Outdoors

It’s that time of year again when everyone is out looking at aspen leaves. Nothing makes Colorado’s scenery more beautiful than the gold of aspen leaves. We have aspen bowls through mile upon mile of our mountain country, nestled among the dark green of pines, spruces and firs. They are golden treasure for everyone to admire and share.

I am amazed that Denver has not long since built and sponsored an Aspen Bowl where it could host and play major football games.

It has been fun watching all the young birds coming to the feeders. This has been a particularly successful breeding season, warm enough, food enough and no late June snow. It seems as though all the summer birds have raised successful broods. Even the grey-headed juncos have managed to raise a few of their own, not just one big baby cowbird as they seem to have done for the past several years.

My mother was an insatiable reader, and she taught all of us to love books and where they could take us by reading to us every day.

Summer continues with monsoon winds, thundershowers and heat. What interests me the most is the increase in relative humidity. When we came to Colorado in 1965, the relative humidity averaged around 7 percent a day. Today it was 49 percent, and every day it is much higher than it was 50 years ago.