Autumn Sightings in Our Neighborhood

I love living in Colorado and being able to once again enjoy the outdoors without chemicals keeping me a prisoner of my home like they did the last several months in Arizona. Clean air, fresh mountain breezes and plenty of open spaces make it ideal. I so love being able to be a canary free from her cage!

Yesterday was the most gorgeous warm October afternoon. Much too lovely to stay indoors so we decided to take advantage of Joel's current unemployment to take a walk and explore some of the nearby open spaces in our neighborhood. 

The communities from Denver north to Boulder have bought huge tracts of open spaces that they have left natural except for some trails within them. There are numerous streams, ponds and reservoirs and paved trails connecting many of them so one can walk or bike for miles upon miles without being in neighborhoods.

We tend to leave the paved trails to explore the less traveled paths.

Prairie dogs stand up on alert and whistle alarms as we near their areas. Prairie dogs are busy, curious, social animals. We noticed they are much plumper than they were at the beginning of summer as they are storing up fat for winter. You can read more about prairie dogs here.

Rabbits are very plentiful everywhere we have been in Colorado. I learned the hard way how much they enjoy nibbling on pansies! We kept losing the battle of them setting up home under our front porch until I sprinkled cayenne pepper along the perimeter of the porch. 

They believe if they don't move we don't see them. I guess these photos must have been "accidents" since I couldn't "see' them.

You would think the coyotes in the area would keep the population of bunnies under control...

The beautiful azure blue Colorado sky and fall trees are reflected in the still surface of a neighborhood pond.

The Front Range of the Colorado Rockies in the background with fall trees reflected in the pond. Isn't God the master artist!

On the other side of the open space we went to yesterday is a golf course community where I took the last few photos.

Our walk ended up being much longer than we intended as we decided to head home a different way through the golf course neighborhood only to get turned around on the winding lanes. By the time we figured out we were heading a twisted path north when we needed to go south we had traveled three quarters of a mile the wrong way! We were a couple weary wanderers when we made it back home. We may have been weary, but also blessed and very content.

Colorado and Improved Health

We have lived in Colorado since the end of April and this move has so been the right thing for my health. I am feeling less symptoms and more energy than I have had in at least three years. If I'm exposed to cleaning aisle in a store or perfumes, fabric softener fumes, cigarette smoke, exhaust or other chemicals, I still have reactions. In our home and in the gorgeous outdoors I am doing wonderful. No more constant  full body swelling and all over pain, no more debilitating fatigue or continuous brain fog. I am praising God for this season of better health and enjoying exploring in His glorious creation all around us in Colorado.

I have been blessed to find a doctor who is a MD that also practices holistic medicine and specializes in people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and auto-immune disorders. He is great at listening and following up, and has even called me at home! He has started me on supplements and meds that help me bounce back quicker from reactions due to exposures. He also is working to help restore my nervous and immune systems that are stressed from the constant reactions of the last eight months in Arizona from the acrylic polymer used for dust control. I found his name on some on-line site for people with environmental illnesses or MCS that had a link listing MCS friendly doctors while we were still living in Arizona. Since I was dealing with all my symptoms and major brain fog, I am unable to remember where that list is located online. All I know is that God orchestrated all the details of our move and finding this doctor for me and I am SO grateful!

Early May we walked around a nearby lake where we saw hundreds of prairie dogs, loon, herons, grebes, beaver and bald eagles. All of this set against the lovely backdrop of the mountains.

When we got done with our walk we ate some trail mix bars at a picnic table at the trail head and these two prairie dogs where extremely tame and begged food from us and even had a fight over it all about 3 to 4 feet from where we were sitting.

Sunday afternoon drive just west of town

This is a pond in our neighborhood where we walked  last Sunday afternoon with trails through open spaces go by multiple ponds and prairie dog villages but our hike was suddenly cut short by a fast moving thunder storm.

So how can one see all this beauty and not rejoice in our Creator? Colorado so gloriously displays our God's creativity!