Month: August 2022

We’ve been busy here at 4 Fords these past few weeks. Completing many small projects and some large ones. And taking some serious time to vacate.

Our biggest Red Letter Day was yesterday, when Alan turned the solar array on for the first time. Hallelujah! 6.5 kW of power at our fingertips. So far, we’ve run the washing machine, the chop saw, the table saw, the hammer drill, and several pumps, lights, toaster, and, of course, Starlink. There’s still some bugs to work out and calibration to happen, but all-in-all it’s working and we’re happy.

Other smaller projects include my continuing effort to stucco the new generator and sunroom walls. Next, I will tackle re-covering one of the ugly sheds (the silver thing in the above picture). I’m insulating the generator room ceiling today and had to do some repair on its propanel roof.

We moved a small water tank upstairs and now have yummy gravity-fed rainwater flowing into the kitchen from our catchment system. There’s been so much rain, the big cistern is full. The plan is to add another 1,000 gallons down the road. I also ordered custom insulated tarps for that cistern in an effort to keep it from freezing this winter.

Water continues to be the biggest bugaboo here. We have plenty of it, but storing it for winter months and gathering it for the dry ones is a complex problem. I actually believe that much of the world (think Southern California) will be dealing with these same issues in not too many years as dams fail and clean water becomes rarer…..climate change is making water either too scarce or too abundant, or both at the same time and place, and we will all need to learn how to balance it.

We’ve had so much rain this summer, the desert looks lush and semi-tropical. The flowers have been stupendous. The creek is running nearly every day. For the first time in several years, northern New Mexico has moved down on the Drought Monitor from Exceptional to Moderate. It’s likely temporary, but we’ll enjoy it while it lasts. If you aren’t familiar with it, this website is awesome: https://www.drought.gov/states/new-mexico/county/rio%20arriba

In more Red Letter Days, Alan and I spent a couple days in Las Vegas, NM for his birthday, savoring good food and relaxing in a lovely hotel. Then, for the icing on his birthday cake, we enjoyed a strenuous but lovely 4 day backpack trip to the CDT above Platoro Reservoir near Antonito, CO with our friend and backpack buddy D. It rained less than we thought it might, although the trail was muddy and the river was high. We got up to 12,400′ and camped at Blue Lake and the headwaters of the Conejos River at 11,500′. Unfortunately, there were lots of cows up there, not usual at that altitude. But it was stunning. We’ll go back. We had a hard freeze one night. Brrr.

School has begun and I am pretty busy with start-of-semester questions and the usual problems that crop up with students every year. I’m teaching 4 online courses this semester, which will keep me semi-busy. I’ve also contracted to be an expert witness for the Colorado Attorney General’s office on a case involving the Board of Nursing. That should be interesting…..

I wanted to share a photo of some wonderfully colorful Loner Bees on these flowers, but they disappeared….they seem to really love Indian Blanket (Gaillardia). They also love the native Globe Marshmallows.

Last night we got another 1.5″ of rain. Our new stock/water retention ponds got a couple feet of water. These work to keep the water from sheeting across the meadows and taking all the dirt away. They look ugly now, but in a year or two, they will be covered in sage and grasses and be mostly invisible. They will hold thousands of gallons of water for wildlife, and allow for the land around it to regenerate. There are 3 ponds in this field, and we plan to add 3 more across the road.

We took a lovely hike up Adam’s Fork Trail of the Conejos River (west of Antonito, near Platoro Reservoir). The plan is still to do a CDT hike starting in that area in about 10 days, if the weather cooperates, so we were reconnoitering the area. The above picture is of Alamosa Mountain/Canyon a bit further west. It doesn’t do justice to the brilliant reds and oranges of the rock.

After the hike it was a 3-hour drive home (Platoro Reservoir is a long way from anything), so we stopped for pizza in Pagosa.

After the 5-foot flash flood last week, the county commissioner came out and we met him, along with the County Road Crew supervisor. Apparently the county is asking for emergency funds through FEMA to help repair/upgrade roads and water systems in Rio Arriba County, as the flooding has done tremendous damage. It should be officially declared a state of emergency tomorrow. While the floods are not enough to get on national news, they have devastated some communities, contaminating water supplies, washing out roads and bridges. Our little road is on the list for repairs, which it desperately needs. There’s a culvert we cross that is hanging on by a few inches of dirt.

The rain has made everything so lush…the garden, which I did absolutely nothing to this spring but hoe a little and throw in seeds, is blooming. There’s apples on the apple tree, and tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse. And hundreds of giant mushrooms springing up everywhere….unfortunately, neither edible nor psychedelic!

Alan is making a lot of headway with the solar. It might be working by this weekend. Installing the inverter was a job. I think it weighed over 200 pounds, We lifted it using a come-along winch with great success and no injuries. The batteries, which also weigh over 100#, will go in the cold storage room that never freezes.

In the evening, when it cools off, we love to have dinner under one of the large pinyons by the house. You can see how incredibly green everything is. 250% above average rain in June and July. Here we are enjoying some Cosada (Costa Rican National dish)