May is for being born.
Welcome everyone. May, at least around here, is an insane month. A good month – don’t get me wrong. I mean who wouldn’t enjoy eighty degree days, flowers everywhere your eye wanders, the full court press of returning songbirds and, at least for some of us, the joyously free release from school? Waiting, like Hobbes the tiger, to pounce on us in June? Not me. I guess I’m lucky to have the insanity tempered by good weather. Insanity, perhaps, is an inaccurate description. Hectic, maybe. Frenzied.
Before I get much further, let me welcome Rich Rusnak as another permanent recipient of this, thing. Rich is a friend here in Boise (or Nampa if you want to), who often accompanies me hiking. If there is ever a photo here of me and somebody else, posing out in the desert or forest, then chances are that the other poser is Rich. In fact, Rich, myself, and another gent (Marty) are heading out to the Oregon/Nevada border this weekend to spend 3 days in the Pueblo mountains, a remote desert range seldom seen by people.
Welcome everyone. May, at least around here, is an insane month. A good month – don’t get me wrong. I mean who wouldn’t enjoy eighty degree days, flowers everywhere your eye wanders, the full court press of returning songbirds and, at least for some of us, the joyously free release from school? Waiting, like Hobbes the tiger, to pounce on us in June? Not me. I guess I’m lucky to have the insanity tempered by good weather. Insanity, perhaps, is an inaccurate description. Hectic, maybe. Frenzied.
Before I get much further, let me welcome Rich Rusnak as another permanent recipient of this, thing. Rich is a friend here in Boise (or Nampa if you want to), who often accompanies me hiking. If there is ever a photo here of me and somebody else, posing out in the desert or forest, then chances are that the other poser is Rich. In fact, Rich, myself, and another gent (Marty) are heading out to the Oregon/Nevada border this weekend to spend 3 days in the Pueblo mountains, a remote desert range seldom seen by people.
Beck
Beck Mueller
The hectic spring pace started when Kari and Alex decided to have a baby back in April. I’ll attach Beck’s birth announcement so you have all the details. Everyone is doing fine. Kari and Alex, truth be told, probably have a stronger claim to a “hectic” or “frenzied”, perhaps even “insane” spring than I.
44 Magnum
Next in line to be born was the author of this, thing. 44 years old and feelin’ it. (I’m the one on the right in the photo) I had a Friday birthday, a day ready-made for playing hooky from work. Alas, circumstances forced me to work a long day setting cabinets. I planned on taking the 14th off (Amy’s birthday) anyway. I’d like to share one of my gifts with you:
Yep – I am inextricably becoming the composting toilet expert. Amy decided to aid this process with brain food. This obscure book, with chapter titles such as: A Day in the Life of a Turd, and Deep Shit, is heaping with fertile information. I’ve been asked before about the best water free and composting systems, and had to do a little research to sound intelligent. But now – look out below. Want to build an odor free, phosphorous separating, solids composting toilet? I’m you man. Greywater separating your thing? Call me up. I am, as it were, looking forward to diving in. I am thankful that Al Blank is in China; I fear I could hear him laughing othewise.Evicted
Amy and I were happily planting french fingerling potatoes in our colonized neighbor’s back yard one day. After prepping the soil, which produced a bounty butternut squash harvest last year, and laying out the water lines, we were excited to let the growing begin. We have long suspected we were extending our welcome in this yard and were pushing our expansion. Well, we got booted. That very potato planting evening, the owner let us know we had overstayed our welcome and that her son (who’s RV had overstayed it’s welcome on his street) would now need our space for parking. And half of the rest had to go too. We negotiated to keep the garlic, raspberries, and another bed, but our summer garden space has all but disappeared. It is a sad, ironic, blow to lose good garden space for RV parking.
My old lady
40 year old babe
Amy, the 3rd May baby after me and Addie Larson, and I went up to Ketchum for her 40th last weekend. We had perfect weather and really enjoyed ourselves, despite Globus (Amy’s favorite restaurant) being closed for May. We hiked one day in the forest, the next in the desert around Craters of the Moon. We read and dozed in the sun and wandered into shops you can’t find here. I’d like to include a photo of Ketchum, for those who have never been there, but it’s a hard town to photograph without a lot of preparation. This photo doesn’t really express the vistas, geography, or architecture, or, admittedly more difficult to capture, my love/hate relationship with the place. It’s just a snapshot of a street, but I’ll keep trying.
Ketchum
I’d like to leave with a few selected photos I’ve collected this spring on different hikes in the desert. I have none of the house. Rather, I think I’ll wait until it’s complete and show it off then. I’m only a week away from completion. Two weeks away from the end of school. Yahoo!
