January 1 -- An afternoon walk on our 'street,' showing a neighbor's digs (used only maybe 3 times last year), some rabbit tracks across the snow,
a weathering root crown that points to our house, and a wintry snapshot.


January 20 -- (Inauguration Day, so doubly cause for celebration!) Trail camera is operational at last!


January 21 -- Sunset photos from the den window.


January 28 -- New batteries in the Trail camera, and we recorded the FedEx delivery after dark. Also a gust of wind in the camera's new site.


February 9 -- A ferocious, 3-day windstorm got the trail camera a few more moving trees; still no animal sightings.


February 11 -- Trail camera's first capture of our resident Mountain Cottontail, who begins foraging just after sundown, and returns before we are up in the morning to one of at least 4 daytime rest spots.


February 26 -- Our grocery shopping was light, so we planned a walk along the Arkansas River before returning home. Our path took us along the sunny (west-facing) side of the river, where most of the snow had left the trail.


March 3 -- Trail camera is back to no wildlife moving, but this was the first image from its current new position. Looking at the bank of trees reflected in our dining-room windows, it's easy to see why so many bluebirds hit the windows there as they're chasing miller moths. This was a night when we heard the song-dogs singing, but if they moved across the property, it was too far away to trip the shutter.


April, May -- The trail camera saw most of the action, from several positions, until the final weekend, when we ventured together up to the forest edge to collect the shell casings from a spate of shooting, finding flowers en route on both our land and the forest's.


May 29 -- We spent part of the day with Randy's third son's family at a nearby wildlife area where they were trout-fishing and I was admiring the hillside alone.


June 16 -- Glorious sunset from our yard


June 25 -- Visited Randy's second son and his sons, camping along Salt Creek Road in Park County; we skedaddled for the rainy part.


June 30 -- Our backyard forest gives us some fine and productive rambles.


July 3 -- The trail camera scored a bobcat striding out of the neighborhood on the trail we built.


July 6 -- Randy had seen mushrooms in the aspen forest above us yesterday, so I wanted to go see some, too.


July 19 -- Randy saw some nice specimens of Mountain Four O'clock on his morning ramble, so I had him show me after dinner. None of the shots I did of those are here, as their flowers are gone by late afternoon and I just wanted to catch the leaves, but I did get some teensy penstemons and fruiting fairy-candelabra--and then decided none of those images were worth keeping.


July 24 -- In our own backyard meadow


August 5 and 10 -- Mushrooms again star in these images taken in Mushroom Gulch in Chaffee County and along the Salt Creek trail in Park County.


August 12 -- Mushrooms in our own front yard


August 23 -- A trip to town netted more mushrooms and brought us home through Castle Rock Gulch.


August 24 -- Visited South Park City with a visiting friend.


August 29 -- Randy's third son and family came to see us, so we got to show off our forest.


August 30 -- Cottonwood Pass...Randy and his son went on up the mountain; I stayed lower with the rest of the family.


August 31 -- Family went fishing again; I went walking again, finding different flowers.


September 3 -- Walked around Franz Lake in Salida.


September 11 -- We drove into an area burned a decade ago, looking for a trailhead that we never found.


September 12 -- A walk into "our aspens" is always a good time. The aspens were beginning to turn color and we wanted to see them.


September 17, 18 -- I enjoyed the Lost Creek Campground while Randy backpacked in the Lost Creek Wilderness.


October 22 -- Traveled to California for first time in 3 years. Lost the images I got of the panoramic view of the San Rafael Reef from September and some from the Salt Wash Viewpoint, but did get some from Angel Creek Campground above Wells, Nevada on my way home.


October 30 -- A home-area walkabout in Kaufman Pastures truly persuaded me that my 7-year old Panasonic Lumix ZS40 needs to be retired, so I'm getting a ZS100 next week.


November 17 -- Didn't arrive by the next week; oh, well. But it's here now, and today I went out for a spin with it.


November 22 -- Just out in the forest; we went to where we had heard shooting over the weekend, hoping to find and clean up the spent shells.


November 23 -- Oh yay, two new places on one day! With our fishing licenses in our possession, we're now legal to visit the Harmon Fishing Easement, a State Wildlife Area along Cottonwood Creek west of Buena Vista. I hope we go again in different seasons. After post office and grocery store stops, we drove toward home and decided to use the Castle Rocks Gulch road parallel to the highway, and once there, we decided to find the trail we'd been told about that goes up into the Castle Rocks area. We found it, a few miles farther on, at about sunset, and are now eager to return with a plan to hike.


November 26 -- We hiked up two trails accessed from an unofficial camping spot in Castle Rocks Gulch; one might eventually have brought Randy to the southern end of Kaufman Ridge; the other was a cowpath up another draw. The cows have good taste, I decided.


November 30 - December 3 -- A trip to focus on Bandelier National Monument and Preserve, and to see Valles Caldera National Preserve
and Rio Grande del Norte National Monument while we were in the area. My new camera stopped working after the first day,
but what I did get was nice. Going forward, I'll have a 2nd and third battery with me.