While I watch the extreme, record-setting weather happening several hundred miles south of me, I am enjoying all the changes happening this week. We had two solid days of steady, soaking rain, and suddenly it all felt like the autumn I wanted and needed. The leaves are coming down, coating the roads and lawns, the sun is aiming from a much lower angle in the sky, and it looks and feels like I've been craving. I dragged a bunch of flowerpots in to the living room in anticipation of the first frost of the season. I didn't get everything inside, but then, it's only supposed to get to 34 tonight out here. I can enjoy these dropping temperatures now, but you can be damned sure it won't amuse me come April when I'm ready to put all my plants back outside and can't do it.
A month ago, Mr S-P was trying to figure out when he could fit in a climb up one of the fourteeners (mountains over fourteen thousand feet for the flatlanders) before it was too cold and snowy to go up. Our schedule was unyielding for weeks, while he worked to get his land ready for the winter, and we prepared for company here. He decided he would go this weekend, weather be damned, and we both watched as the high country put on its white blanket for the first time this week. The closest fourteener is Longs Peak, but he said that one was not a good candidate for this sort of weather. Instead, he went to one of the collegiate peaks. He stopped in to take down his tent on the claim, and see how well his teepee held up in the first snow. The teepee was a good idea to protect his stuff, but he really should have taken the tent down the last time he was there. I'm looking forward to a little snow, but I can say in all certainty that I'm glad I'm not tromping around in the back country right about now. I am not ready to drive in snow yet. I'm going to have to face that inevitability sooner than later, and possibly very often during an el Nino year.
Until then, don't mind me, I'm going to be curled up in a blanket this weekend, enjoying the first real test of our heating system. Anyone want to bring me a mug of hot chocolate?
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