ADDENDUM TO SEATTLE'S BEST DOOR

In reviewing my files recently, I discovered a couple of pictures relating to the little Tudor that I want to share at this point -- for posterity if nothing else. 

This picture, taken in May 2014, shows how the little Tudor appears from the street. I love how the porch steps curve into the doorway.








Hallie sent this picture a couple of months ago while they were still varnishing the door. Note the window, a custom design.









And here's the porch light. KW

BEHOLD! SEATTLE'S BEST DOOR

Daughter Hallie writes that she and husband Nick continue to enjoy their work to renovate their enchanting little Tudor. Here is her current update.

I wonder if the reader can truly appreciate how the state of one's front door affects her self-esteem. Here, you can see the "before" photo. The door had been stained but not varnished and was weathered so badly that light was visible through multiple vertical splits. At least once a week I pulled off the door knob on the inside trying to yank the warped door open. "Hmm...leaving through the garage today."

While removing the old door, we discovered that the frame of the door was secured only by way of the molding on the outside. Nick set to work creating a new wood sill plate (or whatever it's called) and corresponding framing underneath, and then I primed and painted it. This had to be done swiftly so that we wouldn't go the night without a front door, but luckily, it's been so hot that the paint dried quickly. Together we placed the door frame and shimmed it. Nick drilled holes and inserted screws while I kept the shims in place.

Later in the week, Nick installed the brick mold, which involved a very clever cut at the bottom to make a nice transition into the sill plate. He also used a chemical application to age the unlacquered brass door handle. I am so impressed that he aged it so that it looks more polished where your hand grips and where your thumb depresses the lever, just how it would have aged with a natural patina over time.

The stained glass window was custom made, as were the drip cap and dentil shelf around it. These two components were inspired by examples of European doors of the 1920-1930’s era, and took quite some time to have made. Nevertheless, my self-esteem has been FULLY restored and I am proud to say it was worth the wait.

I hope you will also notice the addition of a new porch light, mailbox, house numbers, and doorbell. Welcome!

PESKY PROBLEMS

Morning picture to the northwest from behind the house, July 7

Recently we’ve had some pesky problems to work through. First, the refrigerator debacle just doesn’t get better. Sears is giving us a royal run-around, wasting hours of our time – and theirs. One day we think the situation is resolved, the next we’re back to square one.

Then the town house air conditioner failed on July 3 at the beginning of the hot Fourth of July weekend. Heating and A-C shops were already closed, so we coped as best we could until the evening of the Fourth and then drove back to the farmhouse. Sunday night we went to bed with the windows wide open when a windstorm came up and blew the inner window in the master bedroom shut, causing the glass to shatter. (The window is meant to provide ventilation, or a cross draft, from the dormer windows at the front of the house.)

Repaired window

But the worst of all was that on Sunday (July 5), old dog Nellie had some kind of reaction that caused her back leg to swell, edema, and respiratory difficulties. We suspected a rattlesnake bite and Sunday afternoon Mike contacted our vet, who prescribed quiet rest, Benadryl, and Rimadyl. Monday Mike headed into town with Nellie and the broken window. The vet examined Nellie and couldn’t find the bite site (nor could we). However, her symptoms were those of rattler bite. She is recovering nicely.

Mike returned Monday afternoon with Nellie and the repaired window. He had also arranged for a service call on the A-C. Predictably, they were backed up with emergency calls, and when Mike said he was willing to wait until Thursday (today) for repair, the scheduler said he was her favorite customer. (It’s nice to be someone’s favorite customer.)

A few brief showers -- then more heat (July 7)

Tuesday son Clint rode in from Winchester Lake where he was camping. He and Mike enjoyed riding their dirt bikes to points near Dworkshak Reservoir.

On the Fourth, we brought Ken's dog Pepper back with us. The days went well, but she didn't settle down at night. When Ken and Ginny drove in yesterday, Pepper was overjoyed to see them and to go home with them last night.

Ginny alerted me to the fact that a zucchini was ready to pick. “Leave that until tomorrow and it will be oversized,” she advised. I went right out and picked it. Just think! My first zucchini of the season!

I picked the last of the cherries today (3 cups this year), and just a few raspberries still cling to the bushes. I estimate I picked a quart.

Our German Shorthair dogs have not been particularly good watch dogs – until Bess, that is. Bess keeps a close watch on what’s happening, warning of intruders. Something in the tone of her bark at 4:30 a.m. sent Mike flying down the stairs and out the door. At first all was quiet. Then Bess began barking frantically again. “No Bess! No! Come back, Bess! No!” Finally Bess responded to Mike’s commands. The intruder? – a large porcupine. Disaster was averted, thank goodness! KW

Cruising the Canadian Prairies and Back - Final

Williston is very near the border so I was soon in Montana after my usual early motel breakfast. It was overcast and threatening rain this morning as I traveled west on Highway 200.  In fact, it had rained a bit the night before.  The first cache of the morning was at a small cemetery and again the mosquitoes were so bad that the only gear I removed was one glove. I stopped for about a dozen caches that day and found all but two.

As I pulled into a gas station/convenience store in Circle, MT, a work van I had recently passed pulled ahead of me in the parking lot and the driver got out and walked back to me.  He was an avid motorcyclist about 60 years old and was interested in my bike and began telling me about his and some of his trips.  Besides getting gas my reason for stopping here was that there was a geocache beneath the foot of a big dinosaur in a lot next to the store.  I took my new friend over with me and he found his first geocache.  He owned a business that serviced boilers stationed out of Great Falls.  He gave me his card and invited me to stay with him the next time I was in Great Falls.  Those Montana folks are about as friendly as the Canadians.

Red Granery - a DNF

Rather than traveling directly to Great Falls from Lewistown on Highway 87 I opted to take Highway 80 which loops north up to Fort Benton.  I had traveled 87 on a previous trip so I welcomed the chance to use a new route.  It was a fun motorcycle road to travel and I stopped in Ft Benton to get a couple of caches and some gas.  It had gotten quite hot by this time.  I did get on 87 here which goes southwest to Great Falls.  I got behind a couple of cars that wanted to go fast so I enjoyed the trip behind the cop shield.

I had booked reservations at the Quality Inn in Great Falls which turned out to be downtown.  However, I couldn’t find it.  The Econolodge was where my GPS said the Quality Inn should be.  I stopped nearby and asked someone and was told that the Econolodge was the Quality Inn.  The motel was run by Japanese Americans and when I mentioned that I hadn’t seen their sign they said it was hard to see because of the trees.  Later I went out and looked and the only thing the trees partially obscured was the Econolodge sign.  They totally ignored the fact that obviously this had very recently been the Econolodge.  The only thing that said Quality Inn was the bill.  They also had my reservation for the following night.  Nevertheless I did get a ground floor on the end of the building but it was apparently too far from the network server to get WIFI. Otherwise the accommodations were fine.

As usual, after checking in I went out to get some nearby caches.  In the process I found a fantastic place to eat about 3 blocks from the motel.  It was called The Pizza Baron and I had a grilled chicken/bacon foldover which was out of this world.  I was also able to eat out on the sidewalk which was very pleasant.

I got my usual early start after breakfast and headed southwest on Highway 200 toward Missoula.  As you get closer to Missoula the highway becomes more twisty and hilly, great for motorcycling.  I stopped for several caches along the way but the best was in a tube under a bridge across a beautiful river.  It was called Blackfoot Garden.

As I was returning to my bike parked on the road shoulder from a cache out in the woods I noticed the back tire looked a little flat.  Upon inspection I saw it was worn down to the steel belt and had only 10 pounds of pressure.  I had just checked the pressure the night before and added a couple pounds of air bringing them up to 40 psi.  When a motorcycle tire loses pressure the rubber will disappear very quickly on the highway.  I couldn’t find a nail in it so I got out my little electric pump and put it back up to 40 psi.  Fortunately I was only about 10 miles out of Missoula.  I cautiously got back on the road at a considerably slower speed.  I soon merged onto the Interstate where I immediately hit road construction.  It was the first time in my life I was glad to be in road construction.  The speed was slowed to 45 mph for some distance which suited me just fine. 

About the first business I saw when I turned on to Reserve Avenue (the busiest street in Montana) in Missoula was a Triumph motorcycle shop.  Unfortunately the cheapest tire they had in my size cost $230.  I normally buy a complete set on sale for less than $200.  One of the salesmen gave me the phone numbers of a couple other shops which I called.  I found a tire for $135 at a Honda/Yamaha shop between Missoula and Lolo which was right on my way.  It was during the lunch hour and they were short handed but they agreed to lend me tools so I could remove the wheel myself.  I did have one embarrassing incident.  As I was maneuvering my bike between another bike and a piece of machinery I totally forgot about my saddle bags which stick out like a pregnant cow.  One of the bags hit the piece of machinery and down I went.  It was my first spill on that bike but no damage was done to it or me.

Historic Lochsa Ranger Station

I ate my sardine lunch there while they were mounting my tire and then I was back on the road.  With a new tire it is advisable to take the first 50 to 100 miles easy on the curves to remove the slick from the tire left by the mold.  That was kind of a bummer as I was going down Highway 12 and the Lolo Pass.  I did take it easy gradually taking the curves more aggressively until I felt the tire was good.  It was extremely hot so I had taken off my jacket and bungeed it to my tailbag.  I don’t like forfeiting the protection of the jacket but it was just too hot.

With the exception of being very hot the ride down the Lochsa River was very nice.  As the tire problem had thrown me a couple of hours behind schedule I only stopped for a couple of geocaches.  One was the Historic Lochsa Ranger Station which was pretty neat.  I stopped for gas in Kamiah and it was 97 degrees.  I got home before 5:00 p.m. having traveled 2,609 miles in 6 days (435 miles/day average) and logging 59 geocaches in 4 provinces, 4 states and 3 time zones.  It was a very pleasant trip, tire problem not withstanding.   M/W

  

Cruising the Canadian Prairies and Back - Part 2

Old Dance Hall

I left Fernie early Sunday morning I’m sure long before my roommates awoke.  The hostel does provide a free breakfast but not till eight o’clock.  It was a little before sunup and cool as I was going up the Crowsnest Pass into Alberta.  I stopped far a cache which was behind an old dance hall.  It was a large and totally run down deserted old structure on the shore of a little lake. It was easy to imagine the good times that were had there many years ago.  I stopped for gas and breakfast at an A&W in Pincher Creek, Alberta.  It was full of customers and like most Canadians they were very friendly.

I kept on the Crowsnest Highway (Highway 3) to Medicine Hat, Alberta, where I got on the Trans Canada Highway, their equivalent to our Interstate.  When I got to Gull Lake I dropped down to Highway 13 which is called the Red Coat Trail because it’s the route the Mounties used to bring law and order to that part of the country.  I stayed on that route all the way to Morris, Manitoba, where I turned south toward Hallock, MN, Monday. The highways were generally good.  Some parts of the Red Coat Trail were a little rough and broken but mostly it was smooth sailing with a good tail wind all across the provinces.  The speed limit was 100 mostly and some 110 on the Trans Canada (what do you mean kilometers?).  I saw only one law enforcement car the whole time in Canada.  I usually rode about 10% over the limit and felt safe doing that as I wasn’t the only one.

Old Sod House

I found four more caches in Alberta but my favorite for the day and probably the whole trip was “The Sod House” in the tiny town of Cyprus, Saskatchewan.  There was a sod house in a fenced enclosure appointed just as if someone was living there down to the detail of clothes hanging on the line.  The actual cache was hidden in a big village bell there.

Inside house

I stayed in Assiniboia, SK, Sunday night.  The motel looked a little dumpy but it was first class inside.  Assiniboia reminded so much of a typical small Montana town that I kept thinking that’s where I was.  After checking in I picked up a few caches in town.  I had been dodging rain storms all day and one finally hit just as I was getting ready to have dinner across the street at the Subway.  I was really glad I wasn’t on the road because it was a real frog strangler.  It didn’t last too long and I saw a beautiful rainbow.

Assiniboia rainbow

I had pictured in my mind this country being rather stark and desolate but it wasn’t at all.  It was green with a gently rolling landscape. The farther east I got into Saskatchewan the more trees I saw.  There would be patches of woods scattered about. The predominate crop appeared to be hay rather than a consumable crop.  Of course, this meant there were cattle as well but not as many as I would have expected given the amount of grass.  As stated the patches of woods increased as I traveled eastward but the main crop in eastern Saskatchewan and Manitoba was oil wells.  I have never seen such a thick density of wells in my life.  Naturally this precipitated a lot of truck traffic.  At a gas stop in Manitoba a 60 year old gentleman said he had been a motorcyclist but had given it up because of all the oil activity.  I guess he wasn’t keen on continually being slammed into a 100 km/hour wall of wind whenever he met a truck.  He said he was moving to Moose Jaw.

I reached Hallock, MN, Monday afternoon having had a very pleasant journey through Canada.  As usual I made stops all along the way picking up geocaches.  Geocaching appears to be every bit as popular in Canada as the US if not more so.   

Hallock is a small farming town not even big enough to have a fast food place.  So when I made reservations at the Budget Host Caribou Inn I expected a less than pristine, Spartan at best, little motel.  I don’t require fancy accommodations.  To my surprise this was one of the nicest motels I have ever visited – totally out of place with the town.  It was large, new, spotlessly clean and everything worked the way it was supposed to work.  They even had a lobby computer allowing me to upload the 41 caches I had so far visited from my GPS to the Geocaching website.  And as with all the motels I try to book they provided a breakfast.

Not withstanding Hallock’s size there were about a half dozen caches in town.  After checking in I went searching.  The first one was in a little wooded park less than 100 yards from the motel parking lot.  As I entered this little patch of woods I was quickly introduced to the infamous Minnesota mosquitoes.  For the other three or four caches I attempted I didn’t take my motorcycle helmet off. This was a new state to add to ones where I have found Geocaches.

After the 6 a.m. breakfast I was on the road and soon in North Dakota.  Having benefited from the tailwind all across Canada I was expecting the opposite for the westward part of my journey.  However, it was a beautiful calm morning as I crossed the pleasant farm country of ND.

I stopped for 13 caches traveling across ND but couldn’t find 3.  One I found was at a museum located at the geographic center of North America.  As the day progressed I hit some road construction and some headwind but it wasn’t too bad.  I arrived at Williston, ND, mid afternoon where I had reservations at the Mobile Motel.  It was located near one of those big Love Truck Centers and was obviously designed for truckers with a big truck wash next to it.  It seemed fairly new and was a good place to stay.

Williston is kind of an oil boom town.  Population increased from around 15,000 in 2010 to almost 21,000 in 2013.  It had the heaviest traffic of any place I visited with the exception on Missoula.  The only place I found caches without having to fight traffic was a couple located at Love’s. I did venture out to a Walmart to pick up some granola bars and ate dinner at the Subway located there.  I stopped at a nice park (Spring Lake) on the way back and searched for three caches but didn’t finding any.  I saw my only pheasant of the trip at the park. [To be continued] M/W

A HOT FOURTH OF JULY

The gardens in summer

Thursday afternoon (July 2), we drove back to town. Preparatory to leaving, I gave extra water to my raised beds, trees, and other plants. I picked raspberries and cherries, and Mike helped me swath them in netting to keep the birds out until I say they can have the rest.

Apple trees in curve of north field

In the morning, I happened to look out the kitchen window to the north field where a doe was slowly crossing through the low point towards the apple trees. I wondered why she was moving so slowly. Then I saw that she had a quite a wake of waving grain behind her, and I just caught sight of two fawn. When they disappeared into the trees, I didn’t see them again. I can only surmise that they skirted around the edge of the field in the tall grass and back into the gully.

Anyway, we went back to the town house, and Friday noon as I returned from an outing, Mike advised me that the air conditioner wasn’t working. Heating and cooling service providers were closed for the long weekend, and Mike decided not to request emergency service. Long story short – it was a miserable two days in town. Probably the best part was exercising the dogs at the beach. Little Bess, who had to learn to get into the water, has become quite the swimmer.

Evening at Gilbert

So, after my nephew’s landmark birthday party last evening, we loaded the pick-up and drove back to the farm. Not sure we gained too much by that. It was still 80 here at 9:00, and of course the house was warm, especially upstairs. The night was difficult, especially since we brought along our friend Pepper (large German Shorthair), who was unsettled and unhappy.

Well, I’m not going to complain – much – because after all, we all have problems to solve from time to time. On Monday, Mike will begin to make calls to schedule service appointments, and then we’ll see how things work out.

Evening at Gilbert

It’s kinda fun to drive in during the evening, but you have to watch for the deer. We saw two on the grade. With perfect form, one little guy jumped a fence from a standstill. And out at the corner, we saw five whitetail together and watched them run through the field. KW