Honey Do's

The last few days have been tiring to say the least.

Monday was actually not too bad, mostly running errands and spending money at True Value. We picked up a bunch of potting soil, a couple of hand tools for the garden, a hedge trimmer, some seeds (they got some more in stock), and I got to pick up what I think is my new favorite tool.

Meet Ol' Painless.

We also got some paint samples and started playing around with those in the bedrooms. I think we have settled on what colors we want, so now it's just waiting for all the logistics to come together to get it done.

By noon the wind had kicked up pretty bad. I don't know what the deal was, but the winds were worse than Santa Ana's, though not as bad as the Fontana winds. But, weather be damned, we needed to get the gardening beds groomed and ready for planting. So, we all chipped in and got them done in pretty short order.

All ready for planting.

A nice surprise was found in the beds: one of them has several bunches of green onions...

I think it's time for baked potatoes.

...and there's even a few asparagus shoots that have come up.

Too bad there's only like four.

Monday wrapped up with Stacey and I talking about getting a wire fence up around the north and west side of the property.

Tuesday was a different story altogether. It started by Stacey leaving for Cortez with RJ, and my taking doughnuts to the mechanics and marketing people at work. From the marketing people I got a snazzy new hat (you'll see pics at some point I'm sure). From the maintenance guys I A) found out that one of the mechanics had left way sooner than I thought they would be, and B) got the hook up on a fence post driver, which saved me sixty-five dollars at True Value.

The next stop was San Juan Building Supply to get fence posts. Apparently sixteen six-foot fence posts are about all that will easily fit into my Yaris, so that's the number I brought home. And the fun began.

First I demolished an old, dilapidated wooden fence on the corner of our property: a ten-foot section, six feet high, already falling apart. It took me and O'l Painless about five minutes to knock off all the pickets and stringers. The posts were half rotted in the ground and I just pulled them straight up and out of the ground.

Then I, again with the help of old painless, demolished part of what we have come to call "The Fort". Apparently the previous owners built their kids a fort out of what I think might have been material from what was previously a fence, not unlike the one I demolished.

Ol' Painless: Destroyer of fences and childhood fun.

Whatever it was/is made of, it was in the way of my fence line, and was no match for eight pounds of steel on a fiberglass handle. With the demolition complete, it was time to move on the real work; driving fence posts.

Once I get the line set and the lilacs trimmed it was on. sixteen posts, sunk two feet into the ground, every seven feet apart, each post taking about twenty hits. After three straight hours of setting posts I finally got a break. Stacey came home with RJ - RJ had to get some cancerous growths removed. It was found he also has a thyroid problem, which is why he had gained so much weight to begin with and why he actually has mange.

A post-op, mangy, sad RJ.

Seriously, I told everyone he had mange. No one believed me. There it is, in a doctors report, diagnosed and everything: mangy beast. Anyhoo, with Stacey home I had a vehicle that I could get the rest of the fence materials - eight more posts and a few rolls of welded wire fencing. With those procured, it was back to the task. By days end I had driven twenty-four fence posts, hung fifty feet of wire, and set fifty more feet in place to be secured in the morning.

The next morning, Wednesday, I woke up in pain. In a loooooooooot of pain. I think I'm going to rename the fence post driver to "the torturer". The good news is that the hard part was done. The bad news is that we still had wire to hang on the posts. This went easy enough, and with Stacey's help it was a fairly quick job.

After the fencing was done, Stacey decided that we needed to border the planters with some rocks that were laying around the property. Luckily by now I had been up and moving about and was a bit less sore. Also, we had the help of a trusty old friend for moving the rocks.

Vintage Radio Flyer, hauling everything from children to rocks for 30 years.

I gotta say, the planters look nice with the rocks. And we found a couple of surprises: one rick has some flakes of iron pyrite in it, and we found a couple pieces of sandstone the red and yellow streaks.

This morning I still woke up sore, but no where near as bad as the morning before. It was an easy morning too, starting with sanitizing my new wine bottles so I could rack my mead later. After that it was time to stain the rose arbor out front.

Keira wanted to help, of course.

Stacey told me she wanted a dark stain when we were at True Value a few days prior, so I got her the second darkest stain on the shelf, "Jacobean".

It's a little darker than we expected, but it's too late now.

While Stacey and K finished the arbor, I got to work on the roof. On Monday, the wind had managed to remove a few shingles from the roof. So I climbed on the roof with a few spare shingles, some roofing nails, and a hammer, and got to work replacing shingles before the rain in the forecast arrives. Luckily San Juan Bulding Supply had a bundle of asphalt, three-tab shingles that almost matched the color that we have. Oddly enough, they aren't a prefect match for size, because for some reason shingle manufacturers have decided to go to metric sizes, and we have standard. And here I thought the Stonecutters were keeping that sort of thing down.

After all the house chores and such, it was time for a hike. There's a loop trail about a ninety-second drive from the house that provides some nice views. So, I took out the camera and decided to try the panorama assist mode. I was able to get a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view from atop a lookout tower. Unfortunately the panorama pictures are too big to post on here. On the way back around I got a good shot of Abajo from the trail.

Abajo, still covered in snow.

When we got back home we finished our indoor starter pots for the garden.

They're mostly carrots, thanks to Stacey.

Then I racked my mead...

Real racking action!

...Into my new wine bottles.

All corked and everything.

Today finds me once again busy, as I have to do laundry, get packed for Hawaii, hit up the dinosaur museum after Cassie gets out of school, and drive to Phoenix. I'll spend the night there tonight, any my flight to Lihue via Honolulu departs at eight am. The next pictures I post on here should be of Hawaii.

Distracted

Since my last post I've been a bit too distracted to worry about issuing forth on here.

Since I got done late in Chinle, I basically went from nights to an afternoon, then to days. It was an easy transition, mostly because I got to take that intermediate afternoon - I was only on for a maybe three-and-a-half hours, before starting early the next morning.

When that next morning came, I couldn't sleep past 3am. At 4, I got up showered, and decided to leave instead of waking up everyone at the house. When I stepped outside to leave, I was reminded why I'm glad to be out of California; the moon hadn't risen yet, our cul-de-sac was dark, and there were stars. Oh, were there stars; so many it reminded me of camping, with the milky way so very distinct from the rest of the sky. I can't wait till my days off so I can bust out Stacey's telescope and take a closer look at them. I tried to get a picture, but I either don't know enough about my camera to get a good picture, or it is incapable.

Seriously, this is the best I could do (if you look hard there's three stars).

Speaking of night pictures, I managed to get one of the sand on the road between Chinle and Kayenta. When it's windy they have to use snow plows to keep the road clear of the sand/dust.

This is one of the lesser dunes: there's a couple that take up almost a whole lane at times.

A few days ago I picked up a copy of Civilization IV since it was on sale and I liked Civilization: Revolution for the PS3. I got it to help pass the time, but it has turned out to be far more than just a distraction, causing roughly twenty hours over the last three days to simply disappear. And it's addictive as hell: I already won a round, but I have decided to quit when I have taken over the entire map, you know, just because.

Last night, while at home (commuted from K-town) I decided to rack my mead to a second container to help the sediment settle before bottling (main ingredients were oranges, raisins, honey, cinnamon, and bread yeast - nothing real fancy/complicated) . I wanted to get pics, but I was so tired and just wanted to get it done. I must say that what remains of the brewing process after the target liquid has been removed is fairly nasty; silty, stinks a bit, and looking far different than how it started. While racking, we drew off a sample. It was....different. It's my first brew, so I completely expected it to come out shitty. Instead what I have is something that tastes a bit like slightly funky orange juice, is slightly fizzy (though I expect that to go away with this last racking), and looks not unlike heffeweizen (orange and opaque) that will f you up (it's about 14%abv I beleive). It's decently drinkable, and I will try to get pics at bottling. Now I believe I am ready to try beer - I have a pilsner kit now and will post my attempt at brewing it when I commence.

Speaking of commuting, there's a rock that makes me laugh every time I drive by it. It reminds me of someone giving me the middle finger.

"Go f yourself, white devil!"

With all that said, I have to say work has been slow. I finally had my first flight today in three days; it was any easy one to Flagstaff. Our patient was a decent reminder of what happens when you're not compliant when you have diabetes, being in possession of only half a foot. I never did find out how it was halved (front, back, longitudinally, etc). Either way, their dream of running marathon is over, but they(the patient) probably figured that out about ten years ago.

I was able to get a decent picture of all that is Kayenta today with my camera.

Kayenta: 13.2 square miles of Navajo Metropolis

The next week is going to be busy: my days off start tomorrow night, and I have a whole list of things to get done. Then I have to leave for PHX (driving) on the night of the 16th to catch an 8am flight to Honolulu on the 17th, where I will have a 6 hour layover before heading to Lihue.

Res Equation

Tonight has been decently busy, with one flight so far and one pending.

I was only going to be on duty for five or so hours tonight, then drive over to Kayenta if I wasn't flying as I start there on days tomorrow. But I got a flight at 9p to PHX, and that's about a five to six hour turn around time. So, I haven't left Chinle yet, and have no idea how the next couple of days are going to work, since I (legally) have to have ten hours of rest between shifts, and right now that puts me at a starting time of about 2p this afternoon if I left right now. However, I still have to pack the car and drive, and I have a pending flight, so it might be even closer to 5p before I can start my next shift, a bit too late for a day shift.

I learned a new equation tonight: 1 vehicle + ([1 person] + meth + a loooot of alcohol - a seat belt) + 1 animal in the road + a soft shoulder = rolling your car so hard that you not only get ejected (well, there was no seat belt being worn to begin with), but also the engine separates from the vehicle. Seriously. On the plus side, the patient was alive when we left them in PHX, and probably won't die.

Hopefully in the next few days I'll be able to use my new camera during the day and get some decent aerial pics of the area.

I am getting rather irritated, as not only did the tree trimming people show up a day and a half later than they said they would originally, but they also left the job partially completed. Apparently this time their chipper broke, so they have to get that fixed before continuing - I guess at least finishing the actual trimming of the trees requires the chipper, as they haven't even finished that part. For some reason the truck that towed the chipper was incapable of storing some tree branches/limbs as well. Oh well, at least we got to look at the truck and chipper parked in front of our house all weekend...and partly into the week.

Looked at a website for seeds today for our garden (Gurneys.com). If you want to buy seeds in Blanding, you best get them as soon as they come into town. True Value had a rather large, square display stand with probably 800 packets (my estimate from memory), with probably more in the back. Within a week they were all gone. Stacey saw what was probably the last two packets being sold, and the clerk at the register was amazed that there were that many packets left. It's probably for the best though, as according to someone we know (read: my mom's boyfriend), the seeds from Gurneys come up faster, grow bigger plants, and produce better (in quality and quantity) produce than the seeds you can buy in the stores. We'll see.

Resicane?

It's windy as a mother f'r on the res.

It's been "slightly breezy" at around thirty-five knots, gusting up to sixty knots. I think I shall call these condition a "resicane": like a hurricane, but without all that pesky rain and hail and such. Instead of the rain, we have dust, and lots of it on res, and as a matter of course, most of it us picked up moved about. On the plus side, teeth whitening is free out here; just smile for 20 minutes and fight back the tears of having your teeth sandblasted, the natural way.

Smile!

And it gets everywhere: Through closed doors, window seals, etc, into every possible crevice and orifice, not unlike water.

The threshold after 10 hours...

...And the screen handle as well.

I repositioned to Chinle early this morning, as I'm doing a couple of night shifts here (giggity). When I got here, I was pleasantly surprised to see my Chinle doggy friend coming to greet me.

I have no idea where she lives or what her name is.

I used to see her every time I would pull into Chinle, but she had been seemingly absent for the last six weeks or so. I was just starting to think maybe something happened to her and she wouldn't be coming back. Indeed I was wrong.

Hopefully the wind dies down tonight so we can get some flights out. I'm really not wanting to sit on my ass all night. But weather is weather, and this conflict has been going on for eons, with man losing to the weather far more often than winning.

The tree trimmers were supposed to be at the house this morning to prune our fruit trees and such. THey didn't show. I'm kinda irritated cause I could have gone home this morning and spent the day there, but didn't cause they were supposed to be there and I needed to sleep; kinda hard to do when there's a chipper running right outside the bedroom window.

Gary Cat is not amused by the lack of pruning in his new jungle gym.

Hopefully they'll be there tomorrow after noon, as they said they would when they called to explain their absence this morning.

Growing

We have all kinds of stuff growing at the house.

The first things to pop up were the tulips. None have begun to flower yet, but the leaves have grown and make a nice contrast to the dirt and the brown grass.

Just waiting for flowers...

Apparently we also have Daffodils. We had no Idea they were even planted.

Weren't these in a Disney movie, possibly as douche bags?

There's also these flowers that are as of yet unidentified. I give it a couple of days till Stacey figures out what they are.

If they're weeds, I'm ok with that.

It's been getting decently warm during the day, but we're still not ready to plant a garden cause it's getting down to freezing (or even a bit below) at night. All our neighbors say you can't usually plant stuff till around May. I'm kinda wondering if we can get some plants started in the house, maybe upstairs, so that way by the time for planting comes they'll be all good to go.

RJ feels the need to roll in the grass now the snow's gone.

K is happy with her new swing she got for Easter. It beats the old one that was hanging up; a baby swing (full seat type) on some skeezy looking ropes. I'm a little bummed though cause now my easy metric for telling how deep the snow was this year has been removed.

K and her new swing.

Tonight has been boring as hell, with not even a single phone call from dispatch. On the plus side, I finally was able to watch My Best Friends Girl, get some paperwork caught up, and take a nap.

I'm heading home for the day in a little bit, and it'll be the last time I get home for a few three days, but I'll be bringing leftovers back with me, so there's that. I had planned on spending at least another day in Blanding, but the tree trimming people will be there making a ton of noise, and I need to be able to sleep for the night shift.

Ill be back in K-town tonight, then I'll be headd back to Chinle for a couple days. I think I might do some commuting though when I come back to Kayenta before my days off (and Hawaii after that).

Easy night

Been an easy night so far.

Just did one flight to FLG, which worked out as I needed to hit up Walgreens or Walmart for a heating pad (it wound up being Walgreens). Yesterday was an easy night too, with a single flight to PHX, then my crew timed out for the rest of the night as did the other Chinle crew.

While preflighting for said flight tonight, right around dusk, I saw a coyote. It was maybe three hundred or so feet away, moving low through the brush. I don't know if it was hunting or just passing through, but it kept its distance and I didn't have to worry about going all Stabby McStaberson on it. I've thought about bringing my .45 to the airport, but I can't bring it with me on the plane (company rules) and I really don't want to leave it in my car. I'll have to work on the logistics.

The .45 ACP; Punching half-inch holes in random shit since 1904.

I thought spring had sprung, and winter was done, at least in Chinle. Apparently not; it's been getting down to the mid 20's the last couple days. And since it had been warmer for a few days prior to this (lows in the high 30's/low 40's), I'm not sure if we had a warm spell, or are in the middle of a cold spell.

The Chinle ramp has been crowded lately, since we are apparently leaving a third Kingair there now, though I'm not really sure why. No matter though, I'm in Kayenta at 5p tomorrow for a few days, then Chinle for two, then Kayenta for like a week. It's a bit of a yoyo deal, but I'll be commuting from home for at least three days, so I'll get to sleep in my own bed.

Maybe we can squeeze another one in the back?

Speaking of commuting, the Yaris has passed the sixty-thousand-mile mark, with a current official odometer reading of 61,354. This is the highest mileage I have ever put on my car, by at least six-thousand miles. All I've done is change the oil, put a new set of tires on it before moving to UT, and fill it with gas occasionally, and I still average about forty-one miles to the gallon. I might change the spark plugs in another forty-thousand miles. Or not, we'll see. I'm still undecided about a truck: the Tundra or an F250SD. Of course, that's like at least a year away, so I'll just have to wait till then I suppose.

Owned

I've only had one flight tonight, but it was a real Duesy.

Got called not quite three hours into my shift to go to Window Rock (RQE), then to PHX. Looking at the forecasted winds aloft, and the fact that we had a stop before PHX, I elected to throw on about four hundred extra pounds of fuel, a decision that proved a good one.

We got to RQE quickly, with the only unusual part of the flight being that we landed opposite of how we usually do (on 20 instead of 2). I elected to ride into the hospital, since there wasn't a whole lot to do at the airport at ten-thirty at night, it was cold, and I hadn't been to the Ft Defiance hospital yet.

On the way to the Hospital. Merle isn't grumpy, that's just the way he looks.

I saw the patient after we got to the ER. They got drunk (reallllllly drunk, a BAC of something like .358) and decided to cross the street. At the same time a car was approaching. I can't help but wonder if the liquor led the patient to believe they had some mad car dodging skills or something. Long story short: I've seen how drunken street crossing turns out; not well, not well at all.

I have no idea what happened to the car, as it was a hit and run. But the patient was busted up pretty good with broken legs, head wounds, road rash, etc. Their ID wasn't even known until someone came up with his wallet. They got straight owned.

Once the patient was loaded into the plane, we set off on what has to be the longest flight to PHX I've had yet. It's normally like a fifty-minute flight, tonight it was an hour and a half, and going higher only made it worse, so it was either get there faster and use a lot more fuel or get there slower with a lower burn. While there was an eighty-five knot headwind, at least there wasn't any turbulence, and the sooner the better, so we elected to stay lower at the expense of fuel burn.

Of all the places this patient could have gone, I was glad it was PHX. I have been craving Mexican food for like a week now and finally was able to hook that up. Plus, I really like the lounge at Cutter PHX.

I sit in a lazy boy and drink coffee while watching tv in surround sound. What's not to like?

On the way back we had a monster tailwind. The wind coming back from FLG yesterday was nothing: we hit three-hundred-and-fifty knots in level flight tonight coming home at FL200 (note: I couldn't get a usable pic, otherwise I would have). That means we had a tail wind of almost one-hundred knots, and we had it almost the entire way home. Normally it's about an hour flight from PHX to Chinle, tonight it was not quite forty minutes.

Upon arrival we found that the rain and such that was forecasted had arrived, albeit late. So I got to fuel, play musical parking spots with two aircraft, and put medical oxygen in the plane in the rain.

Ok, maybe not all of it was done in the rain

Today marks the beginning of a new month, and it'll be interesting to see how busy it is compared with the last two months. Also, this makes two blogs in twelve hours, I think thats a new record for me as well.