Archive for May, 2010

Mountain Living

Monday, May 31st, 2010


Mountain living takes on lots of dimensions. Lucinda is using up the last bottle of bubbles from Helen’s wedding. Downsizing involves using up (as Lucinda is doing), throwing out or recycling, selling or giving away. Sometimes it helps to take a picture of something before you discard it. At least it helps jog the memory.

Our neighbors in Raleigh came for an overnight visit.  We had a great time and expecially enjoyed eating at Shatley Springs.  We also went to the Farmer’s Market.

Yes, I know it’s just a regular washer and dryer, but it was one of those projects that took longer than I thought it would.  I ran the water pipes under the house up through the floor and added an extension to the drain for the washer.  The dryer needed a 220 volt outlet and a vent.  I got the outlet run under the house and mounted to the cinder block wall, but the dryer did not go back far enough to the wall to be even with the washer which needed to be back as far as possible to be out of the walkway in front.  So, I unhooked the outlet from the  wall and the breaker box and reinstalled it using conduit along the wall and placing the outlet high enough to allow the dryer to go back further.  The vent had to be cut through the cinderblock wall, so I used a cement drill to make a series of holes in a circle and made the hole.  By using a flat dryer vent pipe, I was able to get the dryer in place.  They both work nicely.  It will be strange not to have dirty clothes to take with us when we go back to Raleigh.  It’s a project I’m glad to have finished.  Now which other  project do I tackle next?

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Reno Trip Highlights

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Let me say up front that we had a wonderful trip to Reno. Kim and
Bill are great hosts and planned what seemed an ideal agenda of activities designed just for us.

On Saturday, we went to Lake Tahoe, stopping first by Donner Pass. There was a big lake, a clear creek, a nice short trail, and a museum where we learned about the Donner Family’s struggle in 1846 when they got snowed in with 22 feet of snow and spent the winter there. The picture is of a snowshoe for horses.

We went from there around Lake Tahoe (about 75 miles).  One place we stopped and spent more time was at Emerald Bay.  The next picture is looking out over Emerald Bay and to Lake Tahoe beyond. 

There is a picture of the Castle we hiked about a mile down to see.

Then we hiked up about .3 mile to Eagle Falls.  The picture is Lucinda, Bill, and Kim at the Falls.

The snow plow cuts through deep snow and sends it way up and to the side away from the road.  In some places there are snow poles about 12 feet tall along the road to mark the edge of the road for the snow plows.

On Sunday, we went to The Bridge Church where Bill is Pastor.  We enjoyed the service and met a lot of folks. 

Sunday afternoon we rode to Virginia City and briefly on to Carson City.  We went through the mining museum at Virginia City and saw lots of mining tools, maps, and information about the mines and their tunnels.  The picture is one of the signs that explained why mules were used in the mines instead of horses. 

On Monday Kim took us to the National Auto Museum in Reno.  I really enjoyed this museum and saw many cars with names I did not know.  One of the volunteers said that the museum has 60 or more examples of car brands that are no longer manufactured.  One that impressed me was the 1931 Rolls Royce with an entire body made of copper.  Not only that, Bill and Kim know the owner who has loaned it to the museum.

On Tuesday, Kim took us to Pyramid Lake.  It is a little smaller than Lake
Tahoe and much less developed.  One interesting thing is that the Truckee river which comes out of Lake Tahoe, runs through Reno and empties into Pyramid Lake, is the only inlet into Pyramid Lake and there are no outlets from Pyramid Lake.  Yet we saw pictures (one taken only a day or two before) of people who caught large cutthroat trout.  The pictures lined a wall of the store we stopped at.

As special as the things we saw and did were, what made them all so enjoyable was the quality and quantity of time we spent with Erin and Josh and with Bill, Kim, and Curly.  We were treated and fed royally.

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Rose Breasted Grossbeak

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010


Earlier this week, we counted and named 13 species of birds we saw that day. This rose breasted grossbeak is a species we have rarely seen, perhaps one other time in the past 5 years. This one was eating at our feeder yesterday afternoon. We hope he will come back often.

The humming birds have been around a lot this week. One morning I was standing outside near the feeder (I could have touched the feeder without fully extending my arm) when a male humming bird came and hovered between me and the feeder long enough for me to get a really good look. Then he proceeded to drink from the feeder trying out each of the three “flowers”.

Earlier we experienced Spring in Raleigh watching trees leaf out, flowers bloom, pine pollen and oak blossoms fall, etc. This week we watched Spring repeat many of the same processes in the mountains.  We have enjoyed all the shades of green and early varieties of wild flowers.  Here is a picture from our deck.

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