For the Fire Fighters....

These are for the firefighters that saved our house this week....

Wednesday...

 

 

 

 

 

I had three dogs and many of our treasured possessions in that green car where beyond is a local volunteer fire crew. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and many of our neighboring volunteer teams and equipment were on the scene to save the homes up on our mesa, including ours.

Jon wasn't home and it was up to me and a neighbor to get what we could out of the house and the dogs, one who bit me because he didn't  understand, to safety while  a cyclone of fire and smoke hurled upwards when the juniper and pinons caught fire right across the road from the house.  

While I was trying to get out of our driveway, a skidster, a huge earth moving machine was trying to get in and cut a fire line to save our house.

The whole mesa top was evacuated and we spent the night in a hotel...early the next morning, we went to the ridge and with binoculars could see our little red roof and a island of green around it.

It wasn't until that evening that we were allowed to return home.

Today, we were able to walk around our property...
 

 

 

It's hard to tell, but these are up rooted juniper trees that can live to be over a 1000 years old here in the southwest, these were babies, maybe 150-200 years old. On top of this one is a yucca, upside down now.
 

The skidster cut a wide path across our forest, to stop the fire from heading towards our house and our neigbors barn...
 

 

munching an old porcelain and steel bathtub we had buried to serve as a water trough for wildlife....

 

 

The fire did manage to burn some of our back acreage, but fire crews with shovels and chainsaws were able to keep it under control on our side of the road...
 

And it looked much much better then across the road down in the canyon...

 

 

\

 

Past our house is the mouth of the canyon where  the fire whipped into our neighbor's hay fields, before being done....

 

 

Tonight we are going to make homemade calzones and watch movie and thank God...

 and our firefighters for the blessing of our home!

IF: Sky

IT IS FINISHED!! Sorry for the loud capitalization, but this piece is finally done and since it can fit into the Illustration Friday theme of "sky", I present it to the world and there are a lot of butterflies in that there sky!!

If you know me at all, you know I hate when the first thing someone asks about my work is how long it took to make. I want people to be greatly moved by the image, be in awe of it's message, not how long it took to stitch, saying that........

I named the piece "Migration in Moab" but I seriously considered titling it "@#$#$@#$ butterflies" insert your most severe cuss word. I was stitching butterflies for over one year, yup, you read right, over one year of small, medium or large butterflies. I refused to count the numbers of butterflies, but Daughter #2 did and she stopped counting at like 168 with still more to go. The piece is like 23 inches by 32 inches, to get a feel for how big that is, here it is laid out with the pattern on my drafting table..

 

Don't ask me why I decided to make such a huge collage, I can't remember anymore. I think I was looking towards gallery work and wanted to see if I could make something that could own the wall when someone walked into a gallery. It owns the wall, I'm not sure where I am going to put it, I have already entered it in a juried show and shown it to a magazine art director, was thinking of sending it to a few festivals that happen in Moab, Utah as possible festival posters, but don't think I have the heart to try and sell it the actual piece.
Not just that there is a lot of time in it, but more because the model is Daughter #1 ( chronological age, not  in importance). I finished the piece just after she went off to college....

 

 

 

The butterflies were actually an after thought. I had the whole thing done by fall of last year, but thought it needed something. Then we went to a lecture at our cultural center on the migration of monarch butterflies and found out that the Four Corners was in their migration path and the two ideas merged together. Put some butterflies on it, not quite right yet, put some more on, set it aside and then realized it needed a whole another arch per say of butterflies, so started overlapping butterflies on top of butterflies....

So now it is done and on it's way to the framers, I think. The two butterflies on the black are actually 3D butterflies, like they have escaped the picture and when it comes back from the framer, I am going to attach a butterfly to the outside of the frame, if I can bring myself to stitch one more ##@$@#$ butterfly!!

First Sighting Today...

Something creeped up on me worse than the mountain lion that had dinner in my back field...

It snuck up on me totally by surprise, while the leaves are still falling from the tree and Halloween is still two weeks away but this time I managed to get some pictures to prove it! The first CHRISTMAS COMMERICAL!!!...

Shame on you....Target!

Leftovers...

This is why the mountain lion (see last post) that was blocking my driveway last night seemed so mellow....his tummy was full. That is a deer we found this afternoon, well what is not edible on a deer, the hide and the bones, in our back field!
What was so funny last night ,was our little barn kitty was at the top of the drive watching the whole thing, maybe the big kitty and the little kitty were having a stare down.

A mountain lion...

A mountain lion, was blocking my driveway last night, I had to stop in the road and wait for him to decide to move....
Sorry- I forgot to take his picture.

Telluirde

 

We ended up in Telluride, just from the otherside and strolled around the town as the sun thought about setting and the hills were aglow...

 

 

Found a good cookbook in the bookstore, written by Ralph Lauren's wife ( yes, the fashion designer, who's daughter was married to a "Bush" at the ranch last summer, with a "Trump" in attendence.

My mother always says a cookbook is worth it even if there is one good recipe in it. I have tried a few, one for mushroom soup and one for taquito or flauta, tortilla wrapped diced chicken. Changed both up a little bit but it was a good starting point. It also is packed full of stories and family photos.
They live, well, one of their many homes is on the other, otherside of the mountain near Ridgeway, Colorado ( should do a post on their ranch) The cookbook is a little bit posey. It's hard to really imagine them going "camping" when I'm sure they have a little bit of a support staff with them at all times, ( having been one and heard a bit too many stories from friends who are "the support staff" for the super rich when they come to their "cabins" in the mountains  ( should write a post on that too! But the names would  have to be changed since there are "confidentiality issues!)
Where was I...Telluride
Saw a lost dog poster for a puppy back in Ophir, wish we had known, we would have paid better attention...

 

and of course we couldn't escape the upcoming election, I'm sooo looking forward to Wednesday, November 7th. I think there should be a law that states "all politcal signage must come down on that day!"

No surprise, Telluride likes Obama, a lot!

Wonder what he would think if he saw a gigantic bust of himself in paper mache? This is not intended to be a segway, but did also see a trained rat...

Sitting on a cat...

Sitting on a dog...

No joke, the guy trains them for party and sidewalk tips, I did tip him well and  he told me the one that was the hardest to train to stay was "the flea on the rat".

 

Ahhh Telluride, it is kind of a weird place...

Below Ophir

Below Ophir, on the other side of the highway, is the Ames Power Station, the first commercial power station in the world, that's right, the world, the sign says so.....

 

If you need more proof, here is the wikipedia page...

 

 

Why was the first hydro, current generating power plant here you ask? Simple, "Elecricity flows up hill towards money."...

 

 

Jon says that about the water diversions around, if rich people want water on the other side of the mountain, or the ridge, by George it happens and in the late 1800's there was a lot of silver and other minerals that a group of wealthy men decided needed to come out of the mountains, and electricity made it a whole lot easier. So it was not London, Paris, Washington D.C. or New York who first had power, it was Ames, Colorado and you are looking at it!

 

Now down in the bottom of the canyon, some 1,000 ft below the highway, we headed towards Ilium, which the web doesn't even have much info on, other than a place on a map, just a geographical spot, locals use as a reference point, we explored the river...

 

 

"planked" on the observation deck, (she is going to kill me for putting this up!) Then headed down the road, taking the long loop around, up to the highway on the other side and onwards to Telluride.

A Colorado Color Ride

 

Like we do most years, for my birthday weekend, we took a drive up to see the amazing colors of the aspen, cottonwoods and oak brush.



This year we stayed close to home and went up river through the Dolores canyon, over Lizard Head Pass and then down towards Telluride on the other side, but before getting there, we took a detour, to the high mountain town of Ophir...

Situated in the San Miquel Mountains, Ophir sits at just over 9,600 ft.

See the white line across the mountains in the back, that is Ophir Pass, a thin little road, over a shale slide and down the other side of that mountain is Silverton and Ouray. We have driven that, me closing my eyes, while Jon very expertly drives over the shale which makes a horrid sound under the tires, but today we stayed on this side and only looped around the little town...

 

 

 It's really pretty in the summer and fall, but in the winter, snowed in with four or five feet of snow and a snowmobile the only way to get to the highway, "housewives might be looking for butcher knifes!"

Just kidding.... Ophir is a very well organized community and the road is open most days, after the plows go through, here is a run down of their population and stats...

 

Okay, the avalanches would get to me, not so much that I would be afraid of them burying the town, you can see the chutes where on the side of the hill below the town there is a stream of rocks and just little trees, cause they never get a chance to grow very tall, being stuck on one side of a snow slide for days, that would bother me...

 

It bugs me enough, here, down the mountain, when the grocery store shelves are getting empty because the trucks haven't been able to get through. But the population of Ophir and Silverton are use to that and have big freezers to freeze milk and bread, though on occasion the National Guard does fly in supplies.