A Big Girl Now

Ranger took a little trip to Pet Co today. She's getting so big. Too big for my lap so we shared the seat. She got her dog tag, a new collar, a lead, and some treats and toys. There was a lot of activity at the store which caused a lot of tugging on the leash. But she handled it very well. Lot's of other animals there to greet with a little sniff, and maybe a snarl. She got plenty of pats on the head from staff and customers.

New pictures of her:

Patrolling the back yard.Cute little rump.

Sprawled on the kitchen floor.

At the front door with a couple of toys at her feet.

Let There be (Beautiful) Light

Yesterday we installed the new porch lamps. It's was a little bit challenging because of the narrow space on the left of the door. Thankfully the back plate fit perfectly, and snugly.
When I bought the house there was only one fixture on the left so I had another one installed on the right, but rather than tear open the walls, which wasn't in my budget at the time, I had them run the conduit on the outside up and over the top of the door. When painted it blends in well enough. But the electrical box protrudes from the siding so we had to figure out how to deal with that. I think the back plate covers it pretty well and the fixture is so pretty you really don't notice the rigged up mechanicals.

Here are a couple of pictures.
Before

After

Pintura de la Casa Completa

Or, The House Painting is Complete! It took 4 weeks, but it's done. When we did the final walk around yesterday to see if anything needed attention before they called it a day, I saw only one corner spot on the siding that needed touching up and before I could even say anything Victor was there with a brush in his hand painting the spot.

Jesus' guys really did an excellent, if somewhat slow, job. Really thorough. And that's as it should be. I knew Jesus would take care of the details and not short cut the process.

Here are some before and afters. We'll start at the back. BeforeduringAfterThe garden side beforeand after.The front before

and afterI also used a piece of wood salvaged from my old falling-apart potting bench, cut it down to size and painted it, then put the new house numbers up. We have new porch lamps arriving this week with the same arts and crafts detail. It will look very pretty. It's wonderful how transforming a new coat of paint can be. And I love love love the knee braces. They came out perfect.

Arches NP, Moab, UT 07/09/06 - 07/11/06

On our road trip this summer I found Arches NP wonderful. This was one of the places I was really interested in seeing, and drove 12 hours straight from Yellow Stone to get there. We stayed at the Kokopelli Lodge, which is really an old rundown-ish motel just off the main street of Moab. Comfortable enough once we got the a/c figured out.

Driving in to Arches is surreal as we encountered a lanscape so different from the dense forrests we had been through for most of the trip so far. This lanscape of low brush, red earth, endless views across the horizon is a spectacular environment of natural formations of arches, spires and fins. There are over 2,000 arches in the park, the greatist density of natural arches in the world. And it's amazing to be in the midst of this wonder with the realization that it is ever changing and shifting over time. Particularly Landscape Arch which is only 6 feet thick at its narrowest point, and since 1991 three huge slabs have fallen away from the arch causing park rangers to close the trail that once passed under it. It seems apparent that in due time this arch will no longer be there for visitors to see.

After driving through Park Avenue and then Courthouse Towers we headed up to Devils Garden. It was very hot but not overly crowded out on the trails. The Devils Garden trail is fairly easy and well marked up to Lanscape Arch, then it turns in to a rustic trail wich is marked by cairns. Most people seemed to walk out on the well maintained trail as far as Landscape Arch then turn around and go back. But beyond Landscape are more Arches, including Partition Arch, and at a point along the backbone of a large, high, fin it gets a little unclear as to the way to go. There were a few of us on the fin discussing the possibilities, and soon we located the cairn and picked up the trial again. We ran in to a very friendly couple with with Netherland-ish accents and talked with them a bit of our road trip travels and thier travles in the U.S. Nice, friendly, like-minded people.
Our plan was to drive out of the park during the hottest time of the afternoon, stop at the Vistors Center, then drive along the Colorado River when we saw a thunder storm rolling along and stopped to catch images of the lightening. It reached the park before we got out and pools began to form on top of the buttes creating spontanous waterfalls. As we wound our way down the road to the park entrance we were greeted by park rangers who had everyone turn around and led us back up the road to higher ground. We were told that between us and the park entrance, through a switchbacked portion of the road, there were several washouts and that the road to Moab had washed out.

The temperature must have dropped about 20 degrees as the storm blew through and everyone waited patiently for it to move on. They eventually led us down and as we pulled into the Visitors Center the entire parking lot was covered in a wash of red mud, but otherwise everyone was safe and unnaffected.

Instead of the drive along the Colorado River we went back in to the park with the intent of hiking out to Delicate Arch, but the weather was still a little unpredictable and the daylight wouldn't last too much longer so we opted for a shorter hike around the Windows section that had a nice grouping of arches to see, including Balanced Rock, Double Arch and Turret Arch.We reached the road to Moab and it had quite a smear of red mud across it as well, but the road was open and passable. Once back at the Kokopelli we made use of the their restaurant guide and walked the few blocks to get pizza and a couple of beers at Isabella's Pizzaria, the best pizza ever. The next day on the road to the Vermilion cliffs we side tracked to Natural Bridges National Monument then on to that fated stretch of highway outside of Mexican Hat in Monument Valley where we found our 4 little pups.

Progress Report and a Mojito Please

After the painters left on Saturday I went out to see what they did, and my baby made us a couple of de-lish Mojitos. The Knee braces on the north side are still raw, but on the south side they are caulked and have a coat of primer. They have almost all of the trim primered. Still have some of the upper windows to do, but it's moving along. I think Jesus said it would be about two and a half weeks, and it's been just that. I figured that with the detail it would take a lot of hand paiting and frankly I was surprised they were able to spray the siding color on.

They have also taken great care in scraping the old paint off the window panes and cleaning up the overspary, which I'm very pleased with. That's one of Will's pet peaves about house painting, the slop of paint onto the window panes. For me it's when they put too much paint on the brush and the paint drips and hardens.

Ranger Dog

Ranger got her stitches out Saturday morning and her cone came off. She's growing by the sencond and fetches with enthusiasm running back with her stick or ball and barrelling into your lap, though she needs to work on the "drop it" part a little bit more. Will's got her sitting very nicely for a cookie. This morning we went out to get the paper and I took her for a little trot up the block on her leash. She did pretty good. Here are some shots from a little play time with her stick in the back yard.

Painting in Progress

I first began this process in February, got a few quotes in March, but ultimately decided to go with my trusted Jesus, who wasn'’t going to be available to start for several months, as he was on a big project in Santa Barbara. Which was a referral from a referral of mine. I'’m happy that he'’s doing well, driving a new red truck and all, but it'’s increasingly difficult to get into his schedule if you'’re not prepared to wait in line.

Now, Jesus and I go way back. He was on my foundation crew, working for Sinai Construction back in the summer of 1999 when I bought the house. After that he went out on his own and he'’d stop by occasionally and say Hi and chat and see if there was anything he could do for me. I had a few odd jobs on occasion but it wasn'’t until my corner tenant moved out and Will moved in that I called him to open up the rental unit to the rest of the house, making it our library, and renovating the bathroom.

He did it all in two weeks with his helper, Victor. Demo'’d the stove gas line, cabinets, relocated the electrical switch and light fixture, put up new drywall, and tiled the bathroom, moved plumbing and installed a new sink, molding, trimmed out the door, installed a ceiling fan and painted the entire space, including ceilings. The whole thing in two weeks. And he pays attention to the details and he does good honest work.

So I waited for his schedule to open up, which began last week, with Victor here on his own for the first few days prepping. As he sanded away the old layers of paint I was surprised that there weren'’t more coats. It looks like under the top coat is a creamy color, over a grey (probably a primer), over a hunter green.

Now Victor and Jorge are at it and color is going up, fast. I'’m very excited to see it all done. I'’ll post a few shots as it progresses.

Part of what I've want to do is restore the knee braces. I have all the horizontal pieces, but the diagonal braces have been removed. It would have been nice if they had just tossed them in the basement, but they are long gone from the premises. After much searching of the itnernets I did find knee braces, but they are expensive, and I only need the diagonal piece, and I need 19 of them.

So I thought a less expensive solution would be to use the existing projection, have the workers cut a 6x6 angle piece then "cap" it with a decorative molding. I found a very reasonable manufacturer and ordered a few diferent styles to sample, then Jesus and Victor worked out the measurements and angles and installed a piece to see how it looked. When it's all caulked and painted it'll look like one stunning piece.

I made my choice and ordered the other 17. However, the manufacturer is in Cananda, and they were running behind in their production and wouldn't be shipping my order until mid-July. I replied that's fine as my project won't be starting until about mid-July, and the timeframe would work out fine.

When the first week of August passed and I still hadn't received my order I shot them an email. I got the reply that my order shipped 08/01/06 by DHL. Well countless emails and excuses later informing me it's all DHLs fault, of lost packages, hazardous spills in the DHL facility, getting held up in customs, and finally that I should have delivery by Monday (yeah, we'll see).

I guess eventually they'll un-burry themselves from whatever stories they have manufactured to cover the delays and actually get my order produced and shipped to me. And hopefully they'll arrive before my worker's go on to their next project and I have to wait another 5 months to finish this one.

Traipsing the Trails

Traipsing the Trails in Yellowstone, WY 07/06/06 - 07/09/06

Although it does seem that the majority of visitors drive from parking lot to parking lot, walk out to the vista points, and drive on to the next one. We got out of the vehicle and hit a few of the 30 plus well traveled trails in Yellowstone. And, except for Artists Paintpots, we mostly traipsed the trails in wonderful solitude without encountering too many other people (who tend to talk too loudly, walk too quickly, and generally annoy us) as we amble along and take photos, embrace under the sun, and write in the sand.Tower Fall Trail

2 miles out and back

Description: The trip to Tower Fall is one of the shortest but most rewarding hikes in the park. The trail leads to an overlook where you get a great perspective of the 132-foot waterfall. However the switch-backed trail that takes you down to Tower Creek and the foot of the falls was closed due to instability. We did manage to scramble down to the river’s edge and get a closer look and feel of it.Canyon Rim South Trail
7 miles out and back
Description: There are two ways to see the sights of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. You can drive from parking lot to parking lot, get in and out of your car several times, and call it a day. Or you can hike this spectacular trail along the canyon rim and see it all. The scenery is world renowned the entire way with many views of the mighty Yellowstone River and its Canyon, Lower Falls and Upper Falls, all the way to Point Sublime.Artists Paintpots
2.4 miles out and back
Description: This short hike skirts the edge of massive Gibbon Meadows. It is partly boardwalk and the rest is double wide, flat and easy, winding its way through several interesting thermal features, hot pools and steam vents.

Lone Star Geyser
9 miles out and back
Description: A very pleasant hike along the Upper Firehole River passing beautiful meadows. The geyser, named for its isolated location, erupts 30 to 50 feet every two to three hours or so for about ten to fifteen minutes. We reached the geyser and just caught the tail end of it erupting.