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.
Noted your XS11 location – Brockville, Canada. A long ride, especially for those based in California.
Good to hear that Hank & Elinor are doing okay…
Also good that the weather’s warmed enough that you’re focusing on summer activities.
Locally, we’re in the middle of a “warm-up” — almost 15 degrees, at the moment! ‘might get near freezing by the weekend, which says something about this winter — “freezing” is still 10 degrees or so below normal!