Christmas in Arizona

I was fortunate to be able to break away from work and Joanne and I headed to Arizona for Christmas weekend.

Santa was so sneaky that he snuck all of these presents in while Paris was gaurding the tree!

I have to admit that I was jealous that Marla, Kev, and Jordy's new puppy Bailey loved right up to Mom and Dad, and would never let me hold her.



 

As would be expected, with only one grandchild on our side of the family - Jordy made out like a bandit.

It was a relaxing morning, with an excellent breakfast to top off opening presents.

Starting to look like a Fence

Starting to look like a fence.

We got the first two fence panels done right before Thanksgiving.

It was a beautiful weekend after Thanksgiving, and I used the good weather to get the corner posts filled with rebar and cement to toughen them up to being bumped by cars in the alley.

The Morrow Clan on Thanksgiving

We were fortunate to host Thanksgiving for a lot of Joanne's family this year!

Fantastic weather, great food, and a whole lot of laughter!

Excellent day!

Going around the Corner

It has been cool, but dry.  So we have been putting as long of days as daylight will allow on the fence.

We are now to the NW corner of my back yard where I took out the square corner in the concrete footer and poured a rounded footer to allow easier access to the North alley.

Building the rails to match the arch of the corner is do-able, but putsy work that drives Derek NUTS.

But I think it will look very unique when it is done, and Derek is putting up with me for now.  ;~)

More Fence Building

More Fence Building pics

Laid out and ready to epoxy

Base plates with anchor holes

Additional achoring flange on North wall, where the wall steps up.

Welding attachment points into arbor columns.

Starting the Fence for the Gate That Goes No Where

A weekend with good weather, no rigs running, and Derrek is able to work.   Time to start building fence that will keep the deer out of the back yard!

We had already cored the concrete sill 16" deep with a 3" hole with a diamond coring drill.   I pieced togethor the drill from three old ones that Glenwood Caverns purchased with Pete Prebble's stuff. 

Derrek borrowed a transit to allow us to quickly level posts.

Better part of a day was occupied with preping rusty posts for Derrek to weld base plates too.

It was chilly most of the day, and so I wore my favorite stocking cap that my nephew Kevin gave me for Christmas several years back!

We would slip the posts in the core holes, then Derrek slips the base plates on and spot welds the plate on when the post is plumb.

Then we would pull them out and Derek welded a solid weld on both sides of the plate.  Then wire brush welds, and clean the end of the poles off for epoxing.

We set all the posts up and measured with the transit to see how much we needed to chop off of each.

Then we chopped off ends, preped the tops for future welding, and started to epoxy posts in.

The epoxying proved to be painfully slow.   Final product is solid, but it takes forever to get a pole done.

Now we need to order the rest of the steel in for the cross beams, wait for more good weather and Derrek to be available.

The project goes in spurts, but I am not in a hurry.   

I really enjoy building with Derrek during the day, sitting down togethor at night to eat a great meal prepared by Joanne, and then drawing out possibilities for what we will do next!

Leaf Duty - All Weekend

Our first fall snowstorm really brought the leaves down.

I was lucky that Joanne helped me, it was a big job!

The weather was fanatastic and many neighbors were out dealing with broken limbs and leaves.  So got a little visiting in as well.  

Pumpkin Carving at the Donahoe's

Haloween is soon to be here, and it was time for the annual Donahoe pumpkin carving party!

A little snow on the ground still, but the weather was quite pleasant.  

It is always fun to catch up with some of the neighbors!

An Old Friend Falls Down

Our first fall snow storm broke down many trees in the Denver area. 

One of them was one of our old apple trees in our back yard.

I  had been fighting fire blight on this tree for years, and eventually it had taken its toll. 

 A lot of jars of Joanne's yummy apple butter came from this tree.   It is sad to see it go.

First Snow

First Snow of the Season

Where did the summer go?

Well, it should make for some mud for the up and coming cylocross races!

Oceans to Rain Forests

Joanne and I went to Olympic National Park in Washington for a long weekend and to spend some time with her nephew Tom's family  - Lisa, Madison and Nora.

It started with a long road trip around the Northern end of Olympic National Park.

We made it to our cabin on the Pacific Ocean and the West side of Olympic National Park, and it looked like it would be several days of playing in the rain.

Fortunately Madison and Nora's fancy rain hats scared the rain away, and we got to enjoy a bunch of sunshine in between a couple of showers.

Which led to goofing off on the beach at low tide.

Exploring our first temperate zone rain forrest!

Kite flying lessons ( while juggling a beer - quite impressive )

Exploring our 2nd temperate zone rain forrest ( there are only 3 in North America )

Warming up inside the cabin with a fire!

Playing games!

Beach hiking in the rain!

Reconnecting with family!

Wondering when the next attack of the "Biting Fishers" will occur?!  

Hopefully soon!

Fall Riding to See the Aspen Change

A group of Joanne's co-workers and associated friends went up to Silver Plume to mtn bike up through the changing aspen.

It was pretty darn good where we parked the car, and only got better.

It was an 8 mile ride all up hill, but the brush changing above tree line made it all worth while.

Dark skies started coming in, so we bundled up and headed down hill back to the cars.

The aspen were just starting to drop some leaves, coating the trail and making the trip back to the cars awesome!

Then it was off to a Mexican restaurant for beers and stories!

A great way to spend a Sunday!

Rocking up the Columns

I got the rock from Environmental Stone, and used a stone mason that they recommended.   It was a messy process, but they were on time and incredibly fast.

Plus, they had an excellent attitude!  Always smiling!

Now all we have to do is mount door hard ware, lights, and the top layer of the pergola.  

Then we will be onto fencing!

Building the Columns

I knew that making the columns was going to be a pain, because the concrete pad is on a slope from the driveway to the lawn, compounded by the slope of down hill from East to West.

But this is what Derek is REALLY good at!  Two decades of framing very large, expensive homes in Boulder have allowed him to see about everything and taught him how to make things work.

It took a day longer than Derek thought, but he postponed another job to get it all done to be ready for a stone mason that was between jobs.

Derek patiently suggested how to pre-set for the wall sconces, that would make it easy on the stone mason.   I had a different idea, but finally came around to the fact that his idea was much better.  We got a 2 by 12 rough cut cedar for the stone mason's to stone around and then we would put the wall sconces on latter.

No canned lights on this project - Ron  ;~)

Now it is time to put some rock on....

Hanging Gates

Derek comes up with some pretty cool ideas on how to do things.

First, he made this template on how everything would lay out on a 2 by 4.   So, no more constantly measuring things over and over.

Then, he clamped the gates where he wanted them, mounted hardware and welded up the supports up to the gates.

It worked pretty slick!