July 2018

 So, did I mention that we're in a record drought in Colorado?  Almost no snow last winter, hardly any rain all spring, and super hot and dry this summer.  I probably forgot to mention it, because we've got irrigation and when you have water, you tend to forget how good it is to have.  Well, that ended on July 4th, when our irrigation water went off for the year, about 2 months earlier than it normally would.  What?  We've got a garden full of plants that are just really starting to get going!?  Luckily, we'd anticipated this a little, and Linc had been watering pasture and garden like crazy since early spring.  The garden saw something like 10" of water applied during the last 10 days leading up to the end of irrigation.  Still, 110 F out, and no irrigation, it's a little unnerving.  

L repaired the electric brake controller on the old Toyota pickup, in case he had to try pulling the 9500 lb tiny house on wheels down the road (while Jeanne herded goats) in case of wildfire (we live at the edge of highly flammable Pinyon-Juniper forest).  We talked about what we wanted to take with us if we had to evacuate quickly.  Linc started prioritizing what plants in the garden would get water and what wouldn't over the next few weeks (we had 6000 gallons stored in an old above ground swimming pool, and a few more thousand backed up in the underground irrigation pipeline).

Needing to take our minds off of all this, we went for a couple of day hikes in the high country.  They were both beautiful, but our favorite was the one up Buckskin Basin to Avalanche Pass in the Maroon Bells Wilderness.  Spectacular.  Here's one of Jeanne on final approach to pass.

Wildflowers on way up ("Mules Ears" and Lupine, I believe).

View at the top.  Mount Daly to left, part of Capital Peak, a 14'er with a crazy knife edge climbing route to summit, to right.  Video (by others!) of the Capital Peak knife edge route.

Other projects included getting a coat of finish plaster on the east and west walls of the cabin, finishing up some electrical and plumbing work in the greenhouse, work on one of our rentals, continuing to interview people for the tiny house on wheels barter and for one rental, and mechanical work on a 98 Tacoma pickup that Linc had bought as a non rusty replacement for our rusted out 89 Toyota pickup (that Jeanne had owned since new).

Jeanne continued coordinating Jean's care for her broken shoulder, as she recovered smoothly.