my door

We live in a small house.
I designed and built it a long time ago.
It was designed to be easy on energy both winter and summer. It has done pretty well everything I asked.
But when I built the house I cut more than a few corners. I built it myself without a loan and did the work myself. I bartered all I could, otherwise it would have taken decades to finish. The basic house is very solid with good materials. The finish sometimes had to take second place.
I made the kitchen cabinets our of cheap particle board. It was what we could afford. We did not have any interior doors for quite a while until I made them. The windows were wood frame with solid glass inset.
Not remotely efficient but cheap.
But in the years before I retired I upgraded all I could to make the house easy to live in, during our retirement years.
I did everything but rebuild the front door.
Well, today was the day.
The door is 3 1/2” thick with cedar on the outside and mahogany on the inside and a lot of insulation in the middle. But it did not fit the jamb quite right, the weather stripping did not quite do it’s job and when that east wind blew in the winter, the house got cold easily.
So today I took the door off it’s hinges, had Juan (my fabulous neighbor) help me carry it out to the sawhorses on the driveway.
I put a new outside skin on the door, cleaned it all up and got it all stained. The new outside cedar will fit the weather stripping tighter.
Tomorrow I tear out the old jamb and outside trim and replace it all with new weather stripping, the kind they use on the expensive door. Should get it all in place tomorrow.
I should be able to laugh at that cold east wind.
Once more I am thankful for a few skills and and some good tools.

food

I have been reading a book about food.

Michael Pollan: “In Defense of Food.”

“Eat Food; Not too Much; Mostly Plants.”

That is the book in 7 words. Sounds like my mother.

What is food? Let me tell you what it is not!

A few weeks ago my brother in law came to visit (he comes over for 15 minutes every month). He had a jar of peanut butter that he did not want because he had gotten “chunky” when he wanted “smooth.”

It is a well known brand, but I looked at the label a bit. On the front of the jar, as if they were bragging: “Contains 60% peanuts.” My brand contains 99%, so I had to find out what was different.

The 60 percent jar had two kinds of sugar (one I particularly want to avoid), hydrogenated oil from more than one source, and some soy that sounded as much like filler to me. All of that instead of peanuts, which probably are cheaper.

That is the perfect example of a food look alike, but not food.

The jar will go away.

“Eat Food; Not too Much; Mostly Plants.”

OK.

Our campsite overlooking the river, and the view of the river a few yards from campsite two.
It was most beautiful, but, people are slobs. There was toilet paper everywhere.
Grr.

South Fork

We camped on the edge of one of Idaho’s most scenic areas.

This area is well travled and visited with lots of campgrounds, some with various degrees of amenities and some spots that are without any amenities at all.

We choose one of the latter. Saturday night we camped right on the very edge of the bank of the river. There was a small space with room, but none extra. The river still has a lot of water, and this is the last of August. The spot was beautiful and we slept to the sound of the river.

There was another site a hundred yards away, but it was occupied saturday night. Sunday the family packed up and headed home, so we checked it out and made the move. That gave us space to set up the tent and the shade shelter and have a camp fire, and be ready for more rain, if it came.

We were still very close to the river. The bank was a bit higher, which allowed a birds eye view of the river.
I wanted to check our skills camping in less than wonderful conditions. We were warm and comfortable. But we had the pickup and tear, so there were fewer gear or supply limitations.

We are doing better all the time.

Miriam is a trooper when it comes to accompanying me on my adventures. She complained that the 2nd site was closer to the highway (it was) and that it would be noisy. I was pretty sure it would be tolerable, and it was.

On our first trip this year, Daughter Lora offered me a hot water bottle for the tear. I accepted, knowing that while Miriam was always sure she was warm, when we went to bed I discovered her feet were very cold.

That hot water bottle came in handy. She complimented me on my thoughtfulness. I said it was pure selfishness. If she had something to put her feet on that was warmer than me, we both would be happier!

It worked!

again

We are going camping again.

My goal is 7 trips a season and we are on target this year. We didn’t make our first trip until late June.

It is easy and fun to camp in wonderful weather. Almost anyone can do that. But this weekend is a bit cooler and I want to test our skills and equipment a bit more.

Miriam may ask me a hundred times what we are doing for the weekend or where we are going or such, but she is a very good camp partner. She never complains, but makes the best of everything. Of course I do everything in my power to keep her comfortable.

We will be driving the Dodge pickup and the teardrop trailer. It is a good combination. Our little car has been repaired, but at 18 years old, I think I won’t use it to pull a trailer again.

But I still want to pursue car camping, where everything fits into one small coupe and yet we are comfortable and well fed.

When asked why I like to camp, I am not always good at an answer. We live near such great inexpensive camping locations. It would be a shame to waste them. It is also a place for me to recharge my soul to stop and confront the basics of life, to spend quality time with my beloved.

When I was a very small child, we spent a summer, mom, dad and I, in a tent in the north Idaho woods. My mother was a great nature lover, and I guess my love of the outdoors was what she hoped for.

I like to think it is a weekend away from electronics, and it is true that I will leave my computers home, but I will take a few toys: my iPod, an ancient GPS and my cell phone. The phone won’t make calls, but it keeps time!

Take care of yourselves, everyone.

My garden hat and MacBook.

My original girl friend!

MacBook Pro

I used to give computers away.

When I upgraded my computer (a Mac notebook) I would recycle the old one to a grandson, who would modify and/or repair it and use it, sometimes for a long time.

But now in my retirement, the page has turned.

The grandsons are not yet ready to buy new and give grandpa the older one, but I have two daughters who are graphic designers, use Mac’s exclusively, usually large screen versions, and upgrade frequently.

So I “inherited” a decent MacBook Pro. Daughter 4 bought it new and used it for her main computer for some time, then she passed it on to her daughter Emily. In time Em got a newer one as daughter upgraded again.

The old one sat there until I started having problems with my MacBook, and a deal was made.

Both are about the same vintage, but the Pro is 15” compared to 13 for my white MacBook. That is not a huge difference, but it sure seems like it is huge. The Pro sold for more than twice as much as the MacBook and it is fairly easy to see why!

Nearly everything about it is a bit more refined. The operating systems are identical, but the Pro is designed for the professional user. I hardly fit in that category, but I can enjoy some of the benefits!

Last night I ordered a new battery for the Pro. A notebook computer without a battery is like a car without an engine. There will be modest upgrades, including a bigger hard drive. It is amazing that a 100 Gb drive 4 years ago was cutting edge and now it is quite primitive. At this moment anything with less than half a Terabyte is suspect.

With two “books” I can log onto the internet in one while making a repair on the other. There is a site that offers step by step (and I mean screw by screw) tutorials for even fairly complex repairs.

What will I do with the white MacBook. I am not sure. It might end up as a music server, replacing an old G4 desktop that takes up too much space, or it might end up on Ebay. Not sure yet.

But, thank you Lia and Emily for passing this work horse on. I’ll take good care of her.

that tree again

The question about the sound of a tree falling if no one is around to answer is an interesting one and a good dodge of realism, maybe.

I have a book titled: Notes to myself.

The title pretty well describes the book.

I have no real need to tell anyone anything more about my life or the life of my family members. Most of what is worth telling has been told, but there are things that battle in the back of my head for conscienceness.

Can I put those weird and flashing bits into words? Not always. Sometimes the overall feeling is one of unconsciousness and inability to put those ambiguous thoughts into words. It is not easy.

I make no promises to myself or to any one else.

We will see.

If a tree falls in the forest and no human is there to hear, did it make a noise as it fell?

Fair Day

Today is fair day.

It once was called the "State Fair" but Idaho is really three states bunched together, and while we live in the population center of the state, the North and the East with their "capital cities" of Spokane and Salt Lake City, were not amused, so the fair got bigger, but was called the Western Idaho Fair.

We haven't gone for a very long time, but last night I decided that we would go today.

The gates open at 10 and we will be there. I will carry a small back pack to put our outer shirts in as it gets hotter, but in the bottom of the pack is a lunch (all packed in a "5 cup" lidded storage container. There is also a couple of water bottles.

I promised we might buy a bagel or a pretzel, but nothing more. You know, budgets!

So we will go while it is cool (high of 97 today) and the crowds are few and benches are available for rest!