photos

Had a fine idea of what I wanted to shoot this past weekend, but I forgot to take my camera. Then I remembered that I had the helmet cam for the bike. That would have been fine except for the operator error and thus there are no photos this week. So it goes. I did get some painting done on Saturday a.m. and then went for a nice mtn. bike ride up the south fork of soldier creek, up and over the saddle, down the north fork of soldier creek and back to the ski area parking lot where I started. Nice ride, as I've been about 5 miles up each fork, but this is the first time I made the complete loop. So nice to ride where the only people I met during the four hours were 3 horseback riders and 2 motorcyclist. And that was in the first hour, after that it was just me and the scenery. If only I'd have brought the camera. I could import the winter pics and then you could pretend that it is green with flowers instead of all white with snow :). The trail was pretty beat coming down the north fork due to the cattle finally being up on the summer range. But even so it was a nice ride with temps in the mid 60's, it felt like fall. Which is in a close race with winter for being my favorite season of the year. The nice thing about the bike is that after working my tail off on the climb up I get to coast downhill and it is almost like skiing back down, almost. Not quite that flying sensation that the powder gives us, but close enough.

I may have to change this blog to the Fairfield adventure blog as the work winds down on the house. Still have a long list of work to do, but with the limited budget the work should stay sporadic at best. Not all bad.
O.K. use your imagination, the hills are green and tan with sage and grass and then lupine and buckwheat are in bloom on the hills in front.
Stay tuned. Steve

painting party

first time to fairfield for a while.... it was good to leave rainy boise behind & see blue skies & sun.

it actually looked pretty dry in the field behind the house, wildflowers about done

the grass seed that steve put out is coming in pretty well, and when everything is mowed it looks like a yard!

caralea and carolyn came up to help knock out the upstairs painting. we are really lucky to have such good friends! got it done and had fun doing it.....

this is caralea, who is an expert taper & wields a mean roller.

and carolyn, cutter- in and brush & roller cleaner extraordinaire.

echo and halle helped too. we're not quite sure how echo got his one little ear and nothing else painted.

halle did a more thorough job, getting ear, tail & parts between.

caralea putting on primer- we bagged the power roller after day 1. i'm not crazy about it either, and with 2 of us rolling it went pretty quick. the thing is a bear to clean too.

while we were slaving away inside, steve was finishing up trim painting.

carolyn doing an incredible job of cutting in with just her trusty brush....

saturday we got in one coat of primer and a coat of paint in one room & a coat of paint in another room (this being the whole upstairs except bathrooms- not a small area).

we cleaned up, had a gin & tonic, went to the imi for yummy dinner (chicken fried steak, boneless pork chops, prime rib & sirloin and all of the appropriate sides), came home for a fabulous sunset

and blazing saddles (still hilarious!) on the $40 tv/vcr combo that steve found at a pawn shop.

sunday- second coat of paint in both rooms. this is the guest bedroom- ryegrass. the master is a cream (carolyn & caralea say yellow, but what do they know?) called opal cream.

we will actually be able to arrange furniture in the bedrooms now, and feel less like we're camping out. slowly but surely we're getting there.

drove home through the (now dry) marsh because carolyn has never seen a sandhill crane. we didn't see one, but did get to observe this guy sitting on a fence post.

and that's it for now!