A garden photo

Life has been amazingly busy, and while we always know May and June are the busy months, it's actually a surprise this year how much we are doing.

Work:
One of my guys left to do full time ministry so I had to panic and fill a key position. Luckily I knew the perfect person and we made it happen in a very short time frame. It did uproot his life a little to take the job and move from the pacific northwest but I am thinking of amazing positives for him and his girlfriend in the long run.
We have an event at work almost every weekend in the summer, and I have to head for Seattle for a conference next week. I'm out of town for the rest of this week, back for 1/2 a day, then away for 4 more. The one weekend I'm home with no work event we will finish packing the tools and items for the cabin.

Home:
The garden is doing well, I have a couple of tomato plants that are struggling but I planted more than enough. I know why and it's my fault, so another lesson learned about hail and removing the buckets from the plants before it gets too hot out.
We hoe'd the bean rows to keep the bushes from leaning too much. I prefer bush beans to climbers, but next year I might just install some chicken wire and change to climbing vines.
The lettuce we planted 2 years ago is almost ready to seed again, we just don't eat enough of it but it's there. The chives are amazing this year, they are going to seed right now. A random potato started to grow and the other random stuff I planted in odd spots is actually coming through.

Less than 2 weeks until closing on the cabin. I could have closed today but I felt it was silly to do closing paperwork and leave town for 10 days.

We managed to get some ATV riding in, hiking, running, indoor rock climbing, and more. I've finished 4 books in the last 2 weeks and should get another 3 read this week while I'm out of town. One of the hikes I took was with my 50lb. pack, it had been a while since I rucked with it and I did great. I've changed up my diet a lot in the last couple of weeks and I'm finally getting adjusted to it.

In the great wisdom from a dog:
When it's hectic and fast paced, sometimes we all need to take 5 minutes under a shade tree. Next to a creek would be better.

I hope everyone is doing well, I'll make my way around to blogs when I have a chance, maybe in a couple of weeks.

Cabin visit

We've decided to use the term 'cabin' when discussing the new property. It fit, and while we have a name thought of once we take possession, 'cabin' works well enough.

My best friend of 20 years just moved to town, and wanted to see the cabin. We loaded up and headed out on Saturday morning after moving a couple of items into his apartment. It was a beautiful day, but we found the road crew working in front of the property.

It seems there was a log jam up stream and it cause most of the road to flood out. There wasn't anything amiss on the cabin property, just some overflow water near the creek itself. The creek was very high.

The county road crew said "the guy who owns the water got rid of the log jam". This peaked my curiosity on the whole water rights, so I contacted a lawyer this morning about it. In Colorado having water rights is one thing, but if someone has senior water rights they have priority. The road crew also said it was the first time this had ever happened, so that's good news.

On the way to the cabin we watched a helicopter take a drink.

Here are some shots from the area and one from the garden.

Yesterday we spent several hours in the yard and house getting all the chores done. We had fallen behind but with some high activity level, we took care of it all. I got the inside chores to help with the allergies, and it sucks to cut the grass with a dust mask on.
The garden is looking amazing, just lacking a few cucumbers so I need to replant in a small section. We already have green tomatoes growing, the blueberries are starting to form, the rosemary is amazing, a random potato started growing next to a random onion that's next to the wild lettuce.

We also added 45 miles to the ATV's, it can't all be work. I hope everyone had a productive weekend as well!

More dog than anything else

This is my busy time of year at work, my schedule is booked until the 2nd week of July with only a few days off when it's closing time on the new property.
That's not to say there isn't anything exciting going on of course:

On the way to the property for the home inspection. Besides a couple of home wiring issues, it's very solid. I was able to meet one of the owners and learned a little more about the original homestead, uses over the years, etc.
The Amish family had the horses roaming around so I grabbed a few photo's. It was good to watch them, it probably made us change the location for the dog fence. Originally it would run along the fence (pictured) but now we are thinking the other side of the cabin, so the horses can enjoy the space a little more and Rock doesn't go crazy whenever they are grazing on this end.

We weren't able to get home and lost a tomato plant, the price we pay for dual income.

Rock is getting plenty of hiking, and of course so are we. He carried a large stick into bed one morning but we were both already up and didn't get jabbed.

and of course, more Rock, since I know you all love dogs so much. Enjoy!

Homestead patent # 57443 and more!

It's fun to have a little history in your life, and when it involves purchasing a cabin, it makes the process seem less cumbersome.
Our soon to be property received a homestead patent in1894, signed by Grover Cleveland. March 30th, 1894 to be exact. What else could be so exciting?
This phrase: "with all water and water rights used for irrigation and ditching"

Finding a property with water was hard enough, finding one with water rights that wasn't a $300k+ ranch... amazing. The sellers don't even know, but that's why I read everything and pay for the extra stuff like a survey, appraisal and inspection.  Enjoy a few pictures from this past weekend!

The title search is done, the appraisal is done, the inspection will be done Monday and the plot survey done in the next week.

Zucchini, squash, beans, cucumbers, peppers, hot peppers, spicy peppers, lettuce, asparagus, more squash, more zucchini, 20 tomato plants, raspberries, blueberries and more.

We have been busy. I'll try to swing by some blogs but it's my busy time of the year at work so I'll not promise. I hope everyone is enjoying spring, I'm enjoying allergies!

A mothers day of surprise!

Since everything in our life is anything but normal,  here is the weather for today.

We went down the street to the in-laws and I cooked steak in the snow while someone else made shrimp tempura. Most of the family didn't show up, 50% of them are separated/getting a divorce. This was a surprise although we knew the 2 couples were having trouble. I hope they are all happy with the choices they are making, it shouldn't be hard but it's not supposed to be easy.

I spent some time telling the nephew and niece how to put away and clean up after the meal was done. It was very awkward for them to actually do chores but they did a great job. Socially awkward was an understatement. I asked niece what she was going to do when she graduated in a few days from high school and she replied, "I'm going to my therapist to learn how to deal with all the stress of picking out a college".
That conversation was suddenly over.

I helped nephew in a game where he was the president and had to decisions to keep everyone happy or be assassinated. Interesting but unrealistic. It was nice to get him talking for a few hours. He is an inside kid at this stage of his teenage years.

We did have one really wonderful surprise today. We signed a contract on the cabin we wanted, and offered on last week. Apparently my pleasant demeanor and great attitude won the lady over. The tentative schedule shows us closing towards the end of June after I get back from a conference in the Seattle area.

The blue are 2 creeks that come down from the mountain lakes (I have horrible software on the home computer, sorry). One breaks into 2 and runs along one edge of the property, the other runs 25 feet past the other corner of the property. It's less than a mile into the National Forest for hunting, fishing, shooting, trapping, hiking etc.

If all goes well, this is going to be the start of a great adventure that we are both really looking forward to.

Happy Mothers Day to everyone, and to you Susan, more of a Mom to me than anyone else while I was growing up.

Purchase attempt fail

We made an offer on the property with the creek and stream.

Since everyone wants to play the game I offered $24k less than they were asking and they countered $10k less than the initial asking price. After some discussion the seller decided not to lower the price more, as she was going to do some renovations in hopes of getting the full asking price.

What?

I'll buy it right now, but instead you want to put more time and money into something that's been for sale for 3 years.
I was hoping we could meet in the middle but instead the lady can enjoy it not selling. It won't even appraise for what she want's since the 3 bedroom will only be a 2 bedroom since it's missing a closet. While there is no standard for listing property, there is one for appraisal: door plus window, plus closet = bedroom.

We tried, we made a fair offer in the game.

This process could be done right now if we didn't want tree's, a good well, power, etc. It's easy enough to go off grid with wind and solar, but it's really expensive to get power connected.

Our realtor will call this afternoon and we will discuss some things. There isn't anything else available with running water on property unless we wanted to fork out $300k+

Power Outage

I suppose all those environmentalists who wanted the coal power plant shut down are thrilled. We lost power in the home area, good thing we don't really care.

Structure fires, in old buildings are pretty nasty. In new buildings they tend to do a lot of smoldering but if they get big, it's game over there as well. We had to have the fire department saw into concrete backer board on a tile covered pylon once, took forever. Luckily the fire didn't get too large, the water to extinguish it was the main source of damage.
Customers weren't happy, the sub contractor who started the fire wasn't happy either.

In other news, the entire garden is planted and the yard chores are done. Garden in, fence posts replaced (with metal of course), yard seeded, yard mowed, etc. We have 1 post in for a hammock and will get the other in this week. I don't really care about it but when it's important to someone else, it's important to me.

I went to the grocery store on Saturday and saw that 93% lean ground beef was $5.99 a pound, chicken breast was buy 1 pack get 2 free (at $16 for one pack of 4 boneless and skinless). My favorite apples, Honey Crisp, were $4.99 a pound and the milk we normally buy was some price I can't remember. I did find some chicken thighs on sale and then reduced for quick sale, so I picked up 10 of those for $3 and cut the meat off the bones. 4 potatoes, 1 large onion, 2 green peppers, 2 diced tomatoes and whatever spices you like will get you a nice meal in 4 hours on high in the crockpot. I made ours with chili powder and some chipolte rub sprinkled in.

I'm going to mix up some powdered milk, even if I'm the only one who will drink it. Buying it in a bucket is mega savings and I have gallon mason jars that will work great. Every morning I have a banana sliced up into a bowl with a cup of special K and 1/2 cup of milk. I eat this while reading the daily far right wing 'fire you up' news sites. Then I have a cup of Irish breakfast tea while reading the far left 'fire you up' news sites. Have to know both sides to every lie.

In closing, I love honey wheat one rise bread. When I was hungry on Saturday afternoon I made some. The crock pot wasn't done yet and the smell of fresh baked bread is something special. Add in some real butter and it's a lot like reliving childhood.