It’s been snowy and blustery in Telluride for the past few days, turning Bonnie into a little snowbunny. While I try not to subject myself to huge gusts of icy snow blowing into my face unless I’m on my snowboard, she thrives on it. She’ll roll around in the drifts, face directly into the wind like a supermodel posing for the camera, and play with frozen sticks for hours – dropping them down the hills before chasing after them, as if it were a surprise that the stick had rolled away. Yes, life as a dog in the snow is pure heaven. Especially when you’re lured inside with treats and given belly rubs while your owner dries the snow off your fur. Then you can beg to go outside all over again. Ah, winter.

What a Folgers morning. As I made my coffee in the hour before it began snowing this morning, I looked out the window to see my neighbors – a herd of elk – already gathering for Thanksgiving dinner. As they grazed in the field across from my house, I tried to sneak up to them to get a closer shot. Of course, it’s not like they didn’t see someone with a shotgun-looking lens, slinking up the road in her slippers and sweats in the otherwise stillness of this gray Thanksgiving morning. So of course they ran away from me. And I got this wonderful view of their backsides.

So my neighborhood is named after this old ranch that was one of the first homesteads in the area. Now, it serves a very different purpose – it’s a historical landmark on the golf course and it houses the ski resort’s signs (a photo of this will come soon). There’s something about the juxtaposition of this old barn sitting in the middle of multi-million dollar homes and paved pathways that I just love. A reminder of the past? Of how far we’ve come? Or of how we live with nature? Back then it must have been hell living in this climate. No down coats, no heated driveways, no seat heaters in cars, no cars, no Sorels. Just wool and lots and lots of snow. Every time I walk by here I wonder if I would have hated that lifestyle, or if the beauty would still have made it worth it.