Country Mouse or City Mouse? Part II: Colorado: Resplendent, Rugged & Remote

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge." Psalm 19

Since this is the case, for sure, in the skies and the mountains of Colorado, I was able to take a graduate course in God knowledge this summer. We visited friends who have recently built a fabulous mountain home nestled among the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Forests of rising Ponderosa pines, red topped mountains, buttes jetting into the sky, geological dikes forming natural walls, yellow and purple wildflowers all surrounded me in this glorious natural setting. At night the skies were even more amazing with twinkling stars and planets that felt so close I could touch them. The quiet, yet majestic beauty of La Veta, Colorado, is one that cannot be duplicated anywhere I have traveled. The climate too is amazing, no humidity and no bugs. This means that it can be 90 degrees and very bearable, especially in the shade of a massive Douglas Fir tree. With God's creative genius surrounding me, the question still remains: Would I be able to give up city life and all its conveniences for life in the Rockies, meeting the creator daily face to face?

Amidst these wonders, life is different for the mountain folk. Though my Colorado friends grew up in Chicago city life, they have readily adapted to the mountain life. They have been living in Colorado for the past twenty years. My husband and I often refer to them as Mr. and Mrs. Outdoorsy because they do it all: horse back ride, ski, mountain bike, kayak, hike, build, landscape and paint (not just walls, but large still life oil paintings). They are very talented and take to mountain life like suburban dwellers take to the shopping malls.

However, there is a caveat here: for all this beauty one must sacrifice convenience. It takes approximately 30 minutes to travel from the nearest town, LaVeta, up a winding gravel road to get to their mountain home. LaVeta, itself, is only about two city blocks long. Main Street has a small, mom and pop grocery store, a couple of art galleries, a bakery, quilting shop, several inns and guest houses, several RV parks, a coffee shop, massage therapy office, used book store, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal and Catholic churches, the Francisco Fort Museum, several real estate offices and an Excursion Train that runs between LaVeta and Alamosa, taking passengers along the San Isabel National Forest. It also has a post office and bank. That's about it. Places for lunch or dinner are limited to the bakery on Thursdays and the inn everyday. Oh, there's also a pizza place, but it isn't open daily. The one time we decided for pizza, we had to go to the neighboring town of Cuchara. Wal-mart is the next town over and so is the closet hospital, which is located in Walsenburg. Garbage removal is inconvenient to say the least. First, they have to separate garbage into throw-away stuff, recycling glass and cans (no plastic) and compost, which they have to bury. They have to carry down their garbage and recycling themselves and deposit it in town. Burying compost can be tricky when bears are on the property and find no problem digging for their dinner. My friend also tells a story of leaving a bowl of fruit on her counter overnight with a two inch open window. A neighborhood bear was hungry and broke through the screen, lifted the window and helped himself to the fruit. Dealing with wild animals also comes with mountain living. The downstairs windows at their home are now always closed.

Most of the people in the town are older and retired or hippies who never left. Apparently, this area was once the home to nine or ten hippie communes in the sixties. The long braided hair on several male residents was grey as opposed to golden. These mountain folk are friendly and always smiling and willing to engage in conversation or help when needed. We had a flat tire on a mountain road, with no cell phone signals, and were helped by a traveling older couple and a young rancher. But, many others were willing to stop and help.

Mountain winters are rough. My friends told us about someone from town skidding off La Veta Pass in the winter and climbing out of his snow-trapped car with two broken ankles and finally after two days getting rescued. It sounds like when it snows everyone stays put. In fact my friends will be purchasing some snowshoes for the upcoming winter.

Now as far as becoming a Colorado mountain mouse, I think I would love it for the summer, but for the winter I think I'd rather join the snowbirds down in Florida or Arizona.

If your interested in visiting LaVeta, Colorado here is a link:

http://www.lavetacucharachamber.com/

Country Mouse or City Mouse? Part I: Minnesota

Road rage! We've all either heard about it or witnessed it ourselves. I have not necessarily felt rage, but instead a sinking ship kind of feeling when I realize I am stuck in a traffic jam that affords no easy exit. In the city besides lines of traffic there are also lines at the grocery store, post office or gas station. Some days it even feels like I go from one line to another. What a waste of time! Living close to a large metro city like Chicago has many benefits like easy access to sporting and cultural events. Also, the culinary choices range from some of the best pizza in the world (yeah Chicago!) to fine dining even in the 'burbs (ah, LaGrange ). But lately the city and suburbs just feel too crowded for me. Perhaps I would fare better if I changed my status from being a city mouse to a country mouse.

This summer I had a chance to do just that. First, I traveled to the woods of central Minnesota to visit a dear friend and prayer partner. She lives just outside a small town called Long Prairie. It has about 3,000 residents and is located in the central part of the state, about two hours west of the twin cities. It is a place of wide open spaces filled with various kinds of farms: corn, potato, dairy and even tree farms. My friend has one close neighbor, who lives about a city block away, across their shared pond. My friends' have a relatively small homestead of about seven acres covered with trees, including graceful white birch trees. They are very involved in the community of Long Prairie because my friend's husband is the pastor of a local Lutheran Church. My friend spends most of her day driving to various hospitals and clinics in her position as a social worker for dialysis patients and their families. She drives a big Lincoln town car, which is perfect for those open Minnesota roads and thanks to her large car and the grace of God, she is alive today after hitting a large buck while going 65 mph.

My Minnesota friend is a gifted gardener. She can literally plant anything and it will grow. The property around her house is landscaped with a winding brick path interspersed with various gardens, a rose garden, a daisy garden, and many, many other flowers whose names I do not know. I am a terrible gardener, inside or outside. Nothing that I plant seems to last very long, so I am so in awe of my friend. Besides numerous flower gardens my friend has a wonderful vegetable garden and her very own strawberry patch and apple orchard. She regularly puts up tomatoes, peaches and the most delicious apple pie filling in a jar that I've ever tasted.

Since winters are very harsh in Minnesota; it gets to 30 below some days; one always has to have a ready food supply. And speaking of food, most of the food I ate during my stay was homegrown or farm raised. I feasted on new, and I mean really new potatoes, farm eggs, along with garden fresh strawberries and lettuce. I also discovered a succulent meat that I had never tasted before: venison.Venison is a quite low-fat and comes in a variety of forms; steaks, burgers, sausage and my personal favorite, jerky sticks. My friend explained that the venison is so good because it is corn fed as opposed to grass fed. I'll have to remember that when shopping or hunting for venison. Anyway, I must say I really enjoyed getting back to the basics of planting, harvesting and of course eating the country way. While visiting we had a small bonfire and roasted marshmallows under a magnificent night sky, while listening for the call of wild turkeys.

I also had an opportunity to participate in the Sunday Worship Service at American Lutheran Church. The church was filled with people of all ages. The paster usually calls the children up before the start of the service and does a little lesson with them. This time he used an orange life preserver to show the children what Jesus does for all of us. He saves our lives when we can't swim or the waves of our circumstances are too strong for us to keep our heads above the water. It was a good image of Jesus that I hope to use one day with my own grandchildren. After the time with the children, the service began with familiar hymns and everyone was singing and attentive, There was also an infant baptism at the service. After the service everyone joined in a large, bright community room for coffee, juice and muffins. I felt very welcomed and enjoyed listening to conversations about farms and family. People lingered and I had a real sense that this meeting time after church was important for everyone.

So I ended my country stay with warm and cozy feelings. However, I did have to ask myself if I could really hunker down and relish those same feelings on one of those 3o below zero winter nights? I don't know.

Another country note: Though they were dog-less in Chicago, my Minnesota friends now have acquired a huge Great Pyrenees, named Tanner that roams their property looking for chipmunks and other creatures to chase. Country mice definitely need serious dogs.

On the way back to the airport we passed a huge billboard with a picture of Ronald Regean in a cowboy had with the quote: "Remember when there was hope for real change?"