Kate got back last night, a long drive, 9 hours, from Jackson Hole to Shadow Mountain. Good to have her back. Home is better when both of us are here.
Masked with the staining begun, 7/19
The painters may finish today, they’re very close. This project has taken three weeks so far. The cabinets are done, most of the other interior work, too, including Kate’s splash of bright green above the cabinets, changing the character of the kitchen yet again.
It was hot here yesterday, though pallid in comparison to Denver. We remain less humid than the plains and the nights are cooler. Minnesota has had a siege of weather related storms and heat, not over yet.
Beginning of school a year ago
The grandkids were up last night. Gabe reprised his week ago trick of attaching a dog bone to a long line of twine and “fishing” for dogs off the deck. This time though he used a stick. The bone worked better. Ruth had a sore throat, but was in good spirits. It was a calm, normal evening, the goal toward which all this divorce mess aims. It was good to see.
Today is another court related hearing, an important one, for Jon. We’re all going in to see what the disposition will be. He goes back to work next week and is planning, for now, to commute from here into Aurora which is on the eastern edge of Denver. A long drive in rush hour.
Swirling. The world, or at least the part of it connected to me and mine, has taken flight, gone up in the air like dust devils. BJ had surgery on her shoulder in the late afternoon yesterday in Jackson Hole. Kate said she liked the surgeon, which is roughly the same as saying he’s a rock star. The Hitching Post, a motel next to the hospital, has rooms for $45 a night if a family member is in the hospital. She’s staying there.
Jon is rushing to finish remodeling a bathroom, put on a deck and doing other fix-it chores at the Pontiac house. He has to be out of there before Jen and the kids return on Monday evening. A restraining order makes it so. The heat-and, ironically for this arid state, the humidity-have been high. It was 99 there yesterday when he and I ate lunch at the wonderful dining table he built.
Though, for those of you in the Gopher State who read this, I know it’s been pretty bad there, too. Both places remind me of Singapore in April when Kate and I visited Mary. We managed to hike across the Singapore Botanical Gardens on a day when the temperature was within one degree of an all time record and the humidity created a watery, heated bubble around us as we walked. Can anyone say carbon tax?
Timberline Painters finished staining the garage, shed, and two decks yesterday. One garage door is green, the other will follow. Interior painting starts on Monday. The dogs, who have to be inside while the painters are in the yard will be happy when this is done. Yesterday, while Gertie and I were in the loft, unbeknownst to me, the painters sealed off the door out of the loft with 3M plastic. The mammoth bone handle knife gifted to me by Tom Crane came in handy as I sliced through the plastic. Felt like I was being born again as I stooped through the small hole with Gertie behind me.
In Colorado, so far, it has been the summers of our discontent, the winters have been fine.
Staining the wood is an involved process. First, there’s power washing, cleaning and laying bare the wood, followed by extensive masking. These tasks took a week. The application of the stain is, itself, labor intensive. Though it can be applied with a power spray, it has to be back brushed to force the stain into the wood. Since the process requires two coats, that means each inch of the garage, shed and two decks will get stained and brushed twice. Longer lasting siding and much increased aesthetics will result. Nathan, Chris, Dean and Matthew have been working steadily.
While they were finishing up yesterday, we had a thunderstorm. As in Minnesota, a thunderstorm breaks the heat, but here it comes with a collective sigh. The rain has a salvific effect, much like the rain in movies after a long drought or the coming of the monsoons in India.
We’ve had several red flag warnings over the last week plus and the forest service signs, common along roads here in the mountains, have all had Smokey’s finger pointed at High. Jefferson County, our county, instituted a level 2 fire ban. No fires at all. The rains give us some respite from the risk of wildfire and that’s most welcome.
Jon is in Denver for the next five days working on finishing a deck railing, remodeling a bathroom and moving his stuff out of the house. Jen and the grandkids are in Orlando for a hemophilia conference. Today is a phone conference between Jon and Jen’s lawyers trying to hammer out some differences without the principles involved. May it be fruitful.
A red flag warning means that critical fire weather conditions
are either occurring now... .or will shortly. A combination of
strong winds... low relative humidity... and warm temperatures can
contribute to extreme fire behavior.
All that fire mitigation work makes sense when the weather services throw up a red flag warning as they have yesterday and today. Those of us who live up here know this is a price for living in the mountains, but that fact doesn’t mean we want to pay it. The dilemma is that we live in a desirable area, so folks from all over come up here to play, to be in the mountain wildernesses, to do research, to hang out, camp. The visitors are not as attuned to the dangers here, so that s’more or that can of beans or heating the water for coffee seems innocent. And it is, until it isn’t. One spark.
Jefferson County fire fighters closed westbound I-70 and Colorado 470 east (which connects to our nearest highway, 285) due to a grass fire on Hogback Ridge. Yesterday a truck lost some trash which flew in the air, contacted power lines, burst into flames and fell to the ground. So freak accidents, careless tourists or locals ignoring reality put us at risk.
A person reported a neighbor yesterday for burning stumps. He puts charcoal on them, lights it up, then covers the stump with a metal can. He was indignant when asked to put them out. What could possibly go wrong? In another instance folks moved into a new development near Bailey and spent the 4th and this last weekend setting off fireworks in their driveways. Geez, guys.
And, as friend Tom Crane knows, there’s always the possibility of a propane explosion. Cheery thought.
Anyhow our weather is like a femme fatale: gorgeous, sensuous, potentially murderous.
That garage looks better now. Over to Mountain Waste System’s transfer station outside Pine Junction. Backed up to a big trench, a mega trash compactor. Boards, pieces of old kitchen counter, some plastic bins, a too damaged drafting table, and a printer stand with a slot for the paper feed from a dot matrix printer went in. Would have been a perfect place to dispose of a body. Paid the guy $10 and left.
Shelving is up in the garage and has my journals and other too much stuff stuff from the loft. Kate put up a tire rack which now holds the four Blizzaks, ready for the next winter. Jon and Max (his buddy from Minneapolis) have started work on benches for our tools and the top for my multi-purpose cart. The whole space has become more organized though there’s still a good bit to go.
Meanwhile rain has come down most of the day. Eduardo rented a machine to augur in foundation supports for the new carport he’s building. A wet day for that sorta work.
A rainy week here on Shadow Mountain. The El Nino has given us an early summer reprieve from wildfires. Last night Jon said it felt like northern Minnesota. It did. The rain and the cool down at night brought back Burntside Lake, Magnetic Lake, Lutsen. No need for a.c. so far and we’re at July 1st already. Not a good environment for growing tomatoes though.
Nate Silver has given Hillary Clinton an 80% shot at winning the presidency. Not a lock, but pretty good odds. Even though Hillary’s politics are not mine, she’s a helluva lot closer than the Hairdo. And, in spite of her centrist politics, the thought of our sitting President, an African-American, campaigning in tandem with a female candidate for the office, excites me. Our little country might be growing up.
Colorado Republicans nominated a tea-bagger conservative to run against Democratic senator Mike Bennet. This should make it very difficult for the Republicans even though Cory Gardner (R) did oust Mark Udall (D) in the 2014 senate race. There are many lefties, Sanders won the Colorado Democratic primary, but there are also libertarians and far right wingers in large numbers. The contours of the state’s politics have not opened up for me yet. I hope by the end of this election cycle to have a much clearer understanding of Colorado’s political dynamics.
And, hey Minnesotans! How about that Iron Range guy that chopped his friend’s head off with a machete? Whoa.
Out on the ladder this morning using the pressure washer on the solar panels. After checking our panel production by time, I noted that yesterday some of the panels operated at 110% of their capacity. Guess the removal of the pine pollen has had an effect even though the panels still look occluded.
The sun up here at 8,800 feet is fierce and requires sun protection winter and summer. The heat when standing in it can quickly become too much. Of course the solar panels are on the south side of the house, so when working on them the sun is an issue. I finished before the peak of the UV index which begins at 10 am and ends around 4 pm.
We’re gradually changing the house and grounds to suit our preferences. We have plans for some plantings in the far back, well outside the defensible zones 1 and 2. Probably lilacs and shrub roses on the edge of our leach field. On the leach field itself we’ll plant bulbs and some flowers suited for an arid climate and the kind of sun we get. That’s this fall.
The now thinned lodgepoles have also changed the look. To my eye they look healthier, more space for individual trees and more sun, too. I like the less crowded, congested feel. Kevin of Timberline Painting will make our garage, shed and interior look better. Bear Creek Designs are coming by today for an estimate on redoing our bathrooms. I had guessed two years for settling in and I think that’s going to be pretty accurate.
Light to dark. A continuum and a dialectic. Our inner lives fall, always, somewhere along this line. Our life might be bright, cheery, goals and actions easy to see, our days bouncy and their weight upon us like a feather. Or, our lives might be dark, intense, solemn, our next moves difficult to imagine, our days heavy, weighing upon us like a great rock.
But the Great Wheel shows us a yet deeper truth. Light to dark and dark back to light is the way of life on this earth. In the temperate latitudes this truth is at its most nuanced and its most fruitful. Quite literally. In temperate latitudes, as the Solstices mark out, we go from the Summer victory of light to the Winter victory of darkness.
Though darkness seems to be the dialectical opposite of light-winter the antithesis of summer-in fact darkness gives plant life a time to rest, rejuvenate, prepare for the rigors of another growing season. The light, when it begins to bear down upon the fields and forests, encourages and feeds them, preparing them for the harvest. In the places where the seasons are more extreme, like the tropics where daylight remains equal to night all year round and at the poles where night and day extend for months exuberant plant life can overtake whole regions. Or, at the poles ice can become so thick and vast that it covers hundreds, thousands, of square miles.
The Summer Solstice and the Winter Solstice then are not opposed to each other. The transitions from light to dark and dark to light for which they are the zenith are necessary engines for the well-being of all of us who call this planet home.
Thus we might consider the transitions from light to dark in our psyche, in our soul, as variations necessary for a full and rich life. Of course we need the sunshine of children, of love, of hope, of success. The times in our lives when those can dominate are like the summer, the growing season. Yet, grief and failure are part of our soul’s turning, part of our reaction to and integration of life’s darkness. Also, those practices which can take us deep into our inner life are like the fallow times of fall and winter providing rest and rejuvenation to us.
Today we celebrate the solar equivalent of our live’s growing season. Mark out those matters in your life that flourish, that bring joy and love, that encourage your fulfillment. But, know as well that even events like divorce, like the death of a loved one, like the failure of a dream can enrich the soil of your life, must enrich the soil of your life or else we pretend that the Great Wheel does not turn, but rather stops and becomes one season, to the eventual death of all we know.
The Summer Solstice begins the gradual victory of dark over light, the one we celebrate at the Winter Solstice. Light and dark are not opposite, but parts of a whole, parts of your soul and its ancientrail toward death.
The slash is gone. Chipped and carted away. We had two big days of chipping, one from work done last fall, this one from work done over the last three weeks. The bulk of the fire mitigation project is now over. The remaining logs will be stacked by the end of the week.
Taking the branches off up to ten feet will happen this year, though I’m not certain yet whether I have to wait until fall to protect the tree’s health. We’ll mow the fuel in the back so it doesn’t get higher than six inches, maybe two to three times, maybe a bit more if we continue to get rain. Screening all the vents and other openings in our house is another fillip, as is taking the few pine needles out of our gutters.
Slash June 1 treetops and limbs
After the electricity production limitations of snow and gloomy skies comes pine pollen. This yellow maker of new pines comes off the lodgepoles in wind driven clouds. And, it coats solar panels, reducing their effectiveness. It appears to pare between 10 and 20% off their regular capacity. It rains tonight so I’m going to wait and see if that eliminates the effect. If not, up on the roof with a hose and spray nozzle.
Even though it is 76 here today, the humidity is only 33%. But, it’s 92 in Denver. Gotta love the altitude effect on air temperature.
We went to Dinosaur Ridge this morning, the place where the first stegosaurus bones were found in the U.S. It was 92 when we got there. A ride in the vanasaurus, an unairconditioned bus like airport rental shuttle rides, took us up the ridge where we saw bulges in the rock created by brontosauruses walking on their tippy toes and squishing mud far down with their huge tonnage. We also saw a large collection of dinosaur footprints laid down on a beach a hundred million years ago. Grandma and Grandpop enjoyed the tour as much as the kids.
After Dinosaur Ridge, we went to the Red Rock Amphitheater, not for a concert but to find a picnic area. We found one high on a Fountain Formation (red sandstone) ridge overlooking all of the Denver Metro. The breeze was cool, the food was good.
The drive into Denver to drop off Ruth and Gabe with their Dad was hot. As we got further and further into Denver proper, the heat went to 98 degrees. A bit later it hit 104 on our way back toward the Front Range and home. Yike. Fortunately, it was only 74 on Black Mountain Drive.
