The View from Our Place

As promised, a post about my latest watercolor painting, The View from Our Place. If you’re here for another fiber project roundup, you’ll have to wait for the next post. I decided there’s too much to talk about to cram it all into one update. 

This is my latest finished watercolor. The inspiration comes from my husband’s grandmother and our front yard. I’ve known Grandma Dollar now for over 24 years and since we’ve lived in Pagosa for nearly 20, she’s never had the opportunity to see our place. When we visit with her, we entertain her with stories about the wildlife that visits our yard, and she always asks about my garden. 

At 91, she’s had some health issues over the last year or two that have dampened her spirit. When I started painting, Chris suggested she might like one of my artworks. Much like, Favorite Things, I chose some of the things that make me the most happy: summertime when young fawns are found bouncing along the hillside, the hollyhocks in full bloom, and all year round we celebrate visits from the most entertaining birds, comical gangs of pygmy nuthatches who defy gravity. I call them my minions. 

According to the progress photos I like to take while I’m painting, I started this one on Oct 8th with the hollyhock and finished by Dec 5th. I saved the trees and background for last. Even though all the leaves were gone for the season, I spent an afternoon on the deck, painting en plein air to get the best interpretation of the hillsides. 

Oct 28 – What’s wrong with this picture? Painting from the dog bed in front of the fireplace so as not to disturb the slumbering dog under my desk.

When it was finally completed, I peeled it off the Arches block and pressed it flat for framing. I placed my first order ever with Blick Art Supplies, including a pre-cut matte and wooden frame. There were some reviews saying their frames or mattes had arrived damaged, but my order was packed as carefully as possible and arrived in great condition. After mounting and framing the painting, I carefully packed it back up and shipped it on to Chris’s parents. I think they must be waiting for Christmas to gift it to her as I haven’t heard that she’s seen it yet. 

Framed and ready to ship.

Since I recently opened a store @Society6, I’ve included this watercolor as a design available for purchase. You can order your own copy to hang on the wall, as an art print, framed or even as a printed canvas. Check it out @Society6.

Disclosure: All links to our Society6 store are affiliate links. When you make a purchase using these links, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
We appreciate your support!

Natural Resources

Last year working for Audubon Rockies as a Seasonal Educator, I visited the second grade classrooms in Pagosa and taught students about insects in preparation for their visit to Four Mile Ranch for more in depth study. This year as the team of educators behind the program begins to think about making content virtual for the upcoming school year, I thought it would be a great opportunity to document a few of the critters around my home and some of the web resources I’ve found.

Community Naturalists

Did you know June is National Pollinators Month? Audubon Rockies Spring 2020 Community Naturalist Highlights features an in-depth article by our local Community Naturalist, Keith Bruno, about how to attract mason bees. Learn the difference between native bees and honeybees and watch as Keith shows you how to assemble your very own pollinator house. Read the full article here.

There are other ways you can play a role in your community as a citizen scientist. Here in the San Juans, Mountain Studies Institute has several projects you can participate in from weed mapping to big horn sheep monitoring.

Or visit iNaturalist, a joint initiative by the California Academy of Sciences and the National Geographic Society, where you can id plants and animals, record your observations, and share them with a global network of scientists and naturalists!

Insects Are Everywhere!

They really are—especially this time of year! I captured this little video of a giant bumblebee visiting one of the hanging baskets on my front porch. Then I wondered if I could identify what kind of bee it was? There’s a website for that…

In this 5 Facts About Bumble Bees article from the National Wildlife Federation, I discovered bumblebeewatch.org where you can upload a photo, id the species and have that verified by an expert. I haven’t done that yet, but I think I may have a Bombus fervidus.

Here’s a gallery of some of the insects I’ve recorded in my yard over the years. The robber fly with yellow jacket is the only one that’s not from my home, but landed on me during a camping trip on the Middle Fork of the Piedra. Click on the photos below to view them larger.

Here’s an idea… Start a scavenger hunt! Try to find and document 3-5 insects in your yard or local park or open space. Don’t have a camera to record a photo? Take notes! Draw pictures! Then see if you can id or learn anything new about the insects you recorded using the internet or your local library to fuel your research. Try it again in another month or two. Did you see the same insects? Why or why not? Keep a journal and record the interesting critters you see around you. Get your friends involved, share and compare the insects you’ve recorded. It’s like Pokémon in real life. See how many insects you can observe and collect in your journal!

Who Can Be Found In My Habitat?

I was excited to stumble across the National Wildlife Federation’s website and learn that Ranger Rick is alive and well. It was like finding a long lost friend. Do you remember this raccoon character? I can remember reading Ranger Rick magazine as far back as second grade. It is probably one of the things that inspired my love for nature and wildlife. While it is a subscription based program, NWF’s site has free activities and resources and even more if your school is part of their Eco-Schools program. 

While I was looking for insect photos on my computer, I decided I could post photos of some of the other animals that I’ve seen at my house. Most of the photos I have are of birds because we have a wide variety and many frequent our feeders and birdbath. If you’re a birder, you can record your sightings on ebird.

Some of the special new sightings we’ve seen this summer include an oriole and goldfinch, not to be confused with the grosbeaks or pine siskins. We have a lot of other birds, too that I haven’t taken photos of but can id such as towhees, jays, wrens and juncos. In my habitat, we have the neighborhood herd of mule deer who like to bed down on the hillside, red fox, rabbits, lizards and last year we spotted a gopher snake!

Our Impact

You can’t study the natural world for very long before you realize the role we as humans play in the web of life. For instance, I just read this article in Scientific American about micro-plastics. Our decisions have a much greater impact than many of us understand. It can be a heavy subject; but with continued education and research, we can begin to make personal choices that better impact our environment.

Food waste from someone’s 4th of July celebration. We found watermelon, hot dogs, pork bones, baked beans and untouched ears of corn in and around a creek bed.

Last summer I celebrated my 40th birthday by taking two weeks off to camp around southern Colorado. The joy of exploring the outdoors was overshadowed by people who left food waste in the campsites we visited. In one case, we gathered it all up and burned it in a campfire. In the other, we chose to bury it. If we’d had better resources, we would have packed it out. Not only does this show a blatant disregard for the value of food and thinking about the people that may come after you, but it is extremely dangerous for the local wildlife. If bears become habituated to finding human food, it’s only a matter of time before that bear will end up euthanized. Be Bear Aware.

Unfortunately, most people just don’t know any better. If you’d like to learn about the best ways to protect the outdoors and how to educate others, I’d like to introduce you to Leave No Trace principles. The LNT Center’s website also has an extensive library of activities and programs for young people to learn how to be responsible outdoor enthusiasts.


I hope you’ve found some of these online resources helpful. Next time, I’ll plan to focus more on plants and maybe provide my signature stories and specimens that I share with the students at Four Mile Ranch. Until then, happy trails…

For the Birds

I attended the dinner Monday night to conclude the first annual Christmas Bird Count conducted by the local Weminuche Audubon Society. The event was a great success with around 50 volunteer counters who are eagerly awaiting for the data to be compiled and reported.

It was while working on a website for the Christmas Bird Count that made me think about the birds…or actually a tree for the birds. Our home is very small, and a point of contention each Season is if we can have a tree and how big. I dreamed up the brilliant idea of a full-size tree on the porch and decorated for the birds. So in November, I picked up a permit from the Forest Service and we went the day after Thanksgiving to find the perfect specimen. I set it up in a stand, tied it off so the wind wouldn’t knock it over, decorated it with lights and treats…

My ideas for ‘ornaments’ came from Wild Birds Unlimited. I first had tried to make my own version of the Grapefruit feeder. My idea was to use tangerine rinds which I’d juiced and used in the Thanksgiving cranberry sauce. I thought I could dry the rinds and hang them with birdseed in them. Unfortunately, not even  a week into drying, they showed major signs of mold and I literally had to toss that idea.

I had bought the two clear, globe-shaped feeders and some corn cobs at my local Feed Store. I also picked up a few pretty pine cones when we cut down our tree. After the birds picked away the corn from the cobs, I slathered them and the pine cones with peanut butter and rolled in seeds. I’ve had to ‘re-fill’ the ornaments about every week. That is, the ones my huskies didn’t eat.

Another decoration that did not live up to my expectation was the popcorn & cranberry strand. I popped 2 bags of old popcorn and strung them with cranberries. This didn’t make a very long strand, but I placed it on the tree to see what the birds would think. Never touched it. I think a husky tried to swallow it, broke the string and that was the end.

I’ve started to take down my decorations and put them away. I’ve left the tree for now, and I think I’ll refill it once more as I love to watch the birds: chickadees, jays, juncos (but the nuthatches won’t touch it). I really enjoyed it and may have started a new Christmas tradition. Next year, I would like to find more non-edible ornaments that will weather outdoors. That way I can decorate down where the huskies can reach and put the treats up high for the birds. Maybe I’ll look at making some sort of ornament out of recycled materials (like old plastics & metals…plenty of time to daydream for next year).

Disclaimer: This post has very little to do with Subalpine’s business. I must confess, I haven’t found the time yet to build a personal blog, and have a lot of neat ideas, projects & pictures to share. I’m hoping by posting this, it will kick start me to get something going in that direction. Call it a New Year’s Resolution.

Weminuche Audubon Christmas Bird Count

I can’t talk about this project without talking about the person behind the project. I met Beverly Compton over three years ago through my work with the Southwest Land Alliance. Since then, she’s volunteered for my projects as I have hers. She even helped me have one of the most awesome summer jobs I’ve had in a long time when I worked with her at Pagosa Feed & Nursery.

Beverly’s asked me to help with web projects before, and for one reason or another the timing doesn’t always work out for the depth of work requested. I know I can always say no. And she knows she can always tell me that the project has found another avenue.

The timing was just right for me to spend my *Stay-cation slapping together a classic TwentyEleven theme packed with content and links which Beverly did a fantastic job of gathering.

*Stay-cation: While a storm moved through in October, we holed up in the house with the dogs for almost a week without ‘work’ obligations. Then Hubby and I took off a night to spend his birthday in Taos, NM.

Because they usually travel in groups, they were the perfect featured image for the Weminuche CBC website.