Busy, busy, busy

We took a quick trip to Silver City again Monday - Wednesday. Looked at several houses there, especially one that we had looked at and liked when we were down there in July ... it still felt good, so we'll see if we can get it.

My life continues to be preoccupied with the SW Open School Minds in Motion fundraising campaign. Did another booth at Mancos Farmers' Market; three more events to go, one of which I'll miss. Then our season finale on September 9, which we're busy planning for now. We've done well ... over a thousand contacts, renewed interest in SWOS, new students and about $7,000 in hand so far. I think we will make the $10,000 goal for this year and then we'll see what happens beyond that. I'll leave the board in a couple of months, so that's a nice note to go out on.

Last night was the last - and best - of the Grand Summer Nights events in downtown Mancos. Beautiful weather, beautiful music and lots for people to do and see. There are more than 60 artists shown in the downtown area now! We had people there ranging from Durango to McElmo Canyon ... just a pleasant, laid-back evening ... with lots of sales!

In a few minutes we need to get ready to go to the Wine and Art show in Cortez ... a FeVa Fotos booth instead of a SWOS MIM booth for a change. A dark cloud looming in that direction does not bode well. And then toward the end of the week we'll be doing our maybe last distribution of Arts Perspective Magazine around the San Juan Skyway. TV

We're back!

We've been out peddling FeVa Fotos again. This time to archeologists and their ilk at the 2010 Pecos Conference, which was held in Silverton, CO. This is the first time (I think) that the conference has been held that far north.

Silverton is about 9,000 feet in elevation and the mornings were ... refreshing. There was ice on the windshield both mornings. We were glad we were snug in our little Casita (among the elephant herd of RVs) and not camping on the sports field like many of the participants!

We were a little cramped at our single table in the vendors tent and the weather was beautiful (it had been raining for days in Silverton!), so we opened the tent side and created an "annex." We didn't sell any of the prints there, but it gave a more open feeling to our presentation. We didn't sell a lot of cards, but I enjoyed seeing old friends from Chaco and around the southwest and it's always fun to be able to talk with customers about our pictures.

The setting couldn't have been lovelier! We were just south of the Silverton Visitors Center, the two-story Victorian building on the left of the third picture up, in an area surrounded by the San Juan Mountains and looking down the Animas River canyon toward Durango, through which two trains went each day (one is parked in the background of the picture showing the tents and the visitors center).

We had good evening meals, at Natalia's near the train station on Silver Street on Thursday night (top picture) - good ABUNDANT Mexican food - and the Pickle Barrel on Greene Street (the main drag) on Friday night. Really good prime rib and steak at the Pickle Barrel and the entrees are $2 off before 6 p.m., which we were lucky to take advantage of.

There are some little issues with the Casita that need to be looked at, but it still only took a little over two hours each way, going slowly over the passes.

Now it's back to reality time ... gotta end this and get ready to go to Escalante Days in Dolores to staff the SW Open School Minds in Motion booth this morning and then help Sandy get ready for company the next three days. Busy, busy, busy! TV

Weekend of Summer Fun

What a beautiful,fun weekend it was! Photo safari in the mountains Friday morning, Artist reception at the Cortez Cultural Center Friday night, Farmer's Market Saturday morning, Picker's Reunion performance at Joe Moore Lake Saturday evening and stopped by the Bauer House yard sale on our way home from Durango this morning. They do it right at the Bauer House- it was a yard sale with live music! They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so since my blogs are never as wordy as Tom's, I will compensate with a few of my favorite photos! sf

After the fair ...

This last week has been pretty much taken up by the Montezuma County Fair. After the ranch rodeo last Sunday, I did some "streetwalking" on Monday and Tuesday, going mostly to banks for donations to our Minds in Motion campaign (with mixed success).

Wednesday we set up our booth at the fair and Saturday evening we took it down. Having an indoor venue was a welcome change ... we could put things up on the tables and not worry about the wind blowing them off!

I really didn't get much time to see what else was happening at the fair. I was impressed that rocketry is now a 4-H project field. The judging ring was about 30 yards away from our booth, so we were often regaled with the comments the sheep and goats and cows were making about the competition (the bunnies were nice and quiet!). I caught this one girl wrestling her sheep into the proper stance and then a goat looking kinda disgusted at being decked out in hula trappings.

They were long days, but fruitful. Fortunately, I had the help of other team members in staffing the booth, which allowed me to come in a little late on Friday morning and get home early that night, leaving others to enjoy the concert. Saturday morning we had to split our forces, because we had both the booth at the fair and one at the Cortez Farmers' Market, both good venues. We haven't taken in a lot of cash (about $1,100 so far), but we've made more than 700 contacts as we've "talked SWOS" in the different communities we serve. Those contacts are already paying off in terms of new parents/students contacting the SWOS office to register for this coming school year, our 25th. We've also made contact with a lot of former SWOS students and graduates. And, you can never underestimate the value of being able to talk SWOS face-to-face with elected officials, business owners and others in the community.

Tomorrow and Tuesday we'll have interviews on two of the local radio stations, so that will get us more exposure. I will also follow up on some of the promised donations from businesses and see whether those are coming in. We've got farmers' markets in Dolores and Mancos this week and then we have to turn in a donation request to Empire Electric Cooperative, preparatory to our making a presentation to their board on August 20. THAT will be an opportunity for a larger donation and for us to really tell the SWOS story.

In the meantime, Sandy has been at Artisans and everyone's sales there have been booming during the month of July. She also bore the brunt of hosting a family of five Hungarian Servas travelers Thursday night. The mother and father had visited me 16 years ago, so it was interesting to catch up with them. tv

Catching up

It's cooled off and wetted up around here, which makes it lots greener and more comfortable, especially at night when the temps are getting down into the low 60s and high 50s. Our monsoon season has arrived.

Some time ago I offered to be part of a weekend package the library raffled off at a state library convention, so I got to tour Mesa Verde with a librarian from east of Denver and her college sophomore daughter. 'Twas hot ... the monsoons hadn't quite got here yet ... and I discovered the Jeep's air conditioning was kaput. I think the young lady was also disappointed to discover that cell phone reception at Mesa Verde is nonexistent. Nonetheless, we had a good tour, including a tour of Balcony House with old friend Clyde Benally, who's always a hoot.

The hummingbirds are voracious; we're at two feeder fillings a day now. A fox was outside the window the other night; we didn't know he was there until Scooby Doo loudly alerted us. No pictures of that, but I did get some of the little tan praying mantis that was on the portico. Too small to be a danger to the hummingbirds.

And then it was Mancos Days! I basically spent 2 1/2 days working the booth for the SW Open School's Minds in Motion fundraising campaign, with able help some days from SWOS staff and students.

Next door was the Mancos Valley Arts Council booth, where they were silk-screening custom T-shirts. I love the picture of my Sweetheart enjoying the process; she got us each one.

Mancos Days is when the distinctive flavor of Mancos comes out, like when the two ladies who own Zuma Natural Foods rode their mules to the mobile pizza stand on their way to the Saturday morning parade!

Our new canopy worked quite well to cover the SWOS MIM booth, but every afternoon there was a question of when to lower it and call it quits and keep everything from getting soaked or blown away. It IS monsoon season now! One of the joys was hearing the two xylophone fixtures in the nearby playground getting played by kids every now and then.

Sunday afternoon we got free to go up to ranch rodeo Scotty Cox put on at Echo Basin. I've come to really enjoy the challenge of rodeo events, figuring out where the critter, horse and rider are going to be next and being in focus when they get there. It's all good fun, as you can see by the grin on Jamie's face as she holds the calf by the tail while Scotty's daughter brings the "branding iron" over (they paint 'em, not burn 'em).

And now to the Montezuma County Fair! We'll have an MIM booth there for four days, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Gonna be long days! Fortunately, other members of the MIM Team will be able to help out on Friday and Saturday, but Wednesday and Thursday will be long. And on Saturday we have to split our forces to also have a presence at the Cortez Farmers Market! I'll be glad when Sunday arrives.

I think our fund drive to build an endowment to underwrite the travel costs of SWOS students doing experiential and expeditionary learning is building up speed. We have gotten a good story about the campaign in the Cortez Journal (www.cortezjournal.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=11687&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&S=1) and that also ran in the Mancos Times. We've been to numerous farmers' markets and other events, contacting more than 500 people and picking up about $1,000 in donations. I did some "streetwalking" yesterday and have promises of donations from three banks and a couple of large local corporations, plus an invitation to make a presentation to the board of Empire Electric, which could net a larger donation. I'll do some more perambulating today and see if I can scrounge up some more contributions. We can't quite do an every-member visitation to all the doctors, lawyers, professionals, ranchers and small businesses in the area, so I'm hoping to get a letter to the editor printed that will urge THEM to come to US at the fair.

The rewarding thing for me is "talking SWOS" with people. We did a survey two years ago and reached the resounding conclusion that nobody knew about our school. The response is different this year! We've had good press coverage of our trips and service projects. We have about 160 students from Cortez, Dove Creek, Dolores, Mancos, Towaoc and points west. And, people seem to be more receptive to the fact that some kids don't do well in the traditional classroom mode of instruction; hands-on experience is sometimes a better teacher. We're becoming a school of choice for kids who are being bullied, kids who are bored to tears in classrooms and kids who need a safe, supportive learning community where self-respect and respect for other go hand in hand. Our booth is most magnetic when it's augmented by the personal stories of staff, students or parents (or grandparents) ... they really tell it like it is, and with enthusiasm!

Okay, enough about SWOS. Time to get on with the day. Hope all's well with those of you who tune in on our occasional blog posts. TV

My goodness, it's been a while!

We just got back from a four-day trip to Silver City, looking at houses and sampling the summer weather.

As to the last, it was a little more humid there than here, but not any hotter. The humidity may have been from the afternoon thunder showers, not all of which wet Silver City. It was interesting on the way down through eastern Arizona, when temperatures bounced from the 90s to the 60s to the 90s to the low 60s and back into the 90s again. Outside Alpine, AZ, was where I found the horned toad watching me photographing flowers.

Streetwalking in downtown Silver City Thursday evening, we got a kick out of the sign over a dentist's doorway!

Friday we went up to Gila Cliff Dwellings NM - 44 miles each way from Silver City. Interesting drive, but beautiful. At the end, there was a mile-long loop that ascends 175 feet to the cliff dwellings and back. It was hot, but it's a beautiful hike, with trickling water in the canyon bottom and wonderful views up and down the canyon as you get higher up. On the way back down, we wanted to just roll in the cool, clear shallow waters of the Gila River.

On the way back, we had burgers at the newly restored and reopened Buckhorn Saloon in Pinos Altos (second from top pic) and then sat in on the Mimbres Region Arts Council annual meeting and silent auction, which was held in the historic Pinos Altos Opera House, next to the Buckhorn. We are really looking forward to attending live performances in that quaint old building.

Friday we looked at houses, practically all day. In some ways, that was more taxing than walking to the cliff dwellings! At least, my memory disk got overloaded quickly. Taking pics helped go back and separate the places we liked most.

Saturday morning we took in the Silver City Farmers' Market and bought some fresh vegies and fruit, then headed home, back through St. Johns again. It was 104 degrees in Shiprock, but in the 90s at home.

Good trip. We're looking forward to being part of the Silver City community ... after we get the house in Mancos sold! tv

Happy after-Fourth!

This morning at dog-walking time, it was 45 degrees, totally clear and not a breath of air was moving. What a relief after two days of heat, wind and dust!

I was in Dove Creek from 9 to 4 or 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, taking our "Minds in Motion" fundraising campaign to the annual Pick 'n Hoe Days celebration, when Dove Creek honors its agricultural and mining heritage. I'd never been to Pick 'n Hoe Days before; it had its good and bad points.

From the standpoint of the booth, they were good days. We contacted more than 100 people, received $50-60 in donations, plus a promise of a $500 grant and may have picked up five or six students who would benefit from our experiential, expeditionary approach to learning.

The booth is shown at the bottom; I was fortunate to have two staff members with me each day ... I can bring them in, but they can answer the harder questions about what goes on in the school and on the trips.

Right behind us on Saturday was the water fight, with area firefighting teams competing to how a metal ball along an aerial cable. That went on all day long.

On the other side, in front of us, was one of the sweetest musical events I've been to recently ... an informal old-time music jam in the shade of a tree. At one time, there were 20 musicians playing together - fiddles, guitars, mandolins, washboard, banjos - and they ranged in age from about 14 to 80+.

Sunday's parade (yes, Sunday morning ... Pick 'n Hoe takes place on the Fourth and it takes precedence over church!) had some wonderful local color ... this wagon saying "Thank you to the Navajo fry bread makers of America!" If you don't think that is important, the next picture up shows the line outside the fry bread stand (in the white tent) for Navajo tacos ... and the line was that long for over an hour!

The car show included this old Jeep, which may be older than I am, complete with snorkel.

Sunday included a lot of kids and adult games, from limbo dancing to pig-catching. The pigs aren't greased and this particular porker was hopelessly out of luck ... in the picture he is just beginning to move out, and you can see all those guys are already almost upon him!

The wind whipped around Dove Creek's Weber Park both days, leaving us feeling both baked and sand-blasted by the end of the day. Sunday we were eyeing the clouds and crowds at about 4 p.m. and deciding we would pack it up for the day. Just then God affirmed our decision with a microburst that bathed us in whirling sand and wind ... an adjacent booth's canopy ended up about 50 yards west, dragging its cement block anchors! We came out unscathed and happy to call it a day.

So, I get back to Mancos, where me Sweetheart was wrapping up a volunteer afternoon at Artisans, and we go to the Fourth of July yard party at the Bauer House. We just get our plates and sit down and the wind begins to whip paper plates and table cloths around and take down canopies! We escaped to the porch to finish our meal and then crept home to a quiet evening with the beasts.

Now you now why the quiet, peaceful morning dog walk was such a relief! TV