I be’d my own one-man long-haired redneck road crew this morning, and filled up all the potholes in the road that had developed from the little rain and snow we’ve got in November, and the freezing every night and thawing every day. I scraped ten wheelbarrow loads of base course and gravel off the edges of the road to fill in the potholes, and then dumped another 30 or so wheelbarrows of sand I dug out of the ditch bank to fill the areas that had sunk over the culvert. I walked three miles pushing that wheelbarrow back and forth for two hours.
I went to see Alice Cooper last night. It was a fun concert. He is still a great showman. I was about 25 feet from the stage in the center. I got four guitar picks thrown by the guitarists, but I only kept one. The people around me really wanted those picks. Nita Strauss does great hair whips. I caught a lot of them. Ryan Roxie and Tommy Hendriksen rocked on their guitars. Chuck Garric played a mean bass, and Glenn Sobel was fantastic on the drums. I assume Alice’s daughter, Calico, played the Pirate, but I can’t say for sure. Alice had a boa constrictor close to the same size as my Blue. Cold Ethyl had the same hair as Sia. Hmmm! Alice lost his head, of course. Here are some photos from the show. Click on the photos to enlarge them.
The Moon, the Pleiades, and Jupiter are across the top of the photo early this morning.
Sunflowers at Dawn
Venus at Dawn
Gino called me first thing this morning to see if I could go out and film Mr. Williams operating a large Link-Belt crane that few people in the city know how to operate at a construction site on Albuquerque’s west side. I drove over and took video and photographs for a couple of hours and compressed the video footage into a three-and-a-half-minute video of Mr. Williams hoisting trusses up onto the roof of the building under construction. The framing contractor is Nelson Framing. Jerry Nelson, the owner, and Gino have worked together on many projects. The building contractor is Bradbury Stamm Construction. The Superintendent of the construction site was kind enough to lend me a hard hat and vest to wear. Nelson’s staff working with Mr. Williams on the ground and on the roof came over and introduced themselves before they started hoisting trusses.
Miss Ing Link, the large Link-Belt Crane set up in the middle of the building project.
Our large Black Walnut Tree that died several years ago was cut down today. Now it can be processed and made into lumber. I’ve been trying to get it taken down for several years. I couldn’t do it by myself, and besides, I don’t own a 36-inch chainsaw. The video below shows the process of cutting down the tree.
There was a very interesting cloud formation to the north tonight.
Armed with chainsaws, chipper at hand, under a clear blue sky, they made their first assault on the army of elm trees controlling the southern border. Boom! The aerial attacks from inside the bucket methodically cut down the enemy elms. Blasting chips from shredding limbs, trunks turned into mulch. Dumped in piles that will be spread on paths over cardboard the earth will reclaim.
Storm clouds started building in the early afternoon.
The sky turned dark to the east, the south and to the west. Thunder rumbled in the background.
The sky started to clear to the east and west before sunset, but clouds were exploding to the south.
The winds were pushing and reshaping colorful clouds to the south and west as the sun put itself to bed.
I got water for my first irrigation tonight. It’s so dry the land soaks up the water for a long time before it keeps flowing. Furthermore, the water level in the acequia madre keeps fluctuating, which changes the water pressure. Between bone dry land and changing water pressure, it’s going to take a long time to get everything watered tonight. I may not get everything watered tonight.
That little fuzzy head in the darkness is Mama Owl’s and Daddy Owl’s new owlet sticking its head up for the first time to say “Hello world!” I was talking to Jim between calling the owlet and taking photos, and Jim asked “Why don’t they stick their heads up when it’s light?” I told him that owls like darkness.
Mama Owl and Daddy Owl in a cottonwood in the bosque looking for Junior’s dinner.
If anyone has suggestions for names for Junior, I’m open.
“¡Hola Mundo!”
The left fork in the Y in my irrigation ditch flows through a culvert where Scrappy Skunk was sleeping. Poor Scrappy was rudely awakened by the water and he came out one end of the pipe but got offended that I was videotaping him. He crawled back in the culvert, came out the other side, went back in, and stayed in the culvert until the water got too high and finally forced him out. He was an embarrassed wet skunk when he finally climbed out of the ditch and ran off. You can watch Scrappy Skunk in all his wet glory in the video below.
A canale I put in to drain water off the roof of the addition on Tristan’s house (added on before Tristan bought the house). After the addition settled on the side opposite the canale that is supposed to drain the roof, a lot of water was ponding on the roof when it rained.
After spending most evenings last week partying like it was 1399 with medieval scholars, Estevan and I went back to antiquity and found the roof on the addition of Tristan’s house made a fine vomitoruim “to spew forth” over the shoddy workmanship we encounter every time we work on it. This time we removed a swamp cooler off the roof and covered the hole left in the roof where the cooler was with a skylight. We also replaced a skylight that had not been installed properly. That skylight had cracks in it and gaps around its frame so it leaked. We also caulked cracks along the bottom of the parapet caused by the addition settling, and finished out the inside of the hole under the new skylight. After that we hung a French door in the entrance to the area where the upstairs part of the addition, bathroom, laundry room and bedrooms are.
The washing machine and dryer were moved into a bedroom closet on the second floor above the garage when the addition was built. It’s a strange place for a washer and dryer, so we are trying to figure out where they were before the addition to see if any of the original hookups are still in the walls. We want to move the washer and dryer so we can make the closet where they are now into a kitchenette, then the area of the house over the garage and the addition across the hall can be used as an apartment. But locating where the washer and dryer were originally is proving to be difficult.
A photo Tristan did of me spewing forth over the parapet.
Estefan found the hole in the roof that was left after we took off the swamp cooler was a perfect vertical vomitorium. Photo by Tristan.
Caulking around the skylight. Photo by Tristan.
The two new skylights on the roof of the addition. Photo by Tristan.
The finished hole in the roof underneath the skylight. Photo by Tristan.
I took photos showing a closer view of the shining new skylights.
This is a frayed caulk.
A view of the French door we installed at the entrance to the bedrooms above the garage and the addition taken from the bathroom. Tristan plans on putting stained glass in the Triangle above the door and applying stick-on stained glass on the lights in the door.
Site of the downtown grocery store complex on Monday, January 26, 2015
Faye and Jay climbed to the 16th floor of the New Mexico Bank & Trust Building in 2:46:30 on Wednesday, January 28, 2015. They were a minute faster than Bruce and me.
Looked like they had dug down to the water table on Wednesday, January 28, 2015.
Bruce and I set personal records climbing the 16 floors on Thursday, January 29, 2015 in 3:27:50. Thursday was our 10th climb up the stairs at the New Mexico Bank & Trust Building.
Friday, January 30, 2015 was cold and wet with a mix of rain and snow falling most of the day. The front end loaders, grader, tractor and back hoe got the day off on Friday.
Panorama of Downtown Albuquerque on a gray, wet Friday, January 30, 2015. The New Mexico Bank & Trust Building is in the center of the photo.
Off Center & Not Even 