I generally welcome the month of June here in Colorado. Winter has finally left the scene and the warmer weather in Red Feather Lakes allows me to get my cabin fired up for the summer.

I finished up my recent trip to Northwest Colorado, and I think it was a successful trip, as I got a lot of photos of things I haven’t photographed yet. It was also another opportunity to reconnect with my East Coast friend Jonathan Steele. We had a glorious week of eating dust & gas station cheeseburgers, and chasing the moon and wild horses.

We had a bit of a problem getting the cabin running this year, as a 40 year old water storage tank for our well had corroded to the point it was leaking and needed to be replaced. It’s normal to have problems though, this year like most years, we have some kind of plumbing problem in the old place. The brutal Winter reveals it’s little gifts each June. I have to hand it to my wife Trudy, as she was stuck dealing with the repair while I was out having fun with photography. I can’t control the circumstances but I do know that I can trust that Trudy knows how to solve problems. At any rate, we are 100% functional now, and Trudy has booked her June stay at the cabin with the grandchildren and I’ve got a few days of exploration in around the village, looking for moose and other wildlife.

The moose are hanging around Red Feathers, but not in the quantities I had been hoping for. The Cameron Peak wildfire has certainly disrupted the movements of the wildlife to the west and I simply am not seeing what I would consider to be a normal amount of deer, elk and moose around the cabin. But, things will change. They always do.

In the meantime, I’m planning a group trip for moose photography in August, which is always fun. And, I’m catching up on some much needed yard work here at my home in Littleton. It’s been unseasonably warm the past couple of weeks and the forecast for cooling off is not appearing. Something tells me this is going to be another hot and dry summer with lots of wildfires around the state. A few small fires have already popped up and we are only getting started.

This week is a down week. I’ve cleaned most of my camera gear from the recent trip. I’ve cut the grass here at home. Weed-whacked the edges and planted a lot of flowers in the gardens and porch pots. I’m now in my summer routine.

For me, the pandemic seems to be in the rear view mirror, though that isn’t necessarily the case for everyone. It’s good to put that business behind me though. I wasted more than a year doing nothing but sitting on the porch and eating too much junk food. My body is reminding me that I’m not getting younger and I need to get back to moving around outdoors.

I must say that I’ve been far more productive than last year though. When I began the year, there were three main photographic subjects that I wanted to tackle. Pronghorn, Wild Horses and Dinosaur National Monument. All subject for a future book, which is currently a work in progress. It’s not all that cool to call oneself a “Colorado Photographer” if one hasn’t really covered all the main topics of the state. I’m working on it, and when I finally get to publishing the new book, it should be pretty good.

It was also good to get out with the new camera gear and laptop into a working environment. It all went quite well. I’ve got all the photographic equipment I feel I need and the computer power to edit at home or on the road, by 2021 standards. I find I’m not wasting much time browsing the online photography stores, looking for that one thing I don’t have. I’m not switching to mirrorless cameras any time soon, as I feel that’s just marketing for the impatient. There are no cameras out there that can do a better job than what I have.

That said, I’m planning on relaxing a bit this week, and maybe next. I’ve turned the temperature down on the hot tub, so I can cool off in the heat. I’ve been working on some editing of photos from the Moab area, trying to create a nice collection of surrealistic landscapes. Work is progressing, here in the air conditioned office.

Don’t know when I’ll be heading back to the cabin, but it won’t be too long. When I get too bored or too hot here, I’ll load the SUV and go.