Paradise ponders: catch-up edition...

Paradise ponders: catch-up edition...  Just after dawn on the morning we learned that Debbie's mom had died, I walked out to our barn ... and saw what you see in the photo at right.  The sight of that flag makes me think of my mom and her love of all things crafty every time I see it.  I have no equivalent piece of memorabilia for Kate (Debbie's mom)...

Debbie arrived safely in Ohio yesterday afternoon.  Her sister Judy picked her up at the Cincinnati airport, then took her back to Judy's home near Oxford.  Debbie used gate-checking for the first time on her trip yesterday, and was very happy with the results: her luggage arrived in Cincinnati along with her. :)

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been working steadily on the deck project in between bad weather and all the other things happening in our life.  In the first photo below, you can see my clamping arrangement for one of the dowel-pinned butt joints I made in the rails (one in each of the four rails).  In the second photo you see one of the butt joints after gluing and sanding – they came out very well indeed, with an almost invisible joint.  Despite the good results, if I ever do this again I'm going to use a half lap joint instead – they're much stronger, though a bit more challenge to get perfect.  The third photo is of the cedar ceiling again, and the fourth is the finished redwood rails, after their last (of six!) coats of polyacrylic finish.  I used satin polyacrylic, lightly sanded with 600 grit paper between coats, and I'm very happy with the results.  Now I just hope it stands up to the weather as promised!  The fifth photo shows the (much less messy!) deck with the rails in place, and the last photo is a closeup of a rail and stanchion.  The color for the stanchion's finish was chosen by Abigail at Lazy K Wrought Iron – it sure looks good with that redwood!  Speaking of Lazy K, they're going to be making the metal framework for our deck stairs as the next project they do for us...

Yesterday when the sun broke out in the afternoon, I took a ride up Blacksmith Fork Canyon to Hardware Ranch.  It felt quite odd to do this by myself!  I didn't see a single animal, and only a couple of birds – but the fall color was just spectacular.  I had spotted the orange and red hillsides through the rain earlier in the day, but when the sun came out ... well, see for yourself:

I had about two hours of intermittent sunshine, and I made the most of it with the beautiful drive and several short walks.  I sure wish Debbie was here to see this – it's far better color than in the previous years we've seen.  Hopefully we'll see it again another year.  One thing I noted yesterday is that several species have yet to turn color – most particularly the quaking aspen, who have just barely begun to lose their green.  In another few days they should reach their peak – maybe Debbie will get to see them!

Paradise ponders, discombobulation edition...

Paradise ponders, discombobulation edition...  Sorry for the radio silence, folks – things have been a tad confused and hectic around here.  I just got back from the Salt Lake City airport, where I dropped Debbie off for her flight back to Ohio to attend her mom's viewing and funeral.  She'll be back home next Friday.

On Thursday, Debbie got some great grief therapy: she went shopping with our friend Michelle H., getting an outfit to wear at the events of next week.  She might have accidentally bought about six other outfits as well. :)  She came back home much cheered.  Bless you, Michelle!  My own much less effective efforts at therapy included conversations about the good memories about her mom, and playing long games of Mexican Train.  Those didn't come close to rivaling the effects of shopping with a good friend...

In between all the other stuff happening, I did finish the redwood 2x6 rails for our deck.  I'll be installing them today, weather permitting (rain is in the forecast, so there's some doubt about this).  Yesterday Randy Bingham and his sidekick Jeffrey showed up to install the stone on our two front porches.  They'll be back today to finish up the porch by our front door.  The porch to the sun room has a problem, though: the quarry cut one of the four pieces incorrectly.  Randy and Jeffrey took that back to the quarry yesterday, either for re-cutting (if they can) or cutting four new matching pieces for us.  It will be done on Monday, either way, and they'll have it down soon thereafter.

I have some photos of this stuff, but I'm not where I can post them right now.  I'll catch up on that another day (maybe tomorrow!)...

RIP, Mary Kathleen Geis Lorenz...

RIP, Mary Kathleen (“Kate”) Geis Lorenz...  Debbie's mom died last night, after living several years in a nursing home with gradually worsening Alzheimer's.  It's been a couple of years since Debbie was last able to hold a real conversation with her, and about a year since Kate last knew who Debbie was, so in a sense she's been gone for a while now.  With Kate's passing, all four of our parents are now gone.  That's a strange and lonely feeling...

I knew Kate fairly well, mainly from her many visits to us when we lived in California.  I have many fond memories of her.  She was at our wedding, which my own parents couldn't afford the travel to attend.  We went on several trips with her: to the La Sal Mountains in Utah, to Idaho, to Yellowstone, to Hawai'i, and up the California coast.  Those trips were huge adventures for her, as she had only rarely strayed more than a few dozen miles from her home in Liberty, Indiana.  Kate was a most excellent traveling companion: full of wonder at all the new things to see, always in good humor, and willing to put up with all the privations of traveling on a tight (sometimes nonexistent!) budget.  Debbie and I are lucky to have a brain full of these wonderful memories to remember her with.  Here are just a few:

• Four-wheeling in the La Sal Mountains near dusk, and coming upon a “tornado” of swallows.  We'd never seen this behavior before, nor have we since: something over 100 swallows flying in a tight vortex over a knoll, continuing even as we approached quite closely.  I remember Kate's face as she watched this, full of wonder.
• Visiting a “hummingbird lady” in Idaho, after getting directions from the owner of the B&B we were staying at.  This lady had perhaps 50 or 60 feeders, all crowded with hummers.  We sat under a covered porch and watched them with the hummingbird lady: a little old lady with a sunny disposition who was happy to share her flying jewels with anyone who happened by.  This was before we fed hummingbirds ourselves, and was the first time Debbie and I had ever seen anything like it.  Kate was transfixed, her eyes following those little hummers for the entire time we were there.  Uncharacteristically she was quiet, almost reverent.
• Pretending we'd put a gecko on her back in the cabin we were staying in, in Kalopa State Park on the big island of Hawai'i.  The hooting and screeching, and subsequent laughter, still brings a quick smile for me.  On this same trip, her luggage went to Pago Pago (literally!) instead of Kona.  She wore clothes borrowed from us until her luggage was found.  When it finally got to Kona, a taxi driver brought it to us, about 90 minutes from the airport.
• Four-wheeling down to Kealakekua Bay, and back up.  It rained while we were down on the bay, so I had to get the vehicle back up slippery wet lava to get back to the top.  This involved several occasions when I'd run at a steep slope as fast as I dared and let momentum carry us up.  Kate's screeching and hollering when I did this was hysterically funny; we were crying we were laughing so hard.
• Four-wheeling through the Parker Ranch (then still operating), and coming upon a cattle drive, complete with cowboys (paniolo) on horseback.  The cowboys stopped to talk with us, and Kate watched the entire affair with delight.
• Standing with her at the Monterey Aquarium, in front of the jellyfish tank.  Those jellyfish gave her the heebie-jeebies, but she seemed unable to move away from them, fascinated by their movement.

I could go on with these memories for a long time.  It's very comforting right now, just to have them...

Paradise ponders: dogs and rails edition...

Paradise ponders: dogs and rails edition...  Ipo, our newest field spaniel, acts like she's been part of the Paradise hooligan field spaniels forever.  At right you see her last night, just before she tucked in with us for the night.  I took about 25 flash photos of her, and this is the only one that wasn't completely wrecked – she just won't stand still when there's something exciting like bedtime at hand!  I'm (very pleasantly!) surprised how fast she's integrated with our herd.

This afternoon I walked out in our back yard with the three  youngest (Ipo, Mako, and Cabo) and watched them play and run (two minutes of happy field spaniels at left).  Ipo acts just like the other two, and all three are having a ball...

In between runs to Home Depot, feeding the birds, and other sundry chores, I managed to get a start on the redwood rails for the deck.  For the long rails, on the east and west sides of the deck, I joined two 92" pieces of 2x6 to make a 184" rail.  I used my dowel jig for the first time, and I'm very pleased with the results.  In the first photo below, you can see the jig attached to the bottom piece of 2x6, and the results in the top piece.  I've made a lot of dowel joints, but never have they been either this easy or this precise.  Those holes are positioned to within 1/100" of where they should be, maybe much better.  The second photo shows my gluing clamp arrangement in the foreground, and a glued rail in the background (lying flat).  These joints are darned near perfect – after a swipe or two of 200 grit sandpaper the joints will be impossible to feel...

Paradise ponders: the all-kinds-of-stuff, catch-up edition...

Paradise ponders: the all-kinds-of-stuff, catch-up edition...  Seems like ages since I've had a few calm minutes to sit down and blog!

Jimmy and Michelle made it back to the airport for their trip home on Saturday, after a stop at the Red Iguana for yet another outstanding meal.  We had a fifth person with us: Jay G. (more on him later), who hails from Michigan and was unfamiliar with “real” Mexican food (Taco Bell was most of his previous experience).  Because he was unfamiliar with the items on the menu, we helped him order: chicken tamales smothered with his pick of the mole sauces.  His surprised smile when he tasted the first bite was priceless. :)  There were not many molecules of deliciousness left on his plate when he was finished!

Last week Michelle and Debbie made a wonderful b'stilla (a traditional Moroccan delicacy, a kind of sweet and spicy chicken pie).  I mentioned this in a previous post, but failed to post the photos – I've fixed that below.  The two of them were disappointed that the phyllo dough didn't hold together, but Jimmy and I couldn't have cared less: it tasted great, and brought back fond memories of a restaurant in San Diego, long out of business...

Speaking of Jimmy (aka “the goat”): here's a snap of him and our border collie Race, who milked every bit of attention from both Jimmy and Michelle that he could get.

Sometime last week, our friend Michelle H. showed up with pillows for our mud room.  She made these for us, after she and Debbie picked out a bunch of different colored cloth to make them from.  They're beautiful!  The photo at left shows half of them; the bench on the other side of the mud room is similarly pillow-equipped.  The pillows also fixed a color problem that Debbie had with the mud room – the color of the new cabinetry didn't go well with the color of the floors and walls, and somehow the pillows were needed to fix that.  Such things are beyond my ken, but Debbie and Michelle were happy with the results, so I'm happy!  :)

While Michelle was visiting, I walked by her car and saw this bumper sticker on it.  Loved it!

On one of our rainy days last week, we spotted the season's first snow on the local mountains – it's just visible under the cloud bottoms on the photo at left.  There's a lot more snow up there today, as you'll see in a photo below...

Friday was quite hectic for our contractors putting in the sprinklers and sod: rain was due Friday night, and they were scrambling to get the sod all laid down in time.  They did it, but only just: the first rain started just as they finished.  By this morning we've had over an inch of rain fall here, and the newly sodded areas are thoroughly drenched. The first photo below shows one of the trucks that delivered our sod (three loads in all).  The truck is too big to get into our driveway, so they drove through our hay field to get as close to our house as they could, then drive a couple hundred yards with a fork lift to deliver each pallet of sod.  Each truckload delivered 28 pallets of sod; we used 62 in all.  The center photo shows the dogs on their first outing onto the sod-covered yard.  For the first ten minutes or so, there was non-stop sniffing by all five dogs.  After that, they started into the hard-core playing (especially Cabo and Mako, the younger two).  They played so hard that they've been flipping up corners of the laid sod. :)  All of them love their new back yard!  The last photo is from this morning, looking at our back yard: nicely smoothed, gently sloped for good drainage, and (for the moment) free of anything even resembling a weed.  The color differences, I'm told, come from the fact that the sod was cut from different parts of the field, with different exposures, soil types, etc.  That should all even out by the middle of next season.  Mark (the contractor) tells me that I'll likely need to mow it next week.  Amazing!

The fellow I mentioned earlier (Jay G.) was here on Saturday because he flew in from Michigan with our new field spaniel, Ipo.  He stayed with us on Saturday night, and we took him back to the airport yesterday for his trip home.  Ipo was an absolute sweetheart from (literally) the first moment we spotted her.  As I walked from the car to the curb to greet Jay, Ipo jumped up to investigate me, all curious and bold – but very gentle and respectful.  When we got her home, we introduced her to our other four dogs one at a time, out in the yard – no problems at all.  Within just a few minutes, she was bounding around our yard with all four of the others, and joyfully roughhousing with Cabo and Mako.  We've had a few minor tussles, always between Ipo and Mako, but they got it all straightened out by themselves in just seconds.  If you've had any experience with adult dogs meeting new adult dogs, you know that's about as good as it gets.  By this morning they're all acting like they're in the same pack – just wonderful from our perspective.  That's Ipo in the two snaps at right.  She's slightly larger than Cabo, quite a bit smaller than Mako; darker brown than they are in overall color, with a nice big white patch on her chest.  Her face is longer than Cabo's, narrower than Mako's, and her shoulders and thighs are narrower than either of them.  She's fast, clearly smart, very confident (in both personality and physicality), and graceful.  We've had her with us for two nights, working on our bonding, and she's been most respectful of us – but also occasionally (during the night) coming up to see us for some reassurance.  She's had three homes in the last two months, so we're paying a lot of attention to making her feel confident of this one – her last one, though we have no good way to tell her that.  Debbie and I are a bit surprised that even though we have four field spaniels, they are four very distinct animals, both in appearance and in personality.  There are no problems telling this group apart! :)

I'll leave you today with a photo I took this morning.  I was driving to our vet just before 8 am, to drop off Laki for a couple of minor surgeries.  I had to stop to capture this: the Wellsville Mountains in the early morning sunlight.  This is the sort of display – common here – that causes Debbie or I to say: “We live in a postcard...”  Indeed we do...

Paradise ponders: shrimp burgers, electrical details, and the endless Mexican Train game...

Paradise ponders: shrimp burgers, electrical details, and the endless Mexican Train game...  Well, we had our shrimp burgers yesterday afternoon and they were delicious.  They were followed up by some most excellent chocolate mousse, homemade from scratch by the dynamic duo of Debbie and Michelle.  The chocolate in it was Callebaut, the best we know of for cooking.  There are several more servings of that mousse sitting in our refrigerator...

Yesterday morning I made scrapple and eggs, as planned.  The scrapple was good, but quite different than what I grew up with.  The biggest difference in the ingredients is that instead of just corn meal as the cereal component, this stuff has wheat flour and oats in addition.  Also, it's much less spicy than other scrapple I've had, and more “porky”.  None of those differences were bad, and I quite enjoyed it – and yet, it's not the same as the scrapple I'm familiar with, so I couldn't help being a little disappointed.  Nevertheless, the scrapple we bought won't last long, I'm sure.  :)

Jimmy and I finished up all the electrical work on the deck last night.  It's beautiful!  There are now nine 100 watt equivalent (but actually 17 watt LED) bulbs on the deck ceiling, giving us bright, shadowless light across the entire deck.  There are also four duplex GFI outlets, two on the wall of the house and two on the ceiling, away from the house.  Now all we need is the grill and nice enough weather!  Well, that's not quite true...  I still have to put up the rails.  I have 8 pieces of 8' long 2x6s of clear redwood heartwood.  These will be cut up into four rails, each of which will be made of two sections dowel-pegged together.  I've got to do that cutting and doweling, then some routing (to round off corners, sanding, finishing (with three or four coats of clear acrylic polyurethane), and then mount them into the stanchions.  I also need to caulk and paint a bunch of stuff on the house wall, and on the outsides of the deck ceiling.  The weather next week promises to be great for all this work...

Yesterday we played an epic Mexican train game.  On all our previous games we've played partial games, generally using half the starting numbers (0..12), in order to keep the game to just a couple hours.  Yesterday we did the entire thing, a total of 13 rounds, each one lasting around a half hour.  It was a lot of fun, and there was much merriment and laughter (helped by generous quantities of alcohol :), but it sure lasted a long time!

This morning we head to SLC to pick up our new dogger (Ipo) at the SLC airport, then lunch at the Red Iguana, drop off Jimmy and Michelle at the airport, pick up bird seed at Wild Birds Unlimited, visit the southern SLC Trader Joe's, and then finally head home.  After ten days with Jimmy and Michelle, our house is going to seem quiet and empty – though the presence of Ipo should cause a bit of a ruckus!  :)

Paradise ponders: no, we didn't fall off the edge of the earth edition...

Paradise ponders: no, we didn't fall off the edge of the earth edition...  We've just been busy!  Jimmy and I finished the cedar ceiling on our deck, including the trim!  It's beautiful, but you can't see it – because it's dark as I write this, so I can't take a photo.  Even better, the sod is completely down in our back yard.  It's beautiful!  The contractors still have a few details left to do (mainly patching small holes, getting valve boxes to the right level, etc.), which they're planning to do today, or Saturday if the weather is still nasty.  We had rain last night, and our forecast includes the possibility of more today.  The dogs have been out in the yard, supervised (so they don't ruck up the sod), and they've pronounced it acceptable...

Yesterday Debbie and Michelle were busy all day long – cleaning, organizing, and (most importantly) making a b'stilla for our dinner.  It's been seven or eight years since we last made one.  Oh, man, was it delicious!  They've got shrimp burgers on the menu for tonight's meal...

This morning I'm going to have something I've never had in Utah: scrapple.  Debbie and Michelle ran down to the Amish store in Perry on Wednesday and picked up five pounds of it for me.  Four pounds are in the freezer.  One pound is about to have some slabs hacked off of it, fried, and arranged on my plate with a couple fried eggs.  Then I'll slide that whole lovely, aromatic concoction down my throat while making ecstatic noises...

We're hoping for a little weather good enough for Jimmy and I to work outside today.  If we get it, we'll be hauling my chop saw from our deck back into my woodshop (that sucker is heavy!), putting up light fixtures, and possibly moving the leftover cedar (about 200 sq. ft. worth) into my barn.  I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that cedar, but I will most certainly be doing something with it – it's beautiful!

Tomorrow is shaping up to be a bit of an emotional roller-coaster for us.  In the morning we're headed down to Salt Lake City for several stops.  First up: we go to the airport to meet our new dog.  She's a young field spaniel, about 16 months old. coming from a breeder in Michigan.  Why, you might ask, would we get yet another dog (this one will make five!)?  Well, because we're suckers for sad stories involving field spaniels.  This little girl (who we will call Ipo (EE-poh)) was adopted as a puppy from the breeder in Michigan.  Then after being in her new home for a year (!), her owner decided she didn't like field spaniels, and returned her to the breeder and got a different dog.  For Debbie and I this seems just appalling – and most likely indicative of a less-than-loving home.  The breeder couldn't find a home for the year-old dog, and already had far too many dogs herself.  She reached out to Debbie and, well, we're going to the airport in the morning. :)  After we pick up Ipo, we're headed to the Red Iguana for a farewell dinner with Jimmy and Michelle – after that repast, doubtlessly excellent, we had back to the airport to drop off Jimmy and Michelle for their flight home.  Then we head to Wild Birds Unlimited to stock up on some high quality birdseed – it's on sale for 30% off, and we're taking advantage.  Then (finally!) it's back home for us, to introduce Ipo to our other four mutts.

Paradise ponders: good news and bad news, this and that edition...

Paradise ponders: good news and bad news, this and that edition...  Sunday afternoon, after I finished my bookkeeping, I found myself alone in the house with four dogs who desperately wanted some attention.  So I leashed up the two little ones (Cabo and Mako) and we all went walking up the dirt road leading east from our driveway.  The two photos below were taken along the way, but the highlight of the walk is captured in the video at right: butterflies.  Hundreds upon hundreds of yellow butterflies, feeding from the 200+ acres of alfalfa around us that was in bloom, and getting minerals from the water seeping up on the drying dirt road.  At points in the walk I was in the middle of a cloud of butterflies, so many that I often felt their wings beating against my arms or my cheeks.  The dogs (Cabo, especially) went sort of crazy for a little while, trying to catch them – and then suddenly they just gave it up as a lost cause and simply ignored the butterflies all around them.

Sunday evening we all played some games: the Mexican train game, and a card game called Skip-Bo.  The two photos below show a Mexican train game in progress.  The lovely lady in the first photo is Michelle, Jimmy's wife (and Jimmy is the sap at left).  I lost the game, badly.  :)

Monday morning I was up before sunrise, and headed out to give the doggers their morning constitutional.  I walked Mako and Cabo first, and those two basically dragged me around the alfalfa field.  Afterwards I got Miki and Race, and we had a much more sedate walk – to the point where I dared take out my phone to snap a photo of an interesting conjunction in our eastern skies.  If you click the photo at right to embiggen it, you'll see an out-of-focus crescent moon with the “dark” side well-lit by earthshine, and Venus above and to the right of it.  Just below Venus and slightly left you can just barely make out another planet: Mars.  Quite a show of solar system objects for one small section of the sky!

Sunday afternoon I mounted our cutoff switch into the oak panel we'd glued up the previous day – that went perfectly, and now our electrical box is very securely mounted in a proper way.  So yesterday morning (Monday), Jimmy and I went right to work on the cedar tongue-and-groove ceiling.  Despite a slew of interruptions, we made substantial progress – about a third of the ceiling is now sheathed. The first photo below shows the initial three runs; the second where we stopped for the day.  We installed the first three lights after we got by their junction boxes.  That cedar is going to make a beautiful ceiling, especially after it goes gray.  Once it reaches that stage (probably at least two years), I'll put a coat of flat polyurethane on it.  We did have one small oopsie along the way: the escutcheons for light fixtures don't quite cover the square holes we cut in the cedar.  Dammit!  But Debbie had a wonderful idea for how to fix it: we're going to get the folks at Lazy K Wrought Iron to make us some ornamental plates to go between the light fixture and the cedar.  These will be donut-shaped, with the outside diameter big enough to comfortably cover the square hole, and the inside diameter small enough to be hidden inside the fixture.  Perfect!

While Jimmy and I were working away on the deck, a small army of sod workers descended on our yard.  At one point there were six people working hard at it.  The sod truck (ginormous!) delivered the sod around lunchtime, and from then until around 8 pm this group slaved away.  The truck delivered about 10,000 sq ft of sod, and every square inch was laid by the time the team left.  Almost all of our front yard is now under sod, and about 1/3 of the back yard.  Photos of the sod part of the day below...

So ... if you've read this far, you might be wondering what the bad news is.  Well, take a look at the scene at right: our back yard this morning.  We had a 50% chance of 0.2" of rain in our forecast for last night.  As of 8 am this morning, we've received 100% of about 1" of rain.  We're soaked.  This means that the sod truck (which has to drive across an alfalfa field) can't deliver.  Even if he could, the workers can't lay sod on soupy mud.  The deck is wet, so Jimmy and I can't safely work.  It's still raining as I write this, though the end appears to be in sight (judging from the radar).  Argh!

Paradise ponders: good company, good food, and deck progress edition...

Paradise ponders: good company, good food, and deck progress edition...  Jimmy and Michelle are with us, which automatically means lots of games, laughs, conversation, and red, red wine.  :)  This morning we went to Herm's for breakfast, and as always it was delicious.  Debbie and Michelle went shopping in Ogden yesterday while Jimmy and I worked on the deck, and they came back all smiles and happiness.  Yesterday afternoon we had bison burgers.  For lunch, Jimmy and I had some delicious sandwiches: tomato herb bread from Great Harvest, with Lebanon bologna and farmer's cheese from the Amish store in Willard (courtesy of Debbie and Michelle on a previous trip).  That sandwich brought back lots of memories for me, of the good food my dad always knew exactly where to buy in the Pennsylvania Dutch country – the Lebanon bologna and farmer's cheese tasted exactly like my memory of them...

On Saturday afternoon, Debbie and Michelle made us a feast with enough food for a few dozen people.  The centerpiece was Debbie's fresh cod – but there was also roasted veggies (beets, potatoes, crookneck squash, and orange zucchini), and homemade biscuits.  Awesome, it was.

The cats have basically taken over our sun room.  So far as they're concerned, the room belongs to them – and our presence may or may not be tolerated.  :)  As you can see, they certainly seem to assume the furniture out there is their own...

Yesterday Jimmy and I made really good progress on the deck.  The day's big job was to patch all the siding damaged during the deck construction (and related demolition), and to install trim around the new door onto the deck.  I forgot to take photos of that. :)  The first thing we had to do was to move my chop saw (first photo) from the woodworking shop in the barn to the deck.  That required a bit of ingenuity so that we could lift it up – we ended up fabricating some wooden handles so our hands wouldn't be cut by sharp edges on its table.  The second photo shows our “clamping” arrangement to glue the oak panel (painted white) to the OSB sub-wall.  We're using the electrical box (with a cutoff switch) to wedge the oak panel into the wall.  The third photo shows some of the electrical work we did on Friday, and the last photo the stanchions we installed on Thursday.  Tomorrow we're going to screw that electrical box into the oak panel and then start installing the cedar ceiling.  Real progress – woo hoo!

Our sprinkler contractors were working all day on Saturday, getting ready for sod installation early next week (Tuesday is the current target).  The seed planted last Thursday has already started to sprout.  Even the yard is (finally) starting to come together!  We're going to be very happy when there's no more open dirt to make dust, and when we can tell that we have an asphalt driveway again (it's completely covered by dirt now)...

Paradise ponders: all kinds of stuff edition...

Paradise ponders: all kinds of stuff edition...  Jimmy and Michelle B., our guests for the next ten days, arrived as planned on Wednesday afternoon.  We stopped at the Red Iguana (of course!) and had a wonderful dinner, then at their request stopped at Walmart so they could pick up a game they wanted to play with us: the Mexican Train Dominoes game.  The four of us have been playing it each evening.  It's a game whose outcome is mostly determined by chance, but has some opportunities for strategy and more for skilled pattern-matching.  It's fun and easy enough for anyone to learn how to play in a short time.

This morning I got up at around 5 am, well before sunrise this time of year.  The dogs were agitating to be let out, and right now our yard is not a place we want to let them run (more on that in a moment).  So – before tea, even – I grabbed a couple of leashes and took them out, two at a time.  First out were Mako and Cabo, both pulling so hard that I could barely stand upright.  They wanted out, and right the hell now!  They half-drug me over to the hay field north of our house, where we've been walking them for the past few days, and then went about 2 feet before both of them stopped, simultaneously, and peed.  There were little canine grunts of relief all during this process.  Then again in perfect synchrony they launched themselves into a new effort: drag the poppa across the alfalfa field in a search for voles.  While being dragged I had the opportunity to glance around the sky: marvelously clear for the first time in weeks (the smoke is gone).  Orion, my old constellation friend, was high in the southern sky.  A less-than-quarter moon hung in the southeast.  Just over the Wasatch Mountains in the east, Venus hovered in a notch between two mountains.  Despite not a hint of twilight, I had plenty of light to see (mainly from the moon).  Eventually I managed to herd the two puppies back into the house, and swapped out the two older boys: Race and Miki.  We three took a much more sedate walk over roughly the same route, and I had a better chance to look around and observe.  One thing that struck me was the sheer number of artificial lights visible at this hour on and around our home.  I counted 11 LEDs visible from the north side of our house, mainly on electronic equipment: little low-power status lights for the most part.  Some are green, others orange, red, blue, or white.  None of them are nearly bright enough to interfere with my night vision, but are plainly visible even a couple hundred feet away...

Our yard had some real progress this week.  The forecast called for rain on Thursday night and Friday morning, so our contractor went all out to get the yard ready for seeding before that hit.  He managed it, putting the last seed down in the first of the sprinkles.  It took 600 pounds of seed to cover roughly 2.7 acres.  All of that area had to be raked, rolled, and fertilized before he could spread the seed.  He and his crew also made sure that the sprinkler heads in those areas were all functioning correctly, just in case the predicted rain didn't arrive.  They also fixed a problem our sun room builder had left for us: leaks and seepage from the sun room foundation into what used to be casements and are now cat perches and routes into the sun room.  The problem was twofold: two large joints had not been sealed, and the outside of the concrete had not been tarred.  Our sprinkler contractor was digging in the area anyway, so he volunteered to tackle that repair for us, and he did a bang-up job.

As it turned out, for once the weatherman was dead on: we got exactly the forecast amount of rain (0.6"), and exactly when predicted.  Our freshly-sown seed got a great soaking-in, just as we'd hoped it would.  The back yard, due for sod shortly, turned into one giant mud-bowl.  That's why we're not letting the dogs run out there – they'd end up doubling their weight through mud adhesion, and instead of enjoying the time with our guests we'd be washing unwilling and uncooperative mutts. :)  The sod for the rest of the yard has been ordered, and is scheduled for delivery on Monday evening.  Our contractor is trying to arrange for help to show up Tuesday: an entire girl's high school baseball team.  They have experience maintaining and installing sod from the maintenance of their playing field, and there's 20 of them.  That would be quite a sight, if it actually happens! 

Jimmy and I have been working on our long-postponed deck project.  On Thursday we got 22 steel stanchions installed, all spaced properly.  I got a nice big blister on my right hand from using the electric screwdriver to screw in the six big lag screws on each of those stanchions: 132 of them in all.  One stanchion (thankfully, just one) was placed right in front of our air conditioner compressor where there was insufficient room to use the electric screwdriver.  That one I had to screw in with a ratchet wrench – that was a lot of work!

On Friday we went to work on the overhead wiring: two duplex outlets and nine ceiling light fixtures.  It's all in now, and the inspection (the last one!) is scheduled for Monday morning.  Today we're going to start on the carpentry.  First up is the exterior wall of the house where the deck was installed.  There are a half-dozen or so pieces of siding that need to be replaced, some electrical stuff that needs to be removed, some mounting of electrical gear, and quite a bit of trim around the door.  If we get through all that, we'll start putting the tongue-and-groove cedar up on the ceiling.  Monday, for sure, we'll be working on the ceiling, which I'm guessing will take us three days to complete.  Progress!

A very happy puppy...

A very happy puppy ... and her equally happy human.  The puppy is Lucy, a little smooth-coat tri-color border collie.  She's very smart, and (for her age) unusually confident.  Her human is A. J. – Michelle H.'s youngest son, and a few weeks ago the thing he wanted the most in his life was a puppy.  He's been completely devoted to Lucy for several weeks now, and he's working with Debbie to learn how to train her.  He wants to run her in agility!

Paradise ponders: bountiful hay, crazy doorbell, and touchupalooza edition...

Paradise ponders: bountiful hay, crazy doorbell, and touchupalooza edition...  Our north field and Tim D.'s field (at right) were both baled last night.  The fellow doing the baling worked well into the night; I don't think he finished until after 10 pm.  Last crop, about six weeks ago, Tim set a personal hay record – best in 35 years –  with 325 standard bales.  This crop is going to beat that by at least 20%.  The main factor causing this was the weather – we had lots of hot, sunny days.  I don't think Tim's going to try for another cutting this year, so that means pretty soon his horses will have the run of that beautiful field.  They'll be especially happy because there will be about a month's growth that they can gnaw down...

Two people emailed me wanting to see the doorbell switch I described but didn't post a photo of.  That's it, installed, at left.  It works fine, but we've discovered that we have a slightly problem: if we're upstairs we can't hear the darned thing!  That's probably also true if we're downstairs.  Looks like we might need a doorbell that rings in three places inside the house – and maybe it should send us a text, too...

I spent much of this morning painting – touch-up work, mainly on trim.  We had a lot of places where the trim had taken some hits, most likely from when we've moved furniture or other big things inside the house.  It's easy work, but a bit tedious.  After that I did my “water chores”: added salt to the water softener, changed the sediment filters (we have two in series), and changed out the ultraviolet bulb in our water purifier.  That last bit is an annual ritual – not really very difficult, but because I do it so infrequently I have to re-learn what to do each time. :)  I imagine I'll be able to keep changing the filters and that UV bulb for quite a few more years before I'm too feeble – but I'm more concerned about the salt.  It comes in 40 pound bags that have to be carried from the garage down to the basement mechanical room, then lifted waist-high and dumped into the saline tank of the water softener.  There will come a time when those things are beyond me, perhaps not so many years from now.  The only solution I can come up with for that problem is to hire a local kid to come do it for me!