So It Begins

May 7, 2023

Hello again,

Well, the kitten keeps growing and growing and looking less and less like some kind of alien lifeform.  The feeding is getting easier and easier but as her teeth and nails have started to grow, we sometimes get mauled in the process.  Still, it's fun to see her turning from a little creature into a little cat.  The weather is still all over the place, with us seeing everything from 38-79 this week, with plenty of showers and lots of wind.  Last week's snowstorm seems to have been a late-season(winter) fluke, and the average temperature seems to keep trending in a warmer direction.  But, like I've said before, the temperature can fluctuate wildly out here, especially in the springtime.  In the summer we seem to end up on a shelf where the temperature doesn't ever drop below 50F and this is when all the snakes, lizards and other critters are out in abundance.  Before that hits finally in late May or so, the mornings quite often still dip down into the 30s and then by mid-afternoon it's briefly sizzling around 80 or more.  The daily swing in temperatures can sometimes be as much as forty degrees and it only drives home the point that you need lots and lots of layers out here.  You always need some kind of a jacket or longsleeve shirt, hat, vest, t-shirt, perhaps a different pair of shoes(somedays both flip-flops and boots!) and always sunglasses.  Back East in soggy, old Pennsylvania, it quite often is cloudly and/or raining for 300 days a year.  Out here it is the exact opposite and sunny for nearly 300 days each year.  We literally walked around completely blinded by the glare for the first few months that we were out here, even in the winter!  I've always liked yellow or orange sunglasses, lighter than not, but you definitely need a pair of dark ones in the car for when you're driving into the rising sun first thing in the morning or into the setting sun right before dark.  We had yet another full moon this week, which I had the joy of seeing rise over Starvation Peak while I was out feeding the horses.  The night before I was walking the dogs(just the girls... Rui stayed on the couch!) out on the driveway, heading back towards the houses and the eastern horizon and saw the nearly full moon climbing our little hill, like a giant, unseen hand was gently pushing it up the hill in some daily kind of Sysyphean feat.  Speaking of such feats, I've been moving the boss's planters all around the new house, setting them up here and there with the help of the tractor, the buggy and my aching back.  More than one of them needed moved multiple times, so I'm glad that we haven't had time to fill them up with more dirt yet!  It's on the list.

Speaking of moving planters around for the boss, that doesn't quite sound very much like construction, I'm sure you're thinking.  And, you're right!  More and more I'm doing domestic type things at the new house, not only moving the planters here and there, but making sure that everything is getting watered and trying to find just the right spot to put it.  The architect has disappeard to Puerto Rico to deal with a family emergency and things seem to be falling apart again just as we seemed to truly be nearing the end.  The foreman moved to Pagosa Springs, CO, some four hours away, months ago and has been coming down for an abbreviated 3 1/2 day week, staying either at his Dad's place in Santa Fe or camping out somewhere in his little camper truck.  A lot of days it is only Valentin and I, with him always chipping away at stone in some way, shape or form and me, more often than not, cleaning, trying to keep this new house somewhat clean before Erin takes over with the daily cleaning and the boss is moved in with all the construction workers out.  Already, I've become a bit of a scold and am trying to get everyone to take their shoes off when they come inside, but usually to no avail.  We also have a handful of subcontractors showing up to finish up this or that particular thing and never in a million years would we be able to get them to abide by a no shoes policy.  So, more often than not, I'm cleaning footprints and mud off of the same spots on the floor day after day after day after day!  It's looking increasingly likely that I'll be switched over to working directly for the boss at any point here and may even wind up with a huge punch list to finish up all the little details, patches, scratches and such.  We just passed one of the final electrical inspections and only have to now do the final certificate of occupancy to be able to move the boss in.  Once that's done, the dominoes start falling as we move next door and then redo the casita where we have been living!

This week's pictures are a huge batch of shots, all from the same day, when I was out with the horses.  First, I spotted them screwing around the water troughs as one of them(Hidalgo ... aka Bubba-Bubba) had pulled the cork out of the smaller water tank, making an impromptu water pic for him to clean his teeth with.  Then, after I had gone out to do the evening feeding and had not seen any of them, I saw them storming back from the big pasture to the smaller one where the feeders are, all ten of them running hell for leather, raising a cloud of dust and sending the dirt fly as they sprinted past.  It was all I could do to turn my camera on and start snapping, so I included every one from that group.  That's the latest from here!

Take care.