First snow, first grade.

First Grade

First Snow

First new job since I don't know

The new job ain't so bad (I wonder if Rowan is saying the same thing). It is easy work if not exactly spiritually fulfilling, but really, the spiritual part is my responsibility. We have come upon that time of year again, yes, the back to school thing. In our house it's a double whammie or whammy or whatever, K being back to the grindstone as well as himself

Himself

All things being equal, it could be worse. Yes folks, I could also be back at school too, which in a manner of speaking, I suppose I am. There is a lot to be learned @ T-ride Woodworks (and taught, they could learn some about the earth-freindly side of things, & I'm the man to do it...). I've been learning to play chess again too  

Themselves

that's right, I said learning. It's a difficult freakin' game any way you look at it, but my main reason for my return to the world's greatest game  is to eventually teach the wee

 lad like my Father did before me.

Danny Boy; Feelings....?

First this...

Which of course leads us to this....

Aren't the classics the best?
Please don't be ashamed if you have to get your hankies out....

Well, it's about time...

Shoosh, well that took a while. It's hard to Blog when the summer has you in it's sweet grip, although it's not really that long since I last put pen to this paper, I realize that I may have lost a lot of you. So, my apologies, please forgive my tardiness.

So now, although it's hard to believe, the insidious hand of Autumn is tentatively reaching its tentacles back into our little valley.

It's been a strange & difficult summer, some changes have been made; I have left my job of 7 years reluctantly due to many circumstances in my control & beyond, & will be starting a new one with Telluride Woodworks on Monday. Kathleen is still dealing with the dreaded daemon of Meningitis from time to time & school is just around the corner. She is putting her nose to the grindstone of the new school year & is getting ready for new students, 6:30 rising & the trials & tribulations of the Tea Ching.

Rowan starts 1st grade & seems to have a bit of anxiety, he has told me he is a little scared & we have talked about courage

and growing up and other such scary stuff. Not a man to be pessimistic however, he is revelling in the idea of the oncoming winter. His favourite season he says...

Here is a list of the summer:

Bears
Rain
Small jobs
Solar Power!

Yummy farm food
Worm Compost
More Bears
Swimming
Biking
Hiking
Camping

More soon, stay tuned...
P.S. I'll have a new slideshow soon, I pinky promise.
P.P.S. please take the time to vote in our poll, the data are being sent to a very prestigious university where they will be used to pick the next president.

The amazing growing child

One time, K & I were discussing the possibility of an addition onto our house, consisting of a badly needed kitchen expansion, ours is a bit small...

     

And possibly another bedroom. So, during the course of this discussion, and probably in relation to the bathroom part of the discourse, Kathleen said to me; "you have to understand, there will be a Teenager living here someday".

It did not compute.

"Who's Teenager is going to be living here?" said I, completely baffled. Which brings us to the motif of this post. Rowan is growing up. Kathleen & I are pretty much staying the same, but Rowan has grown an inch since January and there is no sign of him stopping anytime soon.

                                                                   

Last Friday he graduated from Kindergarten.

And really, as much as I used to treat things like Kindergarten Graduation as some sentimental trivia when it was some other person's child. Now I'm in there, as sentimental as the rest of them, taking bad photos & vowing to remember this day.

It was a sedate, but uplifting affair, we had slide shows and songs and funny hats, but the kids seemed to tune in to the solemnity of it all. Rowan indeed seemed almost serious at times. This is part of a pattern; when he "graduated" from Preschool last year, he was very earnest and said of his thoughtful demeanor that he was so serious because he was "thinking of all the hard work he would have to do in Kindergarten..."

Well look out, because here comes First Grade! Oh the responsibility of it all...

But far be it from me to mock the wee lad, I was just thinking about how really, we should graduate from our jobs, take a Summer vacation & do a lot of thinking about how serious the next phase of our lives will be.

Or not.

Festival

There goes the first official weekend of the summer. Here in Telluride we like to keep people entertained, so every weekend there is a festival of some sort or other. Some are fun, some not so, but it just depends on what floats your boat. If chamber music tickles your fancy, then Telluride is the place to be August 7th to 16th. Mushrooms, that would be August 21st to24th and so on...

This past weekend it was one of my favorites, Mountainfilm a prestigious film festival devoted to mountain life. 

Or at least thats what it started off as, it has evolved into something much bigger. Now there are symposiums on environmental issues, exhibitions of art, discussions about social issues amongst some of the people who are dealing with the top levels of human strife & struggle.

This year, one such such topic was slavery, there are at this time more slaves in the world than at any other time in world history. 

It is an enlightening and sobering experience, & can make one feel guilty about living in this land of opulence. Or at least make you realize that if you have more than everyone else, it is good to give back.

So, we'll see you here next year?

Just beware of the cowboys...

Have you seen this?

Or even this?

Well?

Now We Are Six

Rowan's party was excellent, a success all round especially after the previous days mudslide debacle. The slide folks are for the most part out of danger for now...

Do you remember your 6th birthday? My Sis & I were 5 days apart. No, she is not 5 days older, but her birthday fell on the 1st & mine on the 6th. So our party was always on the same day. I remember it like I should; beautiful sunny days, stuffing ourselves with forbidden junk, loads of prezzies. 

This year we made 7 quarts of ice cream. That's right, and there was nary a smidj left of any except for the Maple Walnut.

Beware the dread gravity

First this happened:

San Miguel County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris White, on his first day on the job, stands next to the debris field above Lawson Hill yesterday, where a huge section of the hillside gave way Saturday night, causing 14 houses in the subdivision to be cordoned off.

From The Daily Planet, May 5th '08

Telluride, Colo. -
Rumbling and churning and knocking down trees, a hillside sheared off and tumbled toward Lawson Hill Saturday night. It didn’t cause any damage to anyone’s property, but people were evacuated, and 14 different houses in the Elk Meadows area were cordoned off by the Sheriff’s Office. Officials feared the slide could slam into the side of houses near the end of Society Drive. San Miguel’s Road and Bridge Department created a temporary drainage yesterday to funnel the runoff from the slide zone into nearby Skunk Creek. Residents were allowed back in Sunday morning, but were ordered out again around noon, as the Sheriff’s Office feared the hillside would heat up and break loose again. Officials said residents would be able to return for good this morning.
The winter’s (possibly) record-breaking snowfall poses problems as the weather heats up and melting snow turns into raging rivers and unstable hillsides. A mudslide in the Ilium valley last week closed a road near Ames, and slides down valley have poured onto the highway.
All day Saturday, the sun beat down on the hillsides and soaked the ground with melting snow, transforming it into a cauldron of loose pudding. The slopes above Lawson weakened and finally cracked at around 5:30 p.m. A mud slab — 20 feet deep in places — broke off and carried a torrent of trees, mud and boulders towards the homes 300 feet below.
“This water is seeping into the ground and then the ground just became saturated. Then gravity just took over,” said Sgt. Mike Wescott of the Sheriff’s Office. “It was roaring pretty good. You [could] hear the mud moving and hear the trees cracking.”
Kathleen Morgan was walking from her house toward Lawson’s trash facility when she heard the boulders crashing against each other in a flinty thunderclap. She wheeled around.
“I watched the whole hill collapse,” she said. “I saw trees come down, literally, just like matches. The trees I saw go down were huge pines — 70 to 80 feet tall.” She walked towards the slide and saw her neighbors investigating the fresh muddy gash. It was 300 feet long, 120 feet wide, and 20 feet deep in places. Boulders falling, splintered trees splayed against each other, rivulets of mud spilling toward the road, and runoff water forming a tiny new creek over the slide path.

Morgan called the police, and they decided to evacuate the homes in the Elk Meadows section to the west of Skunk Creek.
SourceGas and San Miguel Power shut off the electricity and gas for the night, but the electricity was turned on yesterday morning so people’s food wouldn’t spoil in their freezers. Residents were allowed to gather food, clothes and anything else they might need during their exile.
“That’s one of the joys of living here — there’s always something that can get you,” Wescott said.
After grabbing some belongings, most people spent Saturday night with family or friends; one family didn’t have anyone to lend a room, so a firefighter gave them a condo for the night. Elizabeth “Eli” Burke pulled her computers and work tools out of the house — she’s a painter — and moved furniture from the bottom floor to an upper floor, in case the houses flood.
“I’m planning for the worst,” she said. She said she never expected to see her hillside slide. “The mountains are moving,” Burke said. “It’s kinda crazy.”
Linda Lyon was in her home when she heard the rock slide coming. “It’s kind of horrifying,” she said. She, too, was staying with a friend, waiting to see if the mountains stop moving.


Gravity can be dangerous folks. As I get older, it is apparent that mostly everything wants to move towards the center of the Earth. Now while I believe that moving towards the center is good for us in general, one could also call it "taking the middle path", this gravity lark is a different matter altogether. There is an argument to be made that it's what actually kills us in the end, or at least that it is what makes us bald. Well, actually there's not much argument for that because surely then everyone would go bald at the same rate... I digress...
But it is often I have thought that as one gets older and smaller and more hunched over, our old pal gravity has had a hand in our slow gravitation, as it were, towards the molten core. Closer to the center of the Earth as though it is under the crust and mantle that our eventual salvation is to be found, and not in the other direction, toward the Celestial Heavens.

I am planning a protest. I will make t-shirts and signs that say "Down With Gravity", we will march on the physicists, will you join me?

We are well anyhow, and the mudslide did not threaten our place, but here in our tight knit community we knew all of the affected folks. They are all well too, thanks for asking, but it remains to be seen how it goes for them. The mud & rocks & trees (oh my) still might decide to continue their downward trend, it depends on how much precipitation we get (it snowed all day today)and on whether or not Mr. gravity will continue with his folly.

A report of Rowan's 6th birthday party will follow soon, stay tuned...

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

Well, by Gob it's hard to excavate the motivation to do this sometimes. I do hope that you're still with us. A wonderful time was had by one and all in Statia. I'll not go into it too deeply right now, but please check out the slideshow in the top right of this ethereal page (hint: click on it & you will be immediately molecularly transported to Monaco).

 Rowan's 6th birthday will be upon us this Saturday and a Birthday Party to be held on the 4th will bring eat, drink and be merriment to our little Cul-De-Sac. 

The party has gotten a bit out of hand in the last few years, 150 (yes, that's right, 150) people showed up last year. You know the story, you can't invite them without inviting those, and on and on it goes, where it stops, no-one knows. It has become, really, a "bring on the spring" festival, complete with rakes of homemade ice cream and hoses & water guns spraying water on those who brought their bathing suits (or their birthday suits, no?).

This, of course if it is not snowing, whereupon less people usually show up (wimps) and we all huddle into our moderately sized living room.

Please stay tuned for a full report with pictures and film.

A Different Paradise

From the shenanigans of the last weekend of ski season inTelluride:

Street Dance


Unicycles


And Pink Flamingos

To the lazy days of the Caribbean Spring, seamlessly we move from one paradise to the next.

Rowan has become a budding naturalist, collecting & naming specimens of all kinds of Flora & Fauna. Our next post will be a scientific wonderland. For now, however, I'll leave it here, things move very slowly here, including computers.

Thankyou for taking part in our latest poll, it appears as though 55% of people worldwide blame Karma for their present situation in life. The results will be duly tallied, analysed and used for various subliminal purposes. Please take part in our new study of Ice Cream tastes.

The Free Box Provides

In our little Town there is a curious item called the Free Box. Some would call it an institution, others call it an eyesore (more on that later...). It has been around since the 80's and has greatly enhanced our lives here.

The Free Box:

Put simply, it is a place where you can get rid of old unwanted things, or pick up old wanted things. Over the years Kathleen, Rowan & I have put it to great use. Our dining table, Rowan's crib when he was wee, various many items of wonderful clothing (including such gems as practically new Patagonia fleece pullovers),

an old Specialized Rockhopper bicycle

and just today, that nice queen size mattress we've been waiting for. Yes, waiting for.

This leads us to the metaphysical levels of  "The Box". There is a common belief that the Free Box exists within other dimensional realms. For instance, if you interact with the Free Box while taking Karma into consideration you will get what you want, in and around when you want it. Hence the phrase, "The Free Box provides". 

One of the main necessities here is that one must not only take, but also give, or you might find yourself shite out of luck when you're looking for that can opener you need. It is important, also, to do this on a somewhat equitable basis too. If you've been taking too much from The Box, you better clean out your closet and throw some of those old polyester shirts in there (polyester shirts are quite popular around here).  

This idea of equitable give and take seems to make the Free Box a strange and insentient teacher of how to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

The Golden rule of the Free Box if you will...

Well, of course, there are also the begrudgers. The Free Box has suffered some abuse over the years. The people who don't take their Karmic responsibilities seriously and leave broken things or things that are just plain useless there have made it a bit unhappy to go there from time to time, but there is also a particular breed of person who has a most unfortunate habit of deciding that the dump, or the tip, or the landfill is too difficult to get his or her items to, and drops a large pile of flotsam (or jetsam as the case may be) on the sidewalk by the venerable Box. Of course, other people will use different words to describe the leavings of the ignorant, I will not repeat them here.

Alas, folks, it is my feeling that the tradition of the Free Box will not last in Telluride. But for now, it still lives and that is all we can hope for. Tomorrow is a myth. 

Do you sing?

I have been singing this lullaby to Rowan since he was wee:

It is a beautiful but sad song, he requests it often, although I can't sing it with the dreamy harmonics. Time was that I sang it every night to him in the rocking chair, now I sing it to him only when he asks. I know the time will come when he will ask for it no longer and I'll say things like "I used to sing this beautiful lullaby to you" and he'll tell me to be quiet. Or maybe not; the point is to cherish these moments. Sometimes he will get upset if I don't feel like singing him a lullaby and he'll say, plaintively, " but Dad! if you don't sing me a lullaby, I wont have any dreams!". 

How is a person to refuse?

We were swimming last Sunday at the hot springs in Ouray, (pronounced you-ray) Kathleen too! her first major outing since the meningitis debacle. The wee lad has become a fish, like this one:

Apparently there is an Elephant motif today. 

It is a constant wonderment to watch this boy grow up and become an entirely new being on a regular basis. It is clear to me that there are so many things about him that are fundamentally different then even 6 months ago. Does this happen to us too? Or are we stuck? All the cliches that I remember of Grown Ups not seeing the things that the children see, the Faeries, the Magic, have become true. I feel that it is important to strive to take the things that seem frivolous to us but are very important to our children as seriously as we can. Daddy's bank account just doesn't really mean anything to a six year old.

Really, I just wanted to show off my knowledge of ancient Disney musicals...

 Kathleen seems to be close to 100% better, she has been taking care of herself, not working too hard, (imagine!) and letting me do most of the housework, which I do, grumbly sometimes (imagine!). She is back up on her feet & back at School part time, much to the relief of her co-workers and students. Teaching however, is tiring for the post-fevered brain and she has still been spending a lot of time in bed. 

Resting.

Playing Scrabble. 

And Boggle. 

On the Computer.

Please don't leave without taking part in our scientific survey which you will find in the right-hand column of this venerable page.

Thank you.

Those were the days...

When I was a kid they didn't even have helmets.

My Dad (the older guy)

Not only did we not wear them, but much to my Dad's horror, (and I'm sure to my Mum's as well, I just never remember her telling me that my bicycle was a "death trap") the bikes we rode had no brakes. This was somewhat understandable, at least to us young lads anyway. The bicycles we had were a mish mash of banged-up old frames & parts that we'd salvage from the dump, the "tip" we called it for no reason that is clear to me at this stage of life, other than that is what it was called in Dublin.

The lack of brakes was not much of an issue for us, it kept our Mothers wondering why the middle part of the left sneaker was always the first thing to go. Sticking one's foot between the back wheel & the frame, while not the quickest way to stop your bike was certainly effective and made for a wicked skid...  

In fact the only time I remember injuring my head was a time in Blackrock Park, a lovely place a wee bit south of where I lived. There was a playground, see, and they were putting new playground equipment in, one item of which was a long, skinny metal slide that had not been installed to completion, which meant that the end had a nice rise, just enough to kick you up & out for a perfect landing in the pond. Let me tell you right here that the idea that kids see people like Evel Kinevel and try to do what he does....  it's true. 

Don't let your children watch television, any of it...

So, the story ends with me reaching the end of the slide with not quite enough speed, and falling off with the inevitable  bicycle following me through the air and landing on my head. I had to get a stitch. It was quite traumatic.

So, the moral of the story folks, is: never let your kids out of your sight while in Dublin.

First Bike Ride Of The Season!

I asked himself if he wanted to go skiing yesterday, no says he, let's ride our bikes into Town.
A Man after my own heart. So we took some footage, here's how it turned out:

Try tuning in to the only Irish music show on our local Radio Station KOTO fm

hosted by meself & to be found from 2:00 to 4:00 Mountain Time every other Sunday. 

Today is the first time in years that I'll be spinning tunes this close to St. Patricks day and contrary to popular belief, I'll neither be drunk, nor will I be eating Corned Beef & Cabbage, or drinking green beer. 

A Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all.

Spring?

The snow is rapidly turning back to water & buds are appearing on the trees. It's almost enough to fool us into believing that Spring has sprong. Other signs: there are neighborhood kids playing in our cul-de-sac, bicycles are being brought out, tires pumped, and off season vacation plans are being traded like Baseball cards. Utah? Mexico? Cost Rica for some surfing?
Us, we are heading off to a wee Island in the Dutch Antillies called Statia
to climb volcanoes, bask in the sunshine, swim with the young lad and spend some good time with Tom & Erna.
Kathleen is feeling much better, walking around the 'hood, not spending quite so much time in bed. It is good to have her back, it felt like she left for a little while. Hopefully that is the last we'll see of the demon Meningitis for good. We have hired a Ninja Squirrel Soldier to protect her & are confident in his ablity to at least scare off anymore invading viruses....


Here's a Haiku:
Spring has not quite come
Snow competes, and wind banishes
Thoughts of summer

Rowan's quote of the day

R: "Hey Dad!, when you're in space and you're on the Sun, it's really hot"
C: "That's right"
R: "So, you might want to have a t-shirt on....."

Rowan 'shreds' the West Drain

This has been a good winter for Rowan's skiing, he has improved greatly, even following his Dad down some wicked Black Diamond runs such as this one:

The West Drain is now one of our favourite runs to do together.

Hear hear

Here we are, trying a new thang. How many times have we, (I) said that I was going to start something like this? Many. Well, here it is. This will be a weekly, or thereabouts, update on our lives, with photos, film, music etc. Please excuse any bumps or blems, I am an amateur so far.

Starting here, most of you know that Kathleen has been ill with Viral Meningitis for nigh on 8 weeks now. The good news is that she is on the mend, the exorcism that we performed seems to have worked, and as always the wonderful people of this community have come to our aid. Teachers have kept us fed with dinners of wonderful variety for some time now,

 our deepest thanks for all the help & good thoughts, good vibes & good food.

We've had a big winter, 315 inches of snow measured so far. The epic winter that all the ski bums have been living for. Some are tired of it, the snow has taken its toll, broken decks from ice falling off roofs, broken roofs, leaks, my goodness, life is hard...