Friday, May 28, 2010

The View from Here

May 25th



We drove over 800 miles, 14 hours, in two vehicles, to reach our friends in Colorado Springs.  Thankfully they welcomed us with a garage to park the loaded truck in, dinner, and a comfy bed.  The next day they followed us up Ute Pass to our place in the Rockies, bringing their dogs to show our dog the ropes of being unleashed in the mountains.  It worked.
Our contractor, Brian, is away fetching his son from college in Spokane, so we’ve had a few days to settle in, acclimate, take a hike or two, and do some tidying up around the building site -- a chore we begged for.  We have a gorgeous foundation, concrete pouring into insulating forms of styrofoam connected with plastic strapping, sort of like giant Lego’s.  Brian has worked hard to keep the cabin low to the ground instead of perched on the site.  The foot wide cylindrical piers are poured for the deck footings, and the wood is onsite to build the subfloor.  By the end of the week we’ll be able to walk around our cabin. 


It is heaven to be here.  The pines, fir, and spruce look fabulous; so green from a wet winter.  The aspen buds are opening to fill the space between the evergreens with a spring green mist of new leaves.  The kinnikinnick, more often than not what is underfoot, is covered with tiny pinched white and pink bell flowers which will eventually give way to glossy red berries.  Tiny white asters, minute white and yellow daisy-like flowers brighten hillsides in small patches.  Today’s hike yielded strawberries leafing out, some with flowers, and a small bouquet of tiny violets in a damp spot on the “around the block” trail (a two mile loop behind us into Pike National Forest).  But the most exciting wildflower has been the lovely pasqueflower, pale violet teardrop shaped heads that open to a startling white six pointed flowers with a spectacular yellow center.  I have never seen the flowers before -- we’re always been too late for these early bloomers -- and have only been able to wonder at the spidery hair-like remnants after the petals are gone.
We had some crazy winds yesterday.  We’re guessing there were gusts of over 50 miles per hour.  The wind screamed around the trailer, rocking it like a cradle at the hands of an angry nanny where it now sits up on the saddle, more exposed than where it sat for years on the cabin site.  We lost power for hours and when we decided to get in the car and go see how extensive the outage was, we first had to fire up the chainsaw to clear a tree that had come down on our long driveway.  It became obvious that this was a sizable outage, with many trees down, often taking power lines with them.  After being blocking on one road, we managed to get to our friends Fran and Don’s cabin high up the far side of the valley.  Last time we’d seen them was September.   They’d come for brunch and we were squeezed into the tiny dinette of our trailer while it sleeted and snowed outside.  We caught up with them while enjoying heat from their wood burning stove, and gazing at their breath-taking view of a snow-clad Pike’s Peak.  
Aside from being a bit more subject to the winds, the trailer is also now far from the outhouse, probably about an eighth of a mile, a good long block away.  I’m not complaining as it is terrific exercise (even get some uphill in on the way back) and Bump usually accompanies me.  I will confess to using some nearby conifers after dark.  It is convenient to the building site, however Brian tells us that it will have to be disabled prior to getting a certificate of occupancy for the cabin per a new regulation.  We think we’ll simply bang a board across the one holer, and retain this historic structure for a tool shed.  We’ve already installed some art!
It’s been fun to watch our desert dog turn into a mountain dog.  Four days ago she didn’t know how to navigate stairs, was never walked off leash, and had never seen a pine tree.  Now she’s negotiating the metal trailer steps with ease and is living off leash and making little nests for herself in the mulchy soil underneath the ponderosas.  She’s enough out of her element to stick close by, but confident enough to lead the way on hikes and cavort in the streams and creeks that abound here.  Instead of learning to avoid stepping on cholla cactus segments, she is getting savvy about not walking on the tiny Douglas fir cones that are just the perfect size to get wedged in the pads of her paws.  Our dear old dog Max, gone just over a month ago, road shotgun with me from Tucson, his ashes filling a quart sized white plastic box.  He would have loved it here, and Bump seems to be enjoying it enough for both of them. 


Today the sun is warm, the air cool and perfect for a long-sleeved tee if you’re working, and a light fleece if you’re slacking.  We’ve been getting things done, but also taking time to walk, read, and talk about the cabin project and our future years with many months spent in this idyllic forest.  We’re quite excited about our contractor arriving back on site tomorrow, probably with his son to help, and Bob will get to spend the next three and a half weeks building a new cabin where the old A-frame once stood.
The sky is a deep China blue.  Fluffy innocent white clouds drift by overhead.  The crisp air is filled with the sharp clean scent of pine.  Life is very good.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Cementing the Deal

When it rains, it pours.  Hot on the heels of the photos our contractor, Brian Shelton, provided us, last night we got some from our good friends and closest mountain neighbors.  Harry had followed the cement truck up the driveway and stuck around for some of the excitement of seeing the footers of the cabin poured.  We'll always be able to say to him "you were there at the beginning".  Here's a shot of the early pour -- Builder Brian is smoothing the concrete in the forms.



Here's a shot of the completed footer pour.



Harry spotting this group of elk a couple of miles from the cabin.  No doubt they'd heard about our place and were headed over to check it out!


More pictures soon of the stem wall and then of the foundation poured in Greenblock forms (Brian has a degree in environmental science, so we'll go as green as we can).  It's going to be snug.  I'm off to start packing my cabin treasures -- it's just plain hard to believe this is happening!

Tune in again soon.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Oh! You mean this is Real?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  In my book that's AT LEAST!  And it can also make real what has been, up to now, something that might have been a figment of our imagination, wishful thinking, or an obsessive daydream.

Building permit in hand, our contractor, Brian Shelton, wasted no time preparing for the foundation (and documenting with his camera).  They'd expected to hit rock, but all they found was more and more beautiful decomposed granite.  With no need to bore holes into rock and epoxy rebar, the foundation is flat and level and we'll have a beautiful crawl space with a constant temperature of about 55 degrees, perfection for my beer brewing husband.

The pictures prove we'll have our almost dead-center view of Hackett Mountain, and it appears that the deck will be low enough to the ground in many places that we'll have lots of views unencumbered by railings.  The waterline from the pump has been installed in its deep trench and brought into the crawl space.



Some neighbors said they followed the cement truck up the day after we recieved these photos, and took some more for us.  Once we get those we'll post them -- foundation footers cementing our future in the Rockies.

We're a bit stupefied that two weeks from today we'll have woken up in our trailer, the first morning of a month of mornings.  It now sits far from the building site (and the outhouse), up on a ridge and in the middle of a seldom used track like a railroad car on a siding.  But it's a pretty spot, snugged up into the trees and with a good view.  If we can figure out a way to hook up to the power poles, also a fair distance away, we'll be golden.  Otherwise, it'll be a little more rustic than we'd expected.  A small price to pay for a transition into a real cabin with electricity AND running water!



After dreaming of this for almost 11 months, it seems impossible that it is actually happening.  I feel like a hurricane advisory -- "preparations should be rushed to completion" -- and it's hard to fathom how much I have yet to do before leaving a week from Friday.  Some things I'm trying to decide won't be decided until during the build, but I've certainly spent enough time pondering them that coming to a final decision should be quite informed and fairly quick.  And that's part of the fun of it.