postcard 2.2 squash blossoms + medivacs

The one where Hazelnut gets carried down a mountain.

I’m pretending I’m in Europe today, or that’s what I tell myself as try to shift the needlessly heavy yoga mat in my backpack to a more comfortable position. Topher’s at work with the car today and I have an agenda.

There’s a stop at the garden, where I get scolded for watering—we got an inch of rain last night, do you really need to water!? And then into Old Towne Arvada I bike, struggling mightily with my lock at the coffee shop. Natalie meets me for lattes and we head to the park where there’s a free yoga class in the sunshine. Back home—its getting hot now—quick shower, lunch and then I'm off again to the summer festival where I stand behind the community garden booth and pretend I know anything about gardening and hand out free seed packets and tomato starts.

I’m not sure the novelty of being able to get to the places I want to go without a car will ever wear off. It was novel in Switzerland, hiking between huts with a cable car in between and it's just as delicious here. We bike to the farmer’s market and are swayed by piles of cherries so red they’re nearly black and a Ukrainian food truck. We bike downtown for date night drinks and to check on the garden after work and get the first real mountain bike ride of the season in with my dad on Father’s Day.

By the time Topher gets home and we load the car I feel like I’ve already lived an entire weekend, but we’re finally on the road again and while it’s still not quite the same as toodling around Europe, I do love watching the green mountains unfolding through the window. Our destination is a tiny town in the San Luis Valley called Del Norte with no discernable draw except the free room a PR agent offered me at a renovated motor lodge. Topher has dubbed these old road side motels, refurbished with a healthy dose of nostalgia, “millennial motor lodges” and I’ll probably write a story on them, but mostly we’re just happy for an affordable getaway.

We stop in Buena Vista for dinner and Hazelnut pouts when she has to sit outside the fence instead of on the brewery patio. America really is strange. We overhear one waitress asking another if they have dog treats and she responds, “we have dog bacon.” Hazelnut is mollified when she returns with an entire strip of bacon—the human kind—just for her. We walk by the river and the golden light pouring over the Collegiate Peaks makes me giddy. It’s dark when we pull into town, the size of a postage stamp like I remember. All the roads off the main street are dirt.

The motel though, is adorable. The cutest example of a millennial motor lodge we’ve ever stayed in. In the morning, they make us lavender lattes at the little coffee shop in the lobby and we head into the mountains to the mining town of Creede. We follow a paper map up a rough dirt road into the heart of Colorado’s silver mining district. We discover Hazelnut loves scenic drives as we crawl through the mountains, her head out the window, us gawking at the leftover mining ruins.

Halfway up we follow a spur on the map and are directed into a parking spot on the side of a cliff by a teenager with a thick mustache. The man behind him driving a Skid Steer looks like he just crawled out of an 1800s mine shaft. I guess he did. We’ve found ourselves at one of the area’s remaining operating mines and are given a very rehearsed spiel. We’re told Hazelnut can come anywhere we can and a tour into the mine starts in 5 minutes. Though I’m tempted to see if they would make her wear a doggy hard hat, everything about this operation—including its lack of mention every time I’ve talked to Creede’s tourism department for work—feels decidedly homemade. I’m spooked by the memory of the mine down south that crushed a tour guide last year and we decided to skip it. Instead we head back towards Del Norte, stopping along the Rio Grande to eat charcuterie out of the cooler. Some things never change.

On the way home, we stop to hike in the mountains, too late in the day to gain much elevation before the threatening clouds open up, but on our short jaunt we hear a telltale SQUEEEEEEE! and there he is! Our first pika sighting of the season—two years, really, since these little guys don't live in Europe. His tiny form screaming atop the rocks makes me so happy.

It’s a special kind of feeling, getting to do the things you did with your friends when you were kids, with their babies. My oldest friend Serena, and her babies Ellie (almost 3) and Christopher (6 months) are in town from Virginia and we spend a scorching day wandering the zoo. Ellie is a bit disappointed when she learns we can't pet any of the animals, but we make hyena noises and point out the giraffes and llamas that look like her favorite stuffy and she’s most excited about the snap peas in the lunch cooler. It's perfect.

*Fingers crossed* it feels like our garden might actually be on its way to thriving. We eagerly check the little plants for buds every evening when we water and then suddenly the zucchini are blossoming! Topher texts me photos on his bike commute and, like the very responsible manager I am, I postpone a 1:1 to rush over and harvest them.

We batter and fry them and they taste like the most ethereal part of summer. The luxury of long days that just won’t last. I’m a full on convert to the magic of growing our own food, which is good because the plants just. won’t. stop. Our fridge is full of yellow blossoms and long, grey green squash.

Marian texts me on a Thursday that there’s a giant grasshopper in her apartment.

ITS HUGE

I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO

I THREW A CHACO AT IT AND MISSED

I NEED A MAN

She’s just down the street and her saga lasts long enough that I knock on her door two hours later with a garden weeder. A quick few whisks of a broom and the culprit is out the door to traumatize somebody else. Croatia really steeled my bug nerves. I wonder if this is what my parents mean by community out in the country. It’s not exactly getting a cow unstuck from a fence, but it’s something. She joins me on my run to Trader Joe’s and we wander the aisles, throwing random things in our baskets before picking Topher up from work.

The store is overflowing with perfect, ruby red strawberries, sweet and the epitome of summer. On the blazing hot solstice, we invite our friends over for a strawberry themed dinner party. Strawberry sangria and margs, baked brie with strawberries and balsamic, strawberry tomato pasta and my favorite seasonal dessert, strawberry rhubarb cornmeal cobbler. The oven is on far too long and we have to borrow the garage fan which sends Hazelnut’s shed dancing around the kitchen like a snow globe but it's nice to be able to entertain again. We get so loud playing Monikers the neighbors rap on the wall.

Strawberries are just the beginning of my fleeting summer love affairs. There’s a lineup of recipes I can only make a few sweet times of year when the produce is at its peak. When the melons ripen on their stems in a few weeks, I’ll be making this watermelon panzanella. When Palisade peaches hit the market, it’s this peach salad for me (add sweet cherry tomatoes!). When I've made as many heirloom tomato caprese as we can possibly eat (with my garden tomatoes!? Cross your fingers for me), it's this tomato cobbler I’m most excited about.

The heat wave has rendered the plains unbearable so while it's probably still a touch early for the high country, we grab our fleeces and wake up before dawn to get above treeline. The alpine wildflowers are out in full force and it's not long before the whistle of a marmot has Topher peering through his binoculars. The hike is lovely, my favorite high alpine views peppered with plenty of streams and summer snowbanks for Hazelnut to zoom around on. Someone tells us they spotted a cougar earlier.

We traverse a snowfield along the shore of the upper lake, nearly to a spot where we can hang out and eat a snack, when bright red blooms begin to follow Hazelnut through the snow. We corral her and see that her paw is bleeding, badly. On the slippery slope, it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on. The first aid kit that normally rides unused in Topher’s pack is at home, covered in an exploded tube of hydrocortisone. We sacrifice her bandana to try to staunch the bleeding, but it’s soon saturated. We try tying a poo bag over it and getting out as quickly as possible, but it rips and she’s still bleeding a few hundred feet later. This would not be an excellent time, I think, for the cougar to show up.

At the bottom of my bag I find a clean Kula cloth (a reusable pee rag) and Topher manifests a Voile strap. It’s enough to keep pressure on the wound and she’s not actively bleeding anymore, but she’s also not hiking the 2.5 miles back to the car. Topher takes a deep breath and hoists all 60lbs of her up on his shoulders. I expect this plan to last all of two minutes, but shut my mouth and follow them down the slope. He keeps going and going and going and Hazelnut sits quietly like a champ, giving her dad kisses every few minutes. It’s a slow, slow march and we have to take many, many breaks. It’s sobering when only two of the dozens of people we pass have a first kit to offer. It hurts her to weight it, so our tries to get her to walk down are minimal. By the time we get to the car we’re all covered in mud, blood and dog hair, thoroughly exhausted. I truly didn’t know Topher had it in him and so grateful for his presence.

Once we can properly wash her paw at the car, we decide we probably should go to the emergency vet for antibiotics at least. The cut is deep. There's a quick Taco Bell stop (the only critical condition in the car is everyone’s hunger) and then we drive back into town and wait in the lobby of the animal urgent care. It doesn’t take long for them to decide she needs stitches—which means she’ll have to be put under anesthesia.

I’m a bundle of nerves as we kiss her goodbye and head home, trying not to panic. We’re so grateful for pet insurance, or the panic would be financial, too. A few hours later we get the call that she did fine and is awake. She’s got three stitches, a thick bandage she can’t get wet and needs to be changed every three days. She’s on strict bed rest and high as a kite.

She’s the perfect patient, though I know she’s bored bored BORED without her daily walks she sleeps sweetly under my desk and never chews her bandage. We bring blankets to the park and sit under a tree. I know she’d rather be zooming through the fresh cut grass but she’s the best girl and chews on her bully stick instead. She got her stitches out this week and is cleared for light walks, which will hopefully turn into normal activity this weekend.

The clouds clear and the light drizzle stops just as the Dirty Heads, one of my favorite bands, begin their set at the Dillon Amphitheatre. The sun sets over the lake, framed by familiar peaks and the air is full of weed smoke. Hazelnut is tucked in the hotel right across the street watching the Goonies on TV and our friends have joined us for the evening. We sing and dance on the lawn as the stars wink on one by one.

And just like that, June is over and summer feels like it’s really begun. Stay safe out there today, friends!

-Mikaela