Happy Easter

Christ was crucified and died on Good Friday.  On Sunday God brought Him to Life, the resurrection.  In this is the good news of Easter.

It is also a stumbling block for many and those who do not believe mock the believers.  Christ said expect this to happen, “You will be persecuted for believing in Me.”

The renewal of the resurrection is also the beginning of nature’s new life.  Babies scurry around, buds are popping and the spring is underway.

May you have a blessed Easter.

May Christ be your companion.

Transformation

The greening of the ground, the renewal, the death is overcome and it is Easter.  With the death of winter comes the life of spring.  Brown drab gives way to colors of palette, green shoots forth, flowers burst their seams.

 

I don’t know if could live in the tropics where it always lush and green.  I like the change of the seasons and do not mind the cold of winter.  God created life that could exist in a variety of climates and man is one that can live in all zones.  The only limitations man has are the ones he places on self.

Soon the heat of summer will be upon the land.  It is already tearing up the country side in other parts.  Thunderstorms and tornadoes have been rumbling across the land.  Property has been destroyed, worst of all, lives have been lost..

Nature carries such a fury and man tries to control it.  The predictors are better at it and have helped to save lives.  Yet nature will go its course.  This is why I am such a skeptic about the global warming bit.  Nature has a mind of her own and does a pretty good job of taking care of herself.  We are able to help nature, a nudge here or there, a helping hand but influence………..

The weather is still below freezing at night here.  Today it was in the mid 70’s.  Nice weather for outside.  Trees here are just starting to leaf and no flowers yet.  I had go a distance to find this fruit tree in bloom.  If the fruit trees bloom around here there will be no fruit because of the freezes.  A whole block line of fruit trees, man would that be something. Don’t know of any orchards near by.

 

Water flows over the land, nourishment for the plants, life for the fish or a play spot.  When all of these can be combined man is at his height of stewardship of his resources.  Life can not exist without water, as we know it.  There very essence of life.  There are battles over control of this life sustaining liquid.  cities and farmers battle over this resource. 

Cities want it for their residents, who want a nice green lush lawn.  Farmers get rich selling their water rights to cities and leave the farm.  Soon there will be more green lawns then there are green vegetable fields.  Which is more important, a green lush lawn or green veggis on the table.

 

Water flows through the neighborhood, lofts are built, offices, restaurants and other shops line the water way.  Like a magnet the water attracts people.  Paths are laid out, strollers amble the course of the water.  Life grows and is sustained by the stream of life.

May you have a blessed week as Easter approaches.                                   God loves all of His creation.

Springtime in the Rockies

Spring struggles at times to get going on the prairie.  Winter keeps rearing up and sending more white stuff to remind of what spring is all about.

Get up this morning, the ground is damp and there are sleet pellets sprinkled about.  The clouds are low and scudding overhead.  It is a cool morning, below freezing but not much breeze, a mystical look to the sir.  The dogs trot outside and pause on the steps, noses working overtime, eyes darting, questioning what is in the air.  Another day is underway.

I fix the morning coffee, pour a cup, find the easy chair, sit down and watch the morning unfold.  Out the morning window the mist tumbles along, the grey becomes a silver overcast.  Soon the clouds are going splat, splat.  Snowflakes the size of quarters are splashing on the window sill, the grey has become a floating white picture.  It becomes thicker, sight is limited, the birds a scampering about scratching the snow to get at the seeds that have fallen out of the feeder.  Morning has gone from an overcast to a white wonderland.  There is a light wind and the snow angle shifts to a side draft.  The ground disappears under a white mantle.  The birds sit on the fence looking at the covered ground, soon they fly off.

Shortly the flakes stop and the a quiet settles over the land.  A muffler has been placed on nature.  Mist lifts off the trees, some light penetrates and the land is white to the eyes end. Drops splash off the ground, no longer is it snow.  Before it gets out of the clouds the snow has melted to a drizzle.  The white mantle becomes a patch work.  brown ground peeks back out of the blanket.  Melted drops turn to white splatters, a fickle cloud hangs overhead, not making up its mind what it shall deliver.

Robin hops around looking for breakfast, a killdeer hops along the roads edge, stopping and searching out the shoulder looking for a meal.  Grackles huddle on power lines staring down at the covered earth.  Finches and sparrows perch in the shrubs.  All looking for a place to wait out the weather, to find a dry spot, looking for a meal.  cottontail goes hopping across the snow, pausing to nibble at sprigs of grass, scrambling through the white wet stuff, crawling into the nest.

Yeppers, winter just does not want to let go but spring battles on.  The moisture is greatly needed, even in the form of snow.  April showers whether they are white or silver drops, all are welcomed.

 

From the mixed up hi-plains

Have a Great Weekend when it gets here.

A touch of Spring

 

Went to the big city of Pueblo to take care of aof things and found a few things of interest.  Pueblo is lower in elevation then where I live plus it is further south.  There spring comes earlier and gets a whole lots hotter in the summer.  100 degree days there are not unusual.  It is also the Steel City of the west. 

 

The old part of downtown has been spiffed up and trees planted along the streets.  Most of the fruit trees were in full bloom or on the verge.  The fruit trees add such a color to a usually monochrome downtown. 

 

Come this fall and there will be food for the birds, now the bees are indulging.  Along the city blocks the colorful trees graced the sidewalks.

 

Being an older city, Pueblo has lots of neat old buildings.  Not the shiny plastic style of today.  These were built by craftsman who had limited tools to work with.

Older cities like this, I go looking for the old parts.  sometimes that means the rougher sections.  The bums and transients hang out in these areas also.  This trip was an easy one.  No derelicts on the corners begging.

Evening Chow

The pace of time on prairie goes in its own way.  Saving time carries no meaning.  It is either daylight, dark or somewhere twixt n tween.  With ;light on the wane it is time to grab a bite.

Peacefully up the hill, undisturbed by the passing humans they browse away. 

The wide open prairie is becoming cluttered though.  No longer is the view uninterrupted across the horizon.

There is a collection of man’s intrusion on the landscape.  The railroad crosses by in the lower foreground and by the RR signal is a water well.

Both have been there for more then a century.  Not very prominent but visible.  Up on the ridge is progress brought by the other two pieces.

The Interstate highway crosses the middle of the pic.  I have mixed feelings about all the man made things growing on the prairie.  Wonder how the greenies would feel if all of this was in a wilderness?

Soon there will be more clutter up there, over 150 more wind turbines are on the drawing board.

What do we need to live, what can we do without….. seems to have too many answers and not many ask.

 

The week begins….. may yours be a blessed week.

Here N There …. Thoughts

 

Found some trees just starting to leaf out and there was some new shoots on the bushes.  Bellevue spring is starting to take hold.  Last night was the first night since last fall when the temperature did not drop below freezing.  the green thumb is itching at me and I stuff it back in its cabinet but it pops back out a few days later.

 

Living at a high elevation it takes a while to warm up yet that is nice in the summer.  It doesn’t get outrageously hot.  I can go north a few miles and climb to almost 6000 feet in elevation.  The dryness and lack of clouds does allow the land to warm up real quick yet it cools off great at night.  There can be as much as a 40 degree temperature swing.  Makes for great sleeping at night.

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Can you believe it we are getting into another war.  It’s bad enough to be bogged down in some countries where we have gained almost nothing.  We did not learn from the Russians and from other incursions in the Middle East. 

What gets me is the president went right past congress and start4ed shooting.  This is one issue I believe both sides of the aisle would of agreed on.  The debt load is outrageous and now it will grow even more.

When Obama was campaigning against Bush he was badmouthing Bush on getting us into war over there.  So what does Obama do, sticks his foot in his mouth. So now some more innocent Americans are going to be killed to satisfy some politico puffer in DC.  Of all people I figured Obama to be a dove but he is turning out to be something else that is becoming very disgusting. 

 

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These are the coolest little steam engines.  They are called Shay’s.  They are gear driven rather then rods.  The pistons operate a cam shaft that turns the gears mounted on a side rod that then turns gears mounted on axles to drive the wheels.  they are very slow and can handle steep grades and sharp turns.  There forte was in the woods hauling logs out of the lumber camps down the mountain to the mill.

When they are in motion they remind one of a Rube Goldberg contraption.  All the spinning wheels and gears, there is lots o motion on one of these things.

This is a different view where one can see all the shafts and gears.  They still are used today on a few tourist railroads back in the mountains.  Catch one and pack a picnic lunch and enjoy a day out in the mountains, if…. if , one is near by.

The weekend is here.  Go forth and enjoy God’s creation.

May God bless your weekend.

Spring Showers and White Stuff

 

Woke this morning to another blanket of white same as yesterday morning.  Then during mid day it rains.  Ah the foibles of spring time in the Rockies.

 

Been following the battles of man vs nature on Donner Pass.  Read on a post today that one of the ski areas there has over 200 inches of snow.  that is a whole lots of white stuff.  On one of the RR sites I visit there have been pictures posted of the railroad plowing and blowing snow and not winning.  The big train engines have become stuck, trapped and derailed by all of the snow.  There have been pictures of the engines in snow almost to their roofline.

Man’s battle with Mother Nature is amazing yet we continue to believe we can control nature.  We can help nature but control, I doubt it.  Even the weather forecasters have a poor record of predicting what kind of weather we will have tomorrow. 

The great irony of this is the global warming people,they said there would be less moisture in the Sierras.  Just the opposite has happened.  It took an earthquake to flood a coastline not global warming and there have been other examples of just the opposite of what the doomsayers predicted.  So many set themselves up as god’s and when they fall they deny they were wrong.

Read that Germany elected a greenz party and one of their things is to close down the government operated nuclear generating plants.  Not sure where the Germans are going to get the electricity to replace this lost electrical power.  Yet this tells me that people buy in to myths real easy.  Rather then questioning and looking down the road at the consequences they go full bore then when people get upset. 

I look at this and wonder where our sensibilities as a society are.  I feel we have become very gullible and buy the lines of bull from the different groups. One of the problems is arrogance, arrogant people do not make mistakes and attack people that question them.  Most people do not like confrontation and bullies feed on this which is a trait of arrogance.

So when I watch the people battle the weather on the high passes of California I wonder why.  What will be accomplished.  when nasty weather hits here in the country, most of the folks hunker down and wait out the storm.  They have supplies and back up electrical generators plus gas tanks.  When the storm is over they dig out and go on with life.  the big city people are in such a greedy rush they do not have that kind of patience.  So big mouth political types open up that they can control the weather and keep the roads clear.  Guess what they either are reelected or get the boot.what’s scary is how people believe them.

 

                                      Legos

 

This was a display at a model train show, looks pretty good but look closer.  Everything is made of legos.  And no, it is not little kids that put it together.  Wouldn’t it be cool to be a little kid again to play with something like this.  I would of loved to of had lagos when I was a wee tyke.

 

The week moves on, have a great rest of week.