Tuesday May 12 2009

East end of the Sawtooths from hill near the house.

Still no green on the trees yet.

More Sawtooths, from the hill behind the house.

The neighbor's flag. I watch this flag all the time

to see how hard the wind is blowing. It kind of

works like a wind sock to see the direction too.

.

Joe and Joe with the backhoe

Ohhhh soooo windy again gusting almost 40 mph. Beverly was going to take a hike with the dogs again, but she chickened out just like I do when the wind is blowing. It's mostly cloudy but the sun seems to keep spilling through some of the cracks. In fact it has just started to sprinkle a little.

First I brought out this sack of "stuff" - I knew not what - that was in a cupboard when we moved in, to ask Beverly if she knew what I should do with it. Turns out it is vermiculite, lava rock and rock wool that should go in the gas fireplace under the fake wood to make it look like there are glowing coals. So we took the fireplace apart, cleaned the glass, she vacuumed the bugs out of the fireplace, and she put the "stuff" in around the logs. We turned on the fireplace and it is cozy watching it. Doesn't add much to the warmth of the house though. We've hardly used the fireplace all winter. Guess it seems like a waste of gas.

The furniture hasn't been moved since we set it there six months ago, so today we moved all the living room furniture. Beverly vacuumed the carpet and under all the furniture and also vacuumed the furniture itself. There was a lot of dog hair stuck to it that wasn't that visible. In fact, don't think I've mentioned just how much dog hair that new vacuum gets up every time I clean. I'm so glad it works like it should, since it was pretty expensive, and Beverly is saying she wants one like it. We got a set of sliders on the file cabinet and need to buy one more set for the desk, then we'll move that too. Seems like we've been busy with something or another all morning and I'm ready to take a break, so will get the blog started.

Joe the plumber got here maybe before 10 a.m. He is a very nice man. I can remember years ago I would have to sometimes get plumbing parts from him to repair things at the lodge. Joe would always say "Go to Joe", and I'd have to look him up around town or hope he was in his office. He has done a lot of work all over the county through the years and his dad before him.

Well they got the backhoe started up and have a humongous hole and equal pile of dirt in the back yard. This part is getting the line from the well to under the foundation at 7' deep and then bring it up in the crawl space. Remember that the water froze up there last winter because they had brought the line up outside the foundation instead of bringing it on under the house at the same depth.

Joe stayed for lunch and it was nice to get to know him better. My Joe has coffee with him every morning so they probably are pretty well acquainted by now.

So this afternoon they are working under the house. The second thing they are going to do is put a recirculating pump on the hot water line, so water will be hot back in the bathrooms instead of waiting a long time for it to get there. That will be done later.

All the warranties for everything new we bought has been stuffed in an envelope and filed without a glance all this time, so maybe we will go through all that and get the warranties filled out and mailed, and.... and..... maybe like Duene says - read some of the directions for many of the things and learn how they are supposed to work. I have a bad habit of just trying to figure it out. Probably miss a lot of things that way.

Tonight we're going to Obo's to bring home some of their mesquite barbecued ribs for dinner, with artichokes.

Judi is getting closer to home every day. They are coming through Colorado today.

"When you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours."