Month: August 2021

There has been more activity around the Heart House in the last week or so. We attended a local sweet corn festival, my sister Kitt and her partner Matt arrived for a visit, a new water heater was installed, and more of the house was scraped and painted. Details are next.

The nearby town of Lime Springs held a sweet corn festival that featured a parade and car show along with some vendor tents. Free sweet corn and watermelon (while supplies lasted) were incentives to come to the event.

We started off with the car show, and there were some very nice vehicles present. A walk down the avenue brought us to the heart of Lime Springs and we were able to snag some free watermelon. It was quite good.

The parade was typical for a small town, including only one marching band. Parade entries included floats from local vendors and service providers, some restored older tractors, and even a family float advertising their upcoming reunion. That was a new one for me.

After the parade we returned home and continued working on scraping and painting the east side of the house. The front porch walls were completed and prep work started around the east side bay window. Scraping the multiple layers of old paint is slow going, and many of the boards have to be re-calked and repaired, slowing the process. We move along as well as we can.

Here are a couple photos of the east side front porch and work underway below the bay window.

A few posts ago I mentioned we had to replace the failing hot water heater. O’Brien Plumbing and Heating, from Elma, showed up to do the work this last Thursday afternoon. The work took about 90 minutes and we now have our hot water back. Below are a few photos of the replacement process.

We are currently experiencing a deluge of rain after having been drier than average this summer. In comparison, I came across this graphic about extreme weather during 2020 on the internet.

Other than heavy rain and some wind which brought clumps of leaves and small branches down on the lawn we have not suffered any damage. The dogs, however, were unsettled by the thunder and lightning and were constantly seeking reassurance from us (mostly Pam) as the storms continued. The forecast for the upcoming week includes a high probability of more rain. This will cut into our outdoor work time but we can use the break to work on indoor projects.

The highlight of the recent days, ongoing as I write this, is a visit from my sister Kitt and her partner, Matt. Kitt and Matt had last been here in 2019 as we were moving and before I had retired. They had helped assemble my bed frame and moved a few boxes for us. Kitt and Matt had brought along a full Thanksgiving meal for us on their 2019 visit.

This time around Kitt and Matt were given a tour of the house and yard and a summary of all the changes that have occurred since 2019. We spent quite a bit of time in conversation and eating meals. The bad weather limited outside activities, such as sitting on the porch, but the time passed quickly just the same.

Fall is approaching and we hope to get back to scraping and painting more of the house. In addition, we have contacted Bob the Builder and arranged to rent some scaffolding from him for use over the Labor Day weekend. Pam intends to use the time to paint the ginger breading on the west side of the laundry room, experimenting with widths of the different colors she plans to use in all the the home’s peaks. Fall will be a busy time for us!

In a previous post I said I would be creating a new gallery consisting of photos taken on my recent trip to the Alpine Tunnel, located in western Colorado. I have created that gallery and uploaded it to my host server. If interested you can access the Alpine Tunnel gallery from my Galleries page or go directly to the Tunnel’s home page. On the Galleries page you will need to scroll down and find the section titled “ATV and Off-Road Trips” then click on the “Alpine Tunnel” thumbnail image.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Mother Nature seems intent on deleting a 7″-8″ rainfall deficit in a single three-day stretch this weekend. The lawn is a giant wading pool at times. Yikes.

Happy Trails.

It has been a couple weeks since my last post. (I was on vacation in Colorado.) Much has happened since I last wrote including house updates and a report of my vacation time. Lets get to it!

Because I have so much ground to cover I am going to mention just a few of the more important details for each general topic. Home news is up first.

A bit more painting has been done on the front porch but it is not yet completed. Here is the front porch east wall getting a first coat of paint.

While I was gone Pam added a second coat of paint to the porch and began painting the west wall off the laundry room.

Pan did as far up as she could reach from our aluminum ladder. We hope to rent some scaffolding from Bob the Builder and finish the wall and paint the detail work up to the top of the peak over Labor Day weekend.

More flowers are blooming, keeping us supplied with “color” around the yard.

Not shown is detail painting Pam has done on some of the north and east porch posts. I will have more on that in my next post. Work goes on but at a slower rate due to high humidity and temperatures levels that limit time outdoors.

The next topic covers my time in Colorado in early August. There are three general divisions to discuss: Work on The Lot, ATV rides, and a special guided tour.

Given my decreased energy levels I decided to concentrate on cleaning up areas where Pam and I had previously worked. Aspen trees are not long-lived and there are always some dead trees to remove and brush to cut. On my June trip I made a few brush piles that I wanted to chip this time, and I was able to get that done. Going through the Aspen Grove and Bird House Ridge I removed several more trees, mostly small but a couple were big enough to salvage for firewood. Some of these were chipped but a few remain for my next outing.

While I spent quite a bit of time working and walking on The Lot, I had also planned a return to the Alpine Tunnel, the first railroad tunnel to go under the continental divide. Pam and I had visited the tunnel 40 years ago and I wanted to make a return visit to see what has changed since then. This was an all-day event. Suffice to say I took a lot of photos that only a railroad history buff would find interesting, so here are just a few of the many views I took along the way.

The first surprise is that the area is now a National Historic District with much signage along the route. I was pleased to see this historic bit of railroad is now recognized as something to preserve.

The railroad is most famous for the rock work required to build a shelf road along some towering cliffs. Known as “The Palisades” the work was done beginning in 1880. The railroad ran until 1910 and the rock work survives to this day with only minor degradation.

You really need to click on the above photo to blow it up to a larger size to appreciate it. As you can see, weather was just about perfect.

I will have a full gallery featuring photos from this trip shortly and will add it to my Galleries page. I will let you know when the gallery is completed but it may take some time due to the amount of material I wish to include. Watch for it.

Another high post of my vacation occurred when I went to visit the top of Boreas Pass. (Readers may remember that Pam’s mother’s ashes were spread at the top of the pass as she had requested.) We try to make the trip each year we visit Colorado.

The route to the pass goes through the town of Como where the railroad had a roundhouse in use from the late 1800s into the mind-1930s. Over the years we had observed the roundhouse undergoing repair and reconstruction work. On this trip the yard seemed to be unusually busy so I stopped to see what the excitement was about.

The owners of the old roundhouse are in the process of building a replica water tank. Another couple had stopped to look over the work and I joined them.

During the talk I asked if the roundhouse was ever open to the public. (It is one weekend of the year.) I said I would not be around for that event, and before you knew it, I, and the other couple, were invited on a personal tour of the roundhouse!

My camera’s battery had gone dead and was recharging so I reached back for my old Canon but it has no flash so most of my inside photos did not turn out well. Still, I enjoyed the tour and learned more about the history of the Denver, South Park, and Pacific Rail Road. I had known some of the history as this is the rail road that created the Alpine Tunnel but the guide had even more information at hand. I was delighted at this turn of events.

A few roundhouse photos will be included in my Alpine Tunnel gallery as both the tunnel and the roundhouse were part of the same railroad line.

After the guided tour I continued my trip to the top of Boreas Pass, where little has changed over the last several years. However, the public outhouses are now locked.

One thing that I will mention is that a smokey haze was present throughout most of my vacation, a by-product of all the fires in the western states. The haze was particularly noticeable from the Boreas Pass Road.

I also ran my ATV on some forest service trails including LaSalle Pass but those photos will have to wait for an upcoming post.

Finally, just a couple miscellaneous photos taken during the trip.

No Photo Archive this week.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

While Himself was in Colorado, oldest cat London (17+ years) went into his final decline; he died in my arms in the middle of a stormy night. London came into my life as a kitten, when I was working for a Colorado animal shelter and had just started investigating rescue. His life spanned an intense kitten-fostering period in our Colorado years – 33 kitten litters fostered in a decade. London’s passing is a bittersweet goodbye to those Crazy Cat Lady days.

Happy Trails.