City of Colorado Springs – Adopt-A-Park

Beautiful parks require a little dirty work! Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services “Adopt-A-Park” program provides an opportunity for individuals, volunteer groups, neighborhood associations, and businesses to take an active role in the maintenance and improvement of local parks, trails and green spaces.

Changes to the Program
City parks need your help more than ever in light of the budget constraints we are facing! We have revamped the program to allow our volunteers to help more than ever to keep our parks a place everyone can enjoy.

The Colorado Springs real estate area is going to be experiencing some fantastic weather this weekend.  Sunny and in the 40’s…much like today!  I’m sure many Colorado Springs residents will be heading out to one of our many City parks or into the foothills for some hiking.  Have you ever stopped to wonder exactly what it takes to maintain all of our wonderful public open spaces and recreation areas?  The City provides the majority of maintenance needs for our neighborhood parks and volunteer groups help maintain and build our hiking trails and natural open spaces.  But with the City undergoing several budget changes, they are asking for help in not only keeping our parks clean, but also well maintained. 

The “Adopt-A-Park” program is a great way to get involved in the community while ensuring that Colorado Springs continues to enjoy a high standard of living.  You can volunteer as much or as little as you’d like, so feel free to check it out.  The parks need our help and every little bit counts!

Briarhurst Manor Estate – Restaurant, Weddings, Banquets – Manitou Springs Colorado

Welcome to Briarhurst Manor Estate, a full service restaurant in charming Manitou Springs, Colorado. We serve the finest Colorado Cuisine in an amazing atmosphere with spectacular views of Pike’s Peak, very close to Garden of the Gods and just a short drive from downtown Colorado Springs. We offer A La Carte dining, children’s menu, banquet menus, and dining rooms that are available for private parties for any occasion. We are the perfect location for Wedding Receptions and have beautiful outdoor sites for Ceremonies with lawns and gardens and the Rocky Mountains as background complete with a Victorian English Country Manor Estate.

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching. Have you made your evening reservations yet? Colorado Springs offers a truly wide variety of dining experiences and the Briarhurst is one of my favorites. Located in the heart of the Manitou Springs real estate area, the Briarhurst provides great ambience, character, and of course….amazing food!  The Briarhurst was built in the late 1800’s and has been beautifully maintained over the past century.  And the historical elegance of the original architecture has been wonderfully maintained.  If you are looking for a romantic evening retreat this weekend, I would definitely recommend the Briarhurst.  Just make sure you call for reservations ASAP!  This is a very popular destination….especially on the holidays.

The Roadside Sculptors of Rural Kansas – WSJ.com

Some folks keep journals. Others paste scrapbooks. M.T. Liggett records his life in junk.

The lovers he has wooed, the spats he’s fought, the time he cracked wise to the waitress that it must have taken a green chicken to lay eggs as nasty-looking as those in the buffet: It’s all memorialized in towering sculptures along Highway 400.

Mr. Liggett, who is 79 years old, constructs his carnival of memories from tractor gears, bowling balls, glass bottles, road signs, toilet seats, streetlights, coffee cans, wagon wheels and much more. The sculptures, hundreds of them, whirl and glint and rust in the prairie sun.

There’s a lot to be said for landscaping your Colorado Springs real estate area yard. And the term “landscaping” has a different meaning to just about everyone. Some like to have lush gardens, while others choose to build a rock garden….and then, there is yard art.

We’ve all seen the infamous “gazing globes”, gnomes, and lawn jockey’s, but one resident of Kansas has taken the concept to a whole new level.  He builds his own yard art out of stuff he finds lying around.  His fanciful art is life-size and incredibly fun.  Perhaps we could commission a sculpture for the the I-25 Corridor!

Everything in Place in for Winter Games, Except the Snow – NYTimes.com

The steady roar of a helicopter dumping snow on the Olympic snowboard halfpipe and a caravan of trucks hauling more snow from hundreds of miles away are creating a defining image of the Vancouver Games before the competitions even begin.

A snow plough spread snow in the area adjacent to the site on the Cypress Mountain where the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events will be held.

It looks like everything is all set for the Olympics to begin. There’s only one problem. Vancouver is experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures.  And snow is in short supply.  In order to ensure the winter events have enough of the white stuff, Vancouver is transporting snow from areas north of Vancouver.  Perhaps they could truck some in from Washington D.C.  It looks like there’s a supply and demand issue that could be accommodated here!  And if D.C. is too far away, the Colorado Springs real estate area might have some extra we can spare. 

The Stockholm Archipelago, and Memories of Stieg Larsson and ABBA – WSJ.com

Anders Anderson is in a good position to judge when to visit the Stockholm Archipelago: The economist bought his own small island in 2004. “I think winter is the best time,” he says, invoking the iridescent sea and reflective snow cover. “You have light everywhere.”

Others might prefer the summer and the 12 extra hours of daylight, but Stockholmers and a growing number of foreign visitors are finding the chain of 30,000 islands just as intriguing in winter, when outdoor saunas, ideal ice-skating, hiking and pervasive quiet more than make up for the unavoidable darkness.

With some islands just big enough to stand on and others nearly as large as the center of Stockholm, the archipelago was once a rough and remote home to farmers and fishermen. Long an inspiration to Swedish artists and writers, the area changed in the middle of the last century, when tens of thousands of ordinary Swedes began to summer here. Now, as expensive year-round homes replace seasonal shacks, Stockholmers are discovering the area’s off-season pleasures and property values are skyrocketing.

Care to buy an island? How about an island the size of your backyard?  Stockholm is quickly becoming a premiere vacation mecca for those looking to escape the more traditional hot spots.  This out of the way destination features temperatures ranging between the twenties and seventies year round.  Annual rainfall is about 24 inches and their winters have more snow than just about anywhere else around. 

This wildlife and scenery is more than abundant and includes parkland, forests, beaches, and of course…the city.  They have a healthy tourism center that is more than happy to accommodate your vacationing needs.  So if you are looking for an exciting escape from the Colorado Springs real estate area, why not look into Sweden?