Enter, Black Bart

After a very long and hot day in Denver yesterday, Red returned home to his posh retreat where we were shared a steak and watched a movie together for the first time in several weeks. With the front door propped wide open, we were taking in the cool night breeze while the fresh mountain air swirled around our living room when suddenly I heard a disturbance at the front door, just a mere three feet away from me. My only protection...thin nylon screen and piece of PVC pipe beside me. "Red! Something's out there," I squeaked, scrambling out of his way, nearly tossing my steak sideways. I could sense that the disturbance was much larger than Sally, our resident fox and I knew it was much larger than the raccoon we had met earlier through our bedroom window. It could only be one thing, I feared inside my terror stricken thoughts. At Red's hasty stroke of the porch light, there it stood, Black Bart; all 200+ pounds of muscle, fur and teeth. He looked at Red and wandered slowly up the hill beside our house, only to stop, take another look at Red, I think to size him up, but alas, Black Bart meandered back up into the woods.

When we lived in Larkspur, we had encountered bears a few times and it was exciting. One time, a bear was in our tree in the backyard...our two dogs had treed him. My daughter, Sydney, feared the bear would hurt our dogs so she stood below this bear and struggled to get our dogs back into the house. Of course, as a mother, I freaked out that my daughter is standing right below this bear who seemed very annoyed. Sydney, unconcerned, treated this bear like it was a kitten in the tree! Against my strong encouragment (many severe words) to make her get back inside, she did accomplish the mission and the bear seemed most grateful to her when he climbed down, offered a friendly nod and wandered back up into the trees.

Another encounter with bears left me a changed person. We had been camping near Red Feather Lakes with our daughters and sons-in-law and grand-daughter. We all love to camp but for Amanda and me, as soon as the sun goes down, our imaginations rise to the occasion...our husbands just love this about us. When darkness falls, bear is constantly on the brain...every noise and every sound can be attributed to a bear sneaking up on us.

It was our last camping night and we had already scared the crap out of each other over bears and so it was decided for us that it was time for bed. We all climbed into our tents and rested our heads...moments later, I awoke to the words, "Mommie! They're here!" This could only mean one thing...code for BEARS IN THE CAMP! I flicked on my flashlight and I saw 3 sets of eyes peering into my tent! It's amazing how fast your entire life can really flash before you! I don't remember the next few minutes...other than Red and my son-in-law, Greg stomping around camping telling those bears to get out! Well, that will show them, I huffed...still shaking in my slippers. So, we all decided to go back to bed, but those stubborn bears returned! And that's when Amanda and I said, "We're outta here!" As we evacuated our camp at 2 a.m., we saw where the bears had completely torn a camp apart down the road! Tents were down and camping equipment was scattered everywhere. It looked as if a bomb had gone off. And then all our eyes landed on the campers' car...the bears had opened the car door and pulled the entire back seat out of the car and left it torn in the campsite.

Did I put you in the camping mood?

Communication...

This past weekend Bob and Cindy rolled up their sleeves again and joined in the restoration efforts at the house. While Bob began with electrical boxes, Cindy was assigned, by her brother, Red, to mud the joints on the freshly hung drywall in the bedroom. Cindy, happy to accept her first task went right to work. I wasn't here for the first couple of hours as I had to run a few errands with Amanda in Conifer, which also included the ever important tall-decaf-mocha-no-whip and a few garage sales...Shhhhh

So, while I'm in the comfort of my daughter's air conditioned van, sipping mocha throughout the pretty Conifer landscapes on my way back to the house, I learn that my poor sister-in-law is really struggling with the mud and trowel work on the walls. Sadly, she was trying to make it as perfect and smooth to match the other walls in the room...walls that were already mudded and sanded by Amanda and myself earlier that morning! Apparently, Red had neglected to share that most important detail with her when he gave her a brief rundown on drywall operations. Poor Cindy...she was so diligent. By the way, her work was absolutely beautiful!!! She's hired! Red's Fired!

Did You Just Say a Dead Skunk?

Since we moved here, there has been a strange smell. The house had been abandoned for quite some time, so one could expect some funky odors floating around especially when you've opened up some walls and made some rather interesting discoveries, one of which, you'll remember, went diving into Amanda's shirt a while back. But this smell has been continuing to grow, finally reaching all corners of the house and now waking me up in the middle of the night. Red's constant claims of it being from the old fox den in the crawl space have expired along with my patience. Amanda who was sitting innocently on the floor tending to some drywall got a huge blast of this melodious odor when Red cut through the wall that led down to the crawlspace. The next thing I remember was Amanda flailing around the room and finally storming toward the front door gagging all the way. Great, there goes my help. So after this display, we now know there is definitely something amiss and it's Red job to find it, pronto! As he made his way to the crawlspace to feed some heat vent pipe into the wall, he made the discovery of The Smell that has been plaguing me for weeks and, most recently, Amanda. Yes, we had a dead skunk in the wall. If you thought skunks smelled bad when they were alive...trust me, avoid a dead one at all costs. The poor decomposing critter did have a nice burial, compliments of Amanda.

Well, it's been a few weeks since we've moved in to the house and I must say, we're adapting nicely. We haven't killed each other yet, however I'll admit there was an incident that required a Bandaid. All in all, we're doing very well. We've got the boiling water down to a perfect system where we always have hot water whenever we want. It's pretty much like camping, except you have doors, a real bed and electricity. Well, some electricity. Most of the house is turned off as we had to rewire the entire house. So, we passed our first big hurdle; a partial electrical inspection...let me back up a bit.

So, in preparing for our first inspection, we were feeling pretty smug, pretty confident. Red was so confident that at the last minute and just minutes before the inspector was due to arrive, he decided to throw in the bathroom as well to the inspection that day. WHAT? All we were originally shooting for was the kitchen and bedroom! You see, Red is one of those people that if it isn't scary, mindboggling or nerveracking, it just ain't fun! I love him dearly, but could really do without his edge.

So, as Red was hanging inside the rafters above the bathroom with his fancy new ROMEX clenched in his teeth, I heard the inspector drive up. Now I can't really type here what I said as I'm sure there's some kind of FCC regulation. But you can surmise what I had said because all morning I had been gently reminding Red that he needed to remove ALL of the OLD wiring in the bedroom before the inspector arrived...they'll flunk you for having the old wires in the walls. Anyway, after numerous reassurances by Red that he'd get them ALL removed BEFORE the inspector arrived, he didn't make his mark. Grrr.

The good news was, the inspector passed the kitchen with flying colors but he would not pass the bedroom because the OLD wiring was still in place. Never mind that it was done expertly! Grrr again. Red, who is the ever willing soul, God bless him, suddenly enlists me into his next plan. He gestures to me, behind the inspector's back, to STALL him! To make small talk with him and do whatever I could do to allow Red those precious few minutes to rip out those blasted wires. Earlier, the inspector refused "to wait" while Red ripped out the few menacing wires and he stated, rather firmly, "I'm not gonna wait or pass you today because of those wires." He was definitely a curmudgeon and my work was really cut out for me as my vast abilities to chat charmingly and make small talk we're failing miserably and finally, I was reduced to trying to bribe the old man with a cookie...needless to say, we had to reschedule another inspection for a week later, which did pass with excellence. Let me add this, Red did get the old wires out while I was still drilling the poor inspector with lots of stupid questions. Proudly, Red announced to the inspector, "I got them all out! Now, will ya pass me?" The inspector bites, "NO, I've already written it down on my report." Gulp.

How to Properly Install a New Subfloor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS8WMrLYM7U

Above is the link where you can see what I'm talking about in this post. Normally I pride myself on keeping up with today's technology, but for some reason, I can't upload the video to this post and we're one man down today as Amanda, who is my personal techi and carpenter, has the 102.5 fever virus that has struck her family and all of Littleton over the past month so, I'm on my own today as I try to figure out this video thing for you. But, alas, I have figured it out, albeit it's not the most ideal, but it will suffice. I hope. On with the post---A couple of weeks ago, Red and Amanda were raising the kitchen floor as it was a sunken kitchen. Why, when people build, don't they just make things all one level? Okay, we'll reserve this rant for another time. Anyway all the 2 x 4 sticks of wood were all in place on the floor and ready to be covered with OSB sheeting. By the way, did you know that 2"x 4" sticks of lumber really aren't 2 inches by 4 inches? They are actually 1-1/2 inches by 3-1/2 inches. It's a long story and Red lost me in his explanation somewhere around the time he interjected the word, nominal. So, in case you're ever asked this facinating little fact for some kind of a trivia contest, you'll know the answer! Getting back to the wood floor project, Red and Amanda must have been getting a little goofy, or delirious as they were fast approaching their 14th hour of work that day, but they came up with a fun way of moving the wood sheeting over the 2 x 4's and into place. Can anyone say rubber mallet? Enjoy. See ya on the next post and thanks for stopping by. Kim :-)