---

Back home again

We actually arrived back home last week, but this is the first chance I've had to get back here.  When I left Boulder the house looked really spiffy.  All ready for winter.  The guys came and put in the fence posts so my daughter can put pre-built fencing between them.  I think it will look really good and it will keep the kids from running out into the street.  For some reason, they love dogs. Every time they see one they run to it.  Not a good thing - hence the fence (Hey! That rhymes!).

Good trip home.  Had a bit of a headwind so we only made about 17-18 miles per gallon, but I was pulling a 4x8 trailer loaded with about 450 pounds of "stuff".  Mostly, it will be taken down to a place in Waynesville where they lease you a small table and you put your antiques (read: junk) on it with price tags.  They monitor your table and receive all cash.  At the end of the lease period, they will give you your money - less a percentage - and away you go.  We brought back loads of stuff that might just sell for some serious money.  A lot of it was my father-in-law's farm implements (small woodworking tools, etc.) but they are in high favor nowadays as antiques.  Even had a galvanized zinc field cooler.  This is sort of a old-fashioned vacuum bottle, but made of zinc with an air-gap between inner and outer walls.  You put a block of ice in it and add water and you can have cold water all day while working the harvest and things like that.

My truck, however, didn't get back without a little battle damage.  Apparently, the clutch throw-out bearing is starting to go a bit dry.  It "grrrr's" when you put the clutch in for about the first mile or so.  Then the noise goes away.  The Nissan dealership wants $906 to fix it.  Luckily, there are several professional alternatives to this: Midas and AAMCO come to mind right away.  I have to take it over to them and see what they say.  I'm betting that the dealership will be the most expensive.

Seems like every time I go back to Boulder I get a new dingy on the side of the truck.  This trip was no exception.  Why the hell can't people get out of their cars without flinging the door open wildly and smacking the vehicle next to them.  This one is about two inches long and takes the paint down to the primer.  Dammit!  The parking spots around Boulder were made for something along the lines of a Mini-Cooper, and, since every third person drives a huge pickup, they try to fit it into these small spaces.  Hence the dingies keep coming.

When I got back the grass had grown so high I had a Vietnam flashback when I started walking around the house.  Just kidding.  I got out the mower and ploughed into it.  Had to make two passes to get it down to normal in places.  The flower beds look nice though - loads of late-bloomers and autumn flowers in them.  The Morning Glory vines have now reached the top edge of the front porch and are now sending their little spy-tendrils towards the front window.  They will start to die though as Autumn progresses.  Apparently a bird dropped some sort of wild flower seed in the bed.  The plant looks like a small elephant ear and has a flower that looks like a large white trumpet bell.  When the flower drops off, the plant starts to form a huge (2 inch) ball of seeds with spikes all over it.  Then, it pops open and spits seeds everywhere.  My wife hates it and I'm not too fond of it because it shades all the other flowers.  Time to get rid of it - if I can.

 Also time to finish grouting our master bathroom shower.  Somehow the old tiles lost a bit of grout and let water leak through and ruin the wallboard behind it. I ended up having a hole about 3 feet by 2 feet that I had to put new wallboard in.  Then I had to stick the tiles on it.  Then I had to re-grout it.  Time for the second batch of grout.

Byee!

 

Current mood: Working hard & losing weight!


OOh - My aching back

I have spent the last three days working around the yard. Raking leaves, moving rocks that used to be part of a rock garden, and digging up protruding roots so the mower will go over them without bending a blade. My back is really, really, hurting. I wish Boulder had a nice Japanese hot bath with backwalkers. I could sure use one right now. I also put in a bunch of screws into the soffits to keep the trim from coming down. This involves a lot of ladder work and reaching up with a heavy drill with a screwdriver head on it. Come to think of it, my right arm is hurting also. Since I'm ambidexterous it really makes no difference which arm I use, but I do tend to use my right more than the left. Yup, I can sign my name either hand also - left slants to the left and right slants to the right. Two completely different signatures.

I have also moved a load of 4x4's from one part of the yard to another, put up two really huge 3/4" plywood doors on a storage shed, and did some tree pruning. Been very busy around here.

Weather has been very nice still. Today the temperature ran up to just over 80 degrees but the humidity went down actually - from 56% to 45%. Nice breeze too. We have the doors and windows open to air out the house. The kids are over at their father's apartment so we can navigate through the house moving stuff without dodging them.

I must have drunk three litres of water today. Dry air really makes you dehydrate quickly.

Later.

 

Current mood: Very Sore and Tired


Busy, Busy, Busy

I have now been in Colorado for two weeks or so.  I spent the first week duckwalking under the house in the crawlspace pushing, pulling, and dragging heavy stuffs to the small door and pulling them into the light of day.  Some of it was old "things" put down there a few years ago, but most of it was put down there during the last Ice Age.  I must have brought out 30 jars of peach, cherry, and pear preserves all done up nicely in Ball jars.  Some of them even had dates like 80, 79, and the like written on them.  All of them had gone to alcohol and very smelly if broken.  I wouldn't have wanted to even taste the strange brew produced.

I did find several things electronic though - among them an old Philco radio right out of the 50's which used something called "tubes" (or "valves" as the British say).  Still works nicely, but there is a pretty bad hum because the power supply capacitors have dried out - must replace them.

Weather has just been peachy (if you'll pardon the phrase).  Temperatures up in the high 80's or low 90's but NOTHING like Ohio in the summer.  Much less humidity.  We are over 5400 feet here in Boulder and at this altitude no matter how hot it gets during the day it really drops at sundown.  Since the mountains are directly to the West at about 1600 or so it starts.  By 1800 it is probably near 20 degrees cooler - and getting dark also.

I am hoping to find the time to run up into the mountains and do a bit of photography and fishing. I can get from 5400 feet to almost 13000 feet in a little over an hour if I head up to Rocky Mountain Park or the Poudre River valley up North.  If I go directly West I can reach heights of around 9 or 10 thousand in no time.

There is also an old narrowgauge railroad line which used to connect the two ends of what is now the Moffatt Tunnel under the continental divide.  The line used to run over it instead of through it. Nowadays it is just a skinny dirt road and if you meet another car you have to slow way down and sidle past each other. Loads of photo opportunities on this trip.  Unfortunately you can't go from one end to the other now.  One of the tunnels and most of the old bridges aren't safe anymore so it is closed from Boulder to Rollins Pass and you have to go down to Interstate 70 and cross the divide and then come back East up the other side to get to the pass.  There used to be a big hotel and resturaunt up on top of the pass during the early 1900's. All you can see now is the foundation.

 Back to work.

 

 

Current mood: Big-Smiley