Latest Project

Week before last, we took delivery of a new shop building. It's a steel building purchased in pieces from Future Steel. Putting up this building is Phase I - we'll be adding on a master bedroom in place of our current garage and another big area on the opposite side of the house. First order of business is emptying the garage, so putting up the shop building is required.

Dino will be arranging for pouring the pad and getting the foundation built and then will come the actual construction of the thing.

Last weekend, we spent the best part of a day getting it all properly stored. Dino had hoped he'd be able to just store it under tarps, but it turns out that the manufacturer recommends that you not do that because it gets discolored. There's a bit of an investment in it, so we decided to utilize the 40' storage container. We got the contents of the storage container rearranged, leaving almost one entire side open and ready to receive the building pieces. Then we toted and heaved and lifted till it all fit in nicely. We did use the tractor to move three of the larger stacks closer and the pickup to take it to the container. Otherwise, it was all by hand. 7800 pounds worth. Took us nearly six hours to move the whole thing, so you can imagine we had some pretty good appetites on us. Also a few new aches and pains.

Good thing I know how to lift heavy stuff.

Iddn't It Nice to Get a Bit of Moisture

This little city mouse is getting used to this country mouse driving with snow and mud and slippery stuff in general. I abandoned my fah-ncy car temporarily for the practicality of Dino's pickup. At some point in the near future, I'll make that permanent by selling the impractical one and using the proceeds for - well, for something.

We took a jaunt on the ATV yesterday afternoon after the rain had stopped to see the river actually running. What is that foamy bubble stuff on it?

Well, Yes It Was Irresistible

We were unable to pass up the opportunity to visit the newly adopted foals at our neighbor's ranch and walked up yesterday just before sunset.



In other news, the Dinosaur just got a new-to-him truck. We took it to the Ford dealership yesterday for a couple of little items he wants repaired.

A Man-Horse Moment

While returning from our hike on Sunday, we ran into King and Pelton, who have been hanging out down on our place.

Other interesting sightings: a golden eagle apparently chasing a heron. The same eagle being relentlessly harassed by a local raven.

Let the Obsession Begin

Now that we've had a little rain (a little more please), the fungi are popping up along with the grass. We saw at least five or six varieties of mushrooms and other fungi on our walk Sunday. The only type we could identify was a good stand of puffballs. Last year I was fascinated by these things, and it looks like that interest has not abated. The Dinosaur has a mushroom identification book that's about four inches thick and I doubt I'm going to be able to study enough to figure out what these things are, so I'm just going to have fun taking pictures instead. (How's that for justification of mental laziness?)

This particular fungus has the same general shape as a puffball, but is smaller - perhaps slightly more than an inch tall, and sits on a small stem.

83. Can't Count 84 or 85

Gotta love fall migration. Our walk Sunday brought us 83: Black-throated Gray Warbler spotted in a lovely area near the river. And we also saw two new (to us) species but we can't officially count them because we are not 100% certain of our identification. The not-84 was either a Dusky or a Hammond's Flycatcher - these two species are very similar and I guess we're just not up enough on our flycatchers. Not-85 was a possible blue-winged teal sitting all by her lonesome.

Old Pots. Also Number 82

Spotted this week was a Northern Mockingbird, not a rare bird but new for us here. My delight at tallying our 82nd species here at Dryad Ranch was dampened by the fact that when spotted, it was busy poking its beak into one of our ripening pomegranates.

Even so, we're rather fond of mockers. Some years at our Bay Area place we had a mocker begin to imitate the sound of a whirligig my father had made for us and that we had placed on top of the garden shed.

This photo is of some old cookpot found in a box near a picnic spot on the other side of the river.