Back in Chinle

Last night was my last night in Gallup (allegedly for the month).

I had my car mostly packed except for a few minor things and was just about to call dispatch when my work phone rang. Thinking it was dispatch calling to tell me to go ahead and leave for Chinle, I picked up. And that's when things changed, as they are want to do in aviation; I had to pick up a GI bleed in Crownpoint and get them to ABQ. So much for things being easy.

So I wound up getting off two hours later than I expected. This actually worked out decently - instead of driving to Chinle, I figured I might as well go home. I needed to pick up my headset which had recently returned from being repaired in Oregon, swap cars with Stacey (the Yaris had to get a new windshield to pass state inspection and was registered in Utah for roughly half of what California charged me last year), as well as get some more food, pick up my replacement ATM card (replacement for the card I lost in Hawaii), and I wanted to see how the fruit trees and such were coming along.

After sleeping for most of the time I was home, I was able to get a good look around the property.

The Bing cherries are very near to being ready to eat.

The tart/pie cherries aren't as near ripeness as the Bing cherries, but there's like a couple thousand of them in the tree.

The apples are gonna be at least another six weeks till ripe I think .

The rose arbor is now in bloom, and has turned out far nicer than I thought it would.

I'm now considering a third possible mead to start in the fall-ish: an tart/pie cherry-apple mead, probably with a yeast that would allow a sweeter finish (since the apples I don't think would be all that sweet). We'll see, first I'll have to talk Stacey into letting me stick yet another carboy somewhere that will probably be in the way of something.

A major problem we have found is that we have a serious no-see-um (biting midge) issue. From everything I've been able to read/research, I think our best bet is going to be a CO2-type trap with an attractant. If it doesn't get rid of the biting midges, it will at least keep the mosquitoes down to a minimum. The root cause of all this is a pond that is fairly full from the major snows we had this winter. The water is stagnant and the only predators that frequent the water are a handful of ducks making it a prime breeding ground for midges and skeeters.

Stacey was awesome enough to wash my car while I slept. So not only did I have a new windshield and new license plates I had a clean car as well, almost even forgot about the six-inch dent/crease that one of the girls put in my car with the door of Stacey's car. Anyhoo, my newly registered, clean car packed, I headed for Chinle...and right into a dust storm. Figures.

I haven't been in the Chinle crew house for a while now, and the dust storms have definitely taken their toll on the crew house.

You can not stop the dust from coming in (note: my foil job is to keep out the light for day-sleeping, not for dust control, as it would obviously fail at that).

Luckily, as of the time I'm writing this, there are some thunderstorms moving through the area dumping rain (pretty decently from the sound of it). Hopefully that'll keep the dust at bay for at least a little while.

I think I might try to head home in a couple days to spend the day at the house, depending of course on how busy it gets and how much sleep I need. In the mean time, I have my new Motorola Droid (which is scary fast, even here in Chinle) to play with and get all set up and what not.