October

First snowfall 2012

Les has been gone to California on business for about 2 weeks now.  Andy left for California on the 19th and is returning tomorrow.  I will be driving up to Colorado Springs tomorrow to get him at the airport.  And DJ is leaving for Utah on Wednesday.

People are traveling and moving all around me.  Me?  I've been sitting in my chair all weekend due to a sprained back.

I rented out our apartment again.  The mild-mannered-man-shorter-than-me moved out after only 3 months.  He lost his job and moved to Missouri.  He was a good tenant.  The rent was always on the 1st and he was so quiet we never knew he was there.  Now I rented it to a young mother and her 6 year old son.  She's a CPA so I'm expecting her to be right up front with her rent, too.  I told her that all I care about is that the rent is on time and that she is a good neighbor.  I think she will be.  She has a little dog whom I hope Mindy and Lucy don't eat.

It snowed the other night.  I came outside to find brilliant blue skies and a couple of inches of snow on the ground.  That's Trinidad for you.

North Lake

I've been voted onto the Board of Directors for the local animal shelter.  They want me to be the Treasurer once the term is up for the current Treasurer.  I don't mind.  I hate going out at night but it's only once a month.  Then last week we had a booth at the local "Taste of Trinidad" festival.  The booth was a fundraiser for the shelter.  I helped out in the morning, then cleaned the house in the afternoon.  We raised a whopping $118.  Whhoooo hooo!  Small town... what can I say?

Wolf Creek Pass

I'm so happy that winter is coming.  The summer heat was horrible.  We received no rain... even though the late summer is our wettest time of the year.  Nothing.  The trees are dying.  Today I saw a small buck in town.  He was so skinny it was pathetic.  I hope he makes it through the winter.

Our hotel in Durango

Les and I took an overnight trip a few weeks ago and drove to Durango.  We took the Cucharas Pass that was absolutely stunning with the golden aspens.  We spent the night in an historic hotel in downtown Durango.  Didn't have a very good night's sleep, but the hotel was charming.  Then we drove home via the Wolf Creek Pass... also stunning.  Oddly enough, on the crest of the pass we stopped at an overlook.  The view was spectacular.  And I saw some chipmunks running around so I went into the car to grab an apple and when I turned around -- WOW -- I ran into Tozi Rubin from Newbury Park.  She and her hubby moved to Colorado, but I sure didn't expect to see them there.  Small world.  It was fun catching up.

Garage Sale-ing

After the fun we had at the auction in Raton, (and the parts bin debacle) we decided to go garage sailing on Saturday mornings.  (Now, is it Garage Sale-ing?  Or Garage Sailing?)  Les has been lamenting the loss of his parts bin for the past 2 months.  (See my 7/29/12 blog. )  I told him that the only place he'd find another one was at a garage sale.  So off we went!

I have been trying to get Les to go to garage sales with me for years.  Ever since my friend, Fred, found an antique cloisonne smoking tray for a few dollars at a garage sale, I've been wanting to find treasures at them. But I would always have to go by myself, and where's the fun in that?

Finally, Les decided to go with me and we've gone every Saturday ever since.

We've discovered that the sales in town are generally clothes, kids' things, kitchen items, knick-knacks, etc.  But if you go even just a little bit out of town, we've found some real treasures.

This is similar to what our new bed looks like.

Two weeks ago, I found a king size head & foot board bed frame for a cedar post bed.  It had been hand made by the Mennonites on the other side of the Rockies.  It was a nice, comfortable king size and it was only $100.  When I asked the owner how much it was and she said $100, another woman standing next to me said, "$100??"  I told her I'd take it because these beds can go for over $1500.  What a find!  It's beautiful.  It will need a little cleaning and some wood oil, but will be absolutely gorgeous in our new home.  Of course, we will outfit it with a new mattress and box spring.  I'd never even consider buying a mattress at a garage sale... yuck!

Then, last Saturday, we went out to a little town called Cokedale.  It's about 7 miles west of Trinidad and was home to the miners working in the coal mines in the early 1900's.  Now, it's an eclectic little community with a town hall and a post office and a church.

But we arrived first at a garage sale held by an older couple.  He was obviously a woodworker and just seemed like he was ready to hang up his tools and move to Florida someplace.  She was a crafter, but was selling all of her craft materials because her eyesight had diminished to the point where she could no longer see to create the things she loved.  They were a really kind, old couple and we took to them immediately.

I saw an aluminum step stool and made a nice deal on it.  It's wider and higher than usual so when we start working on our house, it will come in handy.  While I went back to the car to get my money, Les went into his parts bin story, which we have a lot of fun telling.  But when I got back into the garage, Les was looking at an old, green parts bin.  It didn't have a sale sticker on it, but when we asked, we were given a price of $15.  What a steal!

Look at the grin on his face.

 So, Les is finally the proud owner of a parts bin.  Yesterday he sanded it and re-painted it and it now sits safely on a shelf in his shop.  No chance of a forklift driving over the top of this one!

DJ

Daniel is getting out of the Army this year.  He re-enlisted once, and now he's ready to move onto the next phase of his life.  I'm glad, too.  2 of his friends were killed in Afghanistan within the past week.  They were in his unit.  He would have been there with them except for the fact that he had already decided to leave the Army and was given the choice to deploy.  He wisely opted to stay on US soil.

He applied for a job with an oil company.  He interviewed yesterday in Denver and called me this morning to let me know that he got the job!  I'm so excited for him.

He sent me a copy of the offer letter.  Holy smoke!  What a compensation package this kid will have!  He'll have a company truck.  The company will give him $4000 in order to move to Utah.  They will give him a free paycheck in advance and will pay all of his travel expenses.  Then, he'll be paid huge money as a base salary plus over-time.  The kid will be almost making more than I do!  They will match up to 8% of his salary for his 401k.  You just can't beat this deal.

The downside... he has to move to Roosevelt, Utah.  Or nearby Vernal Utah.  He won't know a soul, and will be 500 miles from home.

But he'll be working on his own maintaining the pumps and equipment on the pipeline.  They'll give him all of the schooling he needs for this.  They really want him to join their team, and he's excited to do so.  He's thrilled about the money.  I just hope he's happy.  That's all I've ever cared about.

Critters

We've had a fun time with our "critter count."  All of the little woodland creatures are out and about.

We've seen the baby bear a few more times.  He's always crossing the road.  We never see Momma, just the butt-end of baby as he hurries into the forest.

Today I saw 2 grey foxes.  They crossed the road ahead of me.  When I saw the first one I didn't know what it was because he got into the trees so quickly.  Then just a few feet further down the road was an exact duplicate of the first creature, and it turned out to be a fox.  Must have been a breeding pair as they were identical in size from what I could see.

Yesterday as we walked on one of our trails, I spotted a deer on the ridge just to the west of us.  She was going at a pretty good clip... both running and trotting.  We watched her as she climbed up the hill and casually bounced over scrub oak.  She really was covering a lot of distance and we watched until she got into this little meadow quite a ways away.  She crossed the meadow in no time and disappeared back into the trees.  I assumed that because she was moving so fast that maybe a predator was behind her, but I didn't see anyone.  And she wasn't moving in terror or fear, she was probably just enjoying her young, bouncy life in the wilds of Colorado.

And there was an absolutely gorgeous buck down on the county road.  Must have been an 8 pointer.  Magnificent!

And the roadrunner!  Yesterday a roadrunner popped out of the scrub oak next to the road and crossed just in front of the car.  He climbed up the bank next to the road and posed while I stopped the car to try to get a picture.  Lucy (the huntress) saw the beautiful bird, too.  She stood on the window button and it went all of the way down.  Then she bolted out of the stopped car and flew after that bird.  They both ran into the pinons and I thought for sure I wouldn't see Lucy for a while.  But she came back right away.  I don't know how you can possibly get that chase instinct out of a dog.  I would if I could, but she came to me that way.

It's too bad that I can't get any pictures of these creatures.  It's always a surprise when we see them and they're gone in an instant.

The weather has finally eased a little bit.  Our wet season is the monsoon season, July and August.  The clouds would come, the thunder would roar and the lightning started fires.  But what little rain we had was due to the cloud sneering at us after it past.  Once in a while the cloud would spit in our direction... and that's about all we had.

But the 100 degree weather has passed.  We had 90 degrees last week, but the nights get down to the 50's, so it's not so bad.  If you play the doors and windows right, it's comfortable in the house.

Big Bear!

Angela took this pic of this bear cruising in front of her house.

The other day Les and the girls and I were driving up to our property.  We came around a corner in time to see a baby bear running from one side of the road to the other.  He had dark brown, silky looking fur that glistened in the sun.  It also flopped as he ran so he had pretty long fur... odd for this time of the year.  We didn't see Momma, but we're pretty sure that she was close.

Then last night, at home, at about 2:30 in the morning, Brutus started barking like crazy.  The Rottweiler across the street was barking.  All the dogs in the neighborhood were barking.  The girls went to our wide-open windows and woofed ever so slightly -- still quiet but very alert.  Then all hell broke loose.

The girls started going crazy.  I jumped out of bed and threw open the blinds.  There, standing just 8 feet away was a huge bear.  I mean HUGE!  Really BIG bear!  And I felt pretty vulnerable with just a screen in between us.  His shoulder was easily up to the windshield of my car.  I saw him sniff the garbage can and then he turned and went into the back yard.

From there, he could either deal with Brutus, or he could go down the driveway and deal with the Rottie, or he chose to turn around and go down the walkway from the back to the front of our house.  This of course brought him to within 5 feet of my screen shield and he looked at me as he walked past.  Oddly enough, for such a massive creature, once he passed me and the girls he started walking really fast as though he was afraid we'd bite him in the butt.

The girls tore down the hallway and into the living room.  I heard crashing and barking as I got dressed enough to appear before Andy.  The bear had passed the house and gone down the front stairs, but the crashing had to do with Andy hurriedly closing all of the windows and doors to the house... knocking over some CDs on his way.  He didn't want to have anything to do with the notion that that bear could have easily come into the house.

I think I'll close the windows a little bit more tonight.  If the bear wanted to come in, he certainly could.  But I'll try to make it just a little harder for him.  He's not really interested in any confrontation... he's just scrounging for food.

With the horrible heat we've had all summer, we pretty much have the house wide open at night.  Today it got up to the mid-90's.  We've certainly had worse, but that's still way too hot for me.  And there's not even the slightest hint of a breeze.  That's really unusual for Trinidad.  I'm hoping it will rain tonight.  That will get the air moving.

Auction

One of my EBay items

Les has been saving pennies for as long as I've known him.  He saves all pennies, but gets especially excited when he finds a wheat penny or an indian head penny.

In the last couple of months, he has gone through all of his pennies.  He sorted them out by decade and style.  And has saved everything prior to 1982.  He now has them in various jars around the house.  Everything after 1982 we brought back to the bank on Friday afternoon.  (They just loved to see us with all of those pennies on a Friday afternoon.)

Another EBay item.

We split them up into 7 different easier to carry -- but still very heavy -- boxes.  As the teller fed them into her machine for counting, I asked Les how many he thought we had.  I think he was joking when he said $15.  I guessed $157.

It took about 1/2 hour for the teller to count all of our pennies.  And she picked out probably $2 worth because they were all scummy and gummy and she said they might jam up her machine.  Final total -- $154.95.  I guess I won that bet.

So, being $150 richer, we went to an action in Raton yesterday morning.  I figured we would be there for a couple of hours or so.  They had everything there.  Dump trucks, horse trailers, kitchen gadgets, shop stuff, Bobcats, coins, cars, ranch gates, tractors, gloves, trailers, indian rugs, jewelry.... you name it... they had it.

I first bid on a package of really nice work gloves for Les.  I won that bid.  We watched as the auctioneer and the crowd went up and down the aisles auctioning off everything... and some things twice.  We were interested in the coins, and there were a few rustic tidbits that I was interested in.  I pointed out this parts bin cabinet to Les.  At first he didn't want it, but the more he looked at it, the more excited he was about it.  We tried all 15 of the drawers.  All worked.  The whole piece was about 3' x 18" x 24" deep.  It appeared to be 1930's vintage, but I could be way off on that.  I'm only guessing based upon the items that were still left in the drawers.  He found in one of the drawers a record player stylus that played 78's.  Haven't seen a 78 in ages.

Finally, after several hours, the crowd came slowly around to all of the tools and then the parts bin.  Les, for the first time ever, bid on the item and he won the bid at $25.  He was so happy.  Then after another 1/2 hour or so they got around to the rustic tidbit trailer.  By that time you could tell the auctioneer was really tired because he seemed to be rushing the bids.  I wanted to bid on the indian rug, but before I knew it, another woman won that bid for $25.  Couldn't believe it.  They had Navajo pottery (which I love) and I bid on two of those, but didn't win.  It's hard to justify spending $30 on a gorgeous piece of art when you're trying to save for a house.  Oh well.

Les's squashed parts bin.

I won minor bids on some things that I thought I would EBay.  I think I paid $5 for them.  But as we were watching, suddenly I looked to my right and saw a forklift drive over Les's parts bin.  There were probably 2,000 items in that auction.  There was stuff all over the place.  And the one thing that gets destroyed was Les's.  Les walked over to the driver with his arms outstretched and I can only imagine his mouth open.  Of all the luck!

We won some of the coins, and a really cute towel bar with bears that will go into the new house.  We won 2 rusty, old looking coat hooks and a ring of old jail keys -- also to go into the new house.   I paid about $100 for all of it. 

We came home hours later with sunburn and sore feet; some nick-nacks and no parts bin.  But still had a really good time.

July

Well.... it's been an eventful July.

First, there was the Pre-Op Shindig.  That went off without a hitch.  We had probably 30 guests.  I prepared burgers in advance and marinated some chicken breast in some lemon pepper.  Then I grilled the burgers, some bratwurst and the chicken.  It didn't take too long and it sure was good.  I pretty much left everything else to everyone else.  The people around here bring the best stuff!

We had plenty of beer and wine, lots of soda and water bottles; and so much food.  Once everyone was done eating we sat around the fire pit and talked.  We didn't build a fire because there has been a fire ban in the whole state -- it's been so dry.  We had many, many comments about our 3 sided outhouse and the marvelous view it affords.  Good thing folks aren't shy around here.

We took the telescope out and that was a big hit.  We turned on our little LED lights Les strung through the trees... that brought ooh's and ah's.  A good time was had by all.

Les had his back surgery 2 days later.  They took out 2 discs and replaced them with these wire cage things.  Then they used screws and clips and fused 3 of the vertebrae in his lower back.  He was in the hospital for 3 days.  But they got him up walking the day after surgery.

I stayed in the Springs at a hotel.  It was nice that DJ was right there in town.

Les had a few really rough days when he got home... almost thought he should have stayed in the hospital.  But he is recovering more each day.  Getting stronger.  He's looking forward to another 2-1/2 weeks when he can take the brace off.   He's feeling so much better he'd like to ditch that now... but it's best to wait.

July is always a busy month for me.  This July was no exception.  End of the quarter payroll and sales tax returns keep me busy.  I have a few clients whom I only tend to quarterly.  So it's been busy.  Then with Les out of commission, I've had to pick up some of that slack, but now that he's feeling better he's taking over those chores again, so I'm thankful.

I've had to leave Brutus home for our walks.  What a bummer.  But he's been getting so comfortable that he's causing chaos on our drive to and from our property.  He barks at people and dogs walking along the street.  Our neighbor, Terry, has 2 big dogs that like to chase the car.  When it's just us and the girls, I can stop at the end of their driveway and we scold them and they don't chase us.  But when Brutus is there, he goes nuts.  He's been tearing up the interior of our Subaru.  As much as I love him... he's not my dog.  I've been projecting my loss of Schultz onto Brutus and that's not fair to him or to me.

So we must be content with hanging out in the yard now and then.  I feel very badly when I see him watch us leave in the mornings.  Maybe I'll still take him now and then.  But I just can't take him every day as we were.

One good thing that has come out of all of my attention toward Brutus is that Ben is paying more attention to him, too.  He actually took him to the vet the other day when he developed a big, angry hot spot.  I didn't say a word to him.  And he's making a new place for him to hang out during the days that has lots of shade from the trees.  I still think he does a terrible job being a dog-dad, but it's just ignorance.  And I think he's taking a little more interest now.  I'm really happy about that.

So... newsy blog today.  I've been wanting to write, but sometimes it's yet one more thing to do.  But I always feel better after I've written.