Off to the Ranch

 

Colorado scenery along the way

All were up at leisure this morning, chatting and packing enough stuff to see us through the next few days. After another great David & Tom prepared  breakfast we were nearly ready to depart. For togetherness and ease, the fam rented a large van. Like a well organized mini-army the van was packed.and we took off late morning for the 4 hour drive up to the ranch house SW of Hayden, CO. 

Looking all sharp in our matching Bajan Tees

Our cool new Carter Family tee shirts were worn for the drive. We chatted & snacked along the byways towards Hayden. 

Tom and co-pilot

Colorado scenery is spectacular, and though we didn't get any pix, we spotted several herds of Pronghorn Antelope. 

Before we knew it, we were lolling about on the ranch house porch

David and Tom outdid themselves on dinner. Tom served up marinated & freshly BBQ'd chicken which was delish & very pleasing to the carnivores amongst us (that would be me), 

Gnocchi, not Enoki 

David made 'Gnocchi', which are potato dumplings that were fried in butter with veggies. 

Enoki not Gnocchi 

I dug in to the delicious little morsels, all the while wondering 'Where are the Enoki mushrooms?' I guess I haven't previously heard Gnocchi pronounced correctly, if at all. 

David set me right, and we all wolfed down the tasty gnocchi fried all crisp and tasty. Several of us decided we have to try fixing gnocchi on our own. And there was also a tasty side of delicate asparagus spears.

Much later, we ran out of steam, but not out of conversation, it was time for bed. Eric & I planned to  camp out on the front porch. However, David & Tom brought out the air mattresses, so between the 3 bedrooms with numerous beds, the couch and air mattresses, everyone ended their day all snug & comfy - and all of us inside. But honestly, I'd have happily snoozed out on the porch, dreaming of roaming Mountain Lions, the odd rattlesnake. 

2022 Colorado Pop-up Reunion

Time for a Pop-up Reunion, this time at Cousin David & Cousin-in-Law Tom's house. My family flew in from across the states. The family Matriarch, Aunt Arna, flew in from Phoenix, Arizona. Cousin Yvonne flew in from Michigan, her brother Eric flew up from Florida. The California contingency was Donna from Pasadena, Charlaine and Jonniann from San Diego. And I bopped over from Washington state.

Jonni greeting Arna
 at Denver Airport

The photos above is all of us in the gorgeous reunion tee-shirts David kindly produced for us. The tees beautifully display the Barbados flag with photos below of David's grandfather (our Great Uncle Cuthbert) and our grandmother (David's great-aunt Adele). Cuthbert and Adele were siblings, although they weren't raised together.

Cousin Donna (in white sweater below) brought us all a surprise - a box of family letters, post cards and photos other memorabilia that her mother, my Aunt Grace, had safely kept. Donna gave me the box, but knowing myself all too well, I asked David to take the box, because you don't hand family heirlooms to klutzes. Bonus, as Tom works in the genealogy dept of the a library, so he can properly scan the letters and then everyone can have their own digital copies of the hand written family treasures. 

Arna spend this first afternoon  reading through the letters and sharing her findings with us. 

As always, we were well fed under David & Tom's watch, as they are incredible cooks! I suspect they knew Julia Child in her hey day (um.. decades).  

Late afternoon, Tom ferried Aunt Arna, Cousin Yvonne and myself over to a nearby Pro Bass sporting goods store. Both Arna and I wanted to purchase a 'new to us' cannister of oxygen, called 'Boost'. The oxygen was in case Denver, the 'mile high' city made us feel any shortness of breath, in which case we would have our own little stash of O2. WOW was that store gigantic! 

The entryway featured a herd of bison and antlers galore

And this is just the entryway! The lady left of center in
the white tee shirt is Arna, racing for a shopping cart

Rainbow trout under a waterfall (mid-store!)

My favorite thing in the massive store was the huge tank (larger than my bedroom) where wild rainbow trout glided along.

We all did a little shopping, which included canisters of Boost. Not sure if we'd really need it, but it was relatively cheap at $8 a pop, and I do enjoy breathing. 

When we got back to the house, Arna enjoyed playing various card games with Charlaine, Jonnianne, Donna, Yvonne and Eric. I'm a pill, and don't play cards at all but it was fun hearing the shouts and laughs as my Aunt and cousins played Crazy Eights and Gin Rummy, Sounded like fun - butts were kicked! 

We are all excited as David & Tom rented a van for us all to drive up tomorrow  to their ranch house near Hayden, Colorado. 

Beautiful Denver Sky

Fledgling Book Binding

My favorite quote, from my favorite book is as follows: 

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

I'm not sad, and I haven't been debased of late, but I've always hankered to learn book binding. A YouTube video on book binding entered the scene and now pieces of sketching paper have been cut - nay, shredded - then sewn into 'signatures' which were bundled up, and hand stitched into a bare bones book. Acid-free glue was liberally applied to the book spine, then was used to adhere bits of netting and linen strips to secure the bundles of paper.

Fledgling book, glued, stitched and read for linings, end-papers and such. 

These first 2 books have leather covers. The leather was purchased as 'scraps' more than 2 decades ago. Sometimes I buy stuff now, and figure out what to do with years later. So at last the leather scraps have found their calling. The two photos of the black book was the first book I completed.  It has a strap with a key at the end, that holds the journal shut. The strap and key can be wrapped in any old arrangement, though my favorite is the one to the right, which looks rather like a star, and is my favorite. The journal has two ribbon markers each with a tiny key at its end. 

Did not come up with the 'key in a slot' idea on my own. I got the ideas from stuff on line. However, the cover has a flap, and a pop through slot for the key, and that was my own idea. 
 

The 'end pages' in books I've made thus far, are
composed of Etsy purchased hand made paper.

Unfinished book
with cabochon

So... what the hell is the point of making one's own leather 'empty books'? Uh... Just wanted to get the feel of how books were once-upon-a-time hand-made. The feel of making one's own book is AWE-SOME. So far I've completed 2, and am working on a third, shown on the left. Love the butter soft leather, and metal clasps were fun to rivet onto the leather, and look so cool.

This 3rd journal is not complete as yet. The cover isn't even glued to the book as yet. There is an experimental agate cabochon poking through cut out leather. It looks rough and I'm not at all sure what to do to finesse it a bit. Well that's why all this is experimental, yeah? 

Next I hope to master leather tooling so my leather covers can be imprinted with pictures, borders and such. I'll get there eventually, or so I hope.