Month: March 2014

Yesterday (March 29) I scheduled a high country drive to visit our lot at Sanderling Court. I wanted to see how much snow was left and use that as a gauge to determine when we could get started on the driveway extension project.

Quite a bit of snow has melted since my last visit but there is still more on the ground compared to last year at this time. Given the conditions I found I think we can plan to start the driveway work during the last week of April.

Drive extension will go along this hillside about half-way up the slope.

The saddle still had a significant amount of snow and it is deeper than it looks.

End of March snow in the saddle.

The winter view across South Park was quite nice.

Late winter view across South Park from Pavilion Point

The most noticeable sign of Spring was the livestock released into our open range.  What are they finding to eat this time of year?

Cattle on Link Road near our lot.

It was a very pleasant visit overall and I was glad to see the snow retreating. Now we can start making definite plans and schedules for late April.

In about-the-house news, last week I took up a maintenance  job I had not done before: replacing the filter elements in the swamp cooler. Supposedly this should be done annually or semiannually but I had not changed the filters in the 8 years we have been here. I wasn’t looking forward to it.

Basically one must remove the filter holders, remove the old filters, and install the new ones. Shouldn’t be such a job.  Right.

I couldn’t find filters in the size our unit takes. The filter material is shaved aspen held together by a fine nylon netting. I found filters the correct width and had to cut them to length.

Given the amount of time since the last maintenance, I had to scrape and wire bush the holders to clean them (no surprise).  Not fun, but I used my shop vac to help clean up the debris. Here’s a photo of one frame being cleaned:

Cleaning the swamp cooler filter holders

Once the old filter was removed and the frame was clean, I installed the new filter material. Repeat 3 more times for the other 3 holders. By #4 I was getting pretty good at it.

Installing new filter material

Installing the filter material holders in the filter frame

I hope it will be months before we need to use the swamp cooler and with this maintenance it should be ready for Summer cooling season.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

At about the same time our storage shed is being built in Colorado Springs for our mountain property, my brother Craig and his wife Dianne are having their storage shed built in Bloomer, Wisconsin for their lake property.  Interesting  —  both my brother and I are at approximately the same stage in life where second home property projects occupy our time (and money).  Where our interests differ is Craig and Dianne have two married children and four grandchildren.  We have zero married children and zero grandchildren.  Each is as it should be.

Happy Trails.

The truth be told, it was a quiet week. Spring arrived with more moderate temperatures, around the home front there was not a lot going on. But…here is an update on a few of our projects.

We ordered our 10×12 shed this week from Sunset Buildings in Colorado Springs. While ours will not have the windows pictured below and will be painted tan, here is a manufacturer’s photo of the shed:

Our King model shed. (Mfg. photo.)

As noted before, this is a top-of-the-line shed and we hope it will last a long, long time. Sunset will hold it for us until we get the driveway extended to the saddle where  we want the shed to sit. Our unit will have a wider (5-foot) door to facilitate getting equipment in and out.

In other “lot” news, a local lumber yard – Sutherlands – had their annual spring sale featuring 15% off all purchases. We had taken advantage of this last year to buy railroad ties, pavers, and gates for the lot. This time around we bought fencing, personal gates, more pavers, and various odds and ends to be used on improving the Sanderling property. The fencing and gates are for a semi-permanent dog run (hopefully good for several years); Pam wants containment so the dogs have a secure place to move around [dig!] while we work. We bought enough fencing to build a (roughly) 40×20 dog run. It will take us a full day or better to get this built.  We will likely relocate the dog run in the future, once house plans start to take shape.

Stuff (mostly dog run) for The Lot

We will store the stuff in the aluminum trailer (under a tarp) until we can get it up to the mountains.

I ordered a solar panel kit (80 watts) from Northern Tool to help supplement the solar panels installed on the roof of the RV.

Solar panels for the RV. (Mfg photo.)

I plan to re-mount the 3 existing panels (total of 60 watts) as well to improve their performance, giving us more charging capacity. I hope to leave the generator home this year, at least until the shed is in place and I need more electrical power for various tools. I would have waited on this purchase but it came up on sale so I went ahead with the order.

We are going to have a bunch of “stuff” to take to the lot once the snow has melted and we can begin working on our various projects. This will still be a while; although daytime temps at 9,000 feet are above freezing, night time temps are still in the teens and twenties. The snow will not totally disappear up there this month. I hope to get over to the lot next weekend and check things out.

So, other than ordering “stuff” and going to the sale, it was a quiet week. We had some rain here but higher elevations received snow. Powderhorn Ski Area, which we can see from our back deck,  picked up 6 inches of new snow out of the same storm. The mountains around here are at about 127 percent of normal snow  (aka: snow pack) for this time of the year. Daytime temps are in the upper 50s – low 60s but it is still below freezing at night. Not yet time to break out the lawn mower. 🙂

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Happy trails to you, until we meet again

Happy trails to you, keep smilin’ on till then

Who cares about the clouds when we’re together

Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather

Happy trails to you, till we meet again.

I guess Roy Rogers and Dale Evans had an actual “club” on TV back in the day, it stretches the beginnings of my memory to recall much more than Trigger (Roy’s horse).  I do remember the two of them singing the Happy Trails song in two-part harmony.

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. (Studio photo.)

Happy Trails.

Every place needs some art. Art to this point, for us, has consisted of  framed photos hung around the place. We’ve never invested in other types of non-photo art. Enter Bali, their artisans, and metal wall art. We decided to get this one for Valentines Day:

Wall art from Bali

Size is deceiving; the piece is about 52 inches high by 26 inches wide. It depicts a waterfall dropping off a high mountain cliff. We ordered it on-line around Valentines Day but waited a month to receive it, as the importing company delays order fulfillment until they have a full container to be shipped from Indonesia. We’ve looked at this type of thing for many years, amazingly enough the metal sculpture we ended up with is quite attractive, sturdy, and an interesting addition to the room upgrades Pam has been working on all Winter.

Small flowers are beginning to appear on our lawn. I have not taken the time to identify them but they do add a splash of yellow and purple to the wilder parts of the lawn:

Yellow flowers appearing on the lawn

Purple flowers blooming this spring

There was snow on the wind yesterday, though, and night time temps are still in the mid to upper 20’s, so Winter hangs on, even at our elevation.

We are getting ready to order a 10′ x 12′ shed to put on the Sanderling lot. A Colorado Springs company, Sunset Buildings, has a sale going through the end of March and we have decided to take advantage of sale prices. The unit we’re purchasing is a high-end mini-barn with trim and eaves. Not the cheapest at around $4k [including delivery and taxes] but we need it to “last until we die” so we’re looking at a high-end structure. Plus, delivery from anywhere to 9,000 feet has to be taken into consideration.  I requested a loft space upgrade, as well as upgrading  to a 5-foot wide door instead of the standard 4-foot door to make getting equipment (such as the ATV) in and out easier.  The company will hold the unit until we can get the driveway extended up to the saddle (where we want the storage building to sit).

Purchasing a shed would check off one of my four goals for the summer (the driveway extension is a primary goal) — the other two being the installation of a septic system and drilling a well. (Well would have to come first according to Park County rules.) This is an ambitious plan but it’s nice to dream. Of course there’s always lot clean-up to fill our high country days.

Next year’s goals would be to put in an off-grid electrical system, get a large propane tank on the property, and finish the lot clean-up in the immediate building area. After that we could start house planning in earnest.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Goals – all it takes is money.  And lots of it.  Forget expenses in hundreds of dollars, try thousands.

Happy Trails.

I had mentioned, a few posts back, that I would not be out snowmobiling this year. I am, however, still on our club’s e-mail list. When I received a note that Arctic Cat would be hosting a spring demo event featuring their 2015 models I signed up for a 12:00 noon ride.

Arctic Cat and Yamaha are the two major players in this area that put on these demo sessions every few years. It is a good time to see (and ride) the factory-fresh models. This years’ demo was held at a lodge overlooking Vega Reservoir, part of Vega State Park, about an hour drive for me.

I am not in the market for a new sled but thought I would get out for at least one ride this season. In addition the demo rides were to be lead by Amber Holt who is well-known through the snowmobile industry as a premier back-country rider and instructor. Amber’s web page is  http://www.backcountrybasics.com and she offers classes to individuals and groups with the aim of improving rider skills.

I arrived a bit early and found the rides were running a few minutes behind schedule. That was OK as it gave me a chance to talk to the AC folks about their new sleds, and particularly the models that are using a Yamaha engine. From these discussions I decided to demo ride a M 7000 Sno Pro. This upper-end unit (not top of the line) is designed for a combination of on and off-trail riding. It features a fuel-injected, 135 hp,  Yamaha 3 cylinder 4-stroke engine.

Jerry on his demo-ride Arctic Cat (Photo by A. Holt)

The day was perfect, almost too warm as the snow was fairly packy. Due to some participants changing their ride times there was only myself and one other rider, along with the ride leader, on this particular run. (Each outing was scheduled to last about 2 hours.) This gave us some flexibility to ride to more remote  destinations that a larger group may not have visited. After a dealer-provided lunch of Sloppy Joes and home-made cookies we headed out.

It was good to be out on the trail again. After a 15 minute trail ride we arrived at a large meadow area with some interesting side trails to explore. Given the small size of this group I approached  Amber and asked if she could give me some tips on improving my cornering technique, allowing me to “carve” a corner instead of going around “flat.” She agreed to do so, and for the next half-hour she demonstrated her advanced cornering techniques. While I sort-of got the hang of it, trying to implement these tips on a new and unfamiliar sled proved difficult and I am a long way from being proficient. Still, it was a lot of fun and I learned quite a bit.

After the training and playing in the snow for a couple hours we headed back to the staging area. I filled out a survey giving my impressions of the sled I rode, headed back to my truck, and drove home. It had been a very good day. I may have to renew my snowmobile registration for next winter.

Changing the subject, in a previous post I mentioned the “snow line” we often see as we commute to work. This is the point at which snow turns to rain. Here is a photo, taken near De Beque,  showing a snow line on  the Roan Plateau:

Snow LIne on Roan Plateau

It was raining in De Beque and snowing on the upper portions and top of the Roan. (Photo was taken on my way to work this past Friday.) It happens quite often that the weather conditions at home area quite different  than conditions at work due to the 700 – 800 feet change in elevation. We have acclimatized to these changes, they are now normal for us, but these elevation changes are not common to most of our friends and family. This is just one of the differences that characterize living in Colorado from living in the Midwest.

The last of the ice has disappeared from our lawn. Grass is greening up. Today we will take the mulch off the flower beds and rake up some leaves that hit the ground after last fall’s final raking. I guess Spring is really here even though it is still below freezing at night.

Taking mulch out of the front flower bed.( Photo by P. Fields.)

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

While Spring may be “here” in the  high desert, it has not arrived in the high country.  We’re discussing when we can return food items, cosmetics, water etc. to The Box up at Sanderling without being concerned liquids will freeze in overnight temps when we’re not up there.  We can’t move forward on machine rental for the driveway extension until such time as it’s feasible for us to RV overnight.  Maybe late April is a target date this year?

Happy Trails.

Today we are enjoying (?) intermittent rain showers. Iris plants are poking up through the remaining snow and mulch. Birds are flying in and out of the hole in the Cottonwood tree. Snow is gone from the roof and nearly gone from the yard. (A layer of ice persists in the most shaded areas.) Grassy areas are turning green.

It looks like Spring is here. However, looks are deceptive. The high country is getting hit with snow and as we commute to and from work we can see the snow line [on the bluffs of the Mamm Range and Roan Plateau] only a few hundred feet higher in elevation than De Beque. This morning the deck was slick from the below-freezing temperatures we had last night. So, while we are enjoying the Spring-like conditions (forecast high for Thursday is 60 degrees), we know Winter isn’t over yet. The only question is when will we get hit again?

Yesterday (Saturday) was nice enough that I moved the cars and several of my toys out of the garage and did some cleaning. I swept and shop-vac’d dirt, old leaves, cat hair, and other assorted stuff along the edges of the garage and under the counters. This time was not a full Spring cleaning, but it was good to get the Winter’s accumulation of dirt cleaned out.

In other news, our good friends Hank and Elinor, who live in Casa Grande, Arizona, celebrated birthdays in the last couple weeks. Eli is in her early 90’s and Hank is in his late 80’s. They’ve been good friends since we bought our first house in Colorado in ’79 or so — they were the closest neighbors. Our kids’ middle names come from this couple. We hope Eli and Hank are around for many more years.

Since we don’t live particularly glamorous lives, there is not a lot of other news to comment on. This week we went through only 23.1 gallons of gasoline plus a couple gallons more for the ATV, one of the lower totals for an average week. This translates into about $90.00 for fuel; any time we are under $100.00 for the week we think we are doing pretty well. Regular gasoline is selling for about $3.60 per gallon at our usual station.

We have penciled out a couple of additional house plan ideas for Sanderling, but really need to get to the lot and pace off some distances to get a good feel for where a cabin will sit, measure the grade of the slope involved, and consider other factors (well and septic placement) that would affect the design of a place. Lately our rough ideas are for a 32 x 40 house-over-garage arrangement, but that is subject to change!  The Solargon and cabin from an earlier post are in the running too.

Although lot clean-up and projects ( driveway extension, well, tool shed) will take up most  of our spare time this Summer, we’re going to try to take a few trips and travel a bit more than we have in recent years. All this takes planning and a budget, which at this point includes putting a few charges on our (mostly) paid off credit cards. If we waited until we could pay everything in cash we would never go anywhere, so this may be the year we tap into that reserve.

The latest shower has passed over for now, so this is a good ending point for this post.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Of all the moving we’ve done in almost 40 years together ( 20+ addresses), keeping in touch with some of the friends we’ve made along the way is “the best.”

Happy Trails.