Doors, Chimneys, Shingles, and Night Visitors

We have two exterior doors now that lock and a chimney that is hooked to pretty much nothing.  The shingles have arrived and some sit atop the loft roof, awaiting installation.  It's been a week of subs -- John and his son Alex from Mad Dog Plumbing, Guido for electrical, and the Western Fireplace team to fit the chimney, a necessity prior to shingling.  Richard the painter will come do the exterior staining on Friday, a job that constant rain prevented us from doing while my husband was still here.  

Bob's back at work in Tucson now and leaving almost brought him to tears.  I'm here for another week or so to answer questions and be able to help make decisions about the placement of lighting fixtures, switches, and outlets, and at least one more trip to big box stores in Colorado Springs.  Sadly, the old lights I sought out and purchased cannot be installed, at least not before final inspection, so my list of lighting fixtures to purchase will be a little longer than I'd anticipated.  I'm surprised Home Depot doesn't roll out the red carpet when I pull into the parking lot, but then again..

After spending the night with Bob's sister in Denver before she oh-so-kindly dropped him at the airport shuttle at 5 AM (!!!), she and I spent the morning catching up and harvesting from her fabulous garden we capped the visit off with lunch at a fabulous Indian buffet.  Filled with terrific food, I headed back to the wilderness, running the gauntlet of heavy rains near Colorado Springs, a rock slide near Manitou Springs, and a black as night storm that felt like I was driving through the Gates of Hell in Divide.  The dirt roads were slick with mud, so it was very slow going once leaving the pavement.  Over a dozen squishy slippery miles later I pulled up behind our trailer, relieved to have finally gotten home safe and sound.

My protector.  Right.

Or had I?  How'd our seven gallon blue water jug end up so far from the trailer?  And where were my bird feeders?  The propane tank from the gas grill was tossed aside and the drip pan lay in a nearby low-growing juniper.  Large paw prints covered the trailer and the windows had been smeared by a large and drippy nose.  We'd been beared.  Having had some success with seed from the feeders, a suet block (where the heck was the wire holder for that?!), and the grill I figured the bear might return for a second helping.  Bump and I were inside with the doors locked as darkness fell.  Around 2 AM I awoke to a shuffling sound on the deck, but the flashlight was useless for looking outside, and by the time I'd gotten up and turned on the porch light, whatever had been there had moved on.  The next morning, our contractor, Brian Shelton, came up to check it out.  He warned me to close the sturdy louvered windows at night (I hadn't), as all bears needed was to hook a nail, but that if I made sure to leave nothing outside a bear would be interested in that in a night or two it would stop coming around -- just like we'd quit going to a grocery store whose shelves were bare.  Last night I kept the porch light on, closed the windows and opened the ceiling vents (inconvenient with the sprinkle we had around midnight.  Before bed I heard something on the deck, but quickly switched on the radio and by the time I looked out I saw nothing.  This morning the bucket we keep outside for hauling water was turned over, but nothing more.

I'm considering turning on the radio loud some time after midnight tonight (oh for an M-80) and waiting for a few minutes before putting our pooch on a leash and going outside to see the Perseids meteor shower, which should be spectacular here -- the stars on a clear night with nothing special going on knock your socks off, so maybe a meteor shower would be worth the risk.  Or maybe I'll just have a bowl of freshly picked wild raspberries with whipped cream and call it a night.

Warm from the sun