Category Archives: Colorado Daily Life

Avocados Galore!

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My aunt Laura invited us to an avocado tasting party put on by the Avocado Diva and Vintage Inn in Eaton/Galeton. We had so much fun! The bed and breakfast was a beautiful house and the hostess is a terrific cook. There were all sorts of different foods to try that had a little avocado in them. From chocolate/avocado fudge and avocado salad to delicious guacamole and avocado leaf tea!


A nice spread of avocado and other snacks!

The Avocado Diva brought all of these avocados straight from small-scale farms in California. We learned all about different types of avocados including such varieties as Zutano, Bacon, Pinkerton, and the most famous: Haas. The type we were most impressed by was the Mexicola! According to the Avocado Diva, Brenda, this is the original wild Mexican avocado. It looks sort of like a fig or a plum and the skin is edible! The skin has a sort of nutty flavor to it. This is also the variety that you can use the licorice smelling leaves in iced tea. What’s more, is unlike most of the hybridized varieties, this one you can grow true to form from the seed. So we are going to try and sprout some here and maybe in PR too!


The small black, smooth-skinned Mexicola Avocado in comparison with another variety

We bought a variety box of them and are looking forward to enjoying our gourmet avocados for the next couple of weeks! Yay! We did find two or three avocado trees on our property in Rincon, so this makes us all the more excited to eat off our land! We learned today that there are avocados that mature at different seasons. Some are summer varieties and some are winter while others are year-round producers. We would love to be able to eat these all year round!


Holding a small Mexicola next to our box of goodies

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The Rum Diary and Coffee Shops

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We have been having what we call “vacation weekends” for the last few weeks.  This is where we do things we’d normally just do on vacation.  Like going to movies and visiting coffee shops.  That’s what we do when we are in Rincon and  Puerto Rico anyway.


Cassie Using the Computer at the new coffee shop Blue Mug in Greeley

Last weekend we went out to see the Rum Diary in the theater.  It is  based on a Hunter Thompson creation and takes place in Puerto Rico in the early 60’s.   It stars Johnny Depp too so we figured it was worth checking out. Cassie had read the book a few years ago and even then they were planning on making a movie.  It turned out pretty good.

But of course we are biased since it is a PR story! A lot of the scenes we knew exactly where they were filmed! I thought it did a good job of showing both the poverty and wealth of the island through the eyes of an outsider who attempts to uncover some of the news stories on the island in between Depp’s character’s drunken romps. It even went a little into the history of the US military bombing ranges on Vieques and Culebra and rampant corruption.

Depp’s character gets to drive a sweet 53 Corvette.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to take my Corvette down to PR but it’s not as cool as this 53 and it would be pretty expensive to ship it.   That and the sea air would most likely destroy the frame!

In other sort of related news, the offer we put in on the other house didn’t go thru otherwise we would most likely be working on weekends and nights.  It’s nice to have some downtime although it’s going to get really boring over the next few winter months until we get down to our place in Rincon. We are thinking January or early February depending on my work on-call schedule. With all of these ‘vacation weekends’ we are really geared up to get down there and get some work done on our house and property. But we’ll probably still take a few breaks at the Banana Dang and see a movie or two at Caribe Cinema for good measure. 🙂

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What Wii Have Been Doing

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As you probably know by now, Britton and I like to take walks and bike rides to stay active here in Colorado. In the winter, our desire to be outside decreases dramatically as the weather turns cold, grey, snowy and/or windy. Living in Colorado you’d think we would be ski-bums, but skiing and/or snowboarding is a full-day commitment (need to wake up at 4am to get to most of the mountain towns on time) and pretty expensive for just a day pass. Plus I just don’t really like cold weather sports that much. I tend to gravitate toward the lodge for hot cocoa and a warm fire.

Some days it is nice enough around here that we can get outside and do some fun activities on the weekends, but during the work week now that the time has changed, it is dark (and therefore extra cold) before we even get home from work.

So we were trying to think of something we could do together this winter to stay active. In the past we have taken salsa dancing lessons, walked around indoor plazas and have done push-ups, sit-ups and treadmill walking/jogging in our house, but we were trying think of something new and engaging.

One day we said, “Why not try the Wii?” We knew that they had gone down in price since they first came out a couple of years ago and that we could get it for even less if we looked on Craigslist. Sure enough, we found a Wii with the balance board, extra remotes and numchucks and four games for $100! Not bad for something that would have been about $600 new!

So we have been playing it just about every night since we got it three weeks ago. We are getting a lot better at it! On the Wii Fit game we really like the balance games like this soccer head-butt game. I also like the yoga and aerobics games too.

 

We also got Wii Sports Resort and so we turn on the fireplace and turn on some tropical music and then we can go wake-boarding, cruising, ping ponging and more at a tropical resort all in the comfort of our basement. I guess it will have to do until we go back to the real thing! 🙂

 

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Greeley Tree Branches Everywhere!

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After the first snow of the season and then a subsequent snowfall only a few days later, all the deciduous trees in our area suffered. Most of the trees still had all their leaves and so the snow just weighed them down like heavy blankets. That first night we could hear snapping and cracking and a lot of people were out of power for days because they had broken on top of power lines, and then those came down too!


The oak tree behind me in this picture lost its top completely

The city of Greeley initially said that they would come around and pick up any broken branches that were piled on the side of the road. Now they are saying to bring them to them as there are a LOT more tree branches than they realized. If you want more info from the city of Greeley about the tree clean up (of which they have already hauled away 16,000 cubic yards!!), including location and hours for drop off and pick up, you can see their press release here.


A LOT of trees!

Most of the hugest piles have been cleaned up, but there are still quite a few piles of trees everywhere in Greeley. It looks like a hurricane or tornado passed through! And the poor remaining trees look really sad and some of them have split straight down the center. I’m sure a good many of them won’t come back next spring unfortunately. Thankfully, we uncovered ours from the snow before they snapped.


You can really see how much Colorado has turned into the cold, dead season

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