BAK for those elderly enough to remember the first computer shorthand….

I don’t remember where I left off last time, so I will just ramble on knowing that if I’m repeating myself, it must be worth repeating…

I was up in Cascade last month and got to spend time with Adam and family. The property is georgous especially when the trees hold snow. And I was adopted by one of their cats, Buster, who made himself at home with me.

  At the same time, we had another snow.   

Which looked like this within a few days after I got home. This is the pergola with the finished planters. Eloise is  now planting the wisteria in the 6 corners.

Eloise’s new chair now has a new owner. 

And now, SuperPosition now has a new office arraignment.          

Also…Sunday was Easter and Eloise was in the choir.  If you would like to see an incredible music tribute and worship performance, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJg0sevg5Jc  on youtube. The music was fantastic! I don’t know how the recording will turn out, but it was the best Easter music tribute I’ve ever sat through.

Oops. caught

My bride read the last post. Who knew she read it?

Anyway, I was chastised for posting the family room picture. According to her “it was a mess, and no one should think that she keeps house in such a disarray”. So. Here is the “cleaned up” picture. See how many differences you can find…….

Wintering Location

After waiting months, my new chair arrived. So this is where I will winter…      looking at this…                          Eloise’s perspective..   Just kidding..kinda….

This will be an interesting winter. Amanda, Ben and girls moved from west Boise to east Boise. From 25 min away to 35 min away.  Adam, Macie and kids moved from Boise to Cascade. That’s about 2 hours from here, so from 40 min away to 120 min away.  Maybe I should shower more often?

I have started working with Adam again. I’m helping by taking the finance and administration away from him so that he can concentrate on what he is a genius at. We are in the midst of trying to get faster internet to their cabin (on the property) where his office is at.  Adam signed up for StarLink service. It seems to be slow though….We also got an office share space in downtown Cascade so that he can get fiber when necessary.

Driveway to the house. house on left, garage #1 on right.

Cabin and shop/garage #2 behind cabin.  porch view 

I will post more pics’ later as we are spending Christmas in Cascade for what will surely be a White Christmas. Then we will drive back to our house to spend Christmas with Amanda’s family on the 27th. The way it looks now, we may even have a White Christmas in Caldwell.

Ik heb het te druk gehad om te schrijven

That’s about 50% of the Dutch that I know, and I’m hoping that the auto correct fixed the spelling without anything obscene being interjected. Working in the digital world again on my days off leaves very little time to slide back into any relaxation without going to sleep. 10+ hour days mean leaving before 7 and getting back after 6:30. Projects around the house that need to be done before the snow are lagging behind. I know, quit laughing, I hear the miniature violins playing….

I am getting ahead with the pergola though. Adam came over and helped me construct the planters and I got the outside stained to match the fence, the insides sealed and the cap primed. I have the 1/4” metal cloth to line the bottom (to deter the voles and gophers) and will try to get it installed before the weather.

  then 

OH! We went to a place called Farmsted. Awesome event! What I want to participate in next year is call the “Appleblaster”

   

shoots apples out of an air cannon at 50 yard targets. Way cool! OK, I’m exhausted.

Time for a nap.

and again and again

This post is late because my laptop decided to come apart. literally. the screen brackets, attached inside the screen, came loose (broke) and now the screen dangles from the keyboard. It has been hanging up  a lot lately and I was figuring that I would have to do a complete clean and reboot soon anyways…. So I ordered a reconditioned laptop and am waiting to get everything transferred before I take it out and shoot it full of holes. literally. I’m trying to decide if I should use a .22 pistol, an air driven nail gun or my Ramset.  The last time I had that much fun, I used it as a conversation piece on the counter of Airless. It surprised me that so many people took pictures of it. I’ll post a picture when it’s done.

Since Larry and I have built the pergola, I decided to have a shop and barn imported in. It was great watching the driver unload both buildings.

       

Here we go again

That’s a song title, right?  Well, anyway, Larry was conned into coming up again and working for slaves wages. After taking our house off of the market, we decided to continue with the plans for the property. We planned to build a pergola in the gate opening that leads to the meadow (acreage). 24 feet was more than we had planned for the opening, but the fence contractor didn’t do very much as per the plans. So I centered the pergola with the patio at 18 feet and will keep the gate on the unbalanced side closed up to the new pergola. That will also allow a 6 foot entrance in case we ever need it.  Larry came up for a week. He worked short days with me for a couple of days, then went up to see Kat’s mother. He then stopped by for another few days to help me finish up the construction.  The finished framing.

We also enclosed another 30 feet of storage inside the back patio.      The finished closet after painting to match the house.. We have a couple of out buildings that will be set and ready for power in the next couple of weeks.

No New News

Just more of the same. We lost the cherry tree in the front yard. I pulled it up to find that the hole then filled up with water. Seems that there is a clay layer just about 24” under the surface. The clay stays wet, so the cherry tree got root rot and died. So, I used my drill/hammer with the 3’ auger and drilled drain holes through the bottom. The clay will stay wet, but the main root ball should drain some. Then off we went to get another tree. We wanted to get another cherry….. We ended up getting a cherry, another river birch and 3 globe willows. Can’t seem to help ourselves. Oh, we lost 2 of arborvitaes on the berm so we got another 6 (?) giant green thujas to replace and add to them. So our tree count has exceeded 170. [Our neighbor to the south has (years ago) built up his acreage taller than ours. He then floods the grass as the water runs off into our meadow (acreage), So we have lost 4 or 5 of the small 24” fir trees planted along the south border] We will replace them in the future with river birch and/or willows.

Anna Gail was here on Friday to help me dig out (widen and deepen) the front yard location and install the river birch there. She then helped me do the same for the cherry tree in the back yard. Our neighbor, Wes, had come over a few times with his tractor and auger to start drilling the location holes. Due to the clay, it was restricted as to the depth, but I soaked each hole for a week and Anna and I were able to clear out the resulting clay/mud down to about four feet and 30 to 40 inches wide. Then on Saturday evening, after the sun went down, Eloise and I scooped out and planted the first of the globe willows in the meadow, outside the back yard. Two more holes have been started on the south side of the meadow and the remaining willows will go there. With the overwatering, they should be fine there.

While he was here, Wes also drilled the six holes for the pergola posts. Larry is scheduled to come up this Thursday and help me build it. We are also building a cabinet/storage room in the back and will match it to the house siding. We can then store the stuff on the rear patio there. We also have 2 alcoves on each side of the house created by the private yard fencing. I am planning to put a roof over them and plywood doors to match the fence. This should put everything out of sight of the covered patio, hot tub gazebo and firepit seating.

Revision doesn’t quite cover it

Well, in reverse order: We took our house off of the market. Right after we listed our house, the interest rates went back up to 5% (which has been the low mortgage percentage rate for the last 40 years), a bank (that had nothing to do with Idaho) went belly up (which freaked out all of the doomsday panic heads) and our neighbor went through personal problems which put her into a panic/desperate sales mode.  So they would not lose their home, they discounted it by over 10%. This screwed our comps, even though the house is 5% smaller than ours, the property is 30% smaller and has a completely different floor plan. (this coupled with, everyone under 50 seems to think that 2% mortgage rates are normal) Being that we were not about to discount our house by 10%, we removed the sales effort. This, of course, meant that we had to let the new house go.

We now are repopulating our house, reorganizing everything,…..    Work is going well. I’m delivering 9-10 hours, 4 days (Mon-Thurs)per week, And we have had plansssssssss………for the property which will now be implemented.

We purchased farm fencing from the new neighbor who wants vinyl fencing,,,,,,(?)  So we are now completing the setting of 20 posts and inserting the 3 horizontal rails and wire fabric along the north side of the property. And then we will stretch a wire fabric fence from the berm to the freeway fence and complete the last 60’ on the south side also. We will put fence and gates from the new fence to our private fence on the north and the existing south sides so that the rear acreage will then be completely fenced and gated.

AND. Our rolling gates are 24’ wide total. They were supposed to be 16’ wide to correspond with the width of the rear patio. Once it was done (incorrectly) we withheld from the contractor and let it go. Now I am going to correct that error and narrow the opening and gates. Brother Larry is scheduled to come up and help me build a pergola that supports the gates and extends out into the acreage. This will help support the gates from the severe winds that occasionally show up here (45 MPH).  It will also complement our hot tub gazebo . We also pulled out 3 dead arborvitaes and will replace them this week. AAAANNNNDDDD we have a weeping cherry that didn’t make it also. Since that is in the front yard, it will need to be replaced also. Probably with another Dogwood to match the other side. Pictures added as progress continues.

More Changes

Our house is now on the market. The photographs and the video are incredible! We have an Open House in a few days. The new house is way ahead of schedule. We’ll see what shakes out.  Adam and Macie are also selling their house. They are moving into a rental while staging their house to sell. Adam is on a business trip today, so Eloise is at their house having a play date with Wyatt and bringing them dinner. Big changes for both families this quarter.

I had another procedure on my back this morning.  So I’m laid up for a couple of days. My friend Blue Ice is back in a big way although my friend Hot Tub has to be avoided for 2 days. I can’t get the bandages wet and they are afraid of infection. It is a beautiful day today, so I will get out and walk for a few minutes this evening. Tomorrow it is supposed to get over 80 degrees. Then in 2 days it is supposed to rain for 2 days. Finally, we’re getting real spring weather.

My employer is extremely considerate and concerned for me, so I get the time off that I need. They are building out the new distribution hub here in Nampa/Caldwell and I am helping stock the new place. I have helped stock the new hub and drove delivery route  a few days a week at the old hub up until yesterday. There will be 90,000 SKU’s by the time we open the new hub, with the capability of 110,000.  The place is humongous! After we get the building stocked, I will drive a delivery truck to stock 4 stores from the hub. I will run the route 4-5 times per day, Monday through Thursday, with Fridays and Weekends off. Driving to the new hub will cut my commute from 45 minutes to 15 minutes, from all country roads to all freeway. Flying J will miss me….

Everything new in Spring

It’s spring! Everything is new again!  New leaves, new blooms, new house, new job. Oh, the 2 former are new every year. The 2 latter are new every 2 years.

We just got the word that our new house is expected to turn key the last week of June or the first weeks of July. Months ahead of schedule.  We’ll see.  The new job is because I have taught Home Depot everything that they are capable of learning and “am disregarding the rest”. Some things are unlearnable to large corporations…. More on the new job next month and how they are taking their training.

The new house is on Henley St. It should be in Eagle…Then we could be on Don Henley in Eagle!  But. alas it is in Caldwell also. Of all of the houses that we have purchased, built and restored/remodeled; this is the first tract house we have owned. A new experience. As we are wont to do, we added rooms and garages to their plans…. So even though they had to redraw the house plans, they are approved and ahead of schedule.

Now that we are downsizing, we have to consolidate everything. With 20% less square footage, we need to exchange some of our furniture for reasonable sized stuff. and a little less of it too. Also yard prep and selling the lawn tractor and gas chain saw, trimmer and whacker.  I like moving, I just don’t like to move. I think that it would be great to sell furnished and then buy furnished. Just move personal item, even leave all of the clothes and buy new. Eloise would LOVE that! Pack the car, truck and RV and be done. Kind of like vacation.

Paperwork. We’ve just finished the purchasing paperwork. Now we start on the selling paperwork.  After that we have the sales paperwork. Then we will have the filing paperwork on the new house. It used to be about 2 trees worth, now it’s just DocuSign for everything.