President Franklin Roosevelt called forests the “lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.” Forests absorb potentially dangerous carbon dioxide while producing healthy oxygen. They trap dust, ash, pollen, and smoke, keeping them out of the air and our lungs. According to American Forests, a single tree can produce …
On June 27, 2018, the Spring Fire in southern Colorado was started by a man grilling meat in an outdoor pit. Within two weeks, it had become the state’s second largest fire in history, burning more than 108,000 acres. The fire was both a natural and an unnatural disaster. Wildfires have always been a fixture …
Hawks and other raptors eventually returned after the fire. This guy settled on a large scrub oak, with the grey and burned face of the East Spanish Peak in the background. The photo was taken in 2016, three years after the fire.
My mantra when we were building was, “It’s just a mountain cabin.” So, pretty much, it’s just a mountain cabin, but a beautiful welcoming home and I truly love it. The housing appraiser called it a “friendly little place” and my sister Phyllis says it reminds her of a dollhouse. It’s a tiny charmer, built …
A third of the recently burned forests in the American West will never regenerate, according to research led by Colorado State University foresters and published in the journal Ecology Letters. “In many places, forests are not coming back after fires,” says Camille Stevens-Rumann, assistant professor in the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship at CSU. When forestry …
The view of southern Colorado’s East Spanish Peak from our cabin is mesmerizing, especially when the mountain dances with the clouds. Sometimes this is a prelude to rain, but often it is just the magic of nature. Watch it dance below.
I can see the pirate on the mountain from the window in front of my desk in the cabin. It’s a formation of trees and rocks that create a Johnny Depp sort of swashbuckler, with features defined by 50-foot ponderosa pines poking out of granite skin. He has a pert nose, neat beard, and a …
We hear a shuffling, then see a movement in front of us, a shape on the boulder less than five feet from us. A furry foot is reaching from the rock to the deck. A big furry foot. Attached to a bear. Seems he’s planning on coming onto the deck. “Shoo!” I shout. Seriously, this …
The forest in 2012 and after the East Peak Fire in 2013. The East Spanish Peak is in the background.
Our cabin is roughly the size of a two-car garage—20X24-feet—with a deck across most of the front. The giant hollyhock took us about a decade to grow, using seeds from my sister Phyllis’s yard in Pueblo. It seems happy in it nest next to the rock our neighbor Harold hauled out of the meadow for …
