’t tell me that the bee guy set the property on fire……”.

It was really pretty far away so I was totally over-reacting but still, once that thought had entered my mind it was lodged there for a while.  We set Rincon on fire!  We’ve all seen the news stories in CA when fires start and people’s houses burn down and huge areas are just consumed by flames.

The plumber saw the flames and called the fire department.  They let him know that they had received several calls already, so I wasn’t the only one concerned.

We went to talk to the neighbor.  He informed us that there is a guy who always sets that field on fire to get rid of the Pica Pica (from what we hear Pica Pica is a bean pod looking ‘weed’ that releases a fuzz that makes you itch) …LOL.  So my fears of having indirectly burnt Rincon to the ground were put to ease.   The neighbor let us know that once the fire reaches the trees, it stops.

We went back home and in about 10 minutes as the flames reached the tree line, they stopped, just as the neighbor had said they would.

It’s hard when you’re in a new place and you don’t know what is normal and what isn’t.  It’s a good exercise for my worry side to learn how to relax and go with the flow.

Hibiscus Flower at our Front Gate

The other day we took a long walk down the Poudre Trail from 71st Ave past 83rd Ave. It was cold, but sunny, and in our black hoodies and pants and at a brisk pace we stayed fairly ok. When we got to 83rd by the old Hazelton School House which is now being used as the Poudre Learning Center, we went off trail a bit by the pond and happened upon an empty old teepee (or tipi depending on your preference for spelling).

Teepee on the trail- they don’t usually lilt so much though!!

Teepees were the main form of lodging for the nomadic Native Americans/Indians who lived in this area. They mainly hunted the wild buffalo that roamed these areas and moved according to the weather and the food sources in the region. People still find old arrow heads around here in fields from time to time. A reminder of the wilder times only a few hundred years ago.

This teepee is not an authenic tipi, but a reproduction, similar to the teepee displayed at Centennial Village. There was some information inside of it about teepees and the Cottonwood trees of the area. We did notice how much warmer it was inside sheltered from the cold slight wind that day. With a fire in the middle it would have been pretty toasty!

We thought it would be pretty cool to have a teepee for our property in Puerto Rico, or maybe we could go with the thatch huts that the native Tainos used! Could be fun.

Huts that the Tainos used in Puerto Rico (pic taken on our honeymoon)

Looks like it is going to snow here in Colorado this weekend.   It’s been a nice few days with highs in the 50′s.  It makes me think of spring but we are still at least 5 months away from things starting to grow again.

We are planning a trip to Rincon soon which will be awes0me. We are looking forward to seeing the place after almost 9 months away! Not sure what to expect, but the gloomy weather here can drag on a person so it will be good to see some sunshine and green plants!

The geese are migrating this time of year and apparently found some food in our yard which was kind of interesting.

Not Chickens

We (Greeley) are on a flight path for migrations each year and we get thousands of these guys as visitors on their way from Canada.  They stop at all the lakes in town and since our house is in between 2 ponds they occasionally stop by to say hi.  They don’t usually come into the yards to eat though…lol.

After the crazy wind died down on New Year’s Eve, we went out to eat at the Texas Roadhouse, a Texas-themed steakhouse where they play country music and you can throw peanut shells on the ground. The perfect type of place for Greeley. And it was full of people. Thankfully, Britton had called ahead and we walked right in with no wait. We felt like VIPs!

At Texas Roadhouse in Greeley

Then we went over to our friends Matt and Jamie’s house to play some Texas Hold-Em poker (a very Texas night for some reason) and ring in the new year. We played tournament style which takes way too long for my patience, but is fun for a night counting down the hours, minutes and seconds to the new year.

After about three hours of playing everyone starts getting restless and not paying much attention to the game and instead starts telling jokes and messing around.

Me and Hailee playing around

To add a little spice to the night, Britton and I had  decided beforehand to play a practical joke. We found some “untearable toilet paper” at the dollar store the other day. Britton inconspicuously traded out the regular paper in the bathroom for the un-tearable kind. We thought about removing all the regular toilet paper under the bathroom sink, but thought that might be too mean, so he just removed and replaced the roll on the spring.

After about 2 hours of playing poker, finally someone went to the bathroom. Britton and I waited to see what would happen. Finally, our friend Erin came out and said “Matt and Jamie, what IS this stuff? It’s just about impossible to tear. Are you trying to re-use your toilet paper?” They were mortified and said, “We just bought it at Wal-Mart the other day.” Britton and I just laughed along with everyone else, and no one knew it was us for the longest time until we came clean. We were just shocked that Erin was actually able to pry it apart and even used it!! That takes some doing. It was pretty hilarious.

Erin with the TP around her neck

Finally as we were nearing midnight only Britton, Erin and I remained as the last three in the poker tournament. We decided to call it and Britton and I took first, and she took second. So we walked away with $60! Not too shabby!

This was the final table. I had the most chips (on the right)! Yay

Erin, Jamie and Me- Making the Money-haha

It was a fun night out with friends and a great start to the new year. We hope everyone has a wonderful and prosperous 2012!

Today we woke up to our roof clapping, the windows singing, and the debris tapping all over our house.  This awakening unfortunately is a fairly common occurrence here on the high plains of Colorado: tremendous wind. Any time we have nice warm weather followed by a cold front, or vice versa, the wind kicks up and blows all over. Britton and I often say “No nice day goes unpunished” for while Colorado is known for its 300 days of sunshine a year, what they leave out is that many of them can be very windy.

The sustained winds are about 35 mph but there are gusts between 60 and 100 mph! It’s just crazy and agitating, especially when you can hear the shingles tearing off the roof, because that means work for Britton. We drove around Greeley just to check out the damage and saw that our neighborhood had some broken fences, lots of missing shingles and more tree damage (after the early snowfall broke a lot of branches).

It’s funny to us when people worry for us about Puerto Rico because it’s a Caribbean island in the middle of a hurricane zone because we have hurricane force winds here in Colorado all the time, especially in the spring and fall. There are often tornadoes that pop up all over the eastern plains, and we even had a major one just 3 or 4 years ago in Windsor (ironic name, I know), a town about 10 miles from Greeley.

Another thing about the crazy winds of Colorado and the plains in general is that it always brings up the tumbling tumbleweeds. We’ve met people who are not from around here who thought that tumbleweeds were fictitious, and part of the western folklore kind of like Paul Bunyon or Tom Sawyer. But, they are very real and roll all around during windstorms like these. While driving, they often tumble and slam into your car grill. They are strange because they look like alien creatures rolling along the prairie.

Tumbleweed that was blown up on our front porch

So, we try to make the best of these days and stay down in the basement where we can’t hear the house being torn apart. After it is all done, we will have to check for and fix any damage to the fence, greenhouse, trees, chairs that have been thrown off our patio and shingles that always take flight.

It’s kind of a strange way to end the year, but I suppose the wind is sort of like nature’s vacuum cleaner doing some last minute work.

We hope this crazy Colorado wind blows in a great new year for everyone!