Winter

Though it had nothing to do with the weather, the election marked the turn from late fall to winter.

It was cool and overcast on election day, and we woke up Wednesday to several inches of snow. It was the kind of weather that had the critters hunkered down in a creekbed  near town. 

At the end of the day, on my way back from the audiologist in Durango, I saw that it was going to clear behind the storm cloud in the west. We went out to a viewpoint on the edge of the Cedar Mesa subdivision just in time to catch the Sleeping Ute silhouetted by the sunset.

Had an interesting thing happen in relation to a picture. On our photo safari the day before the election, I saw a bug skittering through the aspen leaves on the ground. I got a couple of not-very-sharp pictures of the bug that I posted on our Flickr page (www.flickr.com/photos/waggin/2993171773). I sent the pictures to a mantis group, thinking the critter looked a little mantis-like. I got a nice response that suggested that it was a bug, not a mantis, probably an assassin bug. Further research suggests that my correspondent (who turned out to be a JUNIOR HIGH student) was exactly right. How neat to get such detailed and polite assistance from one so young!

The fact that winter is here was borne home yesterday morning, when it was 14 degrees when Scooby Doo and I took our predawn walk. This morning it was 10 degrees! 

This afternoon, as I write this, it's warm enough to have the west portico door open, but it will get closed pretty soon ... the sun's starting to go down, and he temperature with it.

We have tickets tomorrow night for the Loudon Wainwright III/Leo Kottke concert at the Fort Lewis Community Concert Hall. Looking forward to it, even though, by the time I reserved the seats, the balcony was all that was left. 

In a few minutes, Sandy will pick up our tickets for the Michael Martin Murphey later this month in the Mancos Opera House. No balcony seats for this one!

Planning is starting to speed up for the holidays. We're looking forward to participating in the Mancos town and valley celebration of Olde Fashioned Christmas the first two weekends of December. As I listened to Sandy (now on the chamber of commerce board) talking this afternoon with other chamber folks about the events coming up, I was again so glad that I'm not with the newspaper. Trying to cover everything going on at the holiday season made it no fun at all! Now we can pick and choose and truly enjoy the events. tv