The Hill

You go east of Aztec on Blanco Street and it isn't long before you are on BLM land. Its scrubby country, interlaced with improvised motocross tracks, old matresses, and lots and lots of broken glass. But it is out there, and so often i ride my bike up there or walk the dogs up there and let them get a good run in before coming back to the world of walls, doors, fences. One day i was up there and my cell rang. Great reception up there. It was my brother Steve. He said "So what are you up to," and i said, "well, i'm just taking the dogs for a walk up the hill east of town." "What's that like?" he asks, then adds; "you'll have to post a shot of the view from up there.
Well, i took the shots a month ago or maybe more, but am just now getting around to posting. The panorama-job is not the best, but i'm chalking that up to the lighting conditions. But you get the idea. This is looking west over Aztec and the Animas River valley ( full name: Rio de las Animas Perdidas) SWEET! Mysterious!

Weminuche Wilderness

This is i believe the largest wilderness area in Colorado. It covers a whole lot of the higher elevations of the San Juan Mountains. We were aiming to make a five day trip up there, but could not get a dog sitter for more than 3. See, Willie (pictured above) is about 2 and real full of energy. Cassidy (pictured in an earlier entry) is about 7, and has a bad hip. So we thought we maybe could leave her at home while we tromped up the mountain.
So the parking lot was at about 8000 feet, just on the east end of Vallecito Reservoir, which in itself is a pretty nice place, if you like man-made mountain lakes. Maybe even if you don't. I really dug the clusters of cabins, saloons, shops, lodges, RVs etc around the lake. It sort of reminded me of the Black Hills in mid-summer. Really rustic and mellow, not all glitzy like some mountain resort areas are prone to become.
We did about ten miles the first day to Emerald Lake. DeAnn and i have not been back- packing since we met, and so this was quite a workout--ten miles up to about 10,000 elevation. But it was worth it. No camping was allowed within a quarter mile of the lake, so we stopped short, pitched tent, and went to the lake to cook dinner. REAL NICE! The next day, it was another five miles up to moon lake at about 11,000 feet. Amazing. I've never seen a mountain lake so remote and high with still lakes more remote an high above, surrounded by peaks even higher.
We made another five miles back to camp, again dog-tired. The next day was just ten miles out to the parking lot--in the rain! It rained for about an hour, straight out of camp. We were getting pretty soggy, when it secided to stop. We stopped, too--had a snack and some lemonade, then headed out again. We'd got off the raincoats and were starting to dry out when rain came again for another hour. But we were dry (if our gearwasn't) by the time we made it to the truck. Then we discovered we had a flat tire. That's the proper way to end a trip. But we were fixed up in a jiffy, and made it into Durango for a very large late lunch. Washed down with a pale ale for me and a brown for DeAnn. AHH-HAAAAH!

Patio

Greeting again. It has been a while. Well, it's been hot out here, but still i continue to work. Here's a shot of our new patio, which i constructed using 'seconds' pavers. This is a great source of cheap materials if you have an actual brick or block factory nearby, ask for seconds. I got 200 square feet of material at half price ($160). WORD! An added benefit. Sand is free around here if you have the gumption to go out to a wash and dig it up yourself and haul it back to town. I gather sand two five-gallon buckets at a time. Actually have really sandy and gravelly soil at home, so i've only had to get 3 loads (6 buckets). I've recently added a little narrow path to connect what you see here to what's left of the old sidewalk. Now i need another load of sand to brush into the top and stabilize it! Will break more concrete and lay more bricks later...

Snow/Spiteful tree-cutting

We finally got some snow. Maybe four inches total in town. The first few snows Wednesday and Thursday melted in pretty quick and then Friday night through Sunday morning we got a couple inches to stick around a while. And if we got that much here, you can bet it was dumping up in the mountains. As of Saturday night, Silverton Mountain reported 46 inches of new snow. Probably they’ll add to that throughout Sunday. This may not end the drought, but it sure does help a bit after the driest winter on record in our area.

The snow sure is keeping me from some garden tasks I had outlined for the weekend. Bought 20 strawberry plants for about $5 and was hoping to get them in the ground. What I did accomplish before it started dumping on Saturday was to spade up a 4 x 20 foot area and spread some composted chicken manure pellets. I checked this morning, and all those pellets had sort of melted into the soil, so when I next gather some rocks to raise the bed a little and then add in some bone meal, it ought to mix up rather nicely.

I mentioned that we’d be taking a little trip back in time today. Well, here is a shot from about ten years ago I’m guessing (1996). This is a shot of our neighbor Twana and her family at her niece’s high school graduation. You can’t see 415 Bunker so well, but it’s there behind the truck and the giant, leafy, green trees. It’ll be a while before our trees get anywhere near this size, maybe never considering we bought semi-dwarf trees. Twana says that the folks living in 415 at the time came out and told them, “Don’t park in our shade.” Then she said that within a week, these trees were cut down. I’d call that spiteful tree-cutting. Come on people, share the shade! There’s enough to go around!

First look

Here's a look at the front of the place. Cute, huh? It's hard to see, but the yard is mostly just dirt and cheat grass (Bromus tectorum). I've started leveling the front yard a bit. We hope to someday have a nice stucco garden wall about four feet high around the front and have numerous herbs, flowers, and a tree or two to sit and read the paper under. Haven't finished examining all the various pros and cons of making said wall out of adobe, rammed earth, cinder blocks, or stucco coated wood frame. Figure it out someday. I just have a lot of plants sitting in pots and I'd like to go ahead and find a place to plant them.

Here's Cassidy in the doorway between the kitchen and the den/guest room. She likes the new house, but doesn't have a pen out back yet. She and Willie both get to go on more walks now than when we lived in the country. Ironic, isn't it. But it's only about ten minutes walk through lovely Aztec and we're out on the trails all around the BLM land that almost completely surrounds town. Good biking, too.





Here is a shot of our bedroom. Note the floor. Before we moved in, we had a little time to do some minor repair and painting. If you get the chance to do this sort of stuff BEFORE you move in, do it. It makes for long days, but it is worth not having to rearrange all the furniture for a week or two. Well, the carpet in this room was in no way fastened to the floor (or the various patches to each other). "I'm gonna start pulling up this carpet," say DeAnn. Okay. Underneath is some old marble looking linoleum. What we decided to do was strip it down to the plywood beneath, then paint the plywood. YEAH! You heard right. The linoluem came up a lot easier than I'd anticipated, and then I spent the rest of that day scraping off minor amounts of adhesive and then cleaning the plywood. Next step: a coat of KILZ. This stuff really works wonders for stain and odor coontrol, and completely seals and primes the surface. Then i put on two coats of this sweet dark red (sienna) shade, followed by four coats of varathane for a nice durable, clear coat. It's only been a month, and honestly most of the floor is covered in rugs, so there has been very little wear so far. I plan to maybe add two coats of varathane on a yearly basis to keep up the shine and the protection. I totally endorse this method of floor refinishing for anyone who hates carpet and is on a budget. This is a small room--11 x 13--but we got a new floor for about $100. I'd seen it done on concrete before, and with stunning effect. That's the effect we were going for here, but the wood's a little different. The only thing i'd do differently on the next project (similar treatment of living room) is to fill in the gaps between plywood sheets and maybe try to disguise the nails a little more.

Here is the living room. Not too fancy. We want to keep it open so that we can practice yoga at home. You can see we have plenty of windows, which so far have really helped out with some passive solar heating. Hopefully a higher sun angle in the summer will reduce the amount of energy we are holding in the interior. I'll probably try and build some shutters. I figure blinds and blankets are fine for keeping the sun out of the room, and would keep the house pretty cool. But in that case, the sun is still making it in the windows. I think if i can keep all the radiation outside, we could be pretty cool. We have a swamp cooler, too, but in past summers, we've only needed it for July and August. Our last house didn't even have a swamp cooler, but did have lots of shade. I also like to sit in hear and play music. Or listen to it. The dogs like it too because there is room for to wrestle.

And lastly, for now, is the kitchen. We hadn't even got our bed in the house and were still sleeping at the old place, but i had some ingredients and DeAnn and I got hungry. I knew then i'd love cooking in this kitchen. And i do. It's small, and cabinet space is only slightly lacking. But all our cooking crap fit. Again, the windows are a great touch, as are the corner shelves near them (which will get painted sometime).

Well, that's it for today. I really should've had some before and after shots of the bedroom floor, but it was all happening so fast. I'll definitely do B/A shots when we move into other rooms.

Our next visit will be a little trip back in time, just ten years, but it's a start.

Welcome

Hello world! I stared this blog to share with you the place I call home, a cute little stucco bungalow in Aztec, NM. It was built in 1938, and from what I've heard, it used to be surrounded by very large fruit trees. They're gone now, but I just planted two new trees: an apricot and a peach.

I've lived in lots of houses, even used to own a sweet bungalow in beautiful Lincoln, NE. But for some reason this place feels more like home than any place I've been, and so this blog is dedicated to my personal quest into the history of this place and my goal of restoring it to it's 20th century splendor.

Pictures are coming soon (current ones that is), but I will also be searching for historical pictures. I've already met or heard of about 4 people/families that have lived in this house, so there should be no shortage of info.

Enjoy!

Rob