It's like living two lives. When I am here in sultry North Carolina--dealing with oppressive heat and humidity, taking care of home maintenance and chores, e-mailing students and colleagues--a home in Colorado is like a figment of my imagination. But when I'm in Evergreen, North Carolina is the furthest thing from my mind as I seamlessly pick up friendships, local activities, and the rhythm of the mountains as if my tenure there had been uninterrupted.
My sister Karen, from Washington, joined me during my latest trip to Colorado. She and I are very close, and it helps to have her support and input. Plus, we just have fun together. There is nobody else (besides my daughter, who inherited the trait) with whom I share uncontrolled giggling. You know, the kind where the sound disappears and all that can be heard is high pitched squeaks between gasps for breath.
But let's talk about elk. Cervus canadensis nelsoni. They typically hide when Karen comes to Colorado, to the extent that Karen believed we were fabricating their existence. On this visit, she was not with me when I drove through a large herd of cows with calves right in town. I rushed home, woke Karen from an afternoon nap, threw her in the car, and returned, pulling the car to the shoulder in the middle of the herd. (See photo, above) The animals were milling about, wading in a smelly, tar-like roadside drainage, laying in tall grass eating their cud, and the dappled babies were just "chillin." Karen could literally have touched a mama who chose to bed down next to the passenger door where Karen was sitting with her window rolled down. The critters created a musical backdrop to the scene with their constant, contented mews and squeals. What a treat for both Karen and I.
The logging has been completed, and the site looks tidier. Most diseased or weak trees have been removed. Those remaining have been sprayed for pine bark beetle, because the stress of the blasting, earthwork, and logging attracts beetles. Beetles are moving east toward us. Beetle damage is so severe in some areas west of us that mountains are denuded, and some of the forests are being closed for safety reasons. Trees are just dropping randomly and pose a risk to hikers, and the fire danger is extreme. Thankfully, Colorado is getting abundant precipitation this year, which should lessen the fire danger and the stress on the remaining trees.
As for the house--finally it is going up! Bob the Builder claims that getting the house "out of the ground" (obtaining the building permit and getting the site prepped and footings and foundation poured) is the most tedious and lengthy process. In this case there was copious excavation, blasting, moving of rock, and loads upon loads of fill dirt to be hauled in. The carnage of earthwork at the site actually made my stomach turn. It is substantially more than I expected. Maybe because of the county's new requirements? Or due to the conditions found once the work began, which made things unpredictable? Dealing with the unknown is hard for me. But anyway, we are now officially "out of the ground" and framing has begun.
The most complex decision we are currently grappling with, is which "green" features make sense. Since the house will not have continual occupancy, and because cold weather extremes can play havoc with a vacant home (especially with radiant in-floor heat), we are determining how to make all systems fail-safe in the event that a) we lose electricity, while b) we experience extreme cold for many days and nights, while c) the sun disappears, and simultaneously d) nobody is at the house and e) help can't get there due to deep snow. It's been recommended that we have glycol in the radiant floors to lower the freezing temperature, an electric boiler to supplement the solar heat, a generator as back up for when our electricity fails, a buried propane tank to feed the generator, and an alarm system to let us know if temperatures fall to critical levels, water shows up where it shouldn't, or fire breaks out when the house is vacant. The cost of all these "belts, suspenders, and elastic" could feed a small country. It's ridiculous. All this "infrastructure" defeats the "sustainable" goal. So if any of you have ideas that will reduce the need for all this redundancy, PLEASE speak up!
I've rambled long enough. Time to walk the dogs in real time. They grow fat during the summer months when nobody wants to go outside for exercise. Until we meet again.....
Cheers!
