Journal of Progress--July 6-12

Barbara loves the lighting this time of evening.  Why the wind is catching the Trump flag and not the American flag is a question to ask.

Don leveling the floor around the kitchen drain pipe, with a belt sander. Gotta be careful with a belt sander. It'll eat your lunch.

Measuring to cut out the plywood subfloor to go around the pipes. It needs to fit as close as possible.

Not enough room to cut the plywood laying down, so Don had to cut the slots vertically with his jigsaw.

Just right!

Leveling the next bit of floor.

Some of the particleboard subfloor screws had come loose and needed to be re-tightened. Just a bit more work. Not a big disaster.

A big disaster. In moving the fridge onto the plywood, both front feet (of the fridge) caught on the edge and folded over. The "right" way to fix it is to drive 30 miles (one way) to the nearest appliance repair store, buy a couple of new feet, drive home, take all the food out of the fridge, tip it over on its side (not its back!), unscrew the old, bent feet, and screw in the new ones, lift up the fridge, and adjust the feet. Then refill the fridge. I didn't do it that way. I wedged a couple of pieces of wood under the fridge, then very, very carefully, hammered the feet straight. It worked!

...until I had to slide the full fridge back into position against the wall. I might have hammered them straight again, but was pretty certain that at least one of them would break off. So I cut off two pieces of pipe and stuck them under the fridge, horizontally. The fridge is almost perfectly level, and the pipe "feet" will do until we get the flooring installed. At that point, it will be worthwhile doing it "right".

More leveling and sanding. Barbara says this has been the hardest one so far. Don says it's no harder than the others, just needs more sanding. B and D have different definitions of "harder". To Barbara, it means "more work". To Don, it means the work is more difficult. This panel turned out to be harder by both their definitions.

We moved our cabinets in from outside.  This is approximately what they will be like when everything is as it should be. (And when they have been completely disassembled and rebuilt by Don, who is not looking forward to it.)

Unfortunately, the cabinets deteriorated in the two winters they were outside covered with tarps.  Don does know how to repair them but it is just one more thing he has to do.  In addition to repairs, they need counter tops.

Wednesday, Don had gone for a bone scan and Barbara was reading upstairs when she realized she was hearing sirens.  Unlike cities, you don't just hear sirens in Mammoth.  She went to the window and saw smoke.  The picture is taken from our porch.

 Someone who was camping decided to burn some weeds.  With our wind being what it is out here, that was a very bad decision.   We don't know whose car this was because it was not by any house but it had been parked in a field for some time.  There had been a kayak on top as well as the bike on back.  It was near a tree, hence enough heat was generated to burn it.

 

The fire jumped the road to burn a single-wide trailer and an RV.  The trailer was unoccupied and has been since we came here.  The owner has died and willed the trailer to his son, who neighbors say is in Alaska.  Quite a bit of acreage around the trailer burned but local people, backhoes, and the fire department from Eureka and maybe Nephi (there were a lot of fire trucks here as well as big tank trucks full of water) were able to contain the fire so that no occupied residences were seriously threatened.  Also, the rented cabin where we store our excess things could have been threatened.  One news article said that the Mammoth residents had been evacuated.  Not true.  In fact, there were enough inaccuracies in the news articles to make you wonder why you ever trust what the news says.  One said that in 2018, there were 700 residents here.  We counted about 40 and that included some part time residents.  Another said that if the fire had burned across the hill, it would have reached Eureka.  Yes, after about four miles.  That would have been a lot of burning.

We have been learning about pecking order.  First order goes to male, second to size.  Size can be first if the difference is significant.  The picture below is unique in that they are both male.  Often the Grosbeak will tolerate a female of his own species or the house finch female but this is the only time I have seen two males together.

 Here a female grosbeak is looking down on a male house finch.

 

Male and female house finch.  Picture is kind of indistinct but we could clearly see what they were when we took the picture.

 

Female grosbeak on the rope doing this funny thing we see them do sometimes with just one wing flapping.  We don't know if it is a communication thing or what.  Often they do it on the feeder and it spins.  There is a male grosbeak on the feeder.

 

More funny wing flap.

Barbara refilling the bird feeder. Don put it on a pulley, so she can easily raise and lower it.

 Barbara's been wanting a bird bath but can't find one she likes.  Many of them are lightweight and would just blow over in our wind.  Heavy ones are either really expensive or very small.  Here is an attempt at a homemade one but it is scheduled for a revision next week.