Happy Feet

I've been trying to determine why I'm particularly happy when I'm at the cabin.  Some of my friends think I should be happier in the apartment in Boulder where I have ample hot running water at the twist of a faucet, a flush toilet, room heat at the touch of a thermostat and a maintenance staff on call to handle any repair.  And when I read the foregoing sentence, their opinion seems sensible.

So what's behind my preference?  I know I enjoy being closer to the elements, even though I could and did get very tired of the high and incessant winds in Eldora that blow down the chimney of the wood stove and spread ashes over the cook top even with the draft closed.  This is what the stove top looked like after I'd been away for several weeks...

But I love the vistas that allow me to keep an eye on the clouds building up on the Great Divide, wondering what they hold in store...

It looks like snow...

It smells like snow...



The crows agree...

And what do I need to do to prepare for a possible storm and colder temperatures?

I also love the solitude and not having the neurotic resident who lives below me calling up indicating she's analyzed a sound she's been hearing in the night and she has definitely identified it as being a humidifier...yes, a humidifier...in my apartment (don't have a humidifier...or any other appliance running at night)...and would I please put something under it to buffer the noise it's making, and, oh, by the way, a digital alarm clock went off at 5 a.m. and continued to beep for a long period of time and woke her up and undoubtedly I've gone off to the cabin and left it on (no, I hadn't and no, I didn't) and would I please make sure it's turned off, etc., etc.  This is the same resident who knocked on my door a couple of months ago holding a bowl and spoon and said another resident had suggested she should come and look at the way I'd decorated my apartment and when I shrugged and said, "Come on in and knock your socks off," she proceeded to wander around, with bowl and spoon, as if she were begging rice in an art gallery, ending up in the bathroom where she decided a mirror wasn't hanging straight and spent about ten minutes putting at least five nail holes in the space of a pencil eraser trying to right this wrong.  So, yes, I prefer being buffered from the neurotics who, unlike those residents who are actually on meds, should be.

Whatever the reasons, I found myself lighthearted enough during my last visit to the cabin that I was taking breaks from my chores while I was as the cabin earlier in the week to....dance.  

There is a section of floor about three feet by three feet with no rug..

In between stuffing these plastic bags (back) in around the windows...

Trying, unsuccessfully, to make the front door air tight with weather stripping...

...ah, monkey do, monkey see it's on the wrong surface!  Good thing it's not sticking...

...transferring all of the tools and DYI stuff from two smaller plastic storage boxes into one larger storage box that my sister and I had managed to empty of useless items we donated to Savers in September...

...and storing it back under the bunk...

...cleaning fall flies off the windows, Windexing the mirrors and dusting, I intermittently stopped to dance to the music on an old The Big Band Era tape, The Passing of an Era, I was playing on an equally old clock radio tape deck...

I fox trotted to Count Basie playing Fiesta in Blue and members of the Les Brown Orchestra playing I've Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, soft shoed to Lawrence Welk playing Chasing Rainbows...

...and quick stepped (sort of) to members of the Benny Goodman Orchestra playing I Found a New Baby and After You've Gone.  Next time I'll remember to pack the stillettos and stockings (with seams).  And, guys, if that and Dancing With the Stars isn't enough to get you into dance class, let me tell you, a little chocolate and Glenn Miller playing Blue Champagne or Dick Haymes (Much better than Sinatra.  Wonder why he didn't endure?) singing This Time the Dream's on Me...mmm!  mmm!

I had a blast.  Dancing on the cabin floor is like dancing on a snare drum.  I felt like Ann Miller on the soup can.  And if you're too young to remember those T.V. commercials, ask your mother.  And if she's too young to remember Ann Miller, ask your grandmother...or just watch this...

Now that would give that woman downstairs something to squawk about!  Teddee

Two Hands and a Knife

I drove to the cabin this past Monday afternoon with two primary goals:  1) To pick up my snow tires, which were stored in the woodshed....

...sure wish they'd put only one tire, instead of two, per bag, but thanks to my sister, who spends her vacations cleaning and organizing, at least these were right inside the door and not buried the way they usually are... 


 ...and 2) to stuff strips of plastic bags into the cracks between the windows and the frames to prevent drafts and moisture intrusion now that the winds are picking up at the higher elevations and some light snows have been falling in Eldora.

Now that I'm not living at the cabin full time I wanted to be sure the mattress on the bunk didn't get damp and mold like the last one.

After living in the cabin for two winters and pondering the best way to "insulate" the windows, which swing into the cabin, without covering them with semi-translucent plastic and lath either on the inside (ugly) or outside (impossible because of the shutters), I decided I'd try this solution. 

All that seemed to be required were the bags, of course, my two hands and a knife...

This reminded me of a book I loved as a pre-teen called Two Hands and a Knife.  My memory is a bit foggy about how we came to have this pulp paperback in the house.  It seems we had been given a box of paperbacks, all with a bit of a masculine bent, by someone, perhaps an uncle.  And since, even then, I read everything I could get my hands on, these were a treasure trove of escapism.  (I also loved Argosy magazine and had a collection of gorgeous nature pages published in each issue by Weyerhaeuser!)

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the pulp fiction paperbacks got tossed at some point.  They would have been worth keeping if for no other reason than what I recall as being the typically lurid cover art of such pulp fiction of the period. 

I decided I'd see if the book was still available, so went to Amazon and discovered a mystery.  The original Two Hands and a Knife was a story of a young man (I recall he was 16) who, after being left alone, with only two hands and a knife, in Canada's Northwest Territories following a small plane crash that killed his father, must use all of his wilderness skills to return to civilization.  I still remember his frightening encounter with a wolverine! 

According to Amazon, it was written by Warren Hastings Miller and was published by Scholastic Magazine in 1956 as a mass market paperback.  "Currently unavailable," states Amazon.  "We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."  However, there is a listing for a book by the same title, written by a Terry E. Gibson and published in 2003, which according to reviews, has basically the same plot.  Wonder if Mr. Miller failed to get a copyright?  

I thought these comments by two readers, who, like me, read the original, were interesting:

"I read this story fifty years ago when I was a teenager," says David D. Abbott. "I would strongly recommend this book to all young people as a guide for self reliance and living skills. The mental pictures I formed as I read the story are still clear and sharp in my mind. [Emphasis mine].  My life has been enhanced by this book."

"I too read a book by this title 50 years ago," says GreyDX, "but this does not seem to be the same book. Perhaps the author or publisher could post some information explaining the relationship, if any, to the earlier book by Warren Hastings Miller, with the same tile (sic) and the same plot. I would be very interested."

So, back to my wilderness experience using two hands and a knife...and some plastic bags.  I spent a couple of hours stuffing plastic bags and strips of bags into every window crack and crevice into which the knife could be inserted.  Some of the cracks were so wide I could easily stuff in an entire bag.  Other places, the cracks were smaller and I had to cut thin strips.  I was very deliberate and tidy.  I didn't want the plastic bag insulation to be obvious.  

Looking good...

Looking better...

I did all four windows and, even though it got down into the 20s,...

and the winds came up in the night, there were no drafts coming in around the windows.  

Now one wouldn't think pushing with your hand would be hard on a torn shoulder rotator cuff (yes, I finally had an MRI and the fall I had in May tore my right rotator cuff...another story), but I kept waking up in the night going, "Why didn't I remember my ibuprofen!"  My arm was killing me.  But, the job was done...or was it?

The next day, there was a red (OK, pink, and more than a little out of focus...it was early and I hadn't had my coffee) sky in the morning...

I've never been sure the old saw "Sailor take warning" only applied to sailors and bad weather or could bode ill for landlubbers, but at some point the next day I realized I hadn't removed the window screens my brother-in-law had made for the west and south windows and the hooks and eyes are on the inside!  In order to remove the screens so they could be stored out of Eldora's  horrendous winter weather I had to open the windows and, of course, all of the plastic bags and strips of plastic bags fell out. !#&*!

Before I started on Phase II, I went into Nederland and added to my "tools"...

Two Hands, a Knife and Some Ibuprofen.  Hmm.  Not quite the same. And neither was the job I did on the windows I have to admit.  I thought I was doing an adequate, if not an obsessive-compulsive, job, but I ended up with bags and strips left over!  What did I miss?

The other "monkey do, monkey (finally) see (what she should have done)" thing that happened with this project was that I had decided to close the shutter before I left just on the west window in case there were 100 mph winds coming over the Divide, like there were last Thanksgiving, that might blow something heavy enough into that window to break it.  I even told my neighbors the day before that was what I was going to do.  I'd forgotten that shutter also hooks into hooks on the inside of the window!  Whose idea was that?  I suppose having the hooks inside means anyone wanting to gain unauthorized access would have to remove the hinges?  No need for another padlock?
 
No, I didn't attempt Phase III.  I'm taking a chance and perhaps I'll think of some way to hook that shutter from the outside.  That would be a good idea anyway if a person is going to be visiting occasionally during the winter.  In fact, I think the east window shutter has an outside hasp.  I'll see what I can rig up...Two Hands and a Drill!...the next time I'm there....and I can't wait.  Boy, am I happy up there.  More on the next post!  Teddee

Late August in the Rockies

I promised yesterday to post some of the photos I took while I was at the cabin in Eldora last weekend.  It's starting to look a little like fall...

I know this is Oregon Grape.  The leaves look like holly...

I've spent an  inordinate amount of time on line trying to determine what this plant, the leaves of which are turning such a bright yellow, is and haven't been able to find anything about it.  In the process, however, I've come to the conclusion that there are way too many sites that purport to provide information on Rocky Mountain plants, weeds, flowers that are totally useless since they don't provide photos!...

 

Even the creek has that autumn look....

This is the seed head produced by the plant that's turning bright yellow...

Not sure what this is either.  I need a Rocky Mountain "what is it" plant book...

Love this melange of colors and textures...

This huge clump of moss changes with the seasons...

 

More Oregon Grape...

More of the mystery plant...

 

This little ground cover always interests me.  It is so stalwart.  And I think about it hunkering down under feet of snow each winter...

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Did you ever see the movie Raintree County with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift?  When I came upon this I was reminded of that...

Is that aspen in the center below turning already?...

I also promised an update on the foxes.  I'm not sure what is going on, but none of them came to eat during the day until the last morning.  I had two the first night and I think one of them might have been Vixen, but they didn't come until nightfall and it was so dark, even with the porch light on, I couldn't be sure.  Although when I went out to put more kibble out, one of them kind of danced up onto the deck and toward the cabin door and that sounds like Vixen and I thought when the light got behind her that I could see that split in her ear. If it was her, her coat had improved greatly so that was good news, but they were both very nervous and I never saw her again.  

The next three nights only one fox came and I think it was Valentino.  He was super vigilant that last night, kept looking out south toward the road in between bites of food.  Then the last morning, I was having my coffee at the picnic table and when I got up and came around the corner to come back into the cabin, there was Valentino sitting in the meadow looking just ghastly.  He had been badly injured...

You can see the wound on his left shoulder and neck and his eyes and eyebrows look like he is in so much pain...

He did eat, but I think his jaw on the left even looks swollen and he was limping.  I left a bowl of kibble hoping it would provide at least one more meal, but, of course, I couldn't be sure the magpies or another animal wouldn't get to it first and I won't be back for some time, so I hope he's able to hunt.  

Here's a close-up of that wound on his neck...

...it looks as if whatever attacked him almost cut his jugular.  I hope he survives.

Not to end on such a somber note, here is a shot of my mountain neighbor's gorgeous poppies...

More later, Teddee

Back at the Cabin

This is the longest I've been away from the cabin since last July.  This time last year I was getting ready to drive back from visiting my brother in Tacoma.  During this current hiatus I've actually made some major strides toward making the apartment in Boulder livable.  The big game changers were a couple of small pieces of furniture I got half price last Saturday at a Goodwill in Lafayette, Colorado.  It's hard to convey how this little settee...

...and matching chair...

...have actually changed my life at the apartment.  Because I have no seating in the rest of the apartment except for the one straight-backed chair I blogged about in my last post, I have used these two pieces of furniture to transform my tiny balcony into a really pleasant place to sit, have my morning coffee or an afternoon cold drink, read and just people watch.  

The latter activity I learned to enjoy from my maternal grandmother who could, and did, weave wonderful stories about all of the people we would see on Saturday afternoons in the closest town to our farms where people still said they were going into town to "do their trading," a leftover phrase from earlier years in which they actually did take their eggs and cream and trade them for groceries.  

We didn't link up with my grandparents every Saturday afternoon, but when we did, my sister and I would pile into their car and listen with fascination as my grandmother pointed out one citizen or another as they went about their business or met up with and talked to other area residents and concocted interesting, usually funny and often irreverent stories about what they were saying and doing.

But back to the "furniture that changed my life."  First off, I almost didn't get the settee moved from the store.  I had to make two trips back to Lafayette, one on Sunday during which I did get the chair in the back seat, but determined the settee simply would not fit inside the car.  On the second trip, which I made on Monday morning, the attendant in pick-up and receiving, managed to get just the back of the settee into the car trunk and with the help of two bungee cords, which he provided, made it quite secure for the trip back to Boulder.  I wrestled both pieces into the apartment building, onto the elevator and down the long hall to my apartment.  The chair was not a problem, but the settee almost got the better of me.  My arm is still not healed, but as long as I keep it below my waist, my strength seems pretty good.

I'm not finished "decorating" the balcony, but have confirmed I can put in a work order and have maintenance come and hang things on the balcony walls.  Right now, I've created a couple of vignettes that have made this small space seem a little more like a room...

I put this artificial topiary, which is in a white pot, inside this rusty bucket and teamed it up with these similarly colored candlesticks, raising one by placing it on another up-turned candle holder of the same color and fronting it with a green metal fern-like votive holder that picks up the green in the topiary.  This is on top of the air conditioning unit and I hope I'm not told I can't place anything on the a/c unit.  I may just move this when maintenance comes to hang the things I want hung on the walls.

This metal owl, which I built up by placing it on a metal can..

...and what I guess must be a metal wine carrier complement each other and are on the floor next to the chair, along with a couple of brown bottles in which I put small strands of white holiday lights right after I moved into the cabin.  They are very romantic at night.


All of this goes with the fabric that's on the chair and settee now which I'm not finding that objectionable.  I will eventually sand and repaint the wood and am thinking of recovering the seats with this fabric...

All of this stuff was in my Boulder storage unit and had been piled in the living room, so it was fun to find a use for it and not have to give it away.


In addition to the lights in the brown bottles, I found these grapevine lights...

...that I had tucked away in storage.  They look cute draped over the back of the settee, but aren't practical here since you can't lean back on them.  I've determined we can have lights on the balcony railing so will probably affix them there even though there aren't enough of them to cover the entire railing.


I also made this artificial succulent arrangement...

...in a container I found in storage and put it in this plant stand that I bought from another cabin owner the first summer I was in Eldora at a moving sale.  I put this bamboo wine holder up behind it to provide some height in this corner behind the settee.  I had purchased these succulents at a wonderful store in Phoenix called Crown Imports before I moved from Arizona.  They specialize in very high-end (and high-priced!) artificial florals and these were fun to work with.  It had been years since I'd made a floral arrangement and I had no floral wire or picks and no wire cutters, but managed to produce something I like.  

I also created this little side table out of a folding base I had and a bamboo tray.  I had intended to bring the tray up here to the mountains and spray paint it black but forgot.  Perhaps the green picks up those touches of green in the candle vignette and the floral arrangement?  And I also want to work in this quixotic life preserver.  I don't know if this is a real life preserver or a prop of some sort, perhaps made for a prom or something, but it caught my eye.  Right now I have it hanging on the balcony railing, but I originally had it hanging on the back of the chair and think that's where it will end up.

Among the things I had in storage, I also found these metal leaf cut-outs and this beautiful piece of sari fabric...

 
I think I'm going to have maintenance hang the two metal art pieces along the west side of the sliding glass door, one above the other, and, because there is a metal girder that runs all along the patio roof right in front of the door, I think I'm going to get two or three expandable curtain rods and have them wedge those in between the wall and the girder and drape the fabric over those so it wafts in the breeze like orange sails.  I don't seem to get much wind inside the balcony.  There was a pretty strong wind blowing the afternoon and evening I was working on this and at least from the direction it was blowing it didn't seem as if it would blow things down or away the way the winds do here in the mountains.  

I hope these maintenance guys are good tempered!  I also want them to hang a mirror, which you can sort of see in this photo...

 

...which is just setting on floor next to the settee right now, and a large metal leaf candle holder (not shown) on the wall behind the plant stand.

Well, while I've been trying to create this blog and waiting and waiting, as usual, for my photos to upload, I've used the weed whacker on the weeds around the cabin.  The drought seems to be over up here in the mountains...my neighbor tells me they have been getting rain almost every day...and everything has greened up very nicely, and grown like...weeds.  I could hardly find the fox bowl when I arrived yesterday...

...and, in fact, it was raining and we were without electricity for about an hour after I arrived.  

I did not see Vixen at all the last time I was here just for a few hours, but she came just a bit ago.  I heard something really crunching the kibble I'd put out and had moved up on the deck while I attacked the weeds.  When I checked, it was she...

...I gave her a couple of eggs and two small pieces of chicken that had been in the refrigerator at the apartment too long and which I had deliberately brought up here for her.  Her coat is so strange.  Very sparse and curly.  If she doesn't get a better coat before cold weather I don't see her surviving the winter.

It has grown quite dark so I think we're probably in for more rain.  I'm glad I got the weeds "whacked."  I've got to bring in some things I've been spray painting and I'll blog more about those and some other things I've done here at the cabin since I arrived as well as some decorating I did in the apartment bedroom last week.  My internet subscription here in Eldora ceases at the end of July and I may not be able to arrange for internet at the apartment for a couple of weeks, so I'll try to cram in as much as possible before I dismantle the computer and move it to the apartment on Tuesday.

More later, Teddee