Category Archives: Winter

Greeley Tree Branches Everywhere!

Leave a reply

After the first snow of the season and then a subsequent snowfall only a few days later, all the deciduous trees in our area suffered. Most of the trees still had all their leaves and so the snow just weighed them down like heavy blankets. That first night we could hear snapping and cracking and a lot of people were out of power for days because they had broken on top of power lines, and then those came down too!


The oak tree behind me in this picture lost its top completely

The city of Greeley initially said that they would come around and pick up any broken branches that were piled on the side of the road. Now they are saying to bring them to them as there are a LOT more tree branches than they realized. If you want more info from the city of Greeley about the tree clean up (of which they have already hauled away 16,000 cubic yards!!), including location and hours for drop off and pick up, you can see their press release here.


A LOT of trees!

Most of the hugest piles have been cleaned up, but there are still quite a few piles of trees everywhere in Greeley. It looks like a hurricane or tornado passed through! And the poor remaining trees look really sad and some of them have split straight down the center. I’m sure a good many of them won’t come back next spring unfortunately. Thankfully, we uncovered ours from the snow before they snapped.


You can really see how much Colorado has turned into the cold, dead season

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Coffee Beans in Colorado?!

2 Replies


Schnoodle with some of the various tropical plants in our house -coffee tree is furthest left

Coffee Tree
A Healthy Coffee Plant has Nice glossy dark green leaves

We have had a small coffee plant for the last few years.  In the summer we put it in the humid greenhouse and it grows well. Then in the winter we bring it inside, where it lives..but doesn’t exactly thrive.   But this year we watered it a little more and… it started to bloom.

Cassie played the role of the honey bee and pollinated some of the blossoms by hand by touching the pollen from flower to flower. We hadn’t thought much of it until just the other day when we saw….Green coffee berry beans!


Colorado Coffee Beans

We will continue to let them grow and I doubt we’d have enough even for a single cup of coffee, but it’s still fun and having tropical plants around us invokes thoughts of Puerto Rico.  Of course the coffee plants in PR are a hundred times more fragrant and bigger!  Perhaps if we have enough beans/seeds we will try to grow another tree or two here in CO.  When we get to PR we might plant a whole acre of them!

Coffee Flowers
Little pom-pom white scented puffs of flowers soon turn into the berries

This is a coffee bush in Puerto Rico (makes our Colorado coffee beans look silly)

UPDATE: Click on links to see the red coffee berries turn into beans and new coffee plant seedlings.

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (4)
  • Awesome (2)
  • Interesting (2)
  • Useful (1)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (1)

Colorado’s October Snow

1 Reply

Nearly every year in Colorado, you can expect the first snowfall to come at the end of October. I remember growing up, we used to go trick-or-treating on snowy Halloweens all the time. We would have to wear huge coats over our cute costumes, so that even if we were a witch or pumpkin or skeleton, we really just looked like cold snowy kids with masks or paint on our faces.


Early this morning -lots of drooping sad trees -even our peach tree!!

This year followed the tradition, but just a few days early. We went from 80 degrees on Monday to low 30s. And here in Greeley it wasn’t just a light dusting of snow either. They are saying close to a foot or possibly more has fallen since last night when it changed from rain to snow. All through the night our power was going off and on and woke us up about 4 times. When we looked outside by 4am everything was glowing from the white sheet that lay across the ground, trees and houses.


The snow is as tall as Schnoodle

School District 6 is closed as is UNC and some other institutions had delays, but not my work; I had to roll out of our nice warm bed (with our flannel sheets and down comforter) and into the cold white world. The trees were all drooping from the weight of the snow on their still-leafed limbs and there were quite a few broken branches littering the roads.

The young chickens don’t know what to do in the snow and Kitty got to sleep inside last night (he is usually a mostly-outdoor cat).  Schnoodle also got to stay inside during the day for the first time since her bloody incident. But she did venture out for a little while…

 

What I was really worried about though, was our poor Lil Big Apple trees. It was as if they were no longer there!

That little blip in front of the rose bush is supposed to be our apple tree!

So I went over to uncover them…Sorry the video is so crazy. I was trying to film while at the same time shoveling myself a path from one tree to the other.

 

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)

Pensando en Puerto Rico

6 Replies

Now that most of our chores and worries related to the rentals are taken care of  (both rented out again), and the summer is starting to wind down, our minds have slowly been drifting back to Puerto Rico. When we are busy with work, rentals, summer activities and just keeping all the balls in the air it’s a little easier to forget that we have a property waiting for us down there.

We hope everything is ok with it after Hurricane Irene slid past. We have no idea what three months in the rainy season of the tropics could produce by way of plant growth or if there is a (new) leak in the roof or any other number of things. The good thing is that it is so far away that there is really not much that we can do about it anyway…

Thanks to the Kruses for stopping by from time to time to check on the place and make sure it is still standing. 🙂

Now we are thinking when we should go down again. Probably sometime during the wintry months…Over the holidays when we have lots of days off work, perhaps? Over Britton’s birthday which is in the middle of January? In the midst of the worst month: February? Quizas.


The house/property

Having the curse/blessing of efficiency and productivity even when at rest or on vacation we’re also starting to plan what we want to accomplish with the property while we are there next. I think we’ll at least finish the studio cabana but probably also start cleaning out the wooden house. Maybe even get rid of the rest of the bees since they only had enough time to take one of the four colonies when we were there last. 

The other reason I’ve been thinking of Puerto Rico is I’ve started reading Esmeralda Santiago’s newest book Conquistadora which is all about Puerto Rico in the mid 1800’s. I read When I was Puerto Rican and loved it and this newest one, while a fictional novel and not a memoir is also pulling me in. It is so rich with detail and a great story of a Spanish woman named Ana’s desire to make a life in Puerto Rico as her ancestor conquistadors did. So of course it makes me miss la Isla del Encanto. When I finish the book, I’ll write a short review here, but so far it’s really enthralling!

We’ve also been thinking of when we want to make our permanent jump across the pond to move to and live in Rincon. I think we’ve decided that we want to pay off one more rental property and save up a nice round number of dollars- the amount dependent on what we want to do with the property. We figure this will take less than 2 years.  Or if Britton manages to take his job because of an expansion in his company to Puerto Rico it might be even sooner! All in all we are still thinking of Puerto Rico as much as ever, just the type of thoughts have changed from if  and can we to when and how!

What do you think of this post?
  • WOW (0)
  • Awesome (0)
  • Interesting (0)
  • Useful (0)
  • Bummer (0)
  • Whoa (0)