It is a Wildflower Year

The water received this spring and early summer has resulted in one of the best wildflower displays in years. Most of the colors are out, red/oranges, yellows. violets, purples, blues and of course white.

Marlys is attempting to ID the flowers, but my phone camera is falling down on the job.

The only flowers wilting out so far are the Rocky Mountains Loco's, but they seem to be being replaced by the purple Colorado hybrid Loco's.

The Lupines have also sprouted. I thought lupine had something to do with wolves (Harry Potter), not plants.

The entire valley is green, which is great to see. Those of you around here in the 2001-2002 time remember how gray the ground color was due to the drought and how the scrub oaks didn't even leaf out.

The Pinon Rock Walk

This is the walk that Marlys and I try to do everyday when at PR.

The Haul of the Skiueen

The objective: Make two more ski-adirondack chairs.

The task: Acquire 4 more pair of alpine skis.

The outcome: 8 pairs of the skis, mixed alpine/nordic.

The project: What do we do with all of them!

On the face of it, it seemed pretty straight forward, build a couple of more chairs. Since we were out of skis or boards a hunting trip was proposed. I would look up ads on Craigslist and Marlys would make the visit and buy the skis (if they met our strict requirements, cheap).

Little did I know that when I sent her an ad for some skis in our area, that there was actually a neighborhood-wide garage sale in progress.

Well the rest is history. Marlys stopped and bought skis and skis and more skis, to the point that I had to drive the Audi with skis sticking into my side and with my right arm at shoulder height.

So what should we do with them all:

• Make 4 more chairs (remember the original plan was for two)?


• Use one of the old pair of wooden XC skis for an outdoor mount for the deer skull/antlers project?


• Wait a minute the XC skis are narrower, so two pair per chair probably won't work...I need 5 skis per chair, and that will only leave us with 3 pair of alpine skis. 3 pair will only be enough for 1 1/2 chairs, so it looks like WE NEED MORE SKIS!

And I thought that by finishing the bathroom trash can, and the end table, this weekend I would be up to date on projects, but now it looks like an assembly line build of chairs is in the offing, thanks to the efforts of the Skiueen.

I wonder how Craigslist can be searched to eliminate ads that are part of a neighborhood garage sale event?

Monday's Drive into Denver

For the last few months, actually since the threat of snow has diminished, we have been driving back into Denver on Monday mornings. There are a few reasons, but the two biggest in making the decision, was being here the completed day on Sunda,y and there is less traffic on Monday mornings.

The drawback is that we are up at 3:30am to be at work by about 7am. But is reality this is only a little over an hour earlier then when we normally get up at 4:50am on work mornings.

When we began this it was a drive in the dark, but as we get closer to the Summer Solstice the sky is brightening at only about an hour on the road. Starting with this Monday's drive the days will now start getting shorter.

Because Marlys drops me off downtown Denver, we drive in via the CO 9 - US 285 route which can make for some incredible sunrise scenes.

These phone shots don't do it justice but let me place a couple of them. They were all taken along 285 east of Fairplay.


This first one is of the hang gliding launch at Kenosha Pass. It is looking to the NE directly at the launch. The LZ is right where the road curves to the right out of the frame.

These are in reverse order, but I am too lazy to re-config. This pic is looking at the backside of the Front Range just west of Jefferson at the east end of South Park (yes there really is a South Park and a Middle and a North Park). On this morning the only other living thing we had seen on the road, to this point, was a elk we spooked back on CO 9. Meaning there was no traffic.


This last pic of the drive in was earlier so it is pretty dark. This is looking at the south side of Hoosier Pass just south of Fairplay on CO 9.


On the north side of Hoosier is Breckenridge.


Besides the drive in we made a lot of progress over the weekend and finished the under decking project.


Marlys made incredible progress on the deck staining, utilizing the combo scaffolding/shelving purchased last summer at Menard's.


No longer is she standing on the top of a 8' fiberglass step ladder. When I say top it is not the top rung, but the top. It was frightening to watch.


We also got the stair railing finished. I will grab a shot and post it next week.


The projects on the list for this weekend are Marlys' trash can and the living room end table.


Marlys is out today at garage sales buying skis for the building of more Adirondack-style chairs. At the last update she had paid $20 and gotten 4 pairs, so far. She appears to be in her element.


UPDATE: Just in Marlys is up to 8 pairs of skis for a total of $50. We will be making chairs all summer.


She is the Skiueen (Ski+Queen) of garage sales.


She has also become pretty proficient in using the HVLP sprayer, which was her weapon of choice in staining the under decking material.


Next week she is staying up and hopes to finish her deck staining project (she has a rear one to re-stain now too). I will also leave the trash can and table for her to put a finish on.


BTW our next hike up a 14er is tentatively scheduled for July 10, and we will be going up Mt. Sherman.

Projects, Projects, Projects

My arms probably won't recover from the another house project started this weekend. Because it is spring/summer here most items are focused on the outside work...with some inside jobs on the list when it over develops and starts to thunderstorm. This week was a case in point.

Since building the house there has always been a observational issue with the underside of the deck/balcony. Because the approach is uphill the deck joist were always pretty obvious.

We have talked about a number of ways to fix it, e.g. staining, putting in a cross hatch panel and the one we have decided on putting beetle kill Ponderosa Pine furring strips on the bottom of the joists. This weekend we got started.

Marlys has been putting a first coat of stain on the 150+ strips in the barn for the last two weekends and probably has another full day to go, while I stood on a 6 foot ladder and installed them. Marlys will put another coat on when she re-seals/stains the entire deck later this summer. Marlys has been putting the HVLP sprayer to work with the staining and I used the finishing nailer I got for Christmas a few years ago. This nailer has been very under used in that I can do most everything with the pin and framing nailers, but with this project it is earning its keep (what ever that is). But, it does weight a few pounds and after a period of time I can hardly lift my arms.

Anyway, we got the north side of the deck done before the storms rolled in and I think this will be the ticket to camouflage the deck joists. probably a couple more days needed before it is done.

When the storms rolled in we moved inside to finish the railing re-model. The color of the Paudek is great after a couple of topcoats. When it started raining on Sunday I put the post caps together and I am going to hold of on taking a picture until they are installed.

The old railing caps (curly maple) have been re-sawn and will become the top to a table for the living room.

On Sunday morning we went into town to visit the Western Heritage Festival at the Abbey. It was only its third year so there is still a lot of room to grow, but they had Old Time Baseball games going in the afternoon with the Colorado Springs team playing Canon City. Turns out this is an organized league. An because the teams are playing in the 1860-1880 era, they don't use mitts of any protection for the catcher, pretty basic just a ball and bat.