The Blue River

While the weather wasn't spectacular, it was nice enough to take the kids exploring.  We headed down the incline behind our house, and set out in search of the river.  Granted, I'd scouted the path the day before, so it wasn't like we were heading out into the wild or anything crazy like that.  Still, we did see a large pile of moose droppings, and Ashley also saw some moose prints.  Thus, even though we were only a quarter mile from home, we felt like we were in the wild.  After a bit of walking, we found the Blue River.  Bode and Devin paused for a picture in front of the raging torrent of water.

I'm not sure if you can tell in this next picture, but that large pile of wooden sticks is a large beaver dam.  I was very impressed by what beavers can do.  They created a nice beaver pond on the other side of their domicile.

We decided to investigate, and headed closer to check it out.  In the below picture, you get a better look at why the expression, "as busy as a beaver" came to be.  The beavers managed to significantly alter the flow of the river.  Very cool.

Ashley and I found a nice little bench to sit while the kids engaged in the most awesomest activity known to kids near rivers and rocks:  throwing rocks into the river and making splashes.  Hours of entertainment :-)

Today is Memorial Day.  We headed back to Colorado Springs, and are now awaiting the arrival of Pat and Dana.  They are going to take Bode to Albuquerque with them.  He'll spend a week down there, relaxing and enjoying a life of leisure.  We'll probably do the same--maybe even go and see a movie that is about something other than Legos, Avengers, or Maleficent.  Pleasant week to all.

Country Boy Mine

It's Memorial Day weekend, which is supposed to mark the first weekend of real summer.  Not so here in Colorado.  May has been a crazy month in Colorado Springs.  On one day, we received five inches of hail at our house.  This is not an exaggeration.  Traffic was snarled (took me almost 90 minutes to drive home), trees lost their buds, and flowers were destroyed, not to mention a significant claim for hail damage to our house (nothing structural--just cosmetic dents and chipped paint).

We are fortunate to have Devin with us for the weekend.  Last time she visited, I documented the event with Dickensesque-style posts.   Not so this time--I don't have the mental strength nor the vocabulary to do that again.  We decided to come up to the mountain estate.  We arrived yesterday (Friday), and enjoyed a quiet evening at home.  We ended the night watching some of The Lego Movie.  Here's a nice shot of Bode and Devin on the couch.  Joey's also in the picture, as he kept wanting to say hello to his lovely niece.

Note also the rubber snake on the floor :-)  Today, we had hoped for nice weather.  Alas, snow showers mixed with intermittent sun.  We decided to explore the Country Boy Mine just east of Breckenridge.  It was actually quite cool and informative.  There is currently $35 - $40 million dollars in precious metals under the mine.  Sadly, the estimated cost of extraction is over $40 million dollars :-) Here are some good pictures.  First we have a shot of Bode and Devin in front of one of the old buildings.

This is a fully functional mine, although they claim to "mine" only for tourists.  They have the required equipment and also some donkeys.

They had also converted one of the old mining chutes to a kid's slide.  It was 75 feet long.  Devin and Bode both did it.  Here's a shot of them running from the bottom; I took the picture from the top of the slide.

Before we headed into the mine, Ashley and Devin stopped for a picture.  Very sweet.

The entrance of the mine is below.

We went over 1100 feet into the side of the mountain, which is pretty scary if you think about it (and all I could think about the whole time was, "What if there's an earthquake???").  We did have to wear hard-hats...

Here's a shot of the tunnel.

I was surprised how much water there was seeping in from the rocks.  This mine had nice wooden boards lining the ground.  Miners of old did not have this luxury.  The water temp is 33 degrees.  Working in these conditions with nothing other than a candle would have been miserable.  They did let Devin practice driving a metal chisel into the wall.

We were told it took almost three hours to drive the chisel ten inches into the rock.  Once there were enough holes, dynamite would be placed in the holes and ignited.  Each blast resulted in about ten inches of progress.  Recall I said the tunnel length was over 1100 feet.  Crazy.  At the end of the tunnel, we paused for a group shot.

When we came back out of the mine, it was snowing rather heavily.

After the mine tour, we headed downtime and had lunch at Eric's and then spent some quality time in the arcade.  I kept dying on the easy level of Donkey Kong.  We'll be up here for a few more days.  Pleasant day to all.

Master Swimmer

Bode has become quite the master swimmer.  He still goes twice a week and is in the advanced stroke clinic classes.  These classes last an hour and consist of the kiddos swimming laps.  I took some photos and movies.  First, here's Bode at the wall.

Coach Danny makes them do underwaters while wearing their fins.  Here's Bode doing a full-length underwater butterfly kick.  Pretty impressive lung power.

Next is a video of Bode doing the same, but on his back above the water.  

Coach Danny made them doing head-up freestyle, which is an exhausting stroke.  Here are two still pictures of Bode in action.

Coach Danny then made them use the little buoy swimmers put between their legs to prevent them from kicking.  This makes them work their arms, which is a great exercise for Bode because his kick is phenomenal, but his upper body needs a little work.

They also had to do butterfly, which is another exhausting stroke.  Bode's butterfly is decent.  It's a hard stroke because he requires some serious upper body strength, and seven-year olds typically haven't developed these muscles.  Still, the coach works with their form, and Bode's form is fantastic.  He simply needs to get his arms out of the water.

Finally, they finished with some sprints.  Here is Bode doing a 50.  We have tried to get him to swim faster by telling him to "swim angry."  We've found he swims a lot faster when he's upset.  Funny how we've become sports psychologists :-)

We had a lovely weekend.  I think Ashley might try to go to the mountain estate for a few days this week and "work" from Breckenridge.  Lucky her.  Pleasant day to all.

McGuirk Gardens

With the advent of spring, I thought I'd provide a garden update.  Things have really shaped up nicely.  I did some planting the end of March.  I had some success with lettuce and onions, but the carrots (surprisingly) didn't take.  Plus, I planted a lot of beans and peas.  I kept noticing holes everywhere I put a seed, as if something had dug them out.  I had already installed a bird net, so I figured I had a rabbit/rodent problem.  I lined the planter boxes with a fine metal mesh.  To test, I put a pile of old fruit in the center.  It went untouched for three days.  Satisfied I'd solved the problem, I proceed to fill the boxes with seeds and starters.  We now have two blueberry bushes, two raspberry bushes, a lot of strawberries, beans, peas, lettuce, corn, and some cucumbers.  We have have some tomato plants and pepper plants, but those need it to be a bit warmer at night to survive (probably in another two weeks).

I'm also happy to say the apple tree and plum tree we planted last fall survived and are blooming.  The cherry tree has yet to bloom, but there do seem to be some buds on its branches.  Hopefully it'll bloom in a couple weeks.  Below is another view of the garden.  We are thinking of putting in two more trees at the front right of the entrance.  Also, note the new bench.

After a few days, I found the following growing in the garden.  Not quite sure if it's ripe--might need a couple more weeks :-)

Pleasant week to all.