Month: June 2019

Eleven Moose

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Colorado, Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I’ve been seeing moose on at least every 3rd hike I’ve done.  I went from seeing no moose to seeing them all the time.  The National Park is a great place to see moose.  They are often just by the side of the road.  If you are driving through and see a bunch of cars pulled over, you can bet it’s a moose.  There’s a chance it’s elk, but it’s probably moose.  Sometimes it’s difficult to even drive through the park because of the traffic jams created by people just stopping on the side of the road.

My friend Katie and her mom came up to visit.  We bundled up and set out to see if we could find moose in the National Park.  I think I saw 4 of them last time I was there.  We didn’t get far before there were cars pulled off on the side of the road so we stopped and sure enough, moose.  Then a little farther down the road I saw something move and pulled over.  Moose.  Before long, I was the car that signaled to the crowd to stop here and look at the moose.  The next traffic jam was actually a herd of elk.  A short elk-break before we went back to moose.  After that it was two moose, one idyllically standing in a river next to a cabin.  It seemed so posed, like a painting, like the moose was paid to stand in a diorama.  Then there was the moose standing in water where the light was just right to see an almost perfect reflection in the water.  On it went, moose, moose, elk, moose, moose.  By the time we counted 9 different moose, it was getting comical.  At about 5 moose we tried to guess or call what the next moose sighting would be – two moose, mamma and baby moose, close up moose, road moose, etc.  By the time we left the park it was 11 separate moose and hundreds of elk.

 

Gut Bucket

On By rrainefioreIn Beautiful Things, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I had a friend visiting from out of town.  I live in such a beautiful place that sometimes it’s difficult to fathom.  Everywhere we go, we keep marveling at the beauty and remarking, “this is where I live”.

One night we went out to see a local band playing.  I know Brian, one of the guys that was playing in the band.  We got there and found the band packing up.  They were slated to play on the deck outside and it was threatening to rain.  Most of the band went home, but Brian and some of his friends stayed for on the deck for drinks.  It was summer, but very chilly out so the place had fire pits outside.  We joined them around one of the fire pits.  Everyone kept trying to get Brian to play his guitar.  He could play even if everyone else had gone home.

One of the guys, Ben, said he would join Brian with his gut bucket.  At this point we were cold and talking about going home.  I turned to my friend and said we couldn’t go until we saw how this played out.  We learned much about Ben’s gut bucket.  Such as he made it himself.  He doesn’t use catgut for the string as that is for fancy events such as weddings.  He uses other types of string that he can get a hold of like clothesline.  He was playing it at a different bar last week so it’s still over there.  The whole conversation we are trying to figure out what a gut bucket is – is it what we think it is – is it a metal bucket with a string attached to it?  We are both pretty sure that’s what it is.  Ben decides that he will go to the other bar to get the gut bucket and then Brian will have to play with him.  He takes off.  I ask one of the other guys if he will get lost and forget what he went out to find (there’s been a bit of alcohol consumed).  We all agree there is a 50/50 chance he’ll come back.  We decided to stick it out a little longer and wait to see if he comes back.  In about a half hour Ben is back with his gut bucket – it is what we guessed.  But, it’s in need of repair.  The string is broken and he doesn’t have another.  One of the guys goes out to Brian’s truck and finds an ice skate lace.  They work for about another 20 minutes trying to make the ice skate lace work for the string.  Ben and Brian start playing and we get treated to a small jam session on the deck.  It was totally worth the wait.  It never did rain.  Impromptu gut bucket concert on the deck.  This is where I live.