Life at BlueSlate Quarry is…
…..fun, interesting, busy, challenging, rewarding and sometimes very laid back, quiet and peaceful… some of the time, anyway!
When the work’s caught up and we find that we have a little spare time on our hands, though, we have lots of other interests to keep us busy. Among other things, we love to make improvements to our property, a vegetable garden we raise for our family and friends to enjoy and to the habitat here in this beautiful mountainous setting filled with abundant wildlife.
Each year we try to add a little bit to the vegetable garden and the landscape, building upon the previous year’s work, gradually making progress on our overall plan for our home and its surroundings.
In addition, we usually complete one or two habitat improvement projects on our land each year to help improve the properties’ forage and the overall health and well-being of the area wildlife – deer, elk, moose, mountain lion, bear and other predators – that frequent our property and the surrounding forest.
Area Wildlife and Habitat Improvements
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I’m proud and excited to say that our yearly habitat projects have had a very positive and noticeable impact on the quality of the forage and the habitat in general. But, even more exciting, the overall health and the numbers of the area wildlife have vastly improved since we first started doing the projects, making it all very worthwhile.
For us, that’s a result that’s very rewarding. Since the moment we first moved here, we have always had a deep respect for and appreciation of the land and the wildlife that make this little corner of God’s country their home.
When you get right down to it, we love the great outdoors and the rural lifestyle we’re able to experience and enjoy here. Some of our favorite activities are hunting, fishing, swimming, boating, spending time with friends at Bead Lake, barbecuing, telling stories around the campfire, photographing the wildlife and the gorgeous scenery and, my personal favorite, just watching the wildlife in their natural habitat on a daily basis… even from our dining room window!
A huge bonus is being able to grow a garden here. Our growing season is on the short side at this elevation but, even so, it produces a bounty of veggies for us. So much so that we’re able to share some of the harvest from the garden with friends from Bead Lake. In return, they share some of the “canned” bounty with us… definitely a “win-win” arrangement!
Around “harvest” time in the garden and after hunting season has wrapped up, we also love to experiment with new recipes and share them. We usually share a few family favorites and some of the “new” favorites we’ve tried out.
When winter sets in, the snow gets deep and the evenings grow longer, in addition to drawing western art themed pencil drawings and a few commissioned drawings, I spend some time drawing some of the area wildlife from photos we take on our property and in the area year round.
For us, as much as we love what we do for a living, life at the quarry is about so much more than just rocks and making a living… it’s a way of life that we are blessed to be able to live, experience and enjoy! So, in a nutshell, I guess that’s why I often post photos and information here, as sort of an online journal, to keep track of our projects (and the fun we have here) from year to year. Now that we’ve been doing this for a while, we’ve found that we love looking back through it… as it sparks memories and reveals the changes we made and our slow-but-sure progress over the years!
We hope you will also enjoy our journal and perhaps find something helpful, interesting or informative… or maybe just something that makes you smile… somewhere hidden in our journal posts!
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Below: Recent WoodStone Decorative Rock Project Portfolios
Stone Ridge Gallery
Stone Ridge Golf Course Photo Gallery
More Photo Galleries
More BlueSlate WoodStone Photo Galleries