“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (through Sherlock Holmes)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Murder in the Marais
I just finished this book. It is the first book by Cara Black in a series that features a female detective (Aimee Leduc) in Paris. Apparently, she plans to do one murder mystery book for each arrondissement. This was good for a first novel—a bit complex, which is okay, and it could have used a bit more character development. Still a very good story with some historical accuracy and Paris history built in. I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.
Posted under: Books I've Enjoyed • by Rick on 09/29/2009 at 03:37 PM
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Closed the Pool for 2009
The water was down to 60 degrees F when we got back from vacation. So, Dennis came over and closed the pool yesterday. That will save on electricity since we don’t have to run the pump every day. Sad, though.
Posted under: New Jersey • by Rick on 09/29/2009 at 03:28 PM
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Trip Summary
We drove 1851 miles going to the cabin, 1846 miles coming back. Not sure where the 5 other miles went. (I might have slept through them.)
Our average speed going out was 59.4 mph, and we made it in 31.16 hours of “drive time”. That includes the time we spent getting gas, lunch, and walking the dogs every few hours. It took us 30.46 hours to get back for an average speed of 60.6 mph.
It cost us 14.5 cents per mile going (for gas), and 15 cents per mile coming home. Since the return trip is “downhill”, I’d have thought we’d be more economical on the return. Oh well.
And, to think that Lynne accuses me of being overly analytical.
Posted under: Cabin News • Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 09/21/2009 at 01:42 PM
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Thursday, September 17, 2009
Is it Really Thursday?
I can’t believe it is Thursday already! We had originally planned to start our drive back to NJ today, but are delaying by one day to let Bella move just that much more out of season. I think that will mean a more pleasant trip home. Alex is definitely losing interest.
We have had a good few days since my last post. A lot of walks, a few drives around to see the country side, a few moose sitings (photos on Lynne’s blog), and time spent with great friends from our previous life. A crew of 7 people drove up from Fort Collins / Loveland on Tuesday and it was great to see everyone. We grilled gourmet hot dogs, and a nice hike, and of course lot of banter and talk. We promised that next year we will go down the mountain to Fort Collins for a get together and not make them take the 4-hour round-trip drive up here.
We’ve settled on having a lot of trees cut down and removed in order to both mitigate fire danger (and the danger of falling trees) as well as to open up the forest near the cabin for quicker rejuvenation. The work should get done late this Fall. A few trees will be retained for firewood, but everything else will be removed. Of course, with so much dead wood, a lot of our neighbors would like access to our land to cut fire wood. On Lynne’s wise advice, we will prohibit any wood cutting by anyone other than the Forest Management company. That way we avoid any ambiguity about who has permission, who can cut where, and eliminate concerns over safety, proper cutting techniques, damage to the land, etc. Sorry, neighbors.
It will be interesting to see how the landscape changes, both immediately and over time. We will likely have a better view of Bull Mountain and sunsets for a while. But, I’ll bet we soon have plenty of new growth of the smaller pines (that won’t be cut) and the aspens (that will move in like weeds).
So, today is a preparation day. We’ll go through the fridge and cupboard and throw away anything that is not useful any more. We’ll give any good food to a neighbor (potatoes, sour cream, .... not much). We’ve done a great job of budgeting food and using it all. We’ve used all of the ketchup, mayo, bread, veggies, bacon, eggs, etc. right on schedule. It is always nice to not have to throw away stuff. We will also gather all dirty laundry to be carted home for cleaning (and then put in a special place to come back next year.) We’ll load the truck as much as possible and put the dog crates in. A final cleaning of the cabin will wait till tomorrow morning just before we leave—or, maybe we’ll just do that later today. We plan to leave our huge cooler here, as we don’t need it in Jersey.
Tomorrow, we’ll get up early, have some coffee, take showers, get dressed and then do the final loading of the truck. I’ll “winterize” the cabin by changing batteries in everything, draining the water from the system, turning off the hot water heater and water pump, turning the thermostat to 45 degrees, turning off the propane to the stove, turning off the fridge, pouring anti-freeze into the drain pipes for the tub, bathroom sink, toilet, kitchen sink and hot water heater drain. It does not take much time and is a good thing to do in case the furnace does not run (you never know when a squirrel will crawl into it!) We’ll leave, locking up the cabin and gates and head to Laramie. There, at the West Laramie Fly Shop, we’ll dump our trash, fill up on gas, and get some ice for the cooler. I also see a MacDonald’s breakfast sandwich in our future. Then, we “hit the road” for the 1800+ mile trip home to Jersey.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/17/2009 at 07:29 AM
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Saturday, September 12, 2009
Saturday Update
Wow! Has it really be 4 days since I posted last? How time flies when you are either busy or doing nothing—and I’m both.
I contacted a guy in Fort Collins that does beetle kill cleanup. He cuts all the dead and affected trees and hauls them away. The bugs go with them and that slows them down. He is going to come up on Sunday to take a look around and I’ll get a quote from him. We may not do anything right away, but all these dead trees need to be dealt with some day. By hauling them away, we could slow the pace of the infestation. Our only other hope is some sustained periods of temperatures at or below -30 degrees! That would kill the beetles, but is also a very unlikely scenario. It would be nice to preserve a few of our evergreens.
Ron came up on Friday and measured the bedroom windows so they can be replaced. The seal in the double-pane windows has broken and they are so fogged up we can’t see outside. The windows will be replaced under warranty, but we’ll have to pay Ron’s labor to replace them. While here we talked about our hopes to add on a bedroom, a mudroom and a garage and when that seems feasible, we’ll have him bid on doing the work. He is the guy who built the cabin, and we like his work.
We took a trip in to Laramie on Wednesday (or, was it Thursday?). We did some shopping for the food we’d need over the next few days and did a few other chores too like dumping our trash, dropping of our recyclable items, changing the oil in the truck, getting gas for the generator at the cabin, etc. It is too bad that even a short trip into town seems to eat up the whole day.
A neighbor, David, came over and introduced himself. He is an X-HP/Agilent guy like me and we had a lot in common including our overseas work assignments. He came to dinner on Friday night, too and helped us eat the wonderful Swiss Onion Tart with a salad and some home made cookies. I made Sylvie’s breakfast bread, and we had that for breakfast this morning. Yum.
Bella is in season and I think near the peak. We have to keep poor Alex crated all the time except when we take him out for walks. I feel sorry for him, but we can’t have him breeding Bella! We won’t be able to travel until she is refusing him because it is just impossible to deal with them in a motel room. So, we’ll see what happens. She should be fading next week. We take her down to the pond every day, where she is happy wading shoulder-deep into the water. This helps some because it washes her off and she smells like pond mud instead of bitch-in-heat.
A dear friend drove up from Fort Collins today, and we had lunch with her. Lynne made a wonderful layered salad yesterday. It is meant to sit for 24 hours before eating it and it was delicious.
The day started sunny and still, but turned cloudy and windy. Around noon we even had a few snow flurries! The sun came out again mid-day, but now it is cloudy again. The temperature is around 40 degrees and we’ve had a low, slow fire going in the wood stove all day to ward off the cold. Tomorrow is supposed to be a repeat of today, then it warms back up on Monday.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/12/2009 at 04:33 PM
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