In the Labyrinth

Mountain Beauties

It is such a luxury to live along the Colorado Front Range, surrounded by beautiful high mountains, forests, rivers, and a wide diversity of flora and fauna. We had a great time at a recent family hike up Mt. Brainard, which tops out at a little above 10,000 feet. The forests were full of wild strawberries, and the small streams were full of flowing water. But the real discovery was the abundance of wild mushrooms and lichens we had never seen before. Here are two of them:

 

                               

                                        That beautiful pale pink mushroom creating lovely steps up along its face.

Beaded Treasures from Great Great Grandmother.

My great great grandmother immigrated as a small child with her family from Sweden to Northern Wisconsin. They lived and farmed for a while in Ojibwa country -- before moving father west to North Dakota. I have the beaded moccasins with a leather sole that she wore as a small child. Such sweet work on these little shoes.

 

        

 

Rising Before Dawn to Greet the Harvest Moon

Sometimes I find it so amazing to live here in Boulder, beneath the Flat Irons of the Rocky Mountains. Every morning there is always something extraordinary to see, and to be filled with wonderment. Sometimes it is the elk coming down from the mountains to feed in the green flood plains where we walk, or to hear the early morning frog in the spring singing loudly to each other an invitation of sex. Sometimes the deep indigo blue of the bluebirds or the sun-yellow colors of the Mexican finches as they migrate through the fields of sunflowers and long grass. 

And sometimes, it is this gorgeous pre-dawn sky and the full harvest moon brilliantly white as a cosmic egg, just before its descent behind the mountains.