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I’ve been to Pueblo three times in three days. The air is so hazy from the Canon City and Black Forest Fires that we couldn’t see the Spanish Peaks. When the wind gusts, you smell that hint of campfire. We have a fire near La Veta which is just contained.
It is so dry. We need rain. Anyone care to dance?
Or should I say Windy? Here it is the 3rd of June, and the wind just hasn’t stopped.
Friday we went to Pueblo for some needed shopping and just plain relaxation. We got soil for the raised beds, plumbing bits for the Wendy House, a staple gun (wheee!!!! ) and groceries. When we got home, we could smell smoke and discovered that HWY 160 was closed off. There was a fire in town. The Main Event, also locally known as the Walsenburg Walmart had a fire behind it. We looked at the fire for a bit and then went home.
Saturday, I went to Rock Ledge Ranch, in Colorado Springs. They were having a sheep shearing and spinning event. I was suppose to meet a friend there, but her ride didn’t appear. I still had a great time though. It’s well worth the visit. I loved the houses and walking around the grounds.
Afterwards, I went to Joann’s and got some stuff for Battlemoor. It’s in just over 2 months! I have some sewing to do and I’m going to try and make some more nalbinding needles. 🙂
Sunday was suppose to be a workday around the house. Well… we slept in. While Dan worked on his school work, I did a little gardening, and cleaned house. Next weekend though is all about the plumbing! 🙂 Who’d have thought the idea of running water could make a person so happy? 🙂
Well once again, Mother Nature played chicken with us and we lost. After horrid winds on Sunday, warmth up to about 70 yesterday, we woke to clouds and damp this morning. I thought it would be rain. Smelled like rain. Looked like rain. Hoped it would be rain.
So, I went off to the County Commissioners meeting to hear the proclamation of Ludlow Centennial Year. This Saturday, April 20th is the 99th anniversary of that horrid day. So, the state has decided to have a year long event. Our three commissioners signed the proclamation and handed it to our local UMW representative. In June there is usually a memorial service out at Ludlow. I’ve written about this event before. Here and here. I will be writing more about it as the year goes on.
Once that was done, I did my usual Wednesday thing. Vacuumed my mom’s house and did laundry. I was just getting ready to leave when I realized that it was SNOWING! Oh My was it snowing. Big Fat Flakes. Instead of heading to the Laundromat to dry my clothes, I picked up Dan. We headed out to George’s and had lunch. We celebrated our 9th anniversary with pie. 🙂
Afterwards we stopped by my parents as they had just returned from Colorado Springs and Pueblo. They brought us fried cinnamon rolls. Yum! We went to the grocery, then to the Laundromat and dried clothes.
Now we are home and curled up next to the wood stove keeping warm and working on our computers. Oh, and watching snow fall on top of the 5-6 inches we have from this storm already.
… for at least a little while. Erin came by to visit with Natalie on Thursday. We had pizza and chatted until he had to get back to his truck around 9pm. Friday we went to Pueblo. We took Natalie to Bingo Burger for dinner and then we looked around in various shops for a light coat for me. No luck. Finally around 9:30pm, we took Natalie to the bus station and saw her off to Austin Texas. After a quick stop for a drink, we drove to La Junta and picked up Morgan. She had a meeting in Colorado Springs the next morning. We got in late, up early and headed out.
The meeting was a People to People meeting about a trip to Australia. Morgan was really excited about this, but as the meeting wore on, it was apparent to us that Morgan had ‘out grown’ what People to People could offer. That jump in maturity has sent her straight out of PtP’s league. So, it was a rather sad trio that drove home. We are now thinking of just raising the money for Morgan to go visit Natalie in Oxford.
To take the edge off, we went to the Citadel Mall and got Greek gyros for lunch. Yum! Then we did the great coat hunt for me again. In the end, we gave up and I bought a pattern and material for a coat. I’ll be making that this week. (hopefully). We drove home and after a bit of dinner, headed to bed.
We slept in for the first time in nearly 8 weeks! It was glorious!!! We got up, pottered about and then after watching the Space x launch, had a bit of dinner and then drove Morgan back to La Junta. It was a nice ride home, as we watched rabbits zip across the highway. We also talked a bit about my project for NaNoWriMo. (National Novel Writing Month) I’ve decided to give it a try again. Last time my computer died. We talked about the plot, some characters and where I’d like things to go. We discussed just how much I was going to have to pick his brain too. 🙂
Today, it was back to the grind. A much quieter house now that the girls are gone, but good to be back to a more ‘normal’ (?) schedule.
August ran us over and we crashed in the Middle Ages. Aka… Battlemoor III. I barely got all of my sewing done in time to head out on a Wednesday to camp. Originally, Dan was not going to stay the whole time. He’d planned to work and then come out in the evenings. Serendipity swung her mighty fairy dust wand and Poof! Things changed. Dan got off of work a little late and didn’t have to go back on Thursday. He got his class work done and realized he might actually have a chance to take some time off. Not like we needed it or anything.
Wednesday as we sat up camp after sundown, we got to know a few of our fellow campers in Artisan’s Lane. Then we slept for the first time in ages with no real schedule for us in the morning. Ahhhhh!
We woke at dawn and started getting ready for the day. I worked on the potters wheels and the pottery tent. Dan started running errands. Then he discovered that there was no ice truck this year. So, he started running ice in from First Choice, our local grocery store. At least two trips a day. He gave free ice to the Troll gate, Chirgeons, the watch and to the parties.
I had a lot of fun working with the pottery and the fiber tent. It was the first time I’d thrown on a potter’s wheel in about 8 years. I didn’t do to bad, but I realize I will have to build up my hand strength for next year. I made a couple of hand built pieces as well. One was a small rose. It was about the only piece of mine that made it through the firing. We did do a kiln fire and realized that we need better air control next year. At least there was enough pottery to award some to the king and queen. 🙂
I got a lucet this year and learned how to make cord. 🙂 Dan bought me presents too. A torque, shears, a small knife, shoes, hair pins, a shuttle and the lucet. 🙂 I’ll post pictures below.
I think that camping with the Artisan’s Lane group was the best thing we did. I really enjoyed the company and the way it all worked. We all pitched in with cooking and cleaning up.
Once we got home, we were thrown into the craziness of ‘life’. I picked 50 pounds of plums off of my mom’s tree. Since then I have made plum jelly, syrup, jam, butter and chutney. Oh and cake and cobbler. Yummm!
We also have been to visit Morgan at least two times. Once on her 16th birthday. We took her out to eat, gave her a prezzie Dan picked up for her at Battlemoor III and gave her some money. She is really adjusting to college well. While she may be the youngest person on campus, she is on par with many of her fellow students mentally. For others, she is the adult supervision. LOL!
Wednesday, it rained almost all day long and oh was it COLD! I pulled blankets out of boxes and threw quilts on the bed. Today we got a clear glimpse of the Spanish Peaks. There was snow on the tops and the Trincheras were white! Brrrr!!!!
Last night we drove to Pueblo and had dinner at Bingo Burger. 🙂 It was Dan’s birthday treat to himself. We went to Barnes and Nobel for a while and then came home. Tomorrow we are heading out to pick her up, and then we are going to Pueblo. She and Dan need new glasses. Maybe, just maybe we will eat at Bingo Burger again. 🙂
Oh, and week after next is the Spanish Peaks Celtic Music Festival!
This week was something else. Monday I spent catching up on all the email from the weekend and met with Sandi Hansen of Edison Learning. She is working with our school district to help bring up our educational scores on the Colorado student assessment tests. (TCAP).
Tuesday was meeting day from hell. Dan and I had a Southeastern Workforce Investment Board meeting in La Junta. This was also the day that Colorado tried to blow all of it’s topsoil to Kansas. We had miles of dirt fog. So much dirt in the air that we couldn’t see. Tumbleweeds were passing us and we were going 65! It took 1 gallon of gas to get to La Junta and 3 to get home due to the wind.
At the meeting, we discussed the workforce/employment issues in our region. The map showing the regions can be found here. We also had a really good presentation on Demographics for regions 6 and 14, which is what we are according to the state. It was very interesting and we actually got to solve a question that the Demographers had. There was a statistical blip that they didn’t understand and I looked at it and knew in an instant what it was. There was a burst of households in the 44 to 65 yr range. They didn’t get it and I explained that it was the grandchildren coming to Huerfano County to occupy their grandparents houses. The reason I knew that was that I’m one of those. I escaped the big city, Littleton, to come down to Walsenburg to raise my family in a low cost, low crime/stress area.
After that meeting, we drove home, grabbed dinner and then headed to the board meeting. This was the first regular board meeting for RE-1 in February. All others had been special meetings and/or workshops. We got a lot accomplished and once again, there is more on that meeting on my other blog.
Wednesday should have been quiet. I got some stuff done around the office and then went to meet with David Benson around 4pm. He and his partner, Iris Williams are working to help our school district with trust issues. We have a situation whereby nearly 100% of the district dislikes/distrusts one person. Not healthy, and it is causing major issues. It was a really good discussion and we talked till nearly 5pm. Afterwards, I went to the library and then went to work to pick up Dan. We had to be to Peakview by 6pm to see a 4th grade play called the Emerald Egg. That was fun.
Thursday we were up early and went with my parents to Colorado Springs. Dad had his cancer checkup. Dan drove us home as Dad was a little loopy from the pain meds. We stopped at Romero’s for lunch. Yummm!
Friday was just as early a start. I had a State Youth Council meeting to be at in Denver. The weather was bit nasty, so we left early. The meeting was very good. More info on that over on Untapped Potential. We drove home through bands of snow. We were going to stop in Pueblo for dinner, but with the snow, we changed our minds. Good thing we did as there was a huge car pileup accident due to the snow.
Friday was also Daniel’s 22nd birthday. 🙂
Saturday was sort of a stay in bed type day. We slept in, relaxed and did as little as possible. 🙂 Better yet, we went to Wonderful House in Trinidad with my parents. It was my parents way of thanking Dan for driving. They even promised him that he could bring a date if he wanted, or if he didn’t, they have this daughter…. that they’d set up as a blind date for him. ROFLOL!! Needless to say, there were a bunch of blind date jokes all evening.
Today is catch-up day. Dan has gone into work for the day and I’m writing blog posts, reading emails and cleaning house. Wheee!
For more school board adventures, check out my other blog, Untapped Potential
Life didn’t mellow out, slow down or get easier. Instead, it got crazy. The school board meeting that should have happened on the 8th was canceled. We had snow and the auditors that check the election couldn’t certify the vote. You can read all about that here . I started a blog about my school board life.
The 9th was my birthday. I made dinner and a carrot cake. It was great and while we did nothing really special, it was a good day. Thursday and Friday Dan had to work sound for the local high school play. Saturday we had dinner in Trinidad with my parents. We went to Wonderful House for my ‘birthday’ dinner. Yum!
Over the weekend, I attempted to seal cracks in the Wendy House. The wind was brutal and my parents called us on Sunday to tell us how they’d driven up HWY 12 and came across the wind damage at Stonewall. We were lucky here in Walsenburg. A few limbs down and that was about it.
Monday… Bryan and Katie have been having issues. Not exactly fighting, but issues. They decided to talk, but didn’t set a time. Katie kept pestering Bryan when he was either just waking up, going to sleep, heading to work, etc… Not a good time to talk. So, he said ‘let’s talk on the weekend’ (ie Nov 19th) She said okay. He went to work. Tuesday morning around 6:45am, Bryan knocks on our door. Katie and the kids are gone. The house was trashed and she apparently packed as much as she could get in the car and left.
We were all devastated. Eventually we found that she was in Ft. Smith, OK. with her girlfriends. I have to admit I am worried about the boys. I miss my two grandsons, Talon and Gavin.
Wednesday was the make up meeting for the school district and a Accountability meeting. Dan and I are now part of the District Accountability Committee. So, Dan went to the Accountability meeting and I went to the school board. We got sworn in and then held elections for officers. I’m now the president of the school board.
Thursday morning, we had the police doing a welfare check on Katie as she hadn’t reported to work. Then that afternoon, her boss from the hospital was by. Katie never called the school, daycare or her job. She just left. The day was lightened by the fact that I had a mouse try to run up my pant leg and then later ran across the sleeping dog.
Friday we went out to Gardner School for One Room Schoolhouse. Each year they have a day where the whole school reverts to the one room school system. It was a lot of fun. Dan helped make ice cream cone cones and we both helped Pam’s class make telephones. Afterwards we went up to see Jack and Barbara Yule. Dan did some computer work and then we had a nice lunch.
As for this weekend, it has been fairly quiet. We did some work, got paid, enjoyed a good meal in Pueblo and Brandy got sprayed by a skunk. We also took a drive where we saw at least 100 deer and 60 wild turkeys. It was great. Today I got to spend two hours visiting with a dear friend I haven’t seen in 30 years. Bill Farquhar and his wife Kristen were on their way to Denver and stopped in town long enough to eat lunch and visit. 🙂 It was so good to chat and catch up with him.
Now I’m catching up on all the blogs, emails and other things, because if things go as they have been, the next two weeks will be busy!
Just in case anyone in the universe missed the news yesterday…. This is what happened in Walsenburg. Around 9:45am, Dan called to tell me that he might be late getting home from lunch. He’d gone to get gas at the Acorn when suddenly everything went crazy. He got over to George’s Drive Inn and managed to grab a burger while waiting to see if he could get out of the area. He finally ended going up over the hogback and through the back side of town to get home. He also got the chance to talk to our local sheriff, Bruce Newman.
Meanwhile, Daniel and some of his work buddies were getting gas as well. Everyone got hung up. My parents were trying to come home from Pueblo where they’d gone early this morning for groceries. I don’t know how long it took them to get home. Oh, and Morgan and I were suppose to go to Pueblo to do some shopping. We got delayed and had to go out of town by the southern exits. We passed the scene and could see the car and the traffic backed up for miles.
We got our shopping done, had lunch at Bingo Burger and still managed to be caught in the traffic jam. We did see the Dougherty Gang being taken in convoy to Pueblo. Lots and Lots of law enforcement vehicles with flashing lights.
It certainly has been a media circus. Walsenburg’s one day of fame. Now to going back to a quiet sleepy town in Southern Colorado.
A fellow blogger, Chas, pointed out an article in the Denver Post. You can find it here.
Sometimes having a little knowledge is a good thing. Other days it is just damn irritating! So, forgive me for climbing up on a soapbox for a few minutes. (thank you Chas!) Articles like this drive me nuts.
The Denver Post published an article stating that out of the 64 counties in Colorado, Douglas County ranks the healthiest and Huerfano County ranks last. This was in spite of the fact that seven counties were not included due to insufficient data. In many ways, as with unemployment and educational data, there are statistical anomalies that hurts our county. The manner in which data is sorted and compared is also damaging.
Yes, we are probably one of the poorest counties in the state. Unemployment is at 13%. We are one of 11 school districts taking part in the state wide TDIP (Targeted District Improvement Plan) and we have a population of about 7560 people. That’s about 4.9 people per square mile.
Now, what skews facts? First off, Urban vs Rural. It is the demographic Damocles Sword. Douglas county, up there between Colorado Springs and Denver has just about everything nearby. They have choices that those of us in rural areas only dream about. These choices impact people in ways that demographic computers can’t calculate. And yes, that is what they use. A database run by academics in Denver and Northern Colorado. For the most part, they plug in a set of values and then apply them across the board to the entire state. In some ways this is a good thing. In others it produces comparisons that are in line with apples and hex bolts.
Some facts that those data bases never stumble across are well known to the denizens of Huerfano County. We have a love/hate relationship with some of them. The Fox is our only theater. No multiplex, just one theater with one movie; Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There is NO Department of Motor Vehicles. We have two sets of stoplights in the entire county and they are one block apart. Walsenburg averages 30+ trains a day bisecting the city. We can walk anywhere in town in under 30 minutes. There are two grocery stores, two small dollar stores, numerous antique shops, a few specialty shops, and our video store is a bookstore and the local bus station. Walsenburg has a great library, four major highways intersecting it, half a dozen diners and fast food joints. And that doesn’t even touch La Veta or Gardner and their assets.
Next, Council of Governments. (COG) Huerfano and Las Animas counties are joined at the hip due to a COG agreement. While economically good for the counties in general, when it comes to data collection, COG messes up the statistics. As for unemployment, the two counties are tied to six others in the San Luis Valley as the South Central Workforce Board. Some of those counties have even higher unemployment than Huerfano County. They are some of the same counties with too little data for the Denver Post article as well.
Our mayor made a good point in the article. He mentions that most people go to Pueblo for health services. It’s true. One of the biggest employers in the county has HMOs based in Pueblo or Colorado Springs. Yes, we have doctors, dentists, a hospital and a nursing home. However, it was a banner headline last year when a baby was born in the county. It was the first one about 20 years. Why? Because everyone goes to Pueblo! So, when we go north to the doctors, this skews the statistics. It makes Pueblo look great. All the ‘healthy’ people go out of town. Those in town are visiting the emergency room or use local doctors because they don’t have an HMO or health insurance. Most employers in the county are small businesses. They can’t afford HMOs, and there go those data streams.
Then there are the other demographics. Veterans. By some odd quirk, we simply have lots of veterans living here of all ages. Yes, we have a State Veteran’s Nursing Home here, but that doesn’t account for all of them. Just count the DV license plates at Safeway some afternoon. Furthermore, most go to Denver and Pueblo for health care. That hands the health statistics to Denver.
We also have a very high number of retirees. They either return here because they were born here, or because the cost of living is low. They want to get away from the rush and noise of the urban areas. Once again, many of them use HMOs with offices in Pueblo, Denver or Colorado Springs.
The cost of living is another factor. It is very low in the county. Welfare, Social Security and pensions provide almost as much income as local employers. It is possible to live here for cost of the rent of a house in Denver. 25% of our population lives below the poverty line. Average Median Income is about $31K. This puts many people on Medicaid or Medicare. We all know what that system does to statistics.
There are other things that don’t count when it comes to quality of life and that data set used by the Denver Post article. Clean air, low crime rate, beautiful scenery, decent neighborhoods, and no traffic jams except when there is a train. It isn’t that we don’t have troubles, but compared to Denver or Castle Rock, it’s nothing. Sometimes being on the bottom of the list isn’t such a bad thing.
Sunday we went up to Colorado Springs. This was so we could be at the Winter visiting day for Fountain Valley School. This is a private college prep high school that we’ve been looking at for Morgan.
The hotel was um… a joke. Yes, it was cheap, but we’ve stayed in nicer hotels for about the same amount and had much better service and rooms. Oh well. We got up early and headed for FVS. We were WAY early, so we grabbed a second bit of breakfast at Burger King, because the breakfast at the hotel was….um….horrid.
We arrived on time and guess what…. Third Breakfastses!!! It would have made a hobbit proud! LOL! We had a lovely tour of the campus, visited with teachers, student and parents. Lunch was fantastic, and we were assured that Morgan would Not Starve if she attended FVS. We had an interview with one of the admission assistants and that went well. After that was over, we visited the stables that we had missed earlier due to a bit of rain. Yes, rain in January. Better yet, rain in sunshine in January!
After the visit, we headed home with a stop in Pueblo to find Dan some dress clothes for his upcoming trip to Washington DC. He really wanted a suit and an extra pair of trews, but we ended up buying a sports coat, two pairs of trews, a shirt, a belt and a wool overcoat. It took forever! Morgan got bored with waiting, so we let her roam JCPenny’s, which is where we were. She found a sweater and we got it for her. Biggest issue we had was finding the size that fit Dan. Normally he wears 34/30 jeans. However, when it comes to suit pants, he wears a 38/29. Just weird. Snakes on shoes weird! I don’t understand their sizing. Oh well. We got the stuff purchased. We also all remember just how much we hate shopping!
Afterwards, we went to Bingo Burger for dinner. Yum!!!! It was a good ending to a long day. Especially as I had an asthma attack in the Mall due to some perfumes in Bath & Body… which we just walked by! uggghhh… When we got home, Dan took the truck back while I crawled in bed with a hot water bottle. Between the asthma, the long day and the inhaler, I was out in moments!
Of course, waking up today was a real effort. I was so tired. I was bribed out of bed with a cup of tea and then later Dan took me to lunch at George’s. Yumm….
The rest of this week will be busy with clients and working on our business plan. wheeee….. On Friday, we have to go to Trinidad on business. I am really looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday!