Month: May 2015

Since I did two posts last week, Saturday and Monday, I’ve covered most of the events of the past week. This is going to be a short post!

Weather has improved; mostly sunny skies, no rain, and temps approaching 90 degrees today and for the next few days. (What happened to our 70s and 80s?) We plan to finally get The Box (RV trailer) up to our Sanderling lot next weekend. I am waiting on a replacement window glass; I was trying to straighten a window frame that didn’t quite seat and I cracked the glass. The local glass shop is replacing it but had to wait for tinted glass to arrive; they had only clear glass on hand.

Waiting for replacement glass

Around the house, I tested the swamp cooler yesterday (anticipating the warmer weather coming this week). The water supply line had developed a leak that had to be repaired but everything looks good to go now. Today I will be replacing some window screening so we can open a few more windows to let in the cooler morning air. Pam has put together a list of stuff to stock The Box for our summer weekends at The Lot and she’ll be going grocery shopping later today.

Pam says “No more flower photos!” but I couldn’t resist adding this photo of one of our columbine plants — all are blooming profusely. Yellows, pale and deep blues, purples, and this deep red are all doing very well this spring.

Columbine are doing very well this spring

Most of these colors would never exist in the wild, or only in very small numbers, but several varieties do well in domestic flower beds.  Pam designated one raised bed, in our back yard, as the “columbine bed” when we first put it in years ago. As the plants mature they are self-propagating and doing better and better.

In family news, Craig and Dianne’s house is moving along. Latest photos show the walls are framed up and rafters are going in. Craig will begin roofing in a few days.

End rafters are in place on the Paroubek house (Photo from C. Paroubek.)

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

“Nasty poopies!” I’m sure our neighbors appreciate my (very vocal) attempts to keep the dogs from snacking on cat poop in the yard.  KitKat has decided, now the weather is nicer, that the entire lawn is her cat box. Apparently some of the feral cats have followed her lead.  Lovely.  Cleaning up animal poop (and barf) appears to be my life’s work…

Happy Trails.

Sunday (May 24) we braved the weather and took a trip to SW Colorado, the Durango – Bayfield – Lake Vallecito area, to look at some potential retirement properties. We viewed several properties, eliminated some, fell in love with one that is dramatically over our budget, and experienced a lot of different weather conditions. This post will cover both the weather and the properties, almost two different stories.

To get from our place to Durango we had to cross Red Mountain Pass, one of the higher Colorado roads that gets to near 11,000 feet elevation. We knew we would probably run into bad weather — if not at Red Mountain Pass, then at Coal Bank and Molas Passes (both located between Silverton and Durango).  It’s still winter in the high country, aided by all the recent (and ongoing) precipitation.

Approaching Red Mountain Pass, 5-24-15

View from Molas Pass, 5-24-15

Hwy 550 north of Silverton looks like it is still mid-winter on  May 24th

We experienced rain, snow, fog, hail, and sun breaks during the trip. Most of the time, though, we were able to drive to (and later view) the properties during sun breaks, or at least in  drizzling rain.

The properties were a mixed bag. The few that were affordable needed renovation or repair, much like this cabin:

Cabin in our price range near Lake Vallecito

Storage building comes with cabin

No garage, although there is space to build one. The cabin’s calking needed to be replaced, ramps were not in good shape, and steps needed to be replaced. This would mean a lot of work before the place was “move-in” ready.

Another place looks to have a bit more potential, although also needing work.

Most square footage for the money but a funky layout.

No walkway to the front door

Featuring an attached 2-car garage and a large basement, this place looks like it is a foreclosure and the interior appeared to be stripped of carpeting.  Potential, just takes more money to redo the inside.  Exterior landscaping would need to control moisture/runoff from the dirt roadway that approaches the property too.

Top of the line, and way out of our price range, was this stream-side cabin with a detached garage:

Stream-side cabin had it together.

Detached garage is part of stream house package

Stream from upscale cabin (Realtor photo)

The stream frontage was great, featuring a nice background sound of water over the rocks. This property had our desirable “big three” – view, water, trees – plus plenty of garage space, a flat lot, in a very tidy (and upscale) community near Vallecito Lake and not too far from Durango (location, location, location), and finally, enough space for all our stuff. Not perfect; stairs inside to upstairs bedrooms could be a problem as we age, but this was the place we liked the best. The clincher – only about $600,000.00 over our budget… 🙁

A daunting 485 miles and 13 hours after we began, we returned home. We experienced lots of weather, scoped out several properties and residential areas, and drove through part of the state we had not really visited for many years. While a bit discouraged that all the properties in our price range either need lots of work or are lacking in some way (no garages, mostly), going forward we now have a better idea of the “lay of the land” in the communities we visited.  We will review real estate listings accordingly.

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

The two mountain passes providing road access to the southwest corner of Colorado/Durango area are not for the faint of heart. The Red Mountain Pass/Highway 550 approach we drove on this trip features a remarkable scarcity of guard rails, narrow shelf roads, and sheer drops hundreds of feet down.  (I couldn’t help but think of my brother Craig while on this route, as he and I share a discomfort with these types of “scenic drives.”)

A summer view of Hwy 550 coming out of Ouray on way to Red Mountain Pass. Note lack of guard rails.

Approaching from the east, however, is Highway 160 – the famous Wolf Creek Pass road (from song and legend).  The serpentine switchbacks on Highway 160 have more guard rails, but are equally as stressful to drive.  The two routes are not for the casual driver, nor are they well-suited for regular commutes in all weather conditions.

Three levels of roadway on Wolf Creek Pass. (Web photo.)

Happy Trails.

Rain is forecast for this weekend…
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Rain is forecast for this weekend…
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Rain is forecast for this weekend…

I hate to sound like a broken record, but this weather pattern is driving me nuts. Every weekend for the past 6 weeks has had rain storms. There have been some sun breaks (one right now as I type this) but everything is soggy. On the other hand, the lawn and flowers look the best they have in the 10 years we’ve lived in the De Beque high desert zone. Even so, how many flower photos can I post before “Geeze, Jer, enough is enough!” At the risk of repetition, here are a few more photos from around the house.

Peonies in bloom

Front flower bed and garage

Front yard

Green grass in the high desert

Hollyhocks are growing in front of the house and some have huge leaves the size of salad plates. We’ll have to wait for a while until they flower to see what colors we get (they cross-pollinate prolifically). It would be nice if the weather stayed dry for a while, but the upcoming week has a high chance of rain forecast through next Friday. I guess I just need to enjoy the green while it lasts.

Note that The Box (RV trailer) is still sitting in our yard. Maybe next week I’ll be able to tow it up to to the Sanderling lot! Intermittent snow and occasional overnight temps of 29 degrees at 9,000 + feet — nope, not time yet.

Craig and Dianne are moving ahead on their house build back in Wisconsin. Here’s a recent photo Craig sent us of the progress as of Friday this week:

Paroubek home under construction.

We are following the arrival of the lumber and walls going up with much interest and hope the project continues smoothly.  Craig is the general contractor, one busy dude.

I am writing this on Saturday instead of my usual Sunday morning, as we are taking a day trip to the Durango/Lake Vallecito/Bayfield area of SW Colorado on Sunday. The dogs will remain behind this trip; the neighbor will let them out frequently during the day and feed them dinner as we fly by the seat of our pants through western Colorado.  It has been some time since we actually visited the Durango area (I’ve been to a cycle rally there fairly recently). We’ll be looking at general development + amenities + services, as well as trying to locate a few home listings we have seen on-line. It will be a long day and we hope the weather co-operates, at least going over Red Hill Pass (11,018 feet) between Ouray and Silverton. If the weather turns ugly, we’ll abort the trip and return home. More on this outing will be in my next post.

Thats it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Trips into different areas of southern Colorado should be scheduled throughout the summer.  With the Sanderling property now designated as “recreational” into retirement, it appears that much like the Boll Weevils in the old folk song, we are “lookin’ for a home…”

Happy Trails.

We continue to review documents for refinancing our home loan. What caught my eye are the number of forms and the amount of paperwork required. Here is a list of documents that need to be reviewed or signed and returned:

Please sign and return the following documents:

That is 38 forms to sign plus another 5 to review. It might be worth it to save about $250.00 per month on the mortgage payment, but it takes a few months savings to make up for the closing costs which are roughly $1,400.00. Then we need to pay off a second mortgage, another $4,000+. And…it turns out we need to get an “engineering statement,” not required when we bought the place, to further the paperwork. Price for this is about $350.00. All the engineering statement does is certify the house, which is a manufactured home, is tied down adequately to meet HUD requirements. The statement is required for this FHA loan refinance.  The first 8 months of monthly mortgage savings would cover the closing and engineering statement costs, not exactly a bargain, then the second mortgage would have to come out of savings (originally targeted for the well drilling at Sanderling). The process continues.  High finance – Warren Buffet we are not.

The weather remains in the news. We have another rainy weekend and next weekend’s forecast is about the same. It is supposed to be nice in the middle of the week for all the good that does us! I mowed the lawn 3 time last week (Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday) to try and keep the lawn from turning into a pasture. Our iris plants look better than they ever have and other flowers (columbine, peonies, and flax) are doing well. The lilies are growing but don’t show signs of flower buds yet. Tulips and lilacs are done but morning glories are just starting to show tiny leaves as they begin to sprout. All this rain is at least good for the plants, I guess. Fire danger is low too.

Front flower bed

I will mention that KitKat, the young semi-feral turned outdoor cat, is getting friendlier. She will allow herself to be petted at feeding time and this morning, for the first time, she wound around Pam’s legs asking to be fed. It would be nice if KitKat became a bit more friendly toward humans. (For some reason, she gets along fine with the dogs.)

KitKat, May 17th

Otherwise the weekend routine continues. I try to get in my two walks a day plus do yard work between storms. Grocery shopping got done, and this week was “gasoline week” which happens every other week or so. We save up our promotional fuel point discounts offered by our local food store chain, King Supers, and buy gasoline at a discount. Our discount hit 80 cents per gallon  this past week so I took my extra fuel cans and filled up to our maximum allowed purchase of 35 gallons, a savings of $28.00. With the car full up the extra will let us run another couple of weeks before we have to buy more fuel. A typical week will see us using 22 – 25 gallons of gasoline, more if I am operating the truck. I paid $1.72 per gallon after the discount for regular unleaded.

Reserve gas cans

The extra fuel is stored in gas cans lined up along the wall of the garage. I can store up to 42 extra gallons this way, but rarely have that much at any one time. One can is generally reserved for premium fuel to be used in the ATV and motorcycle, neither of which has seen much use in the past few weeks due to the rain.

We continue to monitor Craig and Dianne’s home construction photos in Wisconsin’s North Woods. Most of the cement work is done and the in-floor heating coils for the main house are in place. It looks like walls will start going up shortly…the entire process is moving along well!

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

I detest working with money lenders. You’d think they would be grateful that we, the general public, bailed out their sorry industry after they threw this county into recession.  But no, as a group they are as greedy and money grabbing as ever.  Their motto is screw the customer, then screw them again.  I had to laugh (sardonically) – the broker we’re working with said our credit score is the highest she’s ever seen.  Did it get us a better interest rate? Did it cancel the mortgage insurance requirement? No and no.  I begin to think a high credit score is vastly overrated.  G-r-r-r-r-r.  Very frustrating.

Happy Trails.

This is getting a little monotonous.  Another weekend of on-and-off rain is severely limiting our ability to work on our weekend chores. And it is cold…nighttime temps dropping into the 30s and the furnace running from time to time.

The lawn looks nice and green, but trying to get it cut between rainstorms is a little difficult. I did manage to mow yesterday morning, but was left with clumps of wet grass dotting the lawn. Some I picked up, the rest is just there to attach to dog and cat feet and be dragged into the house. Pam put a couple of old towels down inside the door to supplement the rug and try to catch as much grass as possible before it could  spread throughout the house.

Taking The Box up to the Sanderling lot is also out; Fairplay received a dusting of snow and more is forecast for 7,000 feet and above. Pam checks webcams in the area and a few of the images appear to be from the middle of winter, instead of spring.

Fairplay, CO, on May 10th

So…given the long-range forecast (more rain [or snow?] likely for next weekend) we changed plans and now think The Box will go up to The Lot the first weekend in June. An alternative plan is for me to take a day off during  the next few weeks and move The Box then; this would get around having to deal with weekend traffic over Vail and Hoosier Passes. It just depends on the weather.

Last year at this time we had just finished putting in the driveway extension and had snow flurries during that job, so snow in the high country is not unusual for this time of year. But the amount of rain we are getting here in the high desert is setting records. (Several flash flood warnings were issued this past week.) Colorado can use the moisture; I just wish it would rain during the week and leave weekends free for doing fun stuff.

Lilacs, Peonies, and Columbine are blooming in the yard along with a few different colors of Iris.

Flowers blooming in our yard

Blue iris

News of other odds and ends…

We are still waiting to get forms for the refinancing of the house, had hoped to have that done this past week. Maybe we will move forward this week. (?)

Craig and Dianne are moving ahead on their house construction in the North Woods of Wisconsin (and it looks wet there too). Interesting to see the photos of the progress Craig posts on Facebook (and occasionally on Dianne’s blog Puppy Tails).

The new tires on the Honda are a nice addition, particularly with all the rain we have been getting. Handling and security is much improved over the old tires.

I am receiving a 3% raise at the Sheriff’s Office this year, better than nothing but it probably won’t keep up with the price of gasoline which has gone up over $1.00 per gallon since hitting a low of $1.50 (or less) late last year.

In between rain and wind storms, a neighbor is having a yard sale to raise money for the Boy Scouts; a good cause but the traffic is driving the dogs nuts. We can’t let them out in the front yard or they would go hoarse from barking.

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

I ordered poppy plant starters for the Sanderling lot (approved for elevations over 7,000 feet) and this year I’m going to try to plant the Heavenly Blue variety of morning glories (from seed) up there too.  That is, if Spring ever comes to Sanderling…

Enjoy Mother’s Day, those of you who have found that designation to be fulfilling.

Happy Trails.

I had mentioned that we had some soggy days  toward the end of April. Here are a couple photos I took on the way to work (over a 2-week period) of storm systems breaking up:

Colorado River, April 26th

Roan Plateau, April 19th

Our commute is long but does give us an opportunity to view changing weather conditions.  We can observe the weather and check on a couple of eagle nests as we drive back and forth as well.

Daughter Felicity is now out of France and heading for a cruise, departing from New Orleans and going to the Bahamas. After that, she will be back in Portland (Oregon) before heading to Vancouver Island (British Columbia, Canada) where she will be trading some web site programming time for a place to stay. Quite the nomadic life.

Pam connected with son Toby to find out how his waiter job is progressing.  (I  know, Toby a waiter, boggles the mind.) Toby has also started part-time umpire duties for the summer ball season in South Bend.

I finished sealing the underside of The Box in an attempt to keep rodents from entering. A good cleaning and restocking and it will be ready to roll.

New tires were put on the Honda – all season Michelin Defenders – not cheap at $576.00 for the set of 4 but they do carry a 95,000 mile tread-life guarantee. I will check on their performance over time.

Temps hit 80 this past week but a cool-off is in the works, down to our normal average in the low 60s. OK by me; I have not yet put our swamp cooler into summer operating mode. That will be an after-work project for later this week.

All the normal spring tasks are getting done; lawn mowing, weed whacking, dandelion digging (I don’t like using a lot of chemicals with all the animals running around) and cleaning. Pam is going through “kid” boxes we took out of storage and I am cleaning the garage. Both of us are getting restless to get up to The Lot and get going on our summer projects, as well as starting to look at more properties that might suit as a retirement home.

We filled out the application to refinance this place and I will be going in this week to talk to the mortgage lady. It will be nice to secure a lower interest rate but it also means some costs to refinance. When we bought this place we qualified for a no-interest 2nd mortgage that will have to be paid off, which is where most of the re-finance cost will come in. We can afford the expense, but it will put a hit on our savings — worth it in the long run for the lower interest rate, but a short-time hit none the less.

Pam has a “spa day” set up for the dogs; they will be getting their summer “buzz cut” trims later this month. Blondie, with her short hair, always looks pretty much the same but Bru and Jo really benefit from a complete trim.

Our lilacs are beginning to bloom, tulips, peonies, flax, and iris are blooming, and other flowers are starting to show colors. The lawn is very green from the recent rains. It looks like our columbine will pop in the next week or two. The lilies are growing every day. It is pretty obvious we are transplanted Midwesterners!

Blue flax flowers on front lawn

Lilacs beginning to show colors

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

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Day trips to potential retirement locales this month may include Durango, CO and Alamosa, CO.  Watch this space.

Happy Trails.