How Beulah, Colorado was saved by the dairy farmers.

                                                                             This is a totem right in front of the volunteer fire station in beautiful Beulah, Colorado.  The sign on it reads "This tale might have been very short had it not been about a cow."  This is located across the street from the Beulah Post Office.  It is also located in front of the fire station and the man who carved this is in a small room behind the fire station.  These people make really good use of space, I'm here to tell you.

This is a full shot of the totem as it stands.  It is hard to see the little cottage on the top and the intricate work that went into that!  You are actually going to need to jump in the car and drive on out there and take a look.  Call me if you need directions!                                                                

The next picture shows a close up of the cow.  You can also see a few peas in the pod there, although I do not know what they symbolize.  I can also see a goose that seems to have laid some rather golden eggs.

Now, I lost my notes on this, but I am going to try to relate the story to you briefly as it was told to me. It seems several years back the beautiful mountain community of Beulah found itself in the throes of a drought.  There was no rain and no signs of rain.  The snow melt had already found it's way down the mountain and as you all know, water does not run uphill.

People were hauling water for drinking as best they could but how would you like to try to haul all your water you use everyday up the hill and try to store it?  Ah, to the rescue came the dairy farmers! They had the means to haul milk to market and the return trip could be carrying water!  Of course, they had to make a few extra trips, but that is how the dairy farmers saved the town of Beulah from extinction.  Seems like I recall reading about this after I had relocated to Colorado, so I know it was in the last 30 years. 

So this work was commissioned by folks in Beulah in honor of the dairy farmers.  This totem was created by John Clay who has made several of these totems around the Beulah area. John gave me a map of the locations of some of his art work in the area and if you are interested just leave me a note. 

I am sort of keeping my eyes open around his shop cause he has a big tree root back behind that he is starting to whittle away on and when it is finished it will be "The Dragon's Nest."  That is all I am going to tell you about that.  I plan on doing an update on John in the very near future and showing you pictures of his shop and the band aid box on the wall!

In the meantime, if you want to get a hold of John and have him carve up one of your dead trees, his number is 719-485-9605, and as always, just tell him Lou sent you!

          

The DragonTree in Beulah, Colorado, up close and personal!!

 We were on our way to the park in Buelah.  Just cruising along headed uphill on Highway 78 when this Dragon jumped up right in front of us!  Renate almost ran off the road. I, of course grabbed for my camera, but alas, it was not to be found in this car.

So, being a woman possessed, I decided to go back up with camera in hand on Monday. I had told some of the chatters in my chat room about this, and of course, they thought I was nuts. One of them got online and found Bishop's Castle, but there was nothing online about a DragonTree in Beulah!

Need to give you a little history here.  One of these fellows is a firm believer  that if it is not on Google, it does not exist. Very faithful fellow. I told him I was sure I would know before Google, but he had no faith; hence the trip to Beulah in 105 degree heat. I took a friend with me because he is really tall and I thought he could get better pictures. And he was very sucessful as you can see. Just a shame that I can't get the pictures the size I want or where I want, but that is not his fault! Well, I guess it is my fault, but ....

                                                                                                                                        

 

This is the base of the tree and it is indeed a tree.I spoke with the  man who did this.  His name is John Clay and he does this kind of work on commission.  This one was made for Catherine Halcomb.  Pine Drive used to be a divided road and this tree was in the middle of it.  He said you can still see the old road bed. So Catherine contracted with him and he gathered up his tools and went and created this work of Art!

I will be meeting with Mr. Clay hopefully next week.  He is going to give me all the details of who, what, when and where.  I am very excited about the City of Beulah and I am going to post a lot of pictures and give you a full report on the happenings.  I know they have an Beulah Art show at some point in time and we will be there, front row seats!! And being in the  mountains, the beautiful Rocky Mountains, it will be cool and clean this summer.  What a respite!

If you have some carving you would like done, just give John Clay a call at 719-485-9605. Oh, and be sure and tell him Lou sent you!

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures and don't forget to stop and see Jan, my BFF at the Stompin' Grounds Coffee Shop!

And my words of wisdom for today Keep your eyes open so you do not miss the Dragons in your life!!