B*L*I*N*G*

During a brief  'reno-interruptus' I acquired this little deco inspired table top.   A complete and utter surprise gift from a friend who is so observant and basically just so right on,  as well as generous and thoughtful and very,  very handy...did I forget to mention handsome?  Anyway,  the pedestal/urn had been topped with a silly little round  strawplacematthing,   that was functional but certainly not fashionable like my new bling thing.  Me adores it, my friend and you  K'now who you are.

homesteading

We may as well be living here.

I just want a simple shower built with corrugated sheet metal walls.

So we tore out the atrocious bathtub that came with the joint.

(please keep your comments polite)

Took it for a 'ride' to the dump and when it wasn't looking we

abandoned it in a dumpster.

We did glance back just in time to see the bulldozer smashing it...Yah! 

Yuk...the tub....eeek!

Bad attitudes are surfacing on a daily basis around here.

Maybe its the heat but 'cranky' seems to be the prevailing mood.

So, there the mess sits greeting us every morning, noon and night with nary a carpenter or plumber in sight.

Woe is word of choice.

But there is some progress:
new front door, more stone steps and gravel almost all the way around courtesy of my helper, MarkyMark, the best all-around worker anyone could hope for.   

 

MarkyMark aka 'the Rock'

Oooh, I am feeling better already.

pretty sweet...finally!

I am so not complaining when I say it has been deliciously HOT here of late and the constant rains have finally stopped.  We are now getting those wonderful rolling summer thunderstorms that blow in seemingly suddenly and just pound us.   Brief and to the point and then we are left with a holy coolness.     Been making hibiscus sun tea everyday ( the summer drink of choice )while moving gravel and rocks.   Oh, my beautiful glass blocks are destined for  MO-bile greatness one day in the very distant future.  

'GAVINANGELO'

In the beginning, there was the 'slope'...

...a few hours later....

...more work...

...another day....

...MORE work...

...almost done!

....bellissimo!

What is going on here you may wonder.    

Well, after the excavator left the job site, we were left with this slope of a runway from the parking area to the front walkway.   We happen to have a friend who is a master stone mason/artist  (I do not say this lightly) and he graciously offered to build some stone steps for us.  The day finally arrived and the transformation began.  As you can see the end result is a massive, monumental set of steps that lead down to the humble MO-bile...oh my...does this now mean we have to build a castle?  

Thank you Gavin for all your hard work and the lovely result which will outlive all of us.

Dogs Can be Dogs

It's time to write about PonyG and her amazing transformation.   Since moving to the country and becoming a 'country dog',  PonyG is a new girl.   Let me explain.

   She now lives her life  off-leash,  all the time.   She roams around her UN-FENCED property and does not wander.   She has figured out her terrritory and she patrols it carefully ( how did she do that ?).     She greets people who visit with a wagging tail and an over-enthusiastic jump up (can't stop it...I've tried).   She has a couple of vantage points that she favors where she can see all comings and goings.  She gets lots of other dogs coming to visit and play and as far as I can tell, she does not go to their places to visit,  unless I do.   She also does something that I absolutely love...she follows me everywhere I go when I am working outside...it is wonderful.   AND get this....she comes when called....Yup....comes when called!

She was a terrible  'city' dog.   She was skittish and wild.  She was a challenge all the time.  She was not my fantasy.   I admit,  I got close to giving up on her many times.  I was at my wit's end and I guess she was too.

Little did I know that within PonyG. there did indeed lurk

 my fantasy dog.   All she needed was an open door and some open space.  She has become a pretty darn good dog

living a real dog's life.

PonyG hunting for something hiding in the woodpile....a mouse?  a snake? a bug?

What's the Point?

It's been a fun-filled few weeks here in the valley of the Crescent as it always is when a favorite 'relation' comes to visit and....STAYS to play.   Why the 'quotes' you may ask?     It is a long, long story with many liberties taken but here it goes.... A 'cousin' of sorts is here and staying in the MotorHovel campsite.  We (this 'cousin' of sorts and I) had  known of each other for a few years (an entire lifetime really)  when one day we realized that we really like eachother.   This being  due to sharing  a similar sense of the absurd and a genuine love of mescal.  Thus, we decided (sub-consciously, of course) to become good friends.   You know how those things go....you know someone casually for years and then something clicks and voila you ask yourself "where have you been all my life?"     
Well,   one day  we come to find out that we are actually somewhat related via a convoluted web,  of marriages  (and divorces).  This amazing information is gleaned from the wide world web.   This was not your usual ancestry.com  kind of discovery as the lines are much more blurred and need a bit of 'faith' to actually connect the dots.  It is a stretch,   but,  this 'eureka' moment was one we both chose to embrace wholeheartedly and have since declared ourselves 'cousins' from that day forward.    Now all the pressure is off and we are no longer required to be on best behaviour all the time.   Like all good relatives we now allow the occasional lapse into naughtiness without the fear of  a rift or a misunderstanding  turning into a 'disowning'  or  a 'growing apart' sort of situation.    We can humiliate and taunt without recrimination.  We can annoy and then re-group.  We can gossip about others and we can agree on what everyone else should be doing.    We are after all, 'related',  not by blood,  but by the internet,  which trumps scissors any way you play it.

Life is good.

room with a view

One of the benefits of living in a rainforest is that along with all the rain,  you also get to see a lot of

 rainbows.

Of course, they seem like much more of a miracle in person than any of my photos can capture.

But, in light of the heaps of regret that come with  posting something so benign, so quietly lovely...here it is.

Not much to add to this except to point out the obvious fact that it was a fleeting event  and this particular 'bow seemed to me to be a bit on the lazy side in the way it lounged

 along the mountain.

Not so clearly pointing to that pot of gold, 

but more of a laid-back, it might be there or it might not be there kind of attitude.

  











 

Happy Hour Campsite

It's just the beginning but so far so cute.  I have a ways to go as I want to throw some grass seed around it and also to place some larger boulders after burying the metal thingy.   But it is on the new flat part of the terraced area and has a sweet view of the mountain and the lower bush area.  It works as we've already had some fires and some spicey ceasars  (a drink made with tomatoe vegg juice, herbs & spices and a sprinkle of hot sauce to taste... oh,  and of course,  a bit of vodka and squeeze of lemon or lime).   Did I say "YUM"?     But, anyway, just an update because I have been lax in posting due to major moving of rocks/boulders/dirt/gravel etc.  Every muscle in my body aches and my neck is killing me.   I am loving it.

Seriously

I recently received one of those emails that we all get from someone who forwarded this  "important information"  from someone who forwarded it to them, who forwarded it to.......and so on and so on.   Anyway, after reading the "important information" and finding myself getting a bit peeved that this is what someone thought I needed to be aware of,  I then got a bit more sympathetic (for a moment, I'll be honest).     It is indeed terrible that some of you do live in places where you need to worry about things like what type of car is parked next to you in a parking lot or,   if you hear water running outside of your house, at night,  it might be a serial killer trying to lure you outside to add you as a notch on  his(her?) belt...seriously?    I read all the "warnings" and there were several and then I looked outside my living room and briefly wondered what it would be like to be that scared and wary and worried every day, all day.   I not sure even when I lived in the middle of one of the largest metropolitan areas of North America,  did I ever  feel that vulnerable--I just didn't.   I know,  bad things do happen all the time and as many of you will remind me, they do happen everywhere.  Well,  shall we say almost everywhere.   Yes, the 'news' is full of these things  and yes, I guess I should check the back seat whenever I get in the car  (and thankfully I now know what to do if there is someone there with a weapon -- PANIC)  but really, my biggest concern is that now some N-U-T probably got the same email that I did and now has some real good ideas about what to do today.   Am I in denial?   I sure hope so because its real pretty here.    

Why is this guy looking in this refrigerator?

                   

                 

imagine

What I am enjoying at the moment is the wind...and I mean W-I-N-D...blowing through the valley.    The ponderosa pines and the lovely larch trees are all swaying, swaying, swaying   in the same direction and it looks very not real.    A perfectly cool evening,  in attitude as well as temperature (essentially correct) and  with the mismatched  colours of  pinky-blue&white puffy clouds.  It is all so electric, so edgy,  so very portend of things to come.

 The photo has nothing to do with the wind  except that  even random, seemingly unrelated thoughts are all connected somehow...and this sweet deer just suits me now and my fear/hope  that if we left well enough alone, most of the time,  the world would be more according to John.... Lennon, that is.   Cheers.