September 22-23, Fort Collins, Colorado

 We went looking for aspen trees that had turned for the fall. Usually we would go up Poudre Canyon, but it is on fire now. 

The skyline in Estes Park. Welcome to Lake Estes. We viewed Peaceful Valley. Aster, we hiked in the Indian Peaks Wilderness and some golden aspen leaves.

Longs Peak. Hula hooping moose, Bears in the campgrounds here and some elk along the road.

Golden aspens. 

A few orange aspen leaves. A hillside of aspens.

Aspen grove. Beaver lake. 

Hallett peak over Beaver lake through the aspens. We did a nice hike at Brainard Lake area. 

Brainard Lake with the Indian Peaks to the west.  Fall foliage with Brainard lake. 

We hiked to Long lake. 

It rained while we were out. It was nice to see rain after such a dry summer. Hallett peak with the storm overhead. 

Camp robbers were almost trying to eat our sandwiches at our mouth. Moose hunting season is going on. Big horn sheep. Weird looking sunset clouds. 

Sunset tonight. My brother Jerry bought us dinner for our birthday's. Mine was in July, John's and Jerry's birthdays are next week. We had dinner at the sushi restaurant. The outdoor seating was in front of the restaurant where the parking spaces were. 

We gave Jerry the blow up cactus that my sister had sent me for my birthday. It may end up being a pass around gift. 

September 18-21, 2020 Fort Collins

 80 degrees and smoky today. We went to the Gardens at Spring Creek. 

The wrought iron arch in front of the Gardens at Spring Creek. Our first stop was the butterfly pavilion. 

A garden spade door handle, butterfly's and exotic flowers in the butterfly pavilion. 

Luna moth chrysalis's, and more butterflies in the butterfly pavilion. The blue flowers are blue gentians in the outside gardens. Fall blooming crocus, snow frosted hops and some purple seed pods.

Flowers in front of the amphitheater . The garden of eatin', a copper aspen wind sculpture and flowers in the gardens. 

The amphitheater at the Gardens at Spring Creek. I took John out to dinner at the local Stuff it burger place. They have the best garlic parmesan fries. 

Sunset from the burger place. I finished this basket. It is 8 x 1 1/2 inches. The center is a piece of fused cobalt dichroic glass with gold paw prints painted on top. Surrounded by woven seed beads. The beads are tiny orange cats. It is made from natural and dyed ponderosa pine needles and stitches with polyester cord. 

A close up of the center and the tiny cat beads.  My flowers that survived the snow storm last week. 

Still dying needles. Denim Blue, light denim blue and this was neon green, but the needles came out  kind of brown with neon green caps. Sunset tonight. 

I have been experimenting with different blue dyes. Here are three different colors. They all came out looking the same. I have lots of blue needles, will make lots of blue baskets.  Sunset tonight

Mandy and John came over for dinner. John smoked a pork shoulder and made home made BBQ sauce with fresh peach in it. Mandy brought a yummy salad, wine and ice cream. Good to see them. Dinner was delicious.  I purchased some long leaf pine needles. 

each bundle is 9 inches in circumference. I have been dying all my old needles, so I need some nice natural ones to go with them. 

Sunset tonight looks a lot like last nights. 

September 13-, 15 2020 Fort Collins, Colorado

 Sunny and 80's today. Just like the snow storm and the smoke never happened. Beautiful.

I went with John to visit the bus at the storage place today. John drained the water tanks so he can have someone come in and winterize the bus. We don't know how long we will be staying here, but it got to freezing a couple nights this week and we don't want the bus to freeze. 

I dyed some needles yellow. I tried a recipe using turmeric. It dyed them yellow, but they were kind of dull so I added the turmeric bath to some yellow dye that I saved from last year and they came out more of a harvest gold.This photo does not do the color justice. I got the rest of my needles out to inventory and see what I need to get and which ones I want to dye to fill in my inventory for when we take off in the bus. The yellow color shows up a bit better in this photo. Some of these are dyed, some boiled in glycerin and natural needles. 

I am still polishing pyramids that I cast years ago and didn't have good enough polishing tools for. The picture does not show the sparkly dichroic glass in these. You have to see them in person and move them. I have 3 more left then I will be done with them. I was out of pendants with bicycles on them, so I made these. Plus a few with no bikes to fill out the kiln shelf. 

I was out of cat pendants, so I made these guys. And some more beveled and polished pendants. I was busy during the forced stay indoors because of smoke and snow. 

 

There is still some smoke on the horizon, but nothing like there was. You can see it in the sunset. The snow slowed down the fire but did not put it out. It is getting warmer and drier again so it will blow back up until we get colder wetter weather. John took me on a tour around Fort Collins. We started at Horse tooth Reservoir. As long as I have been living here I had not been to it. Through lovely foothills to  Carter lake, Flat Iron lake and Pinewood lake. All are pictured here on the map. 

A view though the smoke toward Fort Collins from the hogback. Horsetooth Reservoir only about 4-5 miles from Fort Collins.

Red rocks on the hogback. Looking up Big Thompson river Canyon. 

Red rocks on the hogback. Carter Lake just west of Loveland. 

A campsite overlooking Carter Lake. Carter Lake with yucca and sunflowers. 

Looking back at Flatiron lake through the smoke. You can see Loveland in the distance. A trail around Pinewood Lake. 

John walking to the spillway of Pinewood lake. We went through Stout, Colo, populations 47 1/2, past the Dam Store, best by a dam site. White asters and rabbit bush. 

Pinewood lake spillway. When we got back I went biking. Here are wildflowers on the path by McMurry ponds. 

McMurray ponds. Purple flowers, rabbit bush, golden asters (seen at Pinewood Lake) and purple asters seen riding my bike in town.

The path by the river that I rode my bike on.