Sunday, July 17, 2022

Lavender Festival at Chatfield Farms



Yesterday, my husband, youngest granddaughter, and I attended the annual Lavender Festival held at the Denver Botanic Gardens extension at Chatfield Farms, located at 8500 W Deer Creek Canyon Road in Littleton, Colorado. Chatfield farms is a 700-acre native plant refuge and working farm located along the banks of Deer Creek with facilities that include a visitor center, the historical Hildebrand Ranch, a restored 1918 dairy barn and silo, an 1874 Deer Creek Schoolhouse, and miles of nature trails and numerous wildflower gardens.  We love to visit the area as it is a short drive from our home!





More than 2,000 lavender plants of all kinds have been planted in a section of the garden and every summer a two-day Lavender Festival takes place.  We last attended in 2018--you can see that post on this link--so we were excited to return for a day of enjoyment.  There were garden tours, free entertainment in the amphitheater, barrel rides for the children (and adults!), demonstrations, a variety of food, dessert, and drink vendors, a farmer's market for fresh produce from some of the partners of our Community Supported Agriculture program, Lavender products made by local growers and artisans available for purchase and paintings and pottery available for purchase from local artists.



I love the smell of lavender and I have many plants growing in my gardens.  The good thing about it where I live is that the deer do not touch or eat it and it is a perennial plant that grows every year and spreads. I collect the lavender flowers to dry to make sachets for my linens and also use them as a spice in cooking  If you have some culinary lavender available try my Lavender Loaf Cake--click here for the recipe--everyone who tries it loves it!

There are many varieties of lavender planted at Chatfield Farms that can thrive in Colorado's climate and you can see PDF descriptions of them at this link. 




Chatfield Farms is full of other beautiful gardens full of flowers!





I was fascinated by the many colorful displays of coleus.





Chatfield Farms is also the location of an original farmhouse that is on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1866, the Hildebrand family bought the log cabin and the surrounding land. In these dry grasslands nestled against the foothills, they turned a small cabin and vegetable garden into a thriving farm and ranch with 600 head of Hereford cattle. Over time the family extended the cabin and added clapboard to the exterior. The site also includes a schoolhouse (built in 1874); granary; icehouse; wood and blacksmith sheds. Recently renovated, the blacksmith shop is fully functional.






Now there is a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA) located at Chatfield Farms, growing seven acres of vegetables, flowers, and fruit for subscribers (shareholders) and farm stands.




Our granddaughter enjoyed the Lavender Festival and had fun exploring the labyrinth, the gardens, the willow sculpture art installation, and the farmhouse very much. I hope the day will always be a fun memory for her and instill a love for lavender in her life forever!


Do you love lavender?


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Monday, July 11, 2022

Humor in the Colorado Hills!


 

When my husband and I go out for a drive, we often take CO 285 West and then turn off at the intersection of Parmelee Gulch Road into an area known as Indian Hills.  At elevations of 6,800 feet (2072.64 M) to 8,500 feet (2590.8 M), Indian Hills is filled with fragrant ponderosa pines and wildflower-filled meadows.   It was once a favorite place for the Native American Ute tribe to live and hunt and then pioneers began to settle there in the 1860s. Mountain vacation cabins were built for Denver residents in the early 1900s and more residents moved to the area and built homes as Colorado's population grew. There were even grandiose plans made by one man to build a "Western White House" for the Presidents of the United States to use on top of a mountain, but it never came about. You can read more about the interesting history of this mountain community at this link. 




The Indian Hills Improvement Association was established in 1926 and sponsors community events and historical preservation. The one-room building that had been used as a school from 1923-1949 was purchased and remodeled in 1952 to serve as a Community Center for the residents. It can be rented out for meetings and parties and other events.




On a portion of the property next to the Indian Hills Community Center is an eye-catching turquoise-colored sign where various announcements are made in letters placed by a volunteer named  Vince Rozmiarek. He actually constructed the sign for the community center to replace a smaller one. The sign can be seen by every car driving west on the small country road next to it. News and announcements can also be placed for a fee by local residents, such as seen in the congratulatory sign above that I took a photo of one day in researching for this story.   


Vince usually changes the sign every three days and one April Fools Day he had the idea to make a joke sign telling residents to slow down as the town was annexed by the town below it and their police were writing tickets.  So many people called the Indian Hills Police about this sign --more people than Vince ever thought would pay attention to it-- and he realized on non-announcement days he could keep the humor going!





He began thinking of funny puns and placing them on the sign. 



Please click on to enlarge for easier viewing


Soon, his funny signs were attracting attention, not only from locals but also on social media, and soon they were seen around the world!




Please click on to enlarge


Spring, summer, fall, and winter he changes the sign regularly.



Please click on to enlarge

 

Vince's signs bring a smile to many faces and he's happy that he's brought a bit of joy to all the cars passing by and through all the shared photos.  

I'm guessing many of you may have even seen a news story or a social media post with one of his signs in it?  





Vince has a Facebook Page--click here--where photos of his sign humor are posted, with the sign identification changed to "Vince the Sign Guy," and he has a web page--click here--where, among other things, you can suggest a pun to Vince.




Thanks, Vince, for sharing humor, spreading joy, and being a bright spot in Colorado!


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