It's May already, and still winter here

Yesterday we drove to meeting in Durango through snow and slush ... on May 2! It was almost a reprise of the Sunday we drove to meeting in late February, and the next day went south for four days.

Some things have changed since then.

The weather is still abominable, but there's green grass underneath the snow.

We visited Silver City, NM, on that February trip and fell in love with it. Have since revisited it for a few days and plan to sample summer there at the end of June; planning to move there, or at least winter there before the snow returns here ... if it ever goes away.

Put the house on the market Friday, part of the process of unencumbering us to move. If you know someone interested in a 3-bedroom house with a rental/mother-in-law apartment and great views (there's two deer outside the house right now), contact Ellen Paquin at Re-Max Realty in Mancos.

Attended a very satisfying SW Open School board retreat and got approval to launch a fund-raising campaign through the summer to create an endowment fund, the proceeds from which would support the expeditionary costs associated with the experiential learning program at SWOS.

Attended the "Teenage Time Out" play, based on "The Breakfast Club" in Cortez. The bottom pic is of the cast. The play was put on by Players' Posse at Whirligig Art House ... a mini-cultural center started as a non-profit by five mothers who volunteered to organize art, drama and other cultural programs for community kids. Partly this was in response to the Cortez School District's decision to switch to a four-day school week, leaving kids loose one day a week, mostly Fridays. The play was good fun and it's another example of how wonderful it is when people work together to accomplish something.

Saturday morning looked bright and beautiful (it snowed later in the day), so my Sweetheart and I did a little photo safari to Sand Canyon Pueblo. It was a beautiful morning to be out in the pinyon-juniper forest on the edge of Sand Canyon, way out in the western end of the county, almost on the Utah line.

The last time I visited the site, probably 15 years ago, excavations were going on. It was much easier to understand the place with walls exposed and rooms excavated than it is now, when it's been backfilled. The picture of the perimeter wall isn't really very self-explanatory.

However, it was a great morning to look across the canyons and the Great Sage Plain to the Abajos, behind Monticello in Utah, and down Sand Canyon toward the Chorrizo Mountains in northeastern Arizona.

And then there was one lone aspen leaf lying on the surface of one of the rooms, catching the early morning light. TV