June 23, 2004

Hello everyone,

Early spring brought some wonderful snow and wintery weather. This didn’t deter me from working outside in the yard. I was busy cutting back Artemisia when a female mallard duck flew out of one of the shrubs and it was then I discovered 7 beautiful eggs. I left the area and she came back. Things went well for 2 –3 weeks and then some predator got the eggs. I was hoping to see little ducklings on one of the ponds. We have raccoons, skunks, coyotes and raptors around here so one of them had a meal of duck eggs.

April 24^th my friend Aine and I went hiking at Heil Ranch. We were the only ones on the trail early in the morning (the loop is over 7 miles) and were descending on the Waipiti Trail when I saw black out of the corner of my eye, turned my head and saw a bear. It was at a distance of the space between two telephone poles. We both took photos and started walking. The bear followed us. Every time we stopped the bear stopped and then would continue to follow/stalk us. We got down to the last meadow and this animal was really lumbering. They can sure move quick. I picked up a large rock and told Aine we were going to get moving. She said we can’t outrun a bear and I replied we are “motoring”. It was then I tried shouting at the bear, telling he/she to get back to their den. With waving arms and this vocal display, the bear ceased following us. It probably helped the we did not have any food.

When we got to the dirt access road we met a party of four people starting up and told them of our experience. They were very enthusiastic, “Oh we’re going to see a bear”. We kept telling them “you don’t understand; this bear followed us.” I asked if they had food and the woman said they were planning on having a picnic. I told her if the bear got too close to throw the bag of food away. She said “but I don’t want to lose my pack”. Man, she could lose more than her pack.

I reported this event to the Boulder County Open Space and Colorado Wildlife. Posters were soon erected warning people of the bear sighting. Having a digital camera is great because we were able to send images to the officials we spoke to. When I was not available and persons called, Ken knew the entire story and was able to fill them in on details.

Ken has been busy too. In mid-April he towed the Suzuki Samurai rock crawler to Moab for the annual big Easter week event. He broke the rear suspension on the first trail but get it welded and running again the same day. A couple of days later he twisted the rear axle housing and although it kept running, it would need major repair. He also brought his mountain bike on the trip and rode a couple of the trails at this world-famous destination.

When he got home he built and installed an entire new rear axle assembly. The Suzuki should be stronger than ever.

On May 1st Ken did a mountain bike race at the Fruita Fat Tire Festival near Grand Junction. They didn’t have any age classes older than 35 so he found the competition a little too fast but had a good time anyway. He mentioned something about a separate fun race held later at the beer festival that featured such things as a topless woman racer. I guess we know why he likes Fruita.

On a recent road bike ride from home to Estes Park Ken road with two friends from Swiftcycling, his Boulder-based bicycling club. On a long super-fast decent down a Rocky Mountain canyon one of the guys had his bicycle go unstable with the front wheel shaking back and forth. In an instant he crashed hard and struck his face on the pavement. He lay unconscious until the ambulance arrived. It took 37 stitches to close the wounds and surgery to staple the broken pieces of skull back together above his eye. Fortunately his eye is ok and he will recover just fine. I suggested to Ken that he should be a little careful. On that ride at one point Ken saw 54 MPH on his bike computer.

Longmont Artist Guild, in which I am an active member, was fortunate enough to participate in St. Vrain Historical Society’s Strawberry Days Antique Show. We had 29 entries for our Art Show. There were people from Denver, Fort Collins, Boulder, Arvada, etc. One person had just returned from Santa Fe and remarked that the paintings we had on display were much more reasonably priced than those in Santa Fe.

In May Ken and I traveled to Abiquiu, New Mexico for a week. I had signed up for a workshop with Jan Schoenfeld. When I was a kid, I had never gone to camp. Well, I went to camp. The accommodations were small basic rooms with four bunk beds. Most of us had requested private rooms and we were fortunate enough to have one of these small basic rooms to ourselves. Because Ken and I had the truck, we loaded it with art supplies, pillows, camping gear, coffee, coffee maker, wine….get the picture…modern day Clampets.

Most memorable about this workshop was the people attending. I was fortunate to meet some wonderful people and develop friendships. The building unit I was in was called Cholla. Our small group of artists staying in this building called themselves the “Cholla Girls”. I had brought a coffee pot and cups so we had coffee before the cafeteria opened and wine to end the day (I brought the wine and glasses too).

One day while plein aire painting we were setting color with mineral spirits. One of the women put some mineral spirits into a water bottle and during her painting, accidently drank some. She did not drink that much, but it gave her quite a scare. The moral of this story is never put anything like mineral spirits, or turpentine in a water bottle. Fortunately she recovered from this experience in two days time.

On the day we were to depart, My new friend Doris asked me to look at her rental car. She thought she might have a flat tire. I looked and said “Doris, it is flat”. She said well maybe because it is parked on an angle, it only looks flat. I said “Doris, you really have a flat tire – no mistake about it”. Well she called an AAA hotline number for repair and somehow got a sex line. She finally did get thru to AAA and was concerned that they would come early and she would be having breakfast, or be in the shower. We kidded her about the shower and the sex hotline, saying they would love that.

Artists attending this workshop came from all over the U.S. with one woman from Vancouver. Two special people to me were Marla from Baltimore, MD, who was in the Peace Corps and is now a psychologist and Suzanne from Tuscaloosa, AL, who just retired as editor of a magazine she started on Southern History. These ladies really have it together and it was wonderful to get to know them.

Saturday, our day of departure, Ken returned to collect me and all my goods (which was a mountain of stuff) and started for home. We stopped for the night and I did not have to go outside to the ladies toilet, there was a bathroom in our room. Oh the luxury of it all!

Well, we returned home and the next day was Memorial Day and Ken and I ran the Bolder/Boulder 10k citizens race with 44,000 other people. Some of our favorite performers on the sidelines were…the Blues Brothers, the Tu Tu ladies, and the belly dancers. It seems they have acquired more belly dancers that are very well endowed. It must be the University water.

After the race we drove to Golden West, a high rise luxury retirement home in Boulder, where I hung 10 or 12 paintings. Or perhaps I should say that Ken hung them. They were suspended from wire and had to be twisted so that they would hang straight. In July I will do a television interview and a reception at this location. I’ll have more about this in the next Colorado Tale.