Amazing August!
The Resident Owls
Here at Joyful Journey Hot Springs, we are blessed to have the company of Great Horned Owls!
Great horned owls are the largest of the “tufted” owls in North America. The ear tufts are actually feather arrangements called plumicorns. These do not aid in hearing but can be flattened or extended depending on the mood of the owl. Their wings are long and fringed with sound-lessening filaments at the tips of their flight feathers. These special feathers allow the great horned owl to approach their prey extremely quietly, which assists in their nighttime hunting. Great horned owls have the largest eyes of all owl species and their vision is 10 times better than humans in daylight and 100 times better at night. They cannot move their eyes from side to side, instead, their heads can rotate up to 270 degrees. This head rotation is necessary because the eyes are fixed in the sockets with no muscle attachments.
Physical Characteristics
Great horned owls have long plumicorns on their head, yellow eyes and a white throat patch. This contrasts with the dark cross-barred underparts. They range in color from brown to gray to black and white. Great horned owls have large feet, which are feathered to the ends of the toes. Males, females, and immature owls are similar in appearance.
Range
They can be found throughout North America in dense wilderness forests, suburban woodlands, city parks, riparian areas, and along the coasts. The great horned owl is found in northern, central and southern America, where it ranks amongst the largest owls. It is present across Colorado in many habitats, including forests, mountains, deserts, and suburban areas.
Diet
Great horned owls are mainly nocturnal, but they will hunt night or day (especially while raising young). They have extremely acute hearing and swoop down, catching their prey by surprise in their powerful talons. They feed on a variety of animals including skunks, waterfowl, rabbits, squirrels, marshbirds, hawks, rodents, frogs, eels, fish, insects, and even domestic cats and small dogs.
Reproduction
The males usually begin calling for a mate as early as December and January. They use abandoned nests of other species such as red-tailed hawks, bald eagles, herons, crows, or old leaf nests of squirrels. The nests are located fifteen to seventy feet above the ground. The female lays one to six white eggs with the average ranging from two to three. Both parents incubate the eggs; incubation lasts about a month. The young stay in the nest for six to seven weeks and begin to fly when they are ten to twelve weeks of age. The female typically provides most of the care. @cpw
Crestone Energy Fair – Coming Soon!
Coming up September 11 – 14, 2025.
Over the years, many local homeowners have built their homes using alternative construction and sustainable energy systems, providing Crestone with one of the highest concentrations of natural and regeneratively-built homes in the nation.
For thirty-five years, The Crestone Energy Fair has provided thousands of attendees with hands-on workshops, educational seminars, home tours and on-going learning opportunities in natural and regenerative building methods.
Run by committed and passionate volunteers, The Crestone Energy Fair is a free event committed to empowering attendees by providing them with education and skills that can help them choose alternative building methodologies and materials in their future projects.
Presentations, workshops, demonstrations and Home Tours are available for attendees to learn about different construction styles such as straw bale, cordwood, hempcrete, Earthships, and scaria, as well as electricity generation from solar photo-voltaic systems, gasifiers, methane bio-digesters, and geothermal.
In addition to building and construction, The Crestone Energy Fair offers youth activities, musical performances, yoga, movement and lifestyle workshops in our Wellness Village. Attendees also have access to the Energy Fair’s Artisan Marketplace, plus nourishing food and beverage options.
To learn more click here: The Crestone Energy Fair
Guest Therapist – Avery Runner
Coming to us August 30 & August 31. Avery specializes in vibrational therapy. He offers soothing and relaxing sessions, utilizing tuning forks, singing bowls, rattles, and sound healing tools gathered from diverse cultures and modalities.
Avery provides complete tune-up services and therapy to balance your electromagnetic field. (Electromagnetic fields combine invisible electric and magnetic fields of force. They are generated by natural phenomena like the Earth’s magnetic field, but also by human activities, mainly through the use of electricity.)
Aura Tune integrates many masterful modalities, including:
- Biofield Tuning of Eileen Day McKusick
- Planetary Frequencies of Hans Cousto
- Human Tuning of John Beaulieu
- Tao of Sound of Fabian Maman
- Various sound healing techniques from Pythagoras, Australian Aboriginals, Alchemists, Hazrat Inayat Khan, and dozens of well-established teachers and traditional sound healing systems.
Please call us today to book a 45-minute aura tune session for $100.
Dark Sky Dates
Below, we have included a list of dates you may wish to observe for dark sky viewing.
- August 9 – Full Moon / Sturgeon Moon
- August 11: 6 planets in the planetary alignment
Six planets – Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, and Saturn - August 11 thru 13 -Perseid Meteor Shower
- August 23 – New Moon
There’s nothing like the wonder of a constellation-filled sky, with celestial bodies lighting up the night. And when it comes to stargazing, that’s the only type of light you want to see. Areas with little to no light pollution are sought for clear viewing opportunities. Special steps include adding shielding units to outdoor lights so that light is being directed down and not up, minimizing blue lights, and limiting the luminance levels from area signage, to name a few. DarkSky identifies places with high-quality nighttime environments and advocates for conservation and managing outdoor lighting to help protect these areas and keep them enjoyable for stargazing.
Click here for a list of Dark Sky places in Colorado from the Dark Sky Colorado website.
Joyful Blog
Joyful has also taken some time to write a great blog post about safe soaking! Please click here to read her her post.
Social Media
Do you happen to have any ideas or feedback to submit? Please feel free to email us at marketing@jjhotsprings.com or message us on Social Media.
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