Big Boo-Boos!

Oh my, it's been a long time since my last post.  In fact, it's my longest time between posts--EVER!    

Life has been a busy ride the last couple of years.  Or more!  A bit of a different and more active ride than our usual somewhat mellower style but quite interesting nonetheless.  Boo-boos have been made along the way and lessons have been learned.  

Here's the scoop:

You may recall that we moved into a new house in a 55+ community in January 2022.  We absolutely loved the house, and we couldn’t have asked for better neighbors. They were a bunch of wonderful people!

In addition, the community offered an endless number of amenities and events, and the neighborhood sometimes held various outdoor get-togethers in the green space behind the homes.  

It was all pretty neat stuff! 

But you know what? 

As wonderful as all that was,

it wasn’t the right place for us!  

Sometimes life is like that, 

you know?  

No matter how grand something is, 

it doesn’t mean that it’s for everyone!

For some reason, it never felt like home for various reasons.  After initially cozying it up a tad bit, the desire to continue to do so completely disappeared.  I know cause I searched all over for it--under the bed, in the closets, the oven, even in the garden but it was... 

gone…

outta there... 

absent...

vanished!"  

Another issue was that after living on an acre for 18 years, the tiny backyard left us wanting for a bigger one—not necessarily a giant yard, just bigger!  We knew the lots were super small before moving in so we picked a lot on a green belt so it would look like we had maximum space.  Ah yes, it was gonna be amazing!

Big boo-boo!  

It didn't work. 

After all the houses around us were built, our backyard seemed to shrink.

ONLY four foot, rod-iron fences were allowed too, and they don't make for much privacy.  We know because we had one.  

We also landscaped but made the mistake of putting too much landscaping on the sides of the house when we should have focused on putting trees in the backyard.  I can’t believe we didn’t add trees, especially as much as I LOVE trees!

That was a great, big, 

leafy, green boo-boo!  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So yes, the house is currently on the market.   

As I write this blog post, we're happily living in our RV, and that’s where we plan to stay until we know what's next!  We're trying not to be in a hurry though.  At least that's what we tell ourselves. 

We're praying about all of this now because we can't plan any better than prayer!  Of course, WE are clueless as to when the house will sell and what comes after that but God has the answers.  Our part is to exercise patience which isn’t easy. We certainly want to land in His appointed place at His appointed time.  

While waiting, the plan is to do some RV meandering with regular visits back to our North Texas home base.  

As for the boys, they just go with flow no matter what!  

They're the BEST!

Chewy & Elmer

We'd certainly appreciate it if you would keep us in your prayers... please!

Stay tuned.

Extra-Large Smiles,

Donna

Colorado~Part 2, Little Extra's, Big Joy

I'm so far behind in getting this post up but here goes!

We always find great joy in many of the little things while we're in Colorado.  Although there are many, I wanted to share a just a few. 

Mountain Spring Water ~ Not far from the RV park is a PVC pipe that releases clean spring water. 

How do I know it's clean? 

We were told it's tested regularly by "those" in the know but I felt a hankerin' to check for myself so my fingers walked on over to Google and found some city testing info that confirmed it.  YAY!

We've been carrying a six gallon jug for a few years now and we fill it with this fresh water every time we're here.  I mostly use it for coffee, cooking, hummingbird feeders during our time here.  

Hubby Geo drawing spring water.

Vallecito Church's Tent Church ~ A few miles from the RV park is a quaint, little, country church that sets up a tent for outside services during the summer months.  When Vallecito Lake is up far enough (some years more so than others), it's another pretty feature that's viewed from the tent and adds to the beautiful  landscape.  Quite a few folks from the RV park attend church here as well.

Community ~  The small, tree-dotted RV park where we anchor is full of friendly folks from many states, especially, our home state of Texas.  They return year after year and some have been coming for decades.  The same goes for the work campers.  

Over time, everyone gets to know each other and the list of folks we know and look forward to seeing grows every year. This year, we've even met nice folks who live down the street from the RV park. Pretty cool!

We also met some nice folks from New Mexico this year.  They aren't regulars but the day they left, we walked outside and found these flowers in a cup of water with a sweet note.  

Flowers left by very kind fellow RVers.

Last but certainly not least.

Hummingbird Feeders ~ The hummers hang around the park and enjoy the camper's feeders well to the end of summer although it varies.  This year, they were still there the beginning of September.

A hummer aboard!

Sorry about the quality of these photos.

I'll work on improving them in the future.  

That's it for Colorado!

Merry Christmas y'all!

Smiles,

Donna

Colorado~Part 1, Early Morning Walks & Sweet Honeyville!

We recently spent six delightfully rejuvenating weeks in Colorado.  It was our fifth time in six years camping in the San Juan Mountains / Vallecito Lake area.  After suffering through the unbearable Texas temps before leaving, my best description for the glorious mountain weather is ooo-la-la!

Peaceful Morning Walks  

For the first time, early morning walks with our furry owners became part of our daily routine.  

The lightly traveled road just outside the RV park dead-ends into the Vallecito Campground at the San Juan National Forest which was our daily destination.    

It's a lovely and peaceful two-mile walk (round trip) and quite invigorating, thanks to a calm chill permeating the air and the warm sun that peeked through the trees almost every day.

Homes, new and old, big and little, most of which are cabins or cabin-like structures dot the road as do yellow and purple wildflowers.  

Does anyone know what these 

black and white dudes are?   

🧐

Yellow wildflowers (perhaps yarrow?)
 hosting butterfly-like friends. 

The wings are not the right shape for butterflies, and I couldn’t find anything that told me they were moths. 

Continuing the walk, towering evergreens were plentiful and seemed to be in competition to see who could reach the sky first.  Oh, but the generous amount of gorgeous aspen trees were a joy to behold as they showed off the creativity of God.  Be still my heart!  

A variety of wildlife was usually out and about—wild turkeys, marmots and deer scurried by.  

The marmots (aka Whistle Pigs) sound a shrill alarm to alert others of predators (namely us) in the area.  Their somewhat startling whistle sounds akin to a smoke detector with low batteries!  Quite shrill.

Chewy, our chihuahua, did not like walking past the whistle pigs.  In protest, he would stop, plant his feet, and pull back on the leash.  Hubby Geo carried him past that area and he’d strut along just fine the rest of the way.

A Sweet Time in Honeyville!

Just outside of Durango is Honeyville, a fun country store, dubbed a honey factory, where everything honey is available.  

  

Bath and beauty products, jams, syrups, flavorful whipped honeys (many of which are fruity), dipping sauces, grilling sauces, and so much more line the shelves. 

The Honey Factory is a distillery too.

A shiny, hive-shaped still 

is displayed behind glass. 

The still sparkles and shines.

A variety of whiskeys have been conjured up here, all of which include Rocky Mountain Wildflower Honey.  Other types of honey liquors are sold as well.

So many choices!

* * * * * * * 

Chokecherries & Bumbleberries, Oh My!

Wandering through the store was a bit of an adventure.  A product named "Chokecherry Whipped Wildflower Honey" caught my attention.

Chokecherry?  

Sounds alarming, right?  

Just exactly what is chokecherry?  

Is it a berry?  

What does it taste like?

What’s “choking” about it?  

Where is it found? 

This blogger had to know so with a bit of light finger use and some serious eye exercise, good ole Google answered these questions:

• Chokecherries are berries and, surprise, surprise, they're in the cherry family.   
• The berries themselves are not poisonous but the seeds, bark and leaves can be fatal as they contain amygdalin which our bodies convert to cyanide.  Yikes!  
• The astringent, bitter taste comes from the pit and is also the reason for the name.  
• Chokecherries are found naturally in foothills, mountain canyons and near water.  They adapt well to extremely cold temperatures too which makes sense since it is Colorado.

A couple days after discovering the Chokecherry Whipped Wildflower Honey, we came across red berries while hiking.  One of our friends identified them as chokecherries!  It was exciting to see them on the shrub in their natural environment!

 

Chokecherries are large suckering shrubs.

We purchased the Chokecherry Whipped Wildflower Honey and found that it's rather sweet but quite tasty. 

I also asked friends around the park if they’d heard of chokecherries and lots of people were familiar with them.  Apparently, moi was the only one in the entire world who had never heard of them.  Ahh, such is the clueless life!

* * * * * * * 

What are bumbleberries?  

The answer to that question was easy.  

Bumbleberries are not berries!  

They do not exist.  

“Bumbleberry” is merely a cute word created to describe pies (and other foods) made with more than one berry!  In fact, it’s usually three berries as seen in the description on the label above.  

Bumbleberry!

It’s is an amusing word that makes me smile.   

Has anyone out there ever had Bumbleberry pie?

As you might expect, Honeyville also sported a hive full of buzzing bees performing their usual busy work.  

Below is the bees entry which 

leads them to the above hive inside.

Can you see the slot where the 
bees enter just below the awning?

Quite a few bees hovered about near the entry way.

Honeyville is well worth a visit if 

you like honey and/or bees and 

maybe even if you don’t like any of it.

We made two visits for double the fun.

Well, friends, that’s it for now.  

Be back soon.

Smiles,

Donna

RV Time~Off to Colorado!

Mid-summer was looming extra large in Texas, pounding us with a torturous relentless heatwave. Let's be real though--Texas summers are always agonizing to some degree (pun intended), and they seem even worse as we... um... age! To simplify--let's just say this year's heat is far worse by leaps and bounds!

We were thrilled when it was time to load the RV and visit the San Juan mountains of Colorado. There's not much that beats that rejuvenating, clean mountain air! Oh, and daily life beneath the magnificent aspens and towering evergreens is a joyful bonus that can put a special skip in my step!

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, 

Northwest Bound We Go! 

After a full day's drive, 

our first stop for the night was in

Dumas, Texas, 

about 45 minutes north of Amarillo.

The City of Dumas offers 

FREE 

overnight RV parking in 

Texhoma Park. 

Did somebody say FREE?  

We're in! 

The overnight area is basically a parking lot but it's easy to find and served it's purpose for the night.  Only 3 RVs spent the night including us.

 

The park itself is a shady little park 

and the RV parking sites sit next to it.

The weather in Dumas made it clear that we were still in Texas but it can't fool us!  We knew we were mere hours away from Colorado's soothing temps.  

The beginning of those kind weather days were evident when we rolled on up to Del Norte, Colorado, population 1,509 as of 2020.  

We settled in for two nights in the 

Woods & River Campground.

The Rio Grande headwaters drifting by our campsite.

The campground is on the banks of the 

Rio Grande headwaters.

The early morning view from in front of our site.

Morning, noon and night, the Rio Grande's gently rippling water played a relaxing tune. I would have gladly sang along but I have no doubt that the noises uttered from my mouth would clearly make a very bad karaoke singer sound stellar!  

An early morning view from beside the RV.

On the second day, we meandered Del Norte's main drag as a welcome and refreshing, light rain sprinkled it's blessings down. Along the way, we enjoyed some tasty local fare, and picked up meat, eggs and fruit at the weekly farmer's market. (We loved being here on farmer's market day!)

The Farmer’s Market on a bit of a rainy afternoon.

I Spy With My Little Eye...

My quilt shop antenna was up so it didn't take long for me to spot, Kathy's Fabric Trunk!  Yes, I brake for quilt shops (or have Geo do it).  

The quilt shop's owner and employees were welcoming, and friendly.  The abundance of luscious, colorful fabric and other attractive wares would joyfully overstimulate this ole noggin'.  

Side note:  Not one stitch has been sewn since moving into our new house but this overstimulated noggin' is ready to go now!  

I made a purchase and had a hankerin’ to grab more of their fun wares but I reluctantly controlled myself.  When I told the kind lady (perhaps the owner) who handled the purchase that we were from Texas, she replied: 

"We love Texas!  Texans come through here in the summer and that's what keeps us in business year ‘round!"  

Those words warmed my heart!  I'm always happy to buy local in these small towns!  If we're ever headed to Del Norte again, Kathy's Fabric Trunk will be on my radar.  

A Side Observance

Entrepreneurial businesses seemed to be plentiful in downtown Del Norte.  We observed at least a handful of restaurants (no fast food here), a cool looking brewery, a couple of small grocery stores and more.  We saw a Family Dollar Store and a few small chain places like that but mostly all business in the immediate downtown area and beyond seemed to be locally owned.  

I would sum up Del Norte as an enjoyable little town!  Oh, and with a very cool quilt shop!

Smiles,

D~~~~

Landscaping, Oh Landscaping!

We've moved into a 55+ community with an HOA.  Like all HOA's, it comes with many rules, one of which is to have your landscaping completed within 3 months after moving in.  It must include 17 shrubs in the front, 20 in the back, a tree in the front, and all I remember reading after that is blah, blah, blah! We also added some hardscaping and additional plants.  

Truthfully, I'm not really sure what to think about all of this but let the landscaping begin. 

 

Starting our added front sidewalk.

It will extend around the house...

...to meet up with the 

patio extension in the back.

A half wall & outdoor kitchen in progress.  

The back of the kitchen.

The stone matches the patio fireplace
which you can see in the background above.

A prepared garden, 

sidewalk & patio extension. 

The concrete is ready for
the pavers that will go on top.

A side garden ready to go too.

Fence going up!

Eight Days Later, The Big Finish

Pavers rest atop the concrete

and the plantings are in.

One side of the house.

I love this weeping 

Blue Atlas Cedar 

near the garage.

Can you see the funky, winding trunk?

Crepe Myrtle and shrubs out front.

The other side of the house.

The back just off the patio.

Another view.

The finished kitchen.

Hollies to create privacy and 

Knockout roses off to the side.  

We're thinking about moving the Knockout roses to add more hollies in their place.  The roses will be moved in front of the hollies to give it all a more balanced look.  The backyard also needs some trees.  

Perhaps this is a project for fall.

A view of the backyard from 

the green belt / common area.  

We're thrilled with the way everything turned out!  The fence really defined the yard which made a big difference, and everything looks pretty!  

Now to watch it all grow!

Smiles,

Donna