The noise of the water racing 2,500 feet down from the mountain, past the cabin, got attention and brought forth words like "roaring" and "thunder," not to mention "catastrophe," "did you leave the car running?" and "is that our dog on the other side of the creek?" But it all turned out alright.When we bought it, there were no bedrooms, just a four foot dressing space opening into the bathroom. It had (still has) of all things, a pink tub, sink, and toilet, quite a surprise to find in the mountain west. Eventually the cabin got added on to, several times, and perched as it was on the incline, we used to joke that there were no plumb walls or square corners, and that I should answer the telephone "House of Shims."
The first summer we spent there we had five children, and since our double bed was squeezed into that four foot dressing space, during the night it was not unusual to have kids gingerly stepping between us, and on us, in order to get to the john. It was togetherness with a vengeance. They all slept in the living room. The boys were encouraged to find a bush, outside, but the girls insisted on using the indoor plumbing. We adapted. It was no big deal.
Now there are two bedrooms, a media room (small but oh so beautiful looking out over the waterfall), two baths, a utility room, and a spa room. All added one stick at a time whenever we had enough money scraped together to buy the 2x4s and nails. The setting was, is, a grove of aspen trees, but the first year I purchased 50 evergreen pines and spruces six inches tall from the Forest Service (at 50 cents apiece), and they have now reached maturity at 40 to 50 feet. The aspens are dying out, but provide firewood for the taking which includes a tremendous amount of effort. Wild lupine, penstemmon, fireweed and violets grew wild along the paths, and they live happily (well, no complaints) alongside of the introduced vincas, tulips, and daffodils that we planted.
The creek is about the same as it was 35 years ago -- no larger, no smaller. It bursts forth at the top of the mountain as a rivulet that collects spring outflows as it goes along, gathered together in a man-made slough. It then heydays down the 2,500 feet past the cabin and eventually ends up as irrigation water in orchards and alfalfa fields in the flatlands, then on to the Gunnison and Colorado River. Does any of it end up in Mexico? Doubtful. But it has done its job adding life, fruit, and oh yes, native trout to the environment in between.
I love to trout fish in the creek, because if you put your bait into the creek, and you wait a few minutes with no action, move on, there are no receptors in that particular location. I don't own a real fishing pole. I have an old cut off broken pole with a few of the eyes left to thread the line through, and I let myself have about 20 feet of it because I don't have a reel, either. When I get a bite, I furiously pull on the end of the line that is tied off by the broken handle, and flip the trout onto the bank and run over and cover him gently with my foot lest he flop back into the water. That is, I used to run over. Now I don't execute this part of the process as quickly. Come to think of it, I haven't caught any fish lately, either.
However, nothing tastes better than a trout, freshly caught, gutted, salted and peppered and floured, fried up in a bit of oil for breakfast. "We're living off the land!" I used to say enthusiastically. We also had chokecherry jelly for our toast -- it is an acquired taste which means it is good if strawberry is not available. But then, a gin martini is an acquired taste also, and I don't see anyone faulting it for that.
There was a time in Colorado when the Game and Fish Department let citzens over 65 have life-time fishing and small game licenses for the ridiculous sum of less than $5. It is a prized possession -- both Dick and I have one -- because once a year, in the fall, when the land-locked salmon run upstream from Blue Mesa to where they were implanted in the Roaring Judy, milked salmon are given away to Colorado fishing license holders. We went two years ago, and intend to repeat it this fall.
It runs like clockwork. You form a line at the fish hatchery, and it pokes along for about two or three miles until you come to the enclosures where the milked salmon are let back into the creek. Then there is a young man (just getting started, I'll wager, and literally getting his feet wet in the system) that is down in a pool. He dips his net into the water and brings it up wriggling and thrashing -- it is so full of fish he can't lift it over his head, and on the bank there is another strong young man who takes the net and dumps it out onto a slough where workers sort fish five into a sack, and bring it down to your car and put them into your ice chst. So we got ten fish (five to a license that year) -- Big Ones -- and brought them home and cleaned, fileted, and smoked them. It took almost an entire day for a couple of pounds of dry fish, but they were FREE! We were living off the land.
It is one of the few things that stay in place. They used to give away slabs cut off of the evergreen trees at the sawmill. We built a barn out of them. There may still be a few cattle drives that go past the cabin on the way up to the National Forest; I would clean the streets of manure after they had passed for my compost pile, but you can't put a value on the thrill of watching them go by and hoping they didn't stray off into the garden to make the deposit first hand. The cattleman's dogs saw to that.
The mountain is still full of wild strawberries that bloom prolifically, but I hardly ever see any strawberries to pick. Once I did, and the kids and I spent two happy hours filling a cup -- they are so small, about as big as your little fingernail, but the taste, the taste -- is nectar. Dividing up one cup of heaven amongst one adult and three or four kids doesn't take long, but the memory outlasts social security, arthritis, homework duties, a root canal, or other losses too numerous and insignificant to mention.
One advantage that still exists is stalking the wild mushrooms. I think it was the year 1985 that there was a 100 year mushroom "bloom" on the Mesa. There was hardly a space where mushrooms didn't grow abundantly. Lately there have been a spate of the poisonous ones, the gorgeo
us red ones with white fly killer specks on top, but if you know not to try them, let them be and admire their beauty, is my motto. The ones you want to find are the boletus, the French call them Ceps, look them up in your handy mushroom book. They don't have gills, they have pores, but not every mushroom with pores is edible, so go the first time with someone who is knowledgeable. Sometimes the forest service has classes. In every locality there are mushroom experts to identify your treasures. Find out who they are and use them. Some people are allergic to fungus; it is best to try just a little if you are eating them the first time. Stay AWAY from any fungus with white gills, just to be sure they are not Death Angels. They can kill you. You don't want to die whilst living off the land.I've never seen a poisonous snake at 10,000 feet, but Sidewinders are present down at the lower altitudes. Just so you know. They live off the land, too.
Like every location, there are good things and not so good things. The best thing about Colorado that is not spoken of often is the air. You forget how good the air smells after you have been gone for a while. Take a deep breath. Sleep with the windows open. If you are comfortable at sea level, take a little while to get used to the altitude. Carbon monoxide in the mountains is just as deadly as carbon monoxide on the coast. Find yourself a little place on the Western Slope, away from the Madding Crowd, use less electricity, plant something, build a fire in the fireplace to take the chill off at night, see how many stars there are that you can see in the sky, and watch yourself grow.
To grow makes living exquisite, and ends this piece on a positive note...
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