August 26-28, 2021 Fort Collis, Colorado

 We went to a get together of the early paramedics at Poudre Valley Hospital at Sharon's cabin near Allenspark. John worked with these people 30 years ago. Great to meet them and listen to their stories. 

Most of the gathering was on the deck in back. The group. 

Ginny, Tory and Steve. The view from the deck.

Two photos combined not very seamlessly of the inside of the cabin. Sharon and Mike with a big spread of food from Hog Wild in Fort Collins. Some of the many wildflowers, sweet Williams, campanula, blurry bee balm, asters and senecio, buck wheat and hare bell. 

Still cranking out jewelry. The dotty bowl in the sun. 

The dotty bowl in the shade. The new basket in the sun.

Close up of Frog basket in the shade, so you can see the frog in the middle and the frogs on the big beads. John served this appetizer tonight. Avocado, cilantro lime soup, toast points made from home made bread, with basil leaves. Avocado to spread on the bread instead of butter. We have been eating this all week, But John had great presentation tonight.

Sunset over the Poudre river on my bike ride tonight. Part of the path around McMurry ponds. I probably could ride my bike over these rocks, but I don't, I walk it. If I fall here it will really hurt. 

Canada geese in the sunset tonight. 

Auguest 24, 2021 Arapahoe Basin, Colorado

 Beautiful sunny 70 degree day at Arapahoe Basin. I had driven up to  hike with my friend Rosie. We have spend many, many years skiing at the basin in the winter. Most of the area is at or above treeline, so the views are spectacular.

We hiked up a beautiful trail that winds up the mountain across many runs that we ski on in the winter. Here is a field of fireweed on the run called Exhibition. 

Rosie and I in front of Black Mountain Lodge at midway. We ate our lunch here. Higher up the mountain a view to the north of Loveland Pass and Black Mountain Lodge in the center.

Asters, northern fairy candelabra, and artic gentian. Rosie in a boulder  field. 

 Small lake near the top. The view from a new warming hut they are building in the spot where there used to be midway unloading station on the old lift. 

A new feature is the Via Ferrata, which means iron trail is a route up the rocks on the East Wall built with rebar steps and railings. You need a guide to go up it. The trail starts here and goes across the scree field to the base of the first vertical rock band, and the via starts there going straight up. It is a new feature  at the basin. Blue gentian with a open flower in front and a bud in the back. Fireweed, artic gentian, and colorful dead trees.  

Blue gentian, pearly everlastings with a lone fireweed and a butterfly posing on a rock for us. Rosie in another boulder field. In the winter all these rocks are covered with snow. 

A small stream in a meadow. On the way down, through the same field of fireweed, looking sown at the base area. 

The trail meandered through the subalpine trees.The trail meandered through the subalpine trees. 

I drove over the  continental divide is at the top of Loveland pass. 

This is a vintage photo of Rosie and I skiing in 1989.

August 21-23 2020 Fort Collins, Colorado

 Still in the 90's. The smoke has not been as bad, the skies are blue.

Water flowing over the diversion dam on the Poudre river on my bike ride. Reflection in the water above the dam. 

Sunflowers and blue sky. Reflection on North Shields lake on my bike ride.

Cool clouds over the Poudre River on my bike ride. Sunset on another lake north of Shields. 

Dyed these needles purple. They look a little better in person. Nice clouds on my way home over the bike path.

Sunset from our deck. John outdid himself with dinner tonight. This is not the best photo, but it is avocado cilantro lime soup served with toasted homemade bread, Lime cilantro chicken, Cuban beans over rice and green beans. He went with the Caribbean theme, and it was really good. 

I spent most of the day placing all these dots. The black pieces are dichroic on the other side. The bottom layer is iridescent glass. I will flip it over once it is fired and it should look like the lower part of the photo. It is still too warm in the kiln to look at it yet.  Kind of reminds me on one of those color blind eye test pictures. Dot plate 2 after the first firing. I will put it back in the kiln and fire polish this side to make it shiny. You can see the iridized glass on top.

I had lunch with my long time friends  Carol and Kay today. We worked together maybe 30 years ago and are still in touch. Kay made us a yummy lunch and showed us her brand new house. Lots of fun to see them. 

August 17-20, 2021 Fort Collins, Colorado

 High 90s. The wildfire smoke is better, but not gone. 

Cool art on the sidewalk in Fort Collins on my bike ride. I went out late because it was so hot and saw this lit  up. Sunset over McMurray ponds.

More cool sunset from my bike ride.

The dot plate was not coming out how I liked it, so I added more dots and fired. It is now slumping into a bowl- the candy bowl. Stay tuned for photos of the bowl. I made some more glass puddles. These have 7 layers of rainbow colors in the order of the rainbow, but they don't look like rainbows. I like them. 

A great blue heron seen on my bike ride. I was testing the telephoto on my new phone. Not that impressed with it. May be better with more light, earlier in the day. One of the diversion dams on the Poudre river by the bike path. 

Poudre river on my bike ride. The Fort Collins water park from the bike path.

Val came over for dinner last night. She and John have known each other since they lived Eagle in the late 70's. Her son is in college here and she comes this time of year each year to bring him. It was fun to see her. I finished the Candy Bowl. It is 9 1/2 x 3 inches. It came out cuter than I thought it would. 

Side view of the candy bowl. Look what was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow- John.

 Fresh out of the kiln. Still stocking up for the rest of the year.  Earrings made from my rainbow puddles. Each one is a little different pattern and size, so I did the best I could matching them, but not exact. These are so cute I am started another batch of puddles. 

Fresh out of the kiln today. I  made more puddles. I fused 7 layers of different colors, then cut them up and set the pieces on edge and fired again. They all come out different. The larger ones I will cut up again and place on edge and fire again.  There are also some dichroic earrings in there too. I am also dying some pine needle. I dyed these dark green. The ones on the left were brown pine needles, the ones on the left are some canary pine needles that I dyed green last summer. They were a nice green but they were really dry and brittle. So I put those in the same dark green dye so they could absorb some glycerin that is in the mix. They will lighten up a bit when they dry some more.  Today I am going to dye some purple.