Category: General (Page 58 of 64)

Welcome to Christmas 2012

For all who are visiting this blog as a result of receiving our Christmas cards, welcome and Merry Christmas! The same for those who have visited in the past. It’s nice to have you stop by. (Click on any photos in this post to bring up larger versions.)

Pam and I had the typical year with both high and low points. I will cover a few of them here, but you might want to go back through previous posts to get more details and view photos of these events. At the top of the page is a link to my photo galleries. The galleries include photos of our land, trips I have taken on my ATV, collections such as my fall colors photos, and other general interest collections. Viewing them is a good way to kill a couple of minutes!

Pam’s father, Myron, passed away in February. This leaves both of us without fathers at Christmas for the first time. Myron was a Navy veteran and was interred in his home town of Merrill, Wisconsin. I must give a public “Thank You” to Pam’s eldest brother, Larry, who had taken it upon himself to take care of Myron’s affairs for the many months Myron was in care facilities. Larry did a geat job.

That was probably “the biggest downer” of the year. However, we also had high points.

For the last couple years we had been looking for a piece of recreational land in the mountains of Colorado, and finally found a 7 acre place that fit our budget and “want-to-have” list. The driveway will be long and expensive, but the lot itself has a good mix of evergreen and aspen, a decent place to build a cabin, and does not look over a next-door neighbor. Did I mention it’s at 9,600 feet in elevation?  We closed on September 14 and have begun the process of putting in that difficult driveway, clearing the lot of some dead wood, and just enjoying being in the high country. You can view more photos of our lot by clicking on this Sanderling link. (The lot address is off  Sanderling Court.)

View of South park from our lot.

I was able to take my ATV, acquired in November of 2011, out on some excellent rides in Colorado and Utah this year. One of the reasons I enjoy Colorado is due to the state’s rich history of mining and railroading, and I greatly enjoy mountain scenery. Getting off-road with the ATV helps me enjoy all these elements. Photos of these trips can be found on the Galleries page in the “ATV and off-road trips” section.

Jerry with “The Griz” ATV in Tomboy Basin

Other activities for 2012 included a motorcycle ride to Ohio where I joined a few dozen club members. We were able to ride in eastern Ohio and western West Virginia and worked in a visit to the American Motorcycle Association’s museum. I enjoyed this trip, which took place a few days before and after Memorial Day.

Jerry (back right) with club members at AMA Museum.

While not of high interest to many people, I was able to bring my Dad’s old 8N Ford tractor back to Colorado and begin working on it. Many of my blog posts have details of the trials and tribulations these repairs generate. My goal is not to restore the tractor, but to have it in good running condition and use it to pull a trailer around the mountain lot while we get firewood, plant trees, haul landscaping materials, and other light-duty work. The tractor has been in the family for more than 45 years and many family members, including all of Mom’s and Dad’s grandkids, have memories of riding behind “Grandpa’s tractor.”   My brother Jon, Dad and I also used this tractor in the woods during long-ago summers, when we cut and sold pulp to cover college expenses.  I would like to keep it going a few more years.

Bringing the 8N home.

Pam was, as usual, active in fostering kittens for the various rescue agencies in the area. She had a couple batches of kittens to take care of, and kittens are always fun. Pam does an excellent job of raising the kittens  to the point where they can be returned to the shelters ready for adoption. It seems like the ones that come out of our house are adopted very quickly, as the kittens are so well acclimated to house-hold living, dogs, and other cats. The last batches all were adoped within 3 days of  getting back to the shelter. We’re always glad to see them get into good homes — that’s what fostering is all about.

Pam with a batch of foster kittens.

Son Toby moved back to the Midwest (South Bend, Indiana) in October. This move was something he had saved for and planned for some time. Toby said when he had a choice of where to live, a choice he could make for himself, why not live next to Notre Dame University?  We hope it works out OK and that he finds a job.  Daughter Felicity entered Year Two of running her own social media company. Felicity is our “city girl” and enjoys the music and cultural opportunities that a large metro area  (Portland, Oregon) can offer. She recently joined a singing group and has been performing at concerts around the Portland metro area. You can see more about our kids on our Kids page.

Over the months we completed some home improvement projects, such as adding a privacy fence to our back yard and upgrading lighting in the garage. Over-all, though, it was a quiet year compared to some.

We do seem to be busy and life (particularly vacations) seems to pass quickly. Please keep visiting this site; it is the best way to get a peek into what we are doing with our time and energy.

And finally:

The Mayans were wrong. Happy New Year!

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

This week is Thanksgiving week, so Happy Thanksgiving to all.

It has been pretty quiet since my last post. We put 605 miles on the Honda last week, burned 18.6 gallons of gas, about normal for us. I did a Walmart run yesterday; Pam will do grocery shopping today while I do some more work on the tractor. I found another item to repair on the tractor; the exhaust manifold is leaking because of a blown gasket. Not expensive to fix, $12.00 or so for new gaskets and hardware, but it will take a couple hours to do the work. The 64 year old nuts that hold the manifold in place are rusted and corroded; removing them will be a real pain.

My mother is home and doing well. I called her yesterday to see how she is doing, and she says she is feeling better. Her plans are for a Thanksgiving get-together with my siblings and a few family friends, with my mother not doing any of the work. I hope this comes off OK.

Otherwise the week was pretty mundane. We finished the last of the yard work for this fall. All the flower beds have been layered with leaf mulch, hanging baskets have been taken down and emptied, and winter fertilizer applied to the lawn. Space heaters were brought into the house to do some spot warming in the cat room and bathroom. The doors to these are normally closed so they don’t get much circulation from the rest of the house. One more heater is parked near the computer desk. The days Pam works from home  require quite a bit of computer use – she has to search course catalogs from institutions of higher learning – so the computer and the space heater are running several hours each day. The extra warmth feels good. We generally keep the place cool with the thermostat set below 65 degrees.

Life is mostly made up of the regular and mundane. I replaced one of the light fixtures in the garage, went to the opening of a new store in Grand Junction (Tractor Supply Company, or TSC) and learned how to do photo collages in PhotoShop Elements.:

Han and Naja’s wedding photo collage

As with most of my photos, clicking on the photo will open a larger version. In most browsers, clicking on the large photo will zoom in on place where the curser is placed. This can give you some nice close-up views of  photo details.

TSC turns out to have a pretty good pet supply area with much lower prices on one of the dry dog foods Pam buys, Blue Buffalo. Price at TSC is about $7.00 per bag less than at the pet store. I suspect we will be dropping by TSC from time to time.

Pam has started to work on our Christmas card list and getting cards and materials together. Seems the card list gets a little shorter each year as some of the older generation passes on. It’s always a bittersweet task to update the list. Still, we look forward to Christmas communications each year. Most likely we will get our outside decorations up the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Although not extensive, we do drape lights on the garage, fence, and front windows. This year we plan to top a tree from the lot and put it up, fully lit, on the deck. Should be fun! If you missed it last year – I didn’t post it until very late – we did have an electronic greeting card, animated and with music, at http://www.appleattic.net/christmas.html that you may enjoy as we begin the 2012 holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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

Life has been both ordinary and hectic since my last post. Several events have occurred, some of them not so nice.

My mother, who will turn 83 next month, recently spent several days in the hospital. Her heart is not what it used to be, pumping less blood per cycle than normal, and she had developed liquid around the heart. Fortunately the condition can be treated to a large degree with drugs. She is home now and my brother Jon and sister Sienna are watching her for the next couple days. We hope the drugs do their job!

I missed a couple days of work with stomach flu. Seems I am more susceptible to this in recent years. Pam had me go to the doctor to see if I had an ulcer or other contributing condition, but the doc didn’t find anything. I’m feeling better as I write this, but have not eaten a lot for the last 4 days. Maybe today I’ll manage 3 meals.

Pam observed a birthday. (I am not at liberty to disclose which one it was.) We had planned to take the day off and go over to the lot, but the weather stopped us. Forecast is for 1 – 2 feet of snow above 8,000 foot elevation, and we expect to see some snow  (up to 1/2 inch) accumulate on grassy areas at our place. We decided to stay home instead.

Fall clean-up continued last weekend when I decided to carry out my promise to our snow-bird neighbors, Jim and Jolene, to clean their yard of leaves at least once in the fall. J & J left for their winter home in Arizona a month ago. Here are a couple photos Pam took of me using my lawn-vac to clean up their yard:

Jerry with his lawn-vac at work

Removing leaves from Jim and Jolene’s yard

I line the back of my old Scout with a large sheet of plastic, dump the shredded leaves on the plastic, and drive  to a disposal site near town. I pull the sheet of plastic out to dump the load. Not as convenient as having as a truck, but the [enclosed] Scout keeps the leaves from blowing around as I transport them. It works OK.

The majority of work is done, but there will be some more raking and hauling to be done for both yards before the snow really sets in for the winter.

The other afternoon our oldest cat, Mira, was lounging in the sun and I captured this shot of her:

Oldest cat Mira capturing a few rays

Nothing like a cat sleeping in a sunny spot.

Speaking of cats, we were pleased to learn that Pam’s last foster kittens have all been adopted. Quinn, Quentin, and Quirky had gone through their spay or neuter operations and were adopted within 3 days. We do not know if they went as singles or a combination, but it is nice to know they are out of the shelter and into good homes. That result is what makes fostering worth-while.

We are glad the election is over and even happier the robo calls have stopped. Several people have commented on Colorado’s passage of a recreational marijuana bill. (Dude – we are too freakin’ old to be stoners.  Bummer.)  This poses several problems for the state, one of which is the law does not go into effect until 2014. The bill gives the state 1 year to put in place a regulatory and tax structure, and the tax part has to be voted on again before the bill becomes law. 15 percent is the proposed sales tax. There is a part of the bill that promotes the use of other  hemp-bases products, such as rope. Trivia question: Did you know that early American money was printed on hemp-based paper?

That’s what’s been going on in our part of the world since my last post, pretty much just daily life.

Thanks for looking in!

We recently flew to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to attend a wedding. The younger son of Pam’s lifelong friends, Mary and Jeff Hayes, was to be  married in an outdoor ceremony. We knew Han and had met his wife-to-be, Naja, a couple years ago during a trip to Wisconsin. While we had some concerns about the weather during this time of year we looked forward to the event.

Rather than driving we arranged to have a neighbor look after the cats and dogs for a couple days and we flew to Minneapolis via Salt Lake City. I normally like to have a window view, but managed only 1 window seat the entire trip. Here is a photo of the Salt Lake taken on the approach into Salt Lake City:

Great Salt Lake with Wasatch Mountain backdrop

The flights, both ways, were OK but crowded. No delays, no real long layovers, everything was on time. Still, one cannot help but feel like a member of the great unwashed masses. Only real problem: My suspenders always set off the security scanner alams and I have to get patted down. I refuse to remove them to go through security. Besides, it gives the TSA agents something to do.

We stayed at the Carleson Courtyard Inn & Suites, as that was the designated base of operations for the entire wedding party and guests. Nice hotel, and the off-season rates were decent. Better than usual accommodation for us, as we had a suite on the first floor which was quite comfortable and convenient.

We arrived on Friday night and found Mary, Jeff, and some of the guests gathered in the hotel’s breakfast room enjoying some adult beverages and talk. We joined right in. Pam knew many of the wedding attendees, having grown up with Mary and Jeff’s brothers and sisters through elementary and high school. I had met many of them on other occasions, including class reunions and other family functions, so didn’t feel like a stranger.

One of the common questions asked by people we had not met before was “How are you connected?” to the bride or groom. The use of the word “connected” seemed to be very appropriate. This gathering felt a lot more like a small community of friends and family coming together rather than just an event. Given the hotel’s breakfast room and menu we ended up eating together and talking to more people than we ever had at a wedding. It was very nice!

Pam had sent some e-mails to her family letting them know we would be in Minneapolis. Her sister Becky and brother Craig were able to make it up for a visit on Saturday morning. This gave us a chance to visit for a couple hours and catch up on family news. Here is a photo of the siblings:

Becky, Craig, and Pam

The wedding was scheduled for 3:00 PM on Saturday. Temperature was supposed to top out at about 40 degrees, 10 degrees below normal for the day. There was a light breeze blowing from time to time which increased the chill factor. After saying goodbye to Becky and Craig, we jumped into our rented car and took off to find the wedding venue. The directions we had were somewhat vague, but we managed to arrive (just) before the ceremony began.

The wedding was held at Gale Wood Farms, a farm donated to the State of Minnesota to run both as a park and working farm. The site chosen for the ceremony overlooked a lake, which offered us a quite nice view of the rolling lands of central Minnesota. Many guests had arrived before us. A few men were dressed in suits, myself included, and some of the ladies were in dresses, but most were bundled up in heavy coats and wearing gloves. The wind stopped, but it was still a chilly day.

Hanny and Naja’s outdoor ceremony

The Episcopalian ceremony went quickly and  the new couple were soon on their way to form the reception line. The reception was held in a (heated) barn-like structure near the site of the ceremony. The heat was appreciated, and we set out to talk with other guests until dinner was served. A few of the guests were from Mary, Jeff, and Pam’s high school class and were good friends. We struck up converations with a few of them:

Jan and Tony Hutchens (left) join up with Tim Turnbull (center) and Pam (right)

Mary and Jeff  made the rounds to all the tables while dinner was being served:

We had an evening of talk and a good meal, then it was back to the hotel. We were tired, but it had been a good day.

The next morning, Sunday, we slept late and had breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast options included:

Fresh fruit * Hard-boiled eggs * Fresh pancakes * Biscuits and gravy * Apple, cranberry, orange  juice * Coffee * Milk * Sausage links or patties * Several flavors of yogurt * Several different pastries *  Cold Cereal * Instant oatmeal, several flavors * Dry cereal * Several flavors of tea bags for hot tea * Fried eggs * Toast * Various garnishments, including grated cheese, for your eggs or whatever *

After breakfast we packed up and checked out. Before we did this, though, I used the hotel’s office station to print our boarding passes for the return flight. The plan for the day was to visit the Mall of America, walk though a nearby IKEA store, then head for the airport. Having the boarding passes in advance would save us some time and hassle in checking in for our flight.

Neither of us had ever been to the Mall of America. The visit gets mixed reviews from us: The center “canival” section was pretty amazing, but the stores were just the same stores you see in most malls. Nothing really unique stood out.

Here are a couple photos:

Entrance to the Mall of America

Carnival in the Mall of America

After a great deal of walking we headed for the car and drove to the IKEA store to check out the “mini-houses.” The “mini-houses” are layouts of small houses, ranging from about 280 square feet to around 385 square feet. We were looking for ideas on how to furnish the inside of a small cabin and came away with several good ideas.  For the first time, we tried the lunch menu in the IKEA cafeteria.

Then it was time for us to return the rental car, check in for our flight, and begin the journey back to Colorado.  Five hours after boarding our plane in Minneapolis we were back in Grand Junction and driving home.

I guess the animals were glad to see us, the dogs more than the cats (who knows what cats think?). We had taken Monday off to do the chores we would normally do on the weekend. It was a little odd to be grocery shopping on a weekday. The foster kittens returned to the shelter on Monday, as well.  Tuesday it was back into the “normal” routine of commuting and work. Our little vacation was over.

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

It has been a week since my last post, so I thought I better write a bit to let people know we are still alive.  There are a couple topics to update.

Last Sunday we went to the lot to continue driveway clearing. While we did some work on that, we also took time to walk the lot’s steep upper region. Pam is looking for a Christmas tree, and the pine and spruce are thicker near the back of the lot. We spotted a couple of tree-topping possibilities to consider for the holiday tree.

The day was super. While we had thought we might find snow, instead we had a bright day with temperatures in the low 60’s and a bit of a breeze. Although the leaves have dropped from the aspen, it was warm enough to generate the “pine” smell that you get in Rocky Mountain forests when it’s warm enough. It’s an aroma I particularly enjoy.

Photos from this outing:

Jerry by lot sign

Pam, myself, and our 3 dogs near Squirrel Rock.

We had a great weather afternoon, far better than we expected, and lingered as long as we could before we had to head home. Next time we’ll remember to bring camp chairs, as finding a comfortable place to sit on the rocks proved to be a challenge.

We did not bring the trailer this time as my 5-to-4 wire adapter failed, leaving us with no trailer lights. I have a spare adapter in the garage, but will have to work on it’s wiring harness before I can plug it into the Subaru’s wiring system. Always something.

The foster kittens are doing better. All are suffering from an upper respiratory  condition, but they seem to be getting over it. They have a lot of energy and are eating well. Here are a couple photos of them:

Quirky (left) and Quentin (right)

Quinn

My nose is finally healed to the point where I am not covering it with bandages or Band-Aids. What a relief to shower again and not worry about soggy bandages or bleeding on the towel. (Ah, the small pleasures of life.) The nose does look better, but is still red from the last session. The worst is over but regardless, no more needles in the nose for me.

Toby has not yet found a job in Indiana (one might ask, has he even looked?). We hope he does soon, as his savings account was not large to begin with and there is not much of a cushion for him to fall back on. He does seem to enjoy being back in the Midwest, though.  Particularly  during Notre Dame football home game weekends.

As I write this we have a lawn full of soggy leaves; it’s been raining and blowing for the last day or so. Snow level is down to around 7,000 feet, and we saw the white stuff on both sides of the valley as we came  home from work. We are not ready for this. What happened to our fall? Tonight was a hot-soup-and-french-bread evening, followed later by a cup of hot tea. No TV, just listening to music and working on this post. It is a quiet evening. On that note I will close.

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