Taos Wool Festival, etc

It's early morning. The sun might not make an appearance today. I'm currently looking out on thickly frosted plants and ground - wilted leaves and flowers. I love how only one side of the evergreen trees has the thicker white coating, leaving all the north sides of the trees their dark green. It would make a nice picture to capture and keep.

I'm not seeing bunny tracks - maybe it's still sleeping. The birds are awakening and looking for seeds. Are bugs out for the bug eating birds? Are the bears hibernating yet? I hope so. Do raccoons hibernate? Monte saw two in the trash trailer (probably after some fish wrappings) and we've decided they did the latest bird feeder destruction. Elk are still in their rut and bugling.

It's getting lighter outside and I think it's trying to snow. Now it's pretty seeing an occasional golden aspen in the midst of the dark evergreens with their white one-sided dusting. I should be starting the wood stove. Made my tea though, and curled up in wool socks and thick bathrobe. And I don't want to take too much time posting cuz I'm working on a felted piece. Colorful wool in baskets and curly colored locks too, and a shiny skein of wool, are covering the kitchen table and benches awaiting me to create.

Which reminds me ... my last post was just before Monte and me were leaving for the Taos Wool Festival. It was a great vacation - a true vacation, not related to Monte's work travel or us speaking.

Our close friends, Jim and Marty, had time share places lined up for us to stay in - the first night in Red River, New Mexico. Monte worked there just before we married, coming home for us to elope. Lots of memories, including his favorite restaurant, Texas Reds, where he ate a lot. Tho the original had burned down, it's a part of the Red River Lodge now and the owner remembered Monte! We all had a salad with their famous salad dressing that Monte's raved about for 34 years - and yes, it was very good! The waitress had fun with us and Monte's memories (like hiking the hills with backpack full of rocks), tho she'd not been born yet then. With the great music in the bar (Monte and Jim bought the guy's CD) it was a great atmosphere and wonderful meal.

The nice thing about this trip was that we weren't driving long distances, so could stop and enjoy the local scenery - which included galleries and the local's food hangouts. La Veda, Colorado was one stop, for lunch. A very old hippie (yes, old hippies, including us), artsy fartsy town. We could tell lots of music happens around there. Some famous people (famous to us textile people - like Marty is a quilter) live around there, and then Monte fell in love with one style of oil painting and we ended up talking with the painter himself - and Monte's got to go back next year (his first openings) for a week long class.

Scenery? It was perfect timing for colorful Colorado's fall colors! Since we don't have maple trees, our rusts and reds come from scrub oak and other bushes and vines. The golds of aspen are our main color. But too, there's the grasses (I used to have my kids notice all the varieties of grass when we'd walk - did you ever notice how many variances there are? - could fill a large book, just on grass - interested?)- lots of fall color changes with them too.

After Monte's 34 year old memory lane fix (It was Frontier Days in Red River and we walked around the next day - finding out many of the locals work several jobs in that small community. We figured they'd all be sitting around the bar the next night talking about these strange visitors that befriended them for a day.) we drove winding back roads to Taos. Monte and me were last there 33 years ago. So the joke of that time was asking around if "Joe's Place" was still there? Joke? Because with Monte's knack for stretching the truth in his story-telling, you wonder what's really real - so this was a weekend of dispelling myths or finding them true. A local at Michael's, where we had a fabulous breakfast, really had fun with Monte.

It was beautiful weather and we enjoyed walking everywhere. The beautiful place we stayed in Taos had fruit trees about the property, so as we walked anywhere we were eating apples (looking for worms) and great plums. The Wool Festival was in Kit Carson Park (Taos is his home place - his home a museum) close to our place and we walked around amongst the many colorful booths both Saturday and Sunday (as well as all the many artsy shops and galleries that make up Taos). I found a site that posted pictures from this year's festival in a slide show. By Sunday most of the beautiful felted hats, and woven pieces made into fabulous clothing were sold out (and expensive they were too!!!)

I googled the festival and can't believe there's not great pictures posted. Looking tho reminded me that the same weekend was the balloon festival in Alburquerque and little over an hour south. I've seen pictures of it and Marty and Jim went years ago. Hundreds of colorful balloons fill the sky! I did see from my own photo library that Monte took quite a few pictures from his iPhone (Dawson put them on my computer and I hadn't even looked at them yet). So I'm going to post some of them on my photoblog.

Monte and me went from this trip to Travis and Sarah's and spent the night and Monday with them. Travis has been working on a CD of original songs and creative arrangements him and friend Katrina have done. Monte was excited to hear it and help with any tweaking his producing ears heard, before it's done being mixed. We had a very relaxing day, ending it with purchased vanity and sinks for their main bathroom, and a good bar-b-q sandwich supper.

It's snowing now. I'm resigned to the fact that summer is over. Time to start the woodstove and cook a stew on it or soup.