• bicycle rides,  coffee life,  grass,  Plants,  trees

    But I’m tempted…

    July 12, 2025

    As I rode through the CSU Oval on Friday there was a young woman walking barefoot on the grass. Almost made me want to stop and take my shoes off. Yet, when I think about all the chemicals they put down on that grass, to keep it green and growing, I keep my shoes on and keep riding. But I’m tempted… If you look closely you will see chalk drawing on the sidewalk. I assume made by the children who have come for a summer camp week and encouraged by student leaders. We had rain during the night so we awoke to overcast skies and cool. I saw where we had from one tenth of an inch to half an inch in Fort Collins. Happy Saturday!

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  • flowers,  musings,  Plants,  quotes

    Learning to be Present

    July 8, 2025

    Time as objective reality has never made much sense to me. It’s what happens that matters. How can minutes and years, devices of our own creation, mean the same thing to gnats and to cedars? Two hundred years is young for the trees whose tops this morning are hung with mist. It’s an eyeblink of time for the river and nothing at all for the rocks…If there is meaning in the past and in the imagined future, it is captured in the moment. When you have all the time in the world, you can spend it, not on going somewhere, but on being where you are. So I stretch out, close my eyes, and listen to the rain.

    Robin Wall Kimmerer

    As a young man I would lay in the grass and daydream. Seems I usually ventured into the future, accomplishing feats such as being the hero in the big game or the hero saving the fair maiden. Now that I am older I’m able to look back and see how those daydreams kept me from living in the moment. I was not experiencing the world I was a part of. The lessons they have given me is an awareness that helps me live in the now more often and the desire to live there. The gift of photography, recovery from alcoholism, and a spiritual practice have also been key in that transformation. Now when I stretch out, close my eyes, and listen to the rain I am learning to be present and enjoy the rain. I have the time to be present.

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  • nature,  Plants,  quotes,  trees

    “the little joys”

    June 28, 2025

    This is our modern curse: A century of conspicuous consumption has trained us to be dutiful citizens of the Republic of Not Enough, swearing allegiance to the marketable myth of scarcity, hoarding toilet paper for the apocalypse. Along the way, we have unlearned how to live wide-eyed with wonder at what Hermann Hesse called “the little joys” — those unpurchasable, unstorable emblems of aliveness that abound the moment we look up from our ledger of lack.

    Maria Popova
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  • Plants,  quotes

    God’s sense of beauty…

    June 5, 2025

    Nature is the direct expression of the divine imagination.
    It is the most intimate reflection of God’s sense of beauty.

    John O’Donohue

    I’m outside on my porch in my blue Adirondack chair typing this post while sipping on a spicy chai latte. It’s about 10:19 am. The constantly changing canvas above me is an overcast sky with patches of azure blue. Trees are motionless and allows other sounds to dominate. So, I enjoy hearing a robin sing it’s heart out. A couple of flickers chat back in forth. I watch the three baby squirrels romp around the elm tree in a game of tag. A cottontail dashes past me to hide in the juniper bush. A group of Canada Geese lay around the edge of the pond, necks bent over their back, sleeping with one eye open. It is peaceful and serene! My weather app says we could see more rain this afternoon around three o’clock. In the meantime I partake of God’s sense of beauty and imagination that I am a part of. And now it’s time to push the publish button. I hope you have a wonderful day!

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  • bicycling,  Pedaling on,  Plants

    Now Popping Open

    September 30, 2024
    Common Milkweed

    I noticed on my bicycle ride yesterday evening how many milkweed pods are now popping open. It is that time of the year. There are about 110 species that occur in the Americas. These plants can grow to about 5 feet tall, usually occurring in clusters and forming colonies. They are perennial plants, which means an individual plant lives for more than one year, growing each spring from rootstock and seeds rather than seeds alone. Over 450 insects are known to feed on some portion of the plant. Milkweeds are the required host plants for caterpillars of the monarch butterfly and thus play a critical role in the monarch’s life cycle. Their beauty is on display all along Spring Creek Trail and the Natural Areas.

    This past Thursday I went over 400 miles on the bicycle’s odometer. Which means in 49 days I have averaged a little over 8 miles a day. This includes 5 days of not riding due to rain, my dental surgery and a couple days of logging over 20 miles. I’m finding the 35 mile range on the battery to be accurate. If I ride 8-10 miles a day I need to recharge about every three days. It takes about 2.5 hours to recharge my battery when it’s at 50% or 4-5 hours to fully charge. When using the assist levels I ride almost exclusively in the lowest assist level (it has three levels). I have only used the highest assist level once to make sure it worked. I only use assist level two on one hill that kicks my butt. 😂 There are places where the trails and bicycle paths are flat enough I ride with the assist off. Riding has increased my heart rate and my active zone minutes on my Fitbit. Pedaling on…

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  • flowers,  poems,  quotes

    Let me linger…

    September 10, 2024
    A busy bee and daisies

    It may be a product of getting older
    But sometimes I want to stop time.

    I want to make the sunsets last just a little longer.
    I want the quiet mornings to go on and on

    The laughter at the dinner table
    To stretch out into a whole evening
    The beauty of the clouds as they race
    Across the valley to never end.

    It is not that I want to freeze reality, just slow it down.
    I want life to move as slowly as I do.
    For I have learned that life moves far too fast as it is.
    It is a joy that endures but briefly
    Made of moments that pass as quickly as hummingbirds.

    Let me linger in the love I feel.
    Let me see the light for as long as I can.

    Steven Charleston, Spirit Wheel

    I stopped on my ride this evening because these daisies caught my eye. However, I was not the only one interested in the daisies as this bee busily flitted from flower to flower. So busy in fact, I never got a good infocus shot. Oh well. I watched and lingered and loved the moment.

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  • flowers,  Plants,  quotes

    Stand there

    September 8, 2024
    Coneflowers at the CSU Trial Gardens

    “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”

    Daniel Berrigan

    I like this saying because for too many years I thought it was more important to do something than to stand there and take it all in. Have a wonderful Sunday!!

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  • Plants,  quotes

    You Have the Answer

    August 26, 2024
    Prairie Blazing Star

    At the center of your being
    you have the answer;
    you know who you are
    and you know what you want.

    Lao Tzu

    Prairie Blazing Star is a hardy native perennial forb. It can grow up to 5 feet tall. It has abundant grass like leaves and hairy stems. The lowest leaves can be well over 1 foot long and up to ½ inch wide. The flower heads are in a dense spike at the top of the plant and bloom top-down. The stamens and styles protrude from the tufted flower heads creating a soft fuzzy appearance. It is one of the most popular varieties of blazing stars. It is native to the midwest where it naturally occurs on prairies, rocky bluffs and open areas. It prefers slightly acidic, poor, well-drained soils and demonstrates both heat and drought tolerance. They are common in all the natural areas I visit. I haven’t seen one 5 feet tall, yet. Hope you had a good Monday.

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  • Plants,  quotes

    Mundane Lifestyle

    June 30, 2024

    A friend shared with me that her life was quiet and mundane. Yet, I see her life as full, vibrant, and rich, anything but mundane. She was also using mundane in comparison to what her life used to be like. I imagine most of us can relate to her, especially after retirement. However, the word stirred my thinker into spending some time delving into the word “mundane.” It seems to have a strong negative connotation in our culture. The word mundane comes originally from the Latin “mundus”, meaning ordinary and worldly as opposed to spiritual, and has been in use in English since the 15th century. The dictionary defines “mundane”: as lacking interest or excitement; dull; common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative and therefore not interesting. Quite a negative list!

    A mind full of preconceived ideas, subjective intentions, or habits is not open to things as they are.

    Shunryu Suzuki

    At this time in my life I am seeing mundane with a bit wider lens. My mundane life, as some would define it, is more about being comfortable with life as it simply is, living life at a slower pace. It’s being comfortable with who I am at this moment and who I’m becoming. My life does not need stimulated by externals such as work schedules, an ever growing to-do list, comparing with the neighbors, accumulating stuff and alcohol or drugs.

    I have found nature to be a wonderful teacher in living life. Seems the dandelion is content with being a dandelion, the mushroom is content with being a mushroom. I am content with who I am, living in the present moment, even if it seems mundane to others.

    Annie Dillard wrote that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I do not consider my life to be boring, dull or mundane. Although it may be to others. So, for me I fill my days with prayer, meditation, journaling, photography, time in nature, reading, blogging, coffee life, relationships, washing dishes, and cleaning the toilet. And, there’s no rush for any of that. I guess you can call it a Mundane Lifestyle.

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