Trout Lake, 2014

On July 2, 2014May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn airstream, barclay, dave, Me, navi, travel1 Comment

This is a late post because I have fallen horribly behind on my blogging.

As usual, we spent Memorial Weekend in Trout Lake. Actually, I guess it wasn’t usual, because the last couple years our attendance has been spotty, but this time we were there for the whole weekend, and it was great, as always.

This was our first trip with the new rig – our ’09 Ford Flex was finally all prepped, the new hitch was installed and setup, and it was all ready to pull our wee little trailer.

Pulled like a champ!

The dogs had to put up with the new travel rules in the Flex, namely that they have to be buckled in (since they are surrounded by airbags, and if there was an accident I want them to be safe). They both have new Sleepypod Click-It harnesses that fasten into the safety anchors in the back seat and keep them securely in place.

They did great, with only minor tantrums from Barclay. Navi handled it fine, considering she doesn’t care for car rides at all!

Before we knew it we were among our people again 🙂 Surrounded by Airstreams!

And there is NOTHING like the jaw-dropping view of the mountain. We come back year after year, and every year I want to just sit and soak it up, it’s so beautiful!

The dogs, and Dave, found the trailer the perfect place to unwind.That’s exactly where Dave spent most of the weekend!

Our old camera phone pictures came out looking pretty surreal.

We got to spend lots of time hanging out with friends, like Gary & Janet, and Jim & Cheryl with Ziggy the insane Boston

Ranger Jon and Stephanie and the kids, Loren and Carolyn and Cosmo the shepherd, and Theresa and Glenn and a small pack of yorkies and her sister Leah who we welcomed even though she drove a Mini-Winnie (it was actually really cool inside), Pat and Janice and their sweet yellow lab, and plenty more folks than that. It was a nice sized group this year!

My crazy dogs. Barclay was totally mellow, but Navi just wanted me to get her out of there!

Don & Claudia from Yreka, who we haven’t had a chance to visit with for way too long!

Beautiful scenery, as always

Fun times in our cozy little trailer.

This was the dogs’ favorite place to watch the activities from (when they weren’t in the dog-yard)! They didn’t want to miss anyone coming or going!

And after three days of potlucks and singing and talking around the campfire it was all over and we had to pack up and head back home and to our daily grind. Whenever we do this it reminds me why we have the Airstream, and we wonder why we don’t do it more often. Maybe this year we will!

Snow Day, 2014

On February 9, 2014 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, snow, TheRancho1 Comment

Barclay wants us to go outside and play!

Pretty Please?

Dave threw him some snowballs.

He didn’t always catch them…

Dave threw some to Navi, but she had her head in a hole!

Did someone throw something at me?

Barclay wants to play stickball

Too cold for this!

The snow just keeps coming down.

We took the Flex out to Fred Meyers to pick up some groceries. It did great! I think the van would have gotten stuck in the driveway!

Our first big snow at The Rancho!

Barclay is glad we went outside to play!

When Barclay stole the garden glove

On September 15, 2013November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, videoLeave a comment

This video was hosted on Photobucket, but they stopped hosting videos for blog posts a few years ago, and I am having trouble finding it again 😦

Wall shelves for the living room

On April 16, 2013 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, TheRancho2 Comments

We have a big empty wall in the living room, and not much to put on it, except this cool vintage clock Dave’s Dad Gave us. I decided to build a shelf around it, so we could have a place to put a few knick-knacks. I sketched up a design.

Then, I hung the clock, and laid out the design using painter’s tape

I went out and took advantage of my newly organized garage and built the shelves (and simplified them by leaving off a couple short shelves I felt weren’t necessary), then laid on a couple coats of stain, but it came out ugly and drippy. So I sanded it clean and got a gel stain, applied that, and it again came out looking terrible. Finally Dave suggested I paint it, and knowing that it would look terrible if just painted brown, I suggested green, to match the carpet.

Dave helped me put in some screws to hang it from the studs so it would be secure.

Tah dah – just as I envisioned it!

Around the firepit

On January 24, 2013May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, TheRancho3 Comments

A couple weeks ago we took advantage of a mild afternoon when it wasn’t raining for a short time, to try out our new firepit.

Our primary reason was to get rid of a whole box of old financial papers which we couldn’t recycle, and it would have taken forever to shred. The fire made short work of them, and also gave us an afternoon of entertainment.

Towards the end I brought the dogs out but kept them on leash. Navi isn’t as close tot he fire as it looks. Barclay actually just laid down in the grass and took a nap. It was quite relaxing to just sit and look into the coals and watch the flames dance around, and the red light as they burned from within was fascinating. I could sit and watch a campfire all evening.

Outdoor lights, Bathroom lights, Christmas lights

On December 30, 2012November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn dave, TheRancho2 Comments

We’re having entirely too much fun with lights. This is the story of how we ended up with three bathroom lights for our one bathroom house!

Yesterday we went antiquing with a friend over in Portland. We started out at a place we regularly hit for cabinets and lamps when we are building sets – The ReBuilding Center in north Portland. This place is packed with lights, knobs, cabinetry, doors, sinks, just about anything you can think of for a house that is not furniture! We wandered around for a while looking at stuff, but our big score was a vintage light cover for the bathroom.

It has cool pink ends, and is wide enough to cover our entire bathroom vanity. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a fixture for it. It was only $5, so we had to buy it and hope a fixture would be found later, or we could figure out some way to mount it.

Continuing on towards Hawthorn, we stopped at the Habitat for Humanity store, which is under a bridge. They mostly had modern stuff, but we found this neat little bathroom lamp with a fixture for it. I wasn’t a big fan of the pattern, but it was getting closer to what we needed, and it was only $10.

After lunch we hit a couple more places, and finally ended up at a vintage store (same one we bought our dressers from a few weeks ago) and found complete fixture and cover, the same size as the first cover we had found. It has a bold leafy pattern, but the mounting holes will fit the pink cover as well.

And that is how we ended up with three times as many bathroom fixtures than we can possibly use!

Meanwhile, outdoors, We hung LED Christmas lights around the edge of the patio cover, and installed a new light with a GFI socket to plug them into. Now we can turn them on and off with the switch by the backdoor.

It’s gotten really cold here, so we just about got frostbite hanging this lamp, but Dave did a super job while I handed him tools and tiny screws.

Looks great!

This was Dave’s effort for Christmas decorations this year!

Pictures from the new camera

On December 15, 2012May 29, 2018 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, mouse, navi1 Comment

I’m getting the hang of my new camera. It does all sorts of things the other one didn’t do, and sometimes it just beeps at me and refuses to take a picture. Hey, it’s digital, I should be allowed to take bad pictures if I want to! It’s not like I’m wasting film! So I’ve been taking lots of practice shots to get the hang of using it.

Hey Dave, look over here!

Navi

Cute head-tilt!

Barclay wants me to finish playing with the camera and pay attention to him!

Navi and Mouse

Smilin’ Barclay

He’s tired of waiting for me to finish playing with the camera, so he’s going to sleep.

Furnishing the Rancho

On December 2, 2012November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn dave, TheRancho1 Comment

Now that we have started to settle into our charming little Mid-Century house, we decided to go looking for some Mid-Century furniture to go with it. We did not have a lot of furniture to bring from the other house, much of it was so worn out it went to the dump (even Goodwill wouldn’t take it), and we never had a real bedroom set.

The first thing Dave wanted to replace was our country-style knotty pine buffet. Not that there was anything wrong with it, it just fit into the farm-house better than it does here.

So we went shopping around antique stores until we found a nice vintage bedroom set that struck our fancy:

Love it! This is the sort of furniture we both grew up with, and it looks very cool. Just what we wanted.

And it has a matching dresser!

Look at those little legs! So awesome!

Our bedroom is shaping up nicely!

Next on our list was a vintage swag light for the front room, which we didn’t find, but we found something we weren’t looking for – a pull-down dining room light to replace the large greek-style modern lamp a previous owner installed (which doesn’t fit with the kitchen style at all).

Here’s a better look at it:

It has a brass base with a large fiberglass disk. It’s just too awesome! We found it at an antique mall and the note on it said it was new (by which we assume he meant it had never been installed), and had a piece of the original box label.

I can’t wait to get this installed in the dining room. Things are going to be pretty retro-cool at the Rancho if we keep having this sort of luck!

Our new house–Welcome to Rancho Relaxo

On November 16, 2012November 25, 2020 By stefrobrtsIn barclay, dave, navi, TheRancho2 Comments

Our new house doesn’t really look like a big deal from the front. In fact it’s mostly hidden by the tall bushes along the curb.

But it has a pretty little area along the front, and a beautiful vine that will have big purple bunches of flowers on it in the spring.

The front room has a big fireplace, and a nice big window looking out on the front yard.

The dogs like that a lot!

It’s taken a few days, but they are starting to settle in. I think it helps that the furniture all smells like home.

We had a lot to do, cleaning, arranging, figuring out where everything goes in our new small house!

What a mess! I’ll get better pictures when it’s all cleaned up!

The inside is nice, but the real selling point of this house is out back. Check out that huge covered patio! And the back yard is terraced!

You walk off the patio, and follow a path down the stairs to the firepit.

I think we could get most of our friends around this giant firepit! I can’t wait to do some camp-cookin’ over it.

Step off the patio and go to the right, and there’s a sunken seating area.

This seating area is surrounded by peonies and all sorts of other flowers and bushes, I don’t even know what they all are yet.

Beyond the seating area is gardens – here is a section of chard, beets, and carrots.

Then towards the back fence is another huge garden, which had squash, beans, and tomatoes.

At the far end of the yard is another seating area on the end of the terrace.

Up close to the house is a big herb garden full of all sorts of herbs I recognize and a few I don’t.

And because the house backs up to the city water source, which is a fenced off area, there’s no one overlooking our backyard like there were on most of the houses we looked at in neighborhoods. In fact that white house off in the distance is the only house we can see from our backyard, except our immediate neighbors, who are hidden by trees. So it all feels very private.

Well, it’s all ours now. We’re just about all out of the old house. Closing is in a couple days. It’s weird to leave the farm after all these years, but this is a super nice place. We’ve met some of the neighbors and they all seem nice. The neighborhood is close to work and very walk-able. And of course it’s a lot less expensive than the farm, and will be a lot less stressful than trying to maintain 3 acres we really didn’t need. Change is always a little scary, but this is one case where we made a change for the better, all the way around.

So many changes…

On September 9, 2012 By stefrobrtsIn dave, farm, work2 Comments

Ok, first some good news. I got a new job! No more hour-and-a-half commute downtown, now I have a job a mere 45 minutes away (not bad considering where we live) in my own state – so no more paying taxes in that other state. Plus I got a raise, plus they have fully-company-paid medical and dental. I think I hit the jackpot! Next week is my last week at the old job, and then I start off on a new adventure, doing the same thing, Software QA Testing, but a whole lot closer to home!

The next big thing is going to be selling our house and moving closer into town – cutting that 45 minute commute down even more. Frankly we just can’t keep up with this property by ourselves. And it’s expensive to try. I don’t have much time at home, and I don’t want to spend it mowing. I’d rather be out bicycling or paddling or working on my car. We’re looking at houses in a modest neighborhood that is so close to work I could walk or ride my bike to work, and central to the other things we do, and to our friends who live in town.

Today we had to rent this monstrosity to catch up on the overgrown back and side yards.

Poor Dave worked his butt off to get the yards looking that good. Still pretty shaggy, but better. Next the weedwhacker will come out to do the edges.

We’ve also been cleaning and de-cluttering the house. As we get a room looking good I take pictures of it.

I’m really happy with how they are coming out. I think our house looks pretty good! Keeping it clean and uncluttered is going to be a challenge for us, because we’re ‘pile-ers’ and we tend to accumulate stuff, but I think we can do it!

We had a friend who does house-cleaning come in and clean for us. We have carpet cleaners coming in on Monday. We’re going to have to spend a little money on having some pros come in and help get some stuff taken care of that we can’t do ourselves.

I’ll miss our place in the country, but I’m really looking forward to simplifying our lives, so we can concentrate on the things that we really enjoy.

Steff Does Stuff!

Category: dave