May 2016

Despite thinking that we didn't have time to plant a garden this year, we managed to do it - still a few beds left to plant after the last danger of frost in June.

Hard not to be thankful and happy to be alive on a spring day in the mountains.

Eggplant, so pregnant she had to prop herself up on her front feet to give her belly room when not standing, thought it would be nice if her kids would arrive soon.

Linc planted 300 trees, with the help of a backhoe.  300 trees!??!

Eggplant and Tulip, both dark colored Nubian goats, gave birth to four hyperactive goat kids (two boys, two girls), that kept us pretty entertained.  This is what you watch when you don't own a TV.

Here's Jeanne, in the background, serving as an obstacle course for goat kids..

Really, I think the date stamp on my digital camera was off.  This was probably from May.  Anyway, here's progress on a home renovation we're doing downtown.  New paint, tile, bamboo flooring, cabinets, etc.

We managed to get a day off for our favorite summertime activity - caving, of course.

April 2016

The chickens rototilled our garden for us this year.  Here's what it looked like when they were done.

With 300 tree seedlings on order, we qualified for free fencing furnished (but not installed) by the Colorado Dept of Wildlife.  We pondered how to get seventy 10' long fence posts installed until someone mentioned that we could probably rent a skidsteer with an auger.  Linc had a blast putting holes all over the field, finished all the holes in a day then went over to the neighbor's and augered right into the public water line.  Oops!  Linc excavated the broken line in the dark with the backhoe and fearless Ian finished patching the break somewhere around 3AM (long after Linc had given up and gone home to sleep).

With some help from friends (thanks Dev, Ian and Kelly!), Linc and Jeanne managed to get about 1000 feet of 7' high deer fencing and four 16' long, 7' high gates installed in a matter of days.  This made Linc very happy.

Feeling accomplished, we joined some friends on a nice day hike in Dominguez Canyon to an abandoned homestead.

March 2016

Strangely, after all that snow in February, it warmed up in March, and melted off enough to be able to trail run on the irrigation ditch in t-shirts.

We continued on a home renovation project that we'd started in February.  Ordering and hauling cabinets, plumbing fixtures, flooring and light fixtures, finished demolition work and started renovation work.

 

February 2016

We had a ton of snow this month!

 The ducks were fine with it.

Our neighbor's plow couldn't make it down the road in 4WD with chains on all wheels, so the road became impassable above our place.  Our neighbors up the road reverted to skiing, snowshoeing and postholing for a week or two until they were able to get someone with a Bobcat up to plow them out.

L

Our old diesel backhoe wouldn't start in the cold, so we were no help, and without chains, it wouldn't have been able to do much.

 It was too deep to walk the goats up the ditch where we'd normally take them for browse, so Pitkin Road became our goat path for a week or so.

Someday, we'll teach the goats to haul things.  For this year though, the neighborhood relied on the two legged pack animals instead.
 

Happily, we made it up to the higher country a few times for some turns.

January 2016

We spent January resting a little, sleeping a lot, skiing some.  The big hybrid battery on the Prius failed.  At $3000 for a new one, and $1600 for a reconditioned from NAPA, Linc used the Youtube approach.  That involves watching a few videos until you know how to do something that you normally wouldn't attempt.  In this case, it involved taking the 200 volt battery out of the car, finding the bad cell, ordering a functioning used one on Ebay for $40, making the swap, then reconditioning the whole battery bank using a strange assortment of lightbulbs and power supplies.  Luckily, he had an empty garage to use nearby with grid electricity and a wood stove for heat.  It took a few days, but it worked!  Here's the battery:

 

December 2015

Linc had a great drive down to Flagstaff, high on coffee, enjoying the views of the desert and mountains.  Here's a shot through the windshield of Church Rock, north of Kayenta, AZ, in the Navajo reservation.

Gretchen's arrival home was very emotional, partially because she had just had surgery on her left eye, had the bandage removed that morning, and found that she could see again, for the first time in something like six weeks.  We were all ecstatic.  None of us could believe that here she was, walking around her house, talking, (and making sense!) and joking with us.  It's hard to describe what's it's like to have someone leave, possibly for good, and then return.  Not that hard to describe actually - it feels GREAT!  Strangely, none of us thought to take photos, sorry!

Back home, the ducks and chickens worked over the harvested garden, cleaning up the last of those tasty slugs, pill bugs and squash beetles.  Go birds go!

Snow arrived, a little at first...

Then a lot!  This was the most snow we've seen since arriving here six years ago, and the locals say it's never been this cold and snowy here in their memory.

Happily, the greens in the hoophouse kept growing.  What a nice feeling to be able to go out through the snow and harvest salad greens!

The wood fired cookstove in the cabin got lots of use this month, but on sunny days it was warm enough in the cabin with the solar greenhouse that we'd heat up our mid-day soup outside on the propane cookstove, if we could find it...

As I write this, three months into 2016, I think, "Wow, what a crazy year 2015 was!  I wonder what the rest of 2016 will be like?  Maybe this year I'll start doing monthly blog entries so I don't end up trying to enter an entire year's worth of photos and memories at the same time....

November 2015

We don't seem to have any photos from this month at all.  Linc spent the first week or so with Gretchen in her acute care hospital room in Phoenix.  Gretchen was mostly delirious, but still had her (apparently innate!) sense of humor, politeness and caring attitude towards others, despite being the focus of everyone's concern and attention as she slowly recovered from brain surgery.  The sleep deprivation and psycho-active drugs and anti-seizure medications took a toll on Gretchen's ability to recognize reality, and Linc and family accumulated stories to tell her later about the things she said and did while she was in this post-recovery delirium.  And, we all learned a ton of new medical terms and became pretty well versed in the intricacies of subarachnoid hemorrhages.

Thankfully and amazingly, Gretchen turned a corner back towards the living, and went into inpatient rehab in mid-November.  Still temporarily blinded, she reported having many visual hallucinations, and continued to slowly recover from ICU psychosis, a state of delirium and paranoia that often accompanies long stays in intensive care.  She made rapid progress regaining some strength and balance and started going for lots of walks around the facility with family members, and we all started planning for her return to her home in Flagstaff.

Back home, Jeanne and Linc caught up on a few winter preparations before Linc headed back to Flagstaff to wait for Gretchen and Bekah as they drove up from Phoenix.