Where Are The Eagles?

You don't know how close I came to pulling the plug on 'Kathy's Big Adventure', but how depressing would that have been (for me anyway)? Just cross it of my 'to do' list like it's done?  I couldn't do it.  I think I'm stuck with 'Kathy's Big Adventure' forever.   

Our fourth trip across the country this year landed us in Vermont which is where we are now.  You'd think by now I'd be sick of road trips but I'm not.  Max loves road trips too although how would I know for sure?  

The Black Hills (western South Dakota) starts feeling like 'out West' to me

Max getting up the nerve to go back into Wall, SD

We've gotten good at traveling with a dog (sorry Max, to some people you're a dog).  We know now, after that night on the floor (that's Vince and I on the floor, not Max) of a 40 dollar dog-friendly hotel in Elkhart, Indiana, to request TWO beds in a pet-friendly room that costs more than 50 dollars a night.  We also now know that Max loves tapioca and is afraid of the buffalo statue in downtown Wall, South Dakota.  If Max is panting, even if I'm freezing, the windows have to be open and I have to hold bags on my lap so Max can have the whole back of the car to himself.

Max enjoys the comfort of a LaQuinta Inn (Missoula)

More road trip...

I know if we miss the I-90 Continental Divide exit* outside of Butte (it comes up so fast) there is not another exit for 11 miles (22 miles round trip) and in Montana there can be a hundred miles 'to the next gas station'.

On a road trip, there is the frustration of moving from one partial radio program to another partial radio program and dropping every cell phone call but I savor every mile and always look forward to the destination in both directions.  

Driving east I look forward to being able to get decaf anywhere (even though I don't like not being able to drink it outside because of the bugs).  I look forward to being able to find Willow Run, Poland Spring and really green fields.  I like that when skylines are hazy, it's because of humidity and not a forest fire.  

Hiking in BC relatively just north of Metaline Falls. Photo credit: Ed Shaw 29 year buddy.  This setting is real.  Honest.

I'm finally used to eastern time but have to remember that big birds in the top of a tree probably aren't eagles.

Where does milk come from?

The other day while riding my bike past one of the 1083 Vermont dairy farms (I love that smell) I came face to face with a cow in the middle of the road.  Behind her were about twenty other cows all casually walking and pooping down the road like they owned it.  Figuring this was a good opportunity to say something folksy, I looked around for the human taking up the rear.  There wasn't one.  Instead, behind the contented herd, dancing figure eights to keep the group moving forward, were a couple of dogs. The older one, at least part border collie and using as little energy as possible, efficiently kept her side of the group neat and tight while the younger, of an indeterminate background, nervously nipped at ankles and belligerently head-butted udders.   Up and down as if on a trampoline, he nipped at the hips of cows innocently taking their time.  Show off.  I looked closer. The little guy had three legs. 

Soon the canine team had gracefully maneuvered the group around the corner like a school of fish, down a driveway past a calf wildly trying to shake a 5 gallon pail from his head and into a dilapidated barn. 

This is what it would feel like if animals ruled the world.

Other recent adventures: 

The podiatrist I've been seeing announced that the plantar wart he'd been scraping for a month is gone and the Amazon described 'like new' used book I ordered arrived with half of the book jacket ripped off and even though I'd only paid a dollar fifty, it made me mad.

Rewind to Washington.

From the house our field doesn't look that big.  Then you realize that all those dots in the middle of it are 500 pound hay bales. Chad Grass hayed our Washington field this summer.  Chad Grass.  Isn't that a great name for someone that hays? 

 * (one of my top 10 things in life)   there is a Continental Divide trailhead 50 yards from that exit

Forest On A Flatbed

 

 
                                                   

Just planted were twenty-five 10 to 30 foot aspens on the hottest day of the year, the day before the windiest day of the year.

Having shade* in a matter of hours did feel a bit like cheating (IE. extravagant) but all the sooner these little carbon sinks will be able to offset the lumber we used to build the house.

Yesterday we lived in a field and today we live in an aspen grove**.


* Max helped plant his long awaited shade tree. (second to last photo)

**Afforestation is the process of creating forests on land that was previously unforested, typically for longer than a generation.  A natural carbon sink (good thing).

What is a Loyalty Discount?

The new guy at TREK said he call Vince back and he did.  Told Vin that he was in luck because he qualified for TREK's 'loyalty discount' and for only 2200 dollars he could buy a replacement frame to replace his relatively new cracked TREK carbon fiber frame.  I wonder who wouldn't qualify for a loyalty discount since this is the first thing Vince has ever bought from TREK and will never buy anything again.  As flattered as he was, Vin turned down their generous offer and asked if it could be repaired.  In a "yeah right" tone of voice the new guy told him it was gone forever.

Below is proof that a carbon fiber frame can be successfully repaired if you're Vince and have a couple sheets of unidirectional and woven carbon fiber, epoxy putty and lots and lots of sandpaper.

ps.  please notice my edits and new pics in the eggplant bathtub post below too.

A Bathtub With Eggplant Legs

Today I reached a new high (or new low...I can think of it either way). I did almost nothing and actually felt OK about it.  Besides riding my bike and making organic whole wheat chapatis and curried chick peas....I really don't remember much except everything was comfortably fun.  I remember something about visitors, packing up some shelves to return and sorting the recycling.  Stretching my frozen shoulder a couple times, icing my knee and falling asleep during a movie.  I went to Ione (10 miles south of Metaline Falls) but I can't remember why.  Ione has a bank but that's not why I went.  I remember noticing a guy reading on the bench outside 'Mountain Chicks', the secondhand store, and thinking "Reading a book outside.  What  a nice way to spend the morning".  Leaving 'Mountain Chicks', (without a plug for the bathtub which is not the reason I went to Ione) the reader on the bench was still engrossed in his book which I noticed was a TV Guide. 

Vi

I remember taking a shower AND a bath outside in the bathroom that Vin just finished and could pass as a museum installation.  Vin wasn't that into the idea but made it for me anyway so I feel obligated to use it every chance I get.  He even plumbed it...cold AND hot.  Just like an inside bathroom only outside.  Other than when I helped move the tub a couple of times and gathering a few interesting stones from the side of the road, he did the whole thing himself in 95 degree weather.  A craigslist vintage tub with eggplant colored legs.  Leftover local walkway stone and plumbing hardware.  A salvaged steel post, not originally intended to hold a showerhead, from Ryan the welder.  My shower coincided with the magic hour and sun drenching our field in a intense golden light.  My bath coincided with an outside noise from inside the house which turned out to be the dryer*.    A sock plug kept the 110 degree water at an embarrassingly high level and once Vin turned off the dryer I enjoyed soaking surrounded by 50 degree air and shampoo bubbles.   The moon wasn't full, but it was big. 

My online obsession today was the movie "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" by a couple of local filmmakers just over the pass in Creston BC.  "Just like Vin and me"  I thought.  "Comrades".  Forty-five minutes into my search (I was really obsessed) I connected information that revealed the keynote speaker from a Final Cut (editing software for movie people) conference Vin and I recently attended in Boston (we're geeks) was the young female director's father.  Do you have to know somebody? : (

* dryer , noun

1. an appliance to be used only in case of emergencies

used in a sentence:

It's 1 am and the bedding I washed this afternoon is still wet.  I think I should use the dryer.

Photos top to bottom:

1. In the beginning.

2. Near the beginning. Tub with eggplant legs that you can't see.

3. Vin mounting shower on salvaged steel post.

4.Vin with an un-tanned torso.

5. Dad and Vince.  Dad grew up with an outside bathroom.

6. Outside bathroom in progress.

7. Kathy approaching tub with a sock wondering if it will work for a plug.

Little House in a Nutshell

Other than the outdoor/garden bathtub and shower, the house is pretty much done.   I say 'pretty much' because also on the 'to do' list without a line through it is the water filtration system but that's boring and not nearly as important as an outdoor bathtub.  

A year ago only hay, elk and eagles lived in our field.   When we decided to join them, we promised to be good neighbors.

...and yes I know...

1. we already had a house so building another one wasn't a very 'green' thing to do. 

2. that any structure we would build would be more intrusive than building nothing.

Anyway.  Playing with designs was overwhelming but easy because it was noncommittal.   Deciding on a final design caused more stupidly self-inflicted stress than I could have ever imagined.    Putting a house on a site is such a one-shot-deal.  

Now.  Did we leave a scar?  Since a scar is in the eyes of the beholder, (ask someone that thinks Mt Rushmore is beautiful) you decide.

We now have a perfect little house 

• that has a 2:12 pitched roof to match the slope of the hillside it shares

• where we can go outside from every room

• that is 966 square feet

• where we use every room every day

• made from mostly local materials (stone, concrete, lumber and subs)

• made from natural materials that blend in with the site...

and that's what we wanted.

We did Energy Star whenever we could:

• Summit Stainless Steel Counter Depth Bottom-Mount Refrigerator 

• White Rogers programmable thermostats

• Eagle window and doors double glazed, tempered Low-E 

• Insulation Master high density closed cell spray foam (5" in the walls for r35 and 7" in the ceiling for r49) 

• Emerson ceiling fans 

• Air King range hood - 30" Stainless Steel  

• Asko clothes washer 

• Asko clothes dryer 

pictures top to bottom:

Looking west at the master bedroom (left), entry (center),  and kitchen (right).  I LOVE THIS PHOTO.  Mt Linton is in the background and supposedly houses mountain goats that I've never seen.

Looking northeast at the office (left), bathroom (center), and master bedroom (right under the pergola) Crap, I fogot...the pergola's not done either.

Looking east (with the mountain goats behind me) at the living room and covered deck (left) and office (right). 

Looking north from the office into Britsh Columbia.

Looking at Vin thinking the ladder is right under him.

An International Event

The Selkirk International Film Festival is July 6 at the Cutter Theater in Metaline Falls.  The festival will be the Metaline Falls premier of 'You're Not Cindy'.   Vince and I will be there so at least we know the theater won't be completely empty.

Follow The Yellow Stone Walk

Two days after we rented a flatbed truck pulling a trailer and picked up a pallet of local stone in Canada (I know it's Canadian... but only 25 miles away....so I decided it was OK to call it local), we had a walkway.  

It connects our perfect little shed with the fir walkway to the front door and inches us closer to completing our western oasis. 

Vince said it was for my birthday. I said thank you but it didn't count.