Progress we can really see!

This pas weekend was amazing!  After being sicko the weekend before, it was exciting to get up and get to work on the house Saturday AND Sunday.  We went to Confirmation in Raton Saturday night, giving us a whole day Sunday to work, too.

Last week we agreed on a lighter shade for the south and west walls - creme brulee.  We also picked the color for the sides of our cabinets - gunmetal.  (We still need to figure out the stain for the cabinet doors, but it will match the gray of the sides.)  Tom brought the paint home Thursday, and we set to work Saturday morning.

The scaffolding on the stairs isn't my favorite place to work.  There is still much I can't reach from the scaffolding, and the alternative starts to look like the Bremer Stadtmusikanten.  The scaffolding doesn't feel like the sturdiest platform for the ladder or step stool for me to then stand upon.  Gratefully, Thomas went to town with the prepping and painting over the stairs.  Saturday we got a second coat of the sunshine up, primed the wall over the stairs in the morning, and prepped and painted the south and west walls.  It looks great!

Sunday, we hung kitchen cabinets!  We still have a corner cabinet next to the dishwasher to do -once the plumbing is finished.  And we still have the island to install, which will wait to make it easy to move stuff around.  It was great to have Pop working with us in the afternoon.  I can't imagine how Tom and I would have hung the cabinets that go over the oven without him.  I may think I'm strong, but not that strong!

What a terrific feeling we had to see all the work we did over the weekend!  It's all coming together so beautifully.  I tackled a bit more ceiling sanding of the ceiling this week.  Just about done and ready to oil it, which means that we'll be set to start laying the flooring.  Tom's given me the task of picking the bedroom paint color, so we can do that in a jiffy and start laying floor in there.  Could it be?  Might being moved in be an amazing birthday gift to me?

Mother's Day

It was a while ago - Mother's Day.  It doesn't entirely feel so long ago, as I remember it most vividly.  After my barbed wire puncture to the knee, I kept an eye on it and signs of illness.  It bruised out to the size of a baseball at one point (and it's still tender today), but decidedly the illness that followed was a stomach bug from my husband. 

The day we irrigated we also agreed on a color for the kitchen.  Reluctant to make such commitments, I said yes to "good morning sunshine", and Tom brought home five gallons of it.  Saturday, May 10th we slapped that yellow up on the walls, but held back a little. 

The north and east walls were thoroughly coated and bright!  They also gave a nice warm reflection off the sanded ceiling.  We held back, as we thought it might be a bit much to do the south and west walls, too.  Maybe a bit overwhelming...

We packed up early on Saturday, happy with all we'd accomplished, so we could get ready for a graduation party.  Unfortunately, not ten minutes from home, I was puking my guts out on the side of the highway - gross!  I spent most of the next 48 hours F.O.B. (flat on back).  It was a sedate Mother's Day for me, mellow wishes to the moms.  Sadly, I missed my nieces First Communion, too.  

Racing around...

It's easy to step on it when driving around here - it does generally take a while to get anywhere.  I know I live in a gorgeous place, and sometimes I take it for granted as I zoom past on my way to get somewhere in a hurry.  Gratefully, I wasn't in a hurry Monday evening as I drove home through the canyon.  The camera was in the front seat, so I pulled it out.

I also chuckled to myself at all the beautiful shades of green - it was once my sister's plan for all of her bridesmaids to where green without coordinating the dresses.  Her logic was how all the shades of green in nature go so well together.  If we could have looked like the various trees and bushes leafing out in the canyon, that would have been a marvelous sight.

When I got home, I enjoyed a walk and the sunset.

This image is actually from inside the house - Tom peeled off the window protectors over the weekend.  

I can't wait for that to be the view from the window at the top of the stairs.

Thomas is so brave to work on the scaffolding over the stairs.  He got the whole wall textured.  Now I just have to figure out how to roll the primer all the way to the top.

Irrigating!

My nephew wanted to play in the mud when he found out I got to play in the mud on Wednesday.  Easy for him to do given all the rain he is used to seeing, bu it was my turn.  Tom plowed the ditches on our property, and some of the ditch on the neighbor's property that leads to our property.  We walked the line a couple times before the water was cut into our ditch.  I know I still have much to learn about it, but no matter how much work is done ahead of time, the day the water comes is spent fussing - in a fun way.

found this when we walked the ditch on Saturday

Tom left for work after we had a chance to drive up together to the diversion where the water began flowing towards our little piece of land.  It had already been switched, so we drove on up towards the head gate to monitor the flow.  This has been a really bad year for us and the tumbleweeds.  We haven't been able to burn because of the drought, so they just blow from one property to the next, occasionally piling up in the fence.  The ditches were full of them, which doesn't always slow the water too much if the ditch is deep or steep enough.

Here comes the water!  

(If you imagined it as a tsunami of water, think again.  This trickle is pretty amazing when it runs all day.)

We managed to clear a few spots before Tom had to get going.  I walked on up the ditch from the house to see how far the water had come.  It hadn't made it that far, but far enough to collect a mess of the grass from Tom's plowing.  Once I reached the diversion, I turned around and started working my way back towards the house.  It felt like I pulled a bale or two of grass out, but the water mostly went where it was supposed to go.  And once it reached our place, I spent the day chasing it this way and that, hoping to let it soak in, damming it here and there, and enjoying the mud!

This rusty hunk of metal was lying in the grass along our southern line - looks like it came off of a wood stove.  It's actually beautifully ornate - I've got a couple ideas already where I might use it in the house.

Ode to Barb Wire Fence

I don't love you, fence.
You are not nice.
When you droop and sag,
when your posts are broken,
you are bearable, a minor hurdle.
When you are strung taut as the rung of a ladder,
you are tolerable, tied to a t-post.
When you are too loose to climb and too tight to sag,
I bristle at the task of passing under, over, or through you.
You bristle back and leave me wounded -
my pride and knee hurt, but nobody saw, thank God!

Satisfaction!

After the snow on Thursday, we have been basking in the sunshine.  Friday felt like a "patio day" - in Denver it would have meant gathering with the girls after work on a patio for happy hour.  Instead I made guacamole and margaritas, and Tom and I toasted the weekend.  And what a weekend it was!

To preface the satisfaction with the weekend, it is worth mentioning that it has been eight weeks since we have both been home all weekend and had no more obligations than Sunday mass and being there early for me to practice the music.  (That wasn't even a full weekend if you count that we lost an hour with Daylight savings - just kidding.)  For many eight weeks is not such a staggering figure, but they have kids whom they chase to gyms, etc. - not us.  Anyway, it's been a long time, and we certainly made the most of it!

Saturday Tom made french toast for breakfast as I got in an morning walk.  We cruised through the last little bit of texturing that could be done without the scaffolding.  Tom then got the tractor running and set off cleaning the ditches while I pulled out the ladder and brushed the tops of the walls with primer - I'm a sloppy painter, so I like to give myself a nice set of lines to roll paint within - tops, bottoms, corners, etc.  With the scaffolding on the stairs, I moved the ladder around a lot, but got it all finished, as well as a few other brush projects.  At some point Thomas switched gears and borrowed the brush hog to clean up around the property.

It cooled down by late afternoon, so we went out walking the ditch.  I'd never actually been all the way up to the canal - up the full length of the ditch from which we get out water.  We have two neighbors who take water from the ditch before us, so I'd only been up halfway - to a diversion that splits off from our ditch.  Tom surprised me with a treat along the way - wild asparagus!  Though I've heard the joke about "vegetarian" meaning lousy hunter, I made a fine hunter and scouted out several more stalks for our Sunday night dinner.  Then the big score was an elk antler shed along the fence line.  We walked all the way up to the canal, which was so much bigger than I expected and really quite pretty with the deer lingering in the area.  A beautiful walk with my husband - some good finds - a lot of work accomplished!

Sunday, mass was two hours earlier than usual, so we got a jump start on our day, even stopping for breakfast with Mom and Pop after church (a real treat, since it is a rare occasion that our service is early enough to get out and have breakfast still being served anywhere).  Tom took on the scaffolding / texturing project, while I finished brushing along the ceiling edges in the bathroom.  As he finished up the wall above the stairs, I rolled out the kitchen, dining/living area, hall, and bathroom.  I still need to roll the spot that we textured this weekend, but we're already talking about putting up color! 

The weekend was topped off with a fantastic meal.  Though not able to join in the birthday celebration for my sister on Sunday, Thomas whipped up an amazing dish - pasta with gorgonzola sauce topped with shrimp and wild asparagus in a balsamic reduction.  Hmm...my mouth waters just to think of it!

Talk about a satisfying weekend...

May Day

May first - and all I see out my office window is snow!  Thank God for the moisture!  What a wonderful way to start the month.  I don't think the snow will last - it's supposed to hit the 80s this weekend.  For now, it can stay.  Yeah!!!

And last night after work - I cleaned that bathroom floor and papered it in preparation for painting.  Thank goodness that mess cleaned up so quickly with a little water.