my FIRST!!!

Hummingbird, that is!  While doing some painting today, I heard the buzz that can only be the sound of a hummingbird.  I peaked out the window, and sure enough!  It even chirped a bit for me; I'm sure in thanks for the delicious red nectar.  I guess I don't have to move the feeder.  I was a bit concerned about the location actually attracting any hummingbirds, so Marie told me to keep an eye out for where the hummingbirds are hanging out.  Evidently, they will return to the place a feeder was before in hopes of the feeder coming back.  I hadn't actually seen any hummingbirds around the house to observe this behavior, but I did have a very vivid dream of a hummingbird pecking on the flashing of the mudroom (where before there was nothing there) like a woodpecker.  In my dream of course, I recognized that this was where I should hang the feeder, but I guess not...

Stormproof...

Yesterday, Thomas and I made a trip north to cash in on a couple wedding presents, so to speak.  Some of our wedding gifts went towards a new chest freezer and a storm door.  Now we can keep the rain out of our mudroom (it kept sneaking in around the corner of the rubber strip).  And if the storm is really bad, we have a chest freezer already full of pizzas and shrimpies, green chilies and tortillas.  We're set!  I would say "bring it on" except that we have been getting pounded the last few nights.  Tonight the thunder is rumbling, but we've already had a few good showers this afternoon.  We also have begun slathering our roof with a white "tar" that helps to make sure it is leak proof and keeps it cooler in these hot temps.  I already noticed that the one leak from the chimney pipe has already dried up....woo woo!

i'm getting schreepy....

What am I still doing up...posting all these little anecdotes about life in Miami?  Thomas was blessed to find a local job - short commute, nothing overly strenuous, decent pay.  What they failed to tell him, actually led him to believe otherwise, is that he has swing and graveyard shifts.  It has been rather stressful in our home trying to find the balance or work and sleep, meals and projects, time together and apart.  Call me crazy, but I am trying to stay awake with him for these midweek swing shifts.  He should be home in less than an hour now... I have painted the shelves in the kitchen and have two more to go, but I think I might just call it a night, what with a long mucky day and all.  I hope we can sleep tonight!

birds...

Birds remind me of my grandma, who had bird feeders galore and a plethora of birds in her garden.  You could watch them from the kitchen window flitting about...little yellow finches, sparrows, robins, and of course hummingbirds. For my birthday I received a hummingbird feeder.  I was quite delighted and thought of Grandma instantly.  So far as I can tell, it has not had any business yet, but I am not sure I chose the right place to hang it.  I chose a spot I could see from the living room that is mostly out of the wind and too high for the deer to get.  The garden is on the other side of the house.  But as birthdays go these days, I got sad on Monday, a little heartbroken still for my birthday boy.  I celebrated so many of my birthdays with my grandpa, who would have been 88 on Monday, that I feel a little blue without him in this world.  When the waterworks really hit, I took a little walk out to the pond, which isn't full of water.  It is full of sunflowers and a few other flowers, sunflowers being a local weed.  I sat on the edge of the pond on some crusty soil and let my tears run forth.  The wind was especially strong, and it was noisy in our neighbors trees.  It sounded like the ocean when I closed my eyes.  It reminded me of some of my grandpa's last big birthdays that we celebrated at the Oregon Coast.  To honor him my mom would take extra roses with her to the cemetery and offer them from me.  But well over a thousand miles away, the only thing I knew to do was offer a rosary in his memory.  What a terrific thing happened then!  Though the hummingbird feeder was a little red speck on the back of the house, here came a hummingbird buzzing all of the sunflowers.  It went from one to the next, darting from flower to bud back to flower again.  It made me smile, it comforted me.  There are birds galore on the property, and I can here several different bird calls at almost all hours of the day.  My grandma would have loved it here...

got to be ready for the consequences...

This little story is all true and truly a reminder to me to think before I do. Some neighbors gave Thomas and I an apple tree for our wedding.  Mary and Deb helped me plant it after our New Mexico reception.  We laid down some long grass around the watering hole to help protect the soil from drying out.  A couple weeks ago I noticed what looked like a hole in the grass.  I wasn't sure if it was created by an animal or from the soil settling funny around the roots.  It seemed odd, and whenever I watered, I tried to water right into the hole to flood it out.  Last weekend I noticed that there was a new hole!  This was not okay! I looked through some books that suggested that mice and voles will sometimes bed down around the roots of young trees and eat the bark.  This was a troubling thought!  Thomas suggested that it could be a snake hole or a rabbit hole or a gopher hole, but he had no idea what it was.  So I continued to water both holes.  Tuesday evening, while Thomas was at work, I went out to water the apple tree, and I poured that water right into the first hole.  The other hole seemed to be bubbling up or something, so I watered into it.  I realized at this point that I wasn't actually prepared to deal with what might come out of the hole.  If it was a snake, I would freak out!  I was starting to feel remorseful for having Thomas kill the Bull snake, as it might eat any mice or voles around - if that was what it was.  But the bubbling of that second hole was most definitely not a furry head, and I was already inching away when it burst forth from that hole and flopped right up against the mesh fence (for deer protection).  It was A TOAD!!! I apologized to the toad for startling it and told him he could stay.  I imagine this might be the toad responsible for laying eggs in the puddle at the end of our road a couple weeks back.  And I recognized it from hanging around the trailer when the guys were rerouting the drain for the washing machine.  And if I am not mistaken, it scared me into a tree just on Saturday morning when I was weeding in the garden, and it hopped right through me. I lucked out.  I can handle a toad, especially if he eats spiders and flies and mosquitoes and other bugs.  But let that be a lesson to me anyhow...

a mucky day...

Thomas and I are members of the Miami Domestic Water Users and the Miami Water Users.  This gives us certain privileges, such as swimming and fishing in the lake (which provides our water for home and irrigation).  It also means that every year, we get together for a potluck and business meeting annually, as well as a work day.  The work day may be done away with in future years, depending on a vote at the upcoming business meeting on Saturday afternoon.  Until such time though, the work day continues.  And that day for our household was today. The "Lake Tank" is a very, very tall tank at least twenty feet tall.  I would guess taller, but I will have to very this information with my father-in-law.  Our household was assigned the task of cleaning the lake tank, along with Tom's sister's family and his uncle who holds the membership for Grandma.  Because Thomas had to work, I represented us in this task, of which I have been asking everyone for a week what it will entail and what to wear, etc.  Nothing really prepared me for what we did, though I was wearing the right clothes. At two o'clock we all met at the tank, driving down the narrow dam to the tank.  Mike had already drained it, so we opened up the seal, about a two foot portal two feet above the bottom.  Our job would be to sweep the mucky water towards a hose pumping the muck out.  As needed, water would be pumped from the lake and rained down upon us (not really "on" us unless you weren't standing next to the wall) to thin the muck and give the hose something to suck on.  I don't know if Tio Dennis had ever done this job before, but I was for sure the rookie.  I jumped in first, splashing muck into my boots, and grabbed my push-broom.  Tio Dennis joined me.  I would guess that the tank is at least fifteen feet in diameter, and it had at least 14 inches of sludge all the way around.  That is A LOT!  As we broke up the sludge, really lake silt that had turned itself into a thick, thick custard, the muck got to thick for the pump, and we had our first waterfall.  We continued to break up the sludge, but there was just so much of it.  At one point we took to using pails to haul it out.  Gross!  Once all of it was thinned and draining, we scrubbed the walls, too. I quite enjoyed when the water was turned on.  It felt both refreshing and reminded me of Punch Bowl Falls in the Columbia Gorge.  All in all we were there for three and a half hours.  I would guess that at least two and a half of those hours, I was in the tank getting dirty.  What fun!  I hope I get the chance to do it again. On a side note, I understand that this year was uncharacteristically sludgy.  When some work was done at the lake near the pump, it began sucking up mud from the bottom of the lake.  The pump couldn't handle it and broke, preventing even more mud from piling into the tank.  Mike figured that there could have easily been another three feet if the pump had not been overloaded.  Phew!  I guess there are times when the best tool for a job doesn't need to be more powerful than the job requires.

a new me...

Hooray!!  My new social security card came, so Thomas and I made the trip to Raton to the MVD (not DMV here) to trade our Colorado Driver's License and license plates in for genuine New Mexico citizenship. What a bust!  After a couple of hours, we both left feeling rather grumpy.  We took our numbers and waited.  We were entertained by "Modern Marvels" on the History Channel, featuring saws this morning.  Tree cutting equipment, band saws, the anatomy of a saw, chain saws, sawzalls, and more.  And at last A28 appeared on the board.  We laid out a file folder worth of papers, identifications, addresses, titles, insurance, etc.  We had read up online what we needed and brought extra!  No matter...the computer information is inaccurate.  The only way you could really know what you need is to show up, wait, wait a little more, and then be rejected and told by an MVD personnel what you should have brought.  This was the case for Thomas.  He has a commercial driver's license, which requires additional identification, a full medical report (which he didn't bring), and authentic mail including the physical address (most of ours only contains our mailing address).  In lieu of mail you might not have, the approved senders of such mail may fax a document to the MVD, but may not fax or e-mail said documents to you the citizen.  As a regular ol' license, my proof of address can be in the form of a self-declared affidavit of address.  This was what I had to do because mail from the Social Security Administration and mail from Multnomah County (bearing the marriage certificate) were not acceptable.  My bank statement was questioned because it is a Colorado bank!  Oh unnerving! Next came the "name" drama.  There has already been too much name drama around the approved choices of name when we got married, none of which satisfied my preference.  Then came the SSA which let me pick exactly how I want my name to read, and now the MVD has given me yet another version.  I am slightly concerned of who my real identity is anymore...my legal name is different on all three documents.  Does that make me a liar?  Ay, chihuahua!  A NM license contains only your first and last name with a single middle initial.  My SS card reads first: Victoria, middle: Michelle Ford, and last: Vigil.  So now my license reads Victoria M Vigil.  I am beginning to think I will never again be able to leave the country because I am afraid for what version of myself might come back on a passport! All in all, I received my license, but Thomas did not.  Consequently, he could not register his truck.  And I could not register my car because they have to re-title the vehicle and must first verify the VIN matches paperwork and car.  So...another trip to Raton. Poor Thomas was counting the wasted minutes...a lot of them for him.

getting ready for winter

It has been dry and hot.  I mean HOT!  My new fruit trees and everything else are sucking up water.  The tadpoles in the puddle that used to be on the corner are dried into the dirt.  We've seen a lot of lightning in the distance, but nothing here.  So why are we getting ready for the winter?  Well, our neighbor is out of town, and she has several trees she wants removed.  What we cut, we can take.  Yesterday the whole family was out, and from one tree we loaded up our trailer, Marie and Dave's truck, and Pop's truck.  It was great fun all working together, and we got a great cloudburst right as we wrapped up, which kept it cool for unloading when we all got home. Today, aside from finishing the drywall and adding some finishing touches around the door and windows, Thomas and I met up with Daniel over at the neighbors and cut another tree.  We loaded up Daniel's truck first, since he didn't get any wood yesterday, and then our truck was next (topper is off, so no more trailer).  We took almost a whole other tree.  The guys amused themselves when they got tired by giving me the chainsaw.  I did my darnedest, but they kept making jokes that I didn't understand.  Ah well...I am pooped!  Another day done, and much accomplished! Tomorrow we take a break from the house, as Tom has an interview (fingers crossed!), and I am helping Marie with VBS...

Dragonflies...

I always thought dragonflies were some mystical, magical, fairy-like insect.  I don't remember them being around in Portland when I was growing up, except maybe at the Double D down by the creek.  Sure, I've seen 'em around, mostly around creeks, maybe? We have one in our yard that likes to buzz around the garden in the middle of our drive.  I think it odd, maybe even a little out of place, as I know so very little about dragonflies. Today, the illusions are all gone.  There were a horde of them buzzing around the dumpsters.  Bizarre!!

first pic of many

THE KISS...I asked Thomas, on the altar right before it happened, what to expect for this kiss.  He couldn't say... The picture is the first I have seen from Oren.

Big & long & scary!

Yup!  I saw my first snake today! Thomas and I had to sit out yesterday on much work outside because of stormy weather.  It brought hail and wind and driving rain...you know, a storm!  Anyhow, today we were eager to get going and get the roofing on the new mudroom.  We also hoped to seal it completely in to the house, so the next storm won't drive rain into the new space.  There is only so much I can do to help Thomas when he is getting organized, so I made up my own tasks. I have been weeding a ton for the last week and a half.  I separated the bindweed and seeds from the seedless weeds and grass I can dry and compost.  I started a good pile behind the tin shed the other day, but I still wanted to locate where the compost bin would go.  (Yes, even with ten acres, I am still using a hardware store compost bin - courtesy of Jim & Kathy Davis.  This way I can minimize animals getting into it when I add food waste.  Worm bin still to come.) Behind the tin shed, there are a short stack of tires, a manual hand pump and pipe for the well, makeshift dams for the ditch irrigation, and odds and ends of scrap wood.  I tipped up one crumbly 4' x 6' to find a piece of sheet metal underneath it - not worth the hassle of moving.  I tipped up what looked like two pieces of 2' X 6' boards, and I new the texture and pattern of the ground underneath the board was not earth.  I yelled, "Thomas!  Snake!" at the same time as I dropped the board.  Nothing moved under the board, not moved out from under the board.  My voice went hoarse, my breathing quickened, but still something was gripping my chest tight.  Mercy!  I tried to run, but my legs were unreliable.  A bowl of cereal and 20 minutes out of bed was hardly enough to prepare me for a SNAKE!!!  I got to Thomas, out of breath, and tried to to tell him, describe to him, what happened.  He hightailed it to the back of the shed, and I tried to keep up.  I showed him where it was, and when he tipped up the board, it lay there.  Motionless.  It was a bull snake - this I had mostly already figured out, as rattle snakes are aggressive and bull snakes won't bite.  It was really too cold to move super fast, but Thomas used the industrial flat hoe I got for chopping compost materials to apply pressure to the back of the snake.  It started moving towards the shed, but was stuck under the tool.  When Thomas tried to pull him back, he hissed, but that was really the only time it hissed.  Thomas asked if I wanted to see it, but it didn't matter what I said because he grabbed it by the tail and held it up.  I would guess it was about three feet.  He wasn't necessarily going to kill it, as it is relatively harmless, but I told him I wanted to see what to do if he wasn't around to off a snake for me.  It took several solid punches with the tool to get the head to come clean off, at which point Thomas picked it up by the tail again and waved it at me to see and feel it.  I was still trying to catch my breath, but I touched it a little.  It was dripping blood, so he tossed it further south towards the property line to let the birds eat it.  Next time he said we might skin it, but we just didn't have time today.  Next time...I don't even want to think about "next time"...

A new suit...

Tonight, Thomas and I joined the local volunteer fire department.  I have a duffle and a backpack stocked with yellow pants and jacket, a helmet and goggles, a head lame, a hood, and a "baked potato cave" (a foil flame resistant "bag" you roll into if you have to protect yourself from a fire).  The gear is for wild land fires, and we will be suited up for everything else in due time.  We brought home a radio, and I got assigned a call sign.    There is so much to learn, I know, but it will be great to learn and to be able to help.  My brother David and Pop are going to be driving firetrucks in the Fourth of July parade through Cimarron, so I might ride with one of them.  We'll see....

The addition...

We've been working hard on our new mudroom.  Thomas and I started work on it yesterday, framing the floor/foundation and leveling it all.  This morning we hammered in the OSB (thick 4 x 8s).  We were scrounging around for paint in the tin shed, and Thomas stopped by his dad's on his way into Springer for something, but his dad had something we could use.  Well it turned out to be a mess os curdled sludge, but David and Andres showed up just in time and ran home to get some sage-green paint.  It'll do for a floor!  Mike showed up with the "brush hog", a tractor with a mighty mower on the backend, and mowed down nearly a quarter of the acreage along the road.  I must admit that it looks a lot less ragged.   Anyhow, since the guys showed up wanting to help, I backed off and weeded and weeded some more with the exception of few opportunities to help.  I weeded about a third of the flower garden from the bind weed going to seed.  And the mudroom now has all the walls framed and a couple pieces of siding on it.  Pretty cool!    I have all sorts of pictures, yet to come...