Category Archives: Colorado Daily Life

Falling out of Summer

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The weather has had a pretty big change here.  As I say that Puerto Rico just experienced Irene!  So I suppose change is all relative.

Once a year Cassie and I like to camp out in our backyard in a tent that was given to us as a wedding gift.  I spent quite a bit of time camping up in the mountains when I was growing up.  While it was fun, it’s one of those things that I have done quite a bit so it isn’t something that I feel I need to do.  Sleeping outside under the stars with Cassie is a lot of fun and we don’t have to drive, pack food, pack clothes and figure out all the details involved with a ‘camping trip’.


Our Tent

I used to also camp out in my backyard as a kid and across the street at my friend Matt’s house.  It was a lot of fun and I am sure parents enjoy it because your sleepover (loud kids) is outdoors!

We figured we had better get our once a year backyard camp out done because we have entered into the Fall season (maybe not officially, but you can feel it).  The weather is cooler, the veggies are ripe and the growing season is slowly coming to an end.  We’ve been getting more food from our garden lately too.


Fruit, Vegetables and Eggs

With the change in season we are starting to think about Puerto Rico too!  I hope there isn’t too much damage to the property, but if there is we can just fix and mend like we usually do!  We really enjoy our summer here in Colorado, but the winter is so long it will be nice to have a place to go where we can plant, pick garden and camp out!

I hope all our friends are doing well in PR after Irene.  The few Facebook posts we’ve seen indicate it wasn’t too bad and I hope that is the case.  I’d actually like to be down there for a tropical storm / hurricane at some point.  Just for the experience of it.  Not a major one of course!

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Summer Egg Hunt

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Now that two of our pullets are laying eggs, they’ve decided they don’t like laying eggs -or sleeping- in the the chicken coop. They will roost on the chain link fence right above the coop, but they won’t go in unless we actually physically put them in at night. As for the laying, I was getting a little worried when I didn’t see any eggs at all even from the older hens for two days in a row.


Chickens in the yard

I checked the place where they had liked to lay before under the unruly rose bush by the house, but no, there wasn’t anything there. I thought I had looked everywhere until I glanced into the mint bush and just happened to spy their clutch in there. It was so well camouflaged that I asked Britton if he could come out and try to find it. I don’t think he ever would have if I hadn’t shown him where it was. Right under our noses and super hard to spot! If you have chickens who are about laying age, make sure to check your yard for any hiding areas. Now I know where the Easter Egg Hunt tradition came about…this wasn’t just a game for kids back when most people had their own chickens 🙂


Hidden Eggs in the brush

 

 

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Progressive Dinner on Bikes

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My friend Kelly and I were talking one day about a bike ride dinner that Britton and I had done a few years ago with our friends Melissa and Alan. It was a progressive dinner where at each stop there was a different course of the meal, then you would bike to the next one. She loved the idea and said we should do our own which I completely agreed! So we set about putting it together.

With a progressive dinner you can have between 3-7 stops. For the most basic three stops there would be Appetizers, Main Course, and Dessert. We had four stops so we also had a salad course. To add more stops, you could do Drinks, Appetizers, Salad, Soup, Main Entree, Dessert, Coffee/Chocolate/Cheese. Each stop is meant to be a “tapas” size stop except the main course which should be fairly filling.


Frozen chocolate banana appetizer

Our house was the first stop at 4pm where we served appetizers and drinks. We had frozen half bananas with hazelnut chocolate and slivered almonds, deviled eggs from our chickens and some chips and nuts. We also served kombucha tea from Celestial Seasonings because we thought our guests would get a kick out of it as we did. Everyone arrived and enjoyed this snack and then we saddled up on our bikes. I think there 11 or 12 of us who ranged in age from 12-50 years old!


Leaving to our next stop

Then we rode about 3 miles to our friends Matt and Jamie’s house where they served the salad course which was a nice pasta salad with veggies from their garden and a homemade tuna salad. They just got a couple chickens in their huge backyard so it was fun to check out their set up as well.

Next was probably both the most fun and also the hardest leg of the bike trip to Kelly’s house about 5.5 miles away. There was a lot of up and down hills and one very fast downhill part. At Kelly’s we had the main course of homemade pulled pork sandwiches and drinks and played with her adorable new puppy.


The whole group with all our bikes

Finally we rode to Gina’s house (about 4 miles) for a dessert of fruit and brownie kabobs which were excellent! Afterward, Matt and Jamie rode (treacherously uphill) back to our house under the full moon where we hung out and listened to music and sat outside for a while. It was a great day and a nice way to take all of our minds off of the usual. We all agreed that we should do this more often. It was sort of like having four parties in one with a quarter of the work of one large house party. Plus we had people ride along just for the fun of it without having to be a stop. It was great night plus awesome exercise. I am definitely feeling it in my quads!

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Lost in the Chaos

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Yep, somewhere between the abandoned rental, the crazy tenants that we released from the contract, scheduling showings, 2x 40+ hours of work including evenings and  weekends, an on-call shift, a broken car, a sick Schnoodle, a hungry cat eating canned tuna, six growing chickens who won’t sleep in the same coop, three wasps nests (and one super swollen stung ear), an overgrown yard and weed infested garden, a fridge devoid of food and laundry two weeks gone from being cleaned…somewhere in there we had an anniversary! Our 6th anniversary to be exact. But we had way too many other things to think about than how incredible those 6 years -or the 5 before that have been.


On our wedding day 6 years ago

I guess we are people who don’t just stand still. Even on our wedding day we were hauling things around and fixing stuff. I was almost late to my own wedding! So it’s only fitting. Last year we were painting a rental house, and this year we were back there again preparing it for new tenants. Lately it’s been a little overwhelming but we keep reminding ourselves that whatever drama we are experiencing is because we wanted whatever it is that is causing it. Remember that! We bring all that we have -better or worse- into our lives. If it gets too much we can always let it go, but until then…we’ll enjoy the chaos.

Things are already looking up. We think we’ve found new tenants for one of the properties and the other one is just about ready to be posted for rent. It’s also important to put our stress into perspective. Last year I was just about to lose my dad. So losing a few weeks rent, working hard, long hours and looking for new tenants is nothing by comparison. Life is about learning lessons and sharing lots of love. I think we’re getting our fair share of both 🙂

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