Time to prepare

I leave for Alaska at the end of the month. I will be house sitting and working at my sister's toy store in Homer for a couple of months. I am so looking forward to seeing Alaska. Looking through the hiking books and facebook links for places to go and things to do. I may make it in time to catch to Aurora. I will be there for the King Salmon and Shorebird Festivals. I ordered extra memory chips for the cameras and a new portable hard drive. After playing around with my, Zhiyun 4, I was able to get it to work again, yeah.

Friday, I took my car to be serviced, as a friend, will be housesitting at my house and using my car. I knew there was an oil leak, turns out the head gasket and cam are leaking oil. They are now rebuilding the engine, again. They are taking responsibility for most of the cost of the repair, thank you Subaru. I have a brand new Outback to drive for the week.

Cranked up the tiller and started to prepare the garden for planting. Emptied the raised beds, repaired and refilled them. I am working on tilling the rest of the garden and will then redo the drip system.

Grabbed a shot of a female Red-Shafted Flicker on the fence through my window.

I was out smoking a turkey breast the other day, this is a selfie I took, a reflection in the Weber BBQ.

Playing around with my iPhone12ProMax.

Turkey Breast, Bacon, Hasselback Potato.

Water is Back

My pump guy came back with all the parts needed to get water back in the house.
After letting the hot water heater heat the water I was able to take a shower and do all the dishes. I am now doing two weeks of laundry.
It also means I can bake again, so a loaf of bread and a batch of brownies.

Had a fabulous sunset the other night. 

An Afternoon of Live Music

At the Mine Shaft Tavern

Madrid, New Mexico

a Saturday afternoon of outdoor music

with Timbo, Lance and Jerry

Jerry

Lance

Timbo

 

Still No Water

A week without water in the house. I was contacted by my pump guy, on Saturday, he has the part and will come out on Sunday to fix the pump. He was coming on Monday but another job calls.

So, today, Sunday he comes to the house, take the pump apart and finds a broken part within the pump. Everything is sitting in pieces while he goes back to see about getting the part that is needed. So no water, maybe tomorrow, most likely not until Thursday.

Dishes are piled high around the house, dirty clothes are everywhere. running out of dishes to use.

Of course there is good news, booked my flight to Alaska for the end of March. I will be gone for about 3 months. I have arranged for a house sitter to watch my house. More to come as I get closer to the date.

Went down to the Mine Shaft Tavern to meet a friend and ran into another friend, who was about to play at the Cantina. I stayed around to take some pictures at his request. I never did run into the person I was looking for, but did talk with her later, we are going to try to connect some other time.

This morning, a I lay in bed, looking out my window, I watch a Hawk attempt to catch a House Finch, the Finch got away. The other day I saw a rabbit streak by, a Coyote in hot pursuit, another missed attempt.

Hope you all have good week.

Snow in the Mountains

 Sunday night it started to snow, we had 50mph winds, gusts to 70. This proved to be a disaster as it blew out the heater in my solar shed. This resulted in my water lines freezing, as the pump that moves the water into the house is in the shed. Normally, that is not much of a problem, but because of the cold and snow I lost electricity.
It got so cold the solar panels were working overtime, without the sun, they love it when it is cold. So, I had to go out and cover some of the panels to cut down on the light hitting them. As the clouds got thicker I had to uncover and then cover/uncover throughout the day, so I could keep charging my batteries. 

I relit the heater and waited for the pipes to unfreeze. That night, Monday, I heard to pump running, though there was no water coming into the house. I went out to the shed to prime the pump, unfortunately the line for the storage tank was still frozen. I shut the pump down and figured I would fix it in the morning.

Got up on, Tuesday, and went out to work on the pump. I turned it on and water went everywhere. The flange that attached the pump motor to the turbines had cracked in two places. Went in and found the invoice for the pump and called my pump guy. He called back and I explained what had happened, I then sent him some pictures, as he requested. He called back within the hour, he could get a new pump the next day or a flange in 3-5 days. The price difference is about $400, I will wait for the flange, besides he can't get here for 5-7 days as he is booked. I, also live in the mountains on two miles of dirt road, which is currently inundated with snow and snowdrifts, so I doubt that he would be able to get here for at least 5 days. Fortunately, I plan for this and keep a case of water on-hand.

This morning, Tuesday, I went out to clear the snow off of the panels and feed the birds. Since, it was a "warm" 20 degrees out I took a walk around my property. so quiet and peaceful all covered in snow.

Wolf Moon and other things

 I went to set up my camera equipment to get ready for the Wolf Moon, as I was taking a few quick pictures to adjust the setting I spied this Hawk outside my window. As I went to take some picture it flew off, but it returned a few minutes later. It came over to the bird feeders I have out. I thought it had scared all of the birds away, some had taken refuge in the Juniper bush and some movement caught the hawk's eye. It flew into the bush, out flew two Finches and the the Hawk was on the fence with dinner in its talon.

Click the image to view full size

After getting a few shots it flew off. As I went to set the camera down I noticed some movement and took the camera to the other side of the house and caught this Coyote walking by outside my kitchen.

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By now it was time to haul the tripod and camera outside and set up for the moon rise.

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The Wolf Moon is just cresting the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside Santa Fe New Mexico.

Mostly Madrid

 Just a quick note that I am moving into, Mostly Madrid, this gallery is right across from where I was.

Here is a sunrise picture from this morning.

Click to see the full size image.