House Painting

As any good house painter should know, you always start the job at the top and work your way down.  That is, the first thing to paint is the highest peak, and the last thing is the ground floor.  So, what is wrong with this picture?  Well, we are converting the trim at The Homestead from green to white, not the other way around.  It looks like our job is progressing backwards.

Part of the problem is that we can't reach the peak.  We have a pretty good aluminum ladder, but it only reaches to about the top of the second floor window.  We will certainly need to rent, borrow, or buy a longer ladder to finish (start?) the project.  But, the bigger problem is that we don't like working from the ladder—from any ladder.  There are some who don't mind it, but they don't live here.  For us, the progress is so slow on the ladder, that we prefer to get something done on the ground.  Unfortunately, it looks like we are running out of ground work.

Ironically, after both Tiger and Preston commented on the paint job, I got up there yesterday to make a big push.  By the time I had about 72 square inches primed, a big thunderstorm settled in.  I couldn't believe it.  My patch of wet paint (water based) got sluiced by two-hours of rain.  I guess I learned my lesson:  When the job is difficult, it is best to procrastinate.  Why do something today, that you could just as well put off until tomorrow?

Killing Yellow-Jackets

When I returned to The Homestead after a couple of weeks in Colorado, I was dismayed to find an active and growing yellow-jacket nest inside the corner of the shed.  Now, I know that some people have a live and let live attitude about yellow-jackets.  But not me.  I don't want 'em anywhere around me or my family.  The problem is that once they are well established, it is hard to get rid of them without getting stung.  So, I thought about it all day, and finally came up with a brilliant solution:  An armored attack.

The way the nest was positioned in the shed door, I could drive the car so that the front passenger window was almost directly underneath it.  So, I waited until dusk, and then got in the car with a can of bee spray.  I started the car, and drove it over to within five or six feet of the nest.  I put the car in park, left it running, climbed into the passenger seat, and opened the spray can.  From where I was sitting I had a perfect view up into the nest.  With my left hand on the power window button, and my right hand on the spray trigger, I was ready.  I opened the window about one inch, stuck the spray nozzle through it, and fired.  Direct hit.  I drenched the nest with a full blast of bee spray for about two seconds, withdrew the nozzle, and closed the car window.  I climbed back into the driver's seat, pulled the car away, parked it, and went into the house for the night.  Victory.  With 3000 lbs of steel, gasoline refined in Texas, and a can of toxic aerosol, I had outsmarted and overcome several dozen yellow-jackets.

Coincidentally, I had a chance to see this done another way when I was out walking in the woods yesterday.  Granted it was just one yellow-jacket, not a nest of them, but I watched a black widow make short work of a large hornet that got too close to her nest.  I had expected an epic battle of biting and stinging, and I wondered which of them had the more potent venom, but, instead, the black widow simply tangled the yellow-jacket into submission.  Where he was caught, she was free to move, so she simply wound him around and around with her web until he was totally immobilized.  Then she collected the bundle and carried it down into her larder.  In contrast to my mechanized attack, the whole operation was simple and silent.  There must be a lesson here about harmonizing the ways of man with the ways of nature, but I don't know what it is:  Today I will be going to Walmart to buy another can of bee spray.

Talented and Productive

I was trolling through the website of Southern Utah University the other day and when I clicked on the link to SUMA, the Southern Utah Museum of Art, I found that VSO was the headliner. She is doing an "art hike" on Saturday and the museum has posted a nice write-up about it. Not only that, but if you click the top "Announcement" on the SUMA website, just to right of the main panel, you will find that VSO is noted in the Southern Utah Art Invitational's flyer as one of Southern Utah's most celebrated artists. Speaking of celebrating, the next website you'll want to check out is VSO's own. Every once in a while I click through the ten galleries she has posted there just to make sure my opinion is properly calibrated. And it is. VSO is one of the most talented and productive painters in the state. If you want to see for yourself, stop by the wine store in downtown Salt Lake City for a show of some of her current work. Of course, to my reader I always offer exclusive deals so if you are interested in the painting posted above, contact me directly and I will try to talk her down under five figures for you.

View from the Office

This week we're back on the Routt National Forest in north central Colorado.  We're working in  lodgepole pine stands, which likely originated in the aftermath of a severe wildfire.  Because such fires have been absent from these stands since the late 19th century, the forest is generally converting to subalpine fir.  (There is not much fir in the photo, above, but you can see it starting to come in at lower left.)  I'm sure that subalpine fir is beloved by many, but I think my reader knows that Rural Ways prefers pine.

In any case, one mystery that I was able to solve this week involves subalpine fir cones.  Have you ever stood in a subalpine fir thicket and wondered why there were no cones on the ground?  Have you ever wondered what the cones would look like if you could find them?  Tada.  See the picture below.  The cones of the subalpine fir develop at the very top of the tree.  When mature, they open and disseminate seed without dropping from the branch.  The cones then disintegrate in situ.  As a result, there is never a pile of fir cones on the ground under the tree.  I found the pictured cones residing at waist level in a tree that had blown over.  Notice the growth habit?  Instead of drooping down like most cones, they grow straight up, pointing at the sky.