Another week has passed. Before we arrived here, I wouldn't post anything for a while because there wasn't anything happening, and I was depressed being stuck there. Now, there doesn't seem to be much time because of all there is to see and do. It certainly isn't depressing to be here, with the lovely weather, beautiful surroundings, modest pace, and friendly people.


Crabapple trees are in bloom everywhere.

Spring has exploded into a breathtaking display of white, pink, and purple blossomed trees and shrubs, and a full palette of massively flowering bulbs everywhere you go. Walking down just about any street, the scent of lilacs washes over you. Perhaps they should call Fort Collins the Lilac City, they are so pervasive. I grew them in California, but they are so much more robust and happy here, probably due to the serious winter months.


Lilacs

I spent several hours yesterday a huge local nursery, looking at plants I have been learning about in my classes and lectures on Xeriscape and native plants. It was pretty overwhelming, and I hope we find a place with a landscape and gardens already at least partly established.


Crabapples trees waiting to be planted - a popular activity apparently.

Also yesterday I went to visit the Fort Collins Shambhala Buddhist center, in a little yellow house on the West edge of town.

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Saturday was an example of what life in Fort Collins is like for us here these days. We went to a fun dog run fund raiser for the verterinary college in the morning.


Waiting for the start of the Fast and Furriest 5k dog run.

Afterward we looked at a few houses, stopped by Old Town to have a snack at a coffee house, and went home for a nap. Then we went to a back-yard picnic for dog run participants at the home of our realtor, who's wife is a grad student in the vet school. After a few beers there, and looking at some more homes in the area, home again for another nap. Then an evening benefit for a local charity at a brewery, with snacks and local brews, and a chance to meet more local people. Bored we are not...


The electric trolley that runs through Old Town, between City Park and downtown.

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Mona gave me a lovely jade plant - it really adds warmth to the rental house.

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I am way behind in posting updates, and with little time right now, so I'm just going to post some brief items to catch up and inform anyone checking in...

We received a counteroffer on the 80 acres in Wyoming. After reviewing it and some new discouragng opinions about the prospects for drilling a good well there, we simply declined the offer.

I received an unsolicited job inquiry from a big national network service outfit wth a local contract for operating a nationwide network operations center located here in Fort Collins. Had a great phone interview this morning, and may receive an offer next week. Pay is great.

Checked the website of the big regional hospital here for job listings (I have long craved a hospital network engineer job - especially here) and there it was - just the kind of job I had in mind, posted a couple of days ago. I applied online, went into HR today to drop off a pretty resume, and sculked around until I learned the names and location of the network IT managers - so I could skirt around the HR process and learn a little more before the OTHER people offer me something. Went to the ofice of the manager and ntroduced myself, and had a brief chat....

I'm off to Reno tomorrow to look in on my Dad, who has had some problems that accumulated to put him in a hospital. He is doing OK, but with his wife also hospitalized longer term; there is now no one to look after anyone else....

The weather here has been incredibly nice here in Fort Collins on the front range of the Rockies - sunny and mid 70's to low 80's, maybe a little breeze. I happened to hear that the Bay Area was experiencing liquified hillsides and flooding due to incessant rain - neene-neener-neener...

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After sitting around most of the day hoping the phone would ring with news about how the Wyoming property sellers would respond to our offer, I went out this evening to a class on low-water ornamental gardening. The class was at the new ambitious Gardens on Spring Creek, community garden complex I have been looking forward to checking out. A lovely place, only beginning to take shape now.

Battling a cold now, I hope we don't have to sit out all week while we wait for the news about the 80 acres on Sand Creek....

Pat this morning on the windy hill behind the South 80 acres of the Shy Creek ranch we want to buy.

This morning we are going in to make an offer on 80 acres down the street from Mona and CLark's ranch in WHeatland, Wyoming. We considered the entire 160 acres with all the improvements, but in the end decided what we really want to do is build everything from scratch at our own pace. The financial commitment is also much less burdensome, and will still allow us to proceed with the house search in Fort Collins.

Wish us luck in our pursuit of this place - it is really special.

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This may come as a bit of surprise, but we are considering the purchase of a home in Wyoming near my sister's ranch. The picture above shows the shop building with attached one-bedroom residence in the foreground with my Mona and Clark's Double MD in the background, practically across the street.

It is 160 acres, with good water, newish well and buildings, and opportunity to build a bigger house elsewhere on the property or subdivide and sell off portions later. We would probably still buy or rent a modest house in Fort Collins if we do this, and work there, coming up here for weekend get-aways. Maybe try living up here full time though. We shall see.

Here are some additional views....

Gate at the SW corner looking inward.

Mdog by a hydrant on the irigation system.

An old bridge over Sand Creek that runs for a ways through the property (lined by cottonwoods and aspens).

Mona and Clark after crossing the bridge - this is along the South boundary looking East.

View of the house looking North from the South boundary fence.

Mdog near a stack of irrigtion pipe.

View of Mona and Clark's place and a neighboring place across the street - looking Northwest.

Mona and Clark near the middle of the property.

View to the Southwest from the middle of the property.

View South from a rise along the back of the property.

View SOuth over the huge neighboring Tyler Dodge ranch.

The irrigation canal (runs seasonally during the dry months) that runs above and behind (East) of the property.

The house from up near the canal, looking West with the Double MD in the background.

Coming up over a rise with the house below - facing West.

The house and shop building.

Another view of the house and shop.

Clark looks over the place, and probably wonders if he really wants to have another couple of dozen acres of hay to manage, and another few dozen cows to tend to (not to mention a lot of fence to maintain).

View of house from adjacent clearing in the cotonwood grove. The current owners planned to use the shop/apartment as guest quarters, and build another house in the clearing from which this photo is taken.

The clearing from the the house looking South.

View of the house from looking Northest.

Down along Sand Creek.

The house from Sand Creek, looking North

Another view of the old bridge in the Southwest corner of the property.

We spent all day yesterday unloading the big truck trailer that was dropped off here in South Fort Collins on Friday morning. The house is a bit small, but by the end of the day it was apparent that most of our stuff would fit and we would be able to resume a sort of familiar life, at least at home.





Outside of home, I guess the whole idea of being here is that everything is NOT so familiar. When we went out for dinner finally after 9pm last night, it was fun to see how many interesting Mexican restaurants there were in the area. For a town with only around ten percent Latinos, there are a lot of little Mexican markets, panaderias, tortillerias, and family restaurants. At the place we went to there was a very non-gringo menue, and we were the only non-Mexicans in the place. I risked late-night heartburn and sampled all the eight or so salsas they had in a salad-bar style self-serve station on my tostaditos and plate of traditional little carnitas and al pastor soft-tacos.

Before we left the ranch on Thursday morning to come down and take posession of the rental house, we had a look at a big piece of property practically across the street from Mona and Clark. There are two 80-acre parcels that can be purchased together or seperately. One has a big shop-garage with attached one-bedroom apartment (very nice), and the other parcel has more level land suitable for agricultural use like growing hay or corn. Clark says you could arrange for someone to pasture around 40 cows there for several months a year while the grass is good - it is well fenced for this kind of use.

There is an irrigation canal above, and water distribution infrastructure on the land. There is also a creek that runs through it, and large stands of cottonwood trees that would provide shade and windbreak for a homesite.

We have considered buying the lower more level land, and then buying a more modest smaller home in Wheatland, and eventually building in Wyoming. It plays into the long-term objective of wintering in Mexico and spending the warmer months in Wyoming or Colorado.



Just a thought for now, but next time we go up there, we are going to walk the entire 80-acre parcel to check out home siting possibilities.

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We are in Wyoming at the ranch, having driven three days and 1200 miles from California after a Saturday departure.



Somewhere on I-80 in Western Wyoming. Nice to see the buckaroo license plates again...

I had thought I was way ahead in my preparations for the move, but in the end things got pretty tight. It seemed the stuff that needed to be packed and loaded in the truck was of an infinite quantity, and I had serious doubts about whether everything would even fit in the space that was allocated in the truck trailer. Somehow Pat made it all work, long after I was ready to give up.



Pat and the infamous Biscuit Lady and surprisingly dear friend Pat Spooner in Alameda the morning of our departure.

But the house was finally was entirely emptied, and the vehicles loaded. After a last walk-through of the house, a visit to the garden I created in back, and a last stop to say goodbye to our neighbor and friend Pat (the "Biscuit Lady") we were on the road at last. Stopped to drop off the keys with the realtor, and another to fill up the tanks of my Saturn and Pat's Xterra, then on to Reno for the first night, for family visits with my sister Becky, Dad and his wife.



With my Dad and his wife Susan in Reno on Saturday afternoon.



Becky and her aging but charming cattle dog Rowdy at her house in Lemmon Valley North of Reno.

Following another all-day drive we spent the night in Salt Lake City at a hotel. Just dodging another winter storm, and leaving in the remanants of an overnight snowfall, we made our way over the mountains East of Salt Lake, over the Wyoming border and across the state to arrive in Wheatland just before dark.



Somewhere in Eastern Nevada before arriving at Salt Lake City Sunday evening. The Buddhist prayer flags hanging in my trunk flew off the back porch of the rental house in Alameda from the time we arrived there at the end of October in 2004.



Five minutes after arriving at the ranch, in time for the sunset on Monday.