The lighter side of life – staying in touch with friends and family by celebrating the ordinary.
The second weekend of the balloon fiesta John and I went for just one evening and the following morning.
Here’s the tethered balloons being inflated, getting ready for the glow on Friday night. A night glow is when the balloons are inflated but not launched. These are the “special shapes” balloons.
The next morning was cold! Here’s the balloons inflating & launching.
Laura came out for a quick weekend trip at the beginning of October. It was the first weekend of the two-week balloon fiesta. It had rained that Friday, so in addition to having a pond on my roof, it also flooded the RV parking at the fiesta grounds. We parked in a muddy mess.
The next morning, Saturday, we got up early and headed out to the ascension field and waited…and waited…for the fog to burn off! Fog in the desert! It doesn’t look very foggy in these pictures, but apparently there was too much fog where the balloons were likely to land.
We waited around for a couple of hours on the wet grass, until they decided they couldn’t ascend that day and canceled.
We still had a fun morning, and we had high hopes for the next morning.
This picture of Laura and I was taken by a new friend we met named Lee. She’s from Fort Collins, and was a lot of fun to hang out with.
The next day was vastly colder – but no fog! We got there before dawn and stayed until all the balloons were aloft and some of them were starting to come back down (some balloons landed elsewhere, others returned to the field where they launched.)
Here they are starting to descend and land.
When we got back to the van, we discovered that a balloon had landed right behind our van while we were gone. You can’t really see it in this picture because by the time we got back to our van, the balloon was completely flat and ready to roll up.
As a coda to yesterday’s fall into winter post; I don’t know what is going on with this tree. It’s dropping an enormous number of green leaves.
My lawn is covered completely with green leaves.
At first I thought they were ripped off by the high winds. But this morning they are still falling, and it’s calm and cold. Maybe it got so cold, so suddenly, that they didn’t have time to change color before dropping?
It’s my first fall in this house. I just hope this is normal for this tree and there’s nothing wrong with it! It’s actually the neighbor’s tree.
One of the little trees we planted this summer has some nice purple color:
In another part of the yard – the newly walled courtyard off the master bedroom – there is an established maple that is turning color. I’ll let you know if it turns red. So far it’s turning a nice yellow.
Now that it’s getting colder, our new little courtyard is my favorite part of the yard. On some days in the afternoon it gets warm enough to sit outside, huddled up against the southern wall of the house that’s being heated by the sun.
I don’t know how it happened, but it’s winter already. It was still summer in September. And then it was briefly fall in October and now, (sigh) it’s winter. It’s almost noon and it’s still 29°f outside. And it snowed in Santa Fe a couple of days ago.
John and I managed to get some last-minute fall activities in while it was still pretty outside. New Mexico fall color isn’t great, but we have some. We have aspen in the mountains that turn yellow, although they hadn’t really started turning yet when we went to the top of the Sandias toward the end of September. (Back when it was still summer!)
Also in the fall, the cottonwoods down by the river turn yellow. Here is the Bosque trail, which I love.
I had wanted to live near this trail, but it’s further for John to commute and we weren’t able to find a house we liked in our price range. The houses right near the river cost millions of dollars, and the ones further out are often either very run down or quite expensive.
Some of the fancy houses you can see from the trail are behind chain link fence topped with razor wire, because even though they are very expensive houses, they are also close to very rough areas. If I had millions of dollars for a fancy house I wouldn’t want to live behind razor wire.
One of the appeals of some of these houses is they have irrigation rights. The bit of water you see in the photo isn’t the river, it’s an acequia, which is an agricultural canal. The river itself is on the other side of the trail and generally can’t be seen through the bosque (the cottonwoods) unless you hike down to it.
On one hand it seems like good environmental practice to have set aside the bosque and not built along the river. Unfortunately the bosque is dying. The cottonwoods can’t grow new saplings without flooding, and the river doesn’t flood anymore. All the cottonwoods are reaching the end of their lifespan and there are no new ones to replace them.
It almost makes me wish the city had gone ahead and built along the river like most riverfront cities do. If we can’t have a healthy natural ecosystem, it would be nice to at least have a beautiful urban park or river walk.
Also over this past weekend we went to see the last of the fall color in the mountains, but we were a couple of weeks past peak. We didn’t mind – fall color isn’t that great in New Mexico even at peak, lol. We still had a nice walk in the chilly, winter New Mexico sunshine.
The locally famous place to go see fall color is the “4th of July” Campground in the Manzano mountains. That’s because there are some scrubby maple that turn red in the fall. It’s nothing spectacular, but we can’t be picky in the high desert. We’re not going to have fall colors like the midwest or northeast parts of the country.
Even though we were a couple of weeks past peak, the “4th of July” trailhead and campground were crowded. So John and I drove about a mile farther and hiked on some dirt roads. Up one road was the remains of an old cabin. The rocks in the foreground are its foundation.
We were surprised how many dirt roads there were with fire pits at the ends of them. It seems like at times there must be a large number of campers in the area, but when we went there was no one. Everyone was a mile down the road at the campground and trailhead. We wondered if the area got a lot of use in the summer, but we doubted it because there was no water – no creek or lake or anything. We decided it must be used by hunters, but we’re not sure when. I think the fall deer season may be over by now, and there might be a spring turkey season, I’m not sure.
We had it to ourselves and it was a nice wandering hike, surprisingly flat for the mountains. Here’s my “fall color” photos. Short, scrubby maple, like little spots of fire in a juniper and ponderosa forest.
We really enjoyed the walk.
As you may remember, I absolutely loved the private pool at a vacation rental in Tucson in August. I did not want to leave!
But I don’t have a pool, and I don’t live in Tucson. And it’s not August anymore. So I wondered if I could somehow substitute something more realistic than the private, outdoor pool in Tucson.
New Mexico is significantly colder than Tucson, mostly due to the high elevation. And we are heading into the winter season. So finding a local outdoor pool is not an option, at least not until next summer.
So that meant an indoor, public pool. I was not enthused by the idea, but I thought maybe I would like it if I tried it. I was hesitant to even try. But my mother-in-law visited in September, and she really likes her YMCA pool where she lives. So she agreed to go with me to try out my local public pool.
(Photo from google – I didn’t take photos, and never saw the pool empty)
Monica lives in a much warmer location than I do, so her local pool is an outdoor pool, whereas mine is an indoor pool. That’s a big difference! But we thought it was still worth a try. I am intimidated by indoor pools – to me they smell weird and I don’t like the echo noise, which can trigger a migraine. So I appreciated her willingness to go with me; it made it easier for me to go.
The first time we went just to take a look around. We didn’t bring our suits and didn’t get in the water. It was an initial reconnaissance mission. We asked questions about the schedule and planned our next visit. My big concern was how crowded it was. We went around lunch time, during lap swim, and not only was every lane in use, they were all being shared! Two or more people per lane. The pool was full of people, all much better swimmers than I was.
The next day we went with our suits and attended a water aerobics class. Where Monica lives the water aerobics class is held in the deep water, and they wear flotation belts. They use resistance weights, that are lightweight and made from some sort of foam, but as you move them through the water, the water causes drag, and it turns out to be quite a workout. It actually sounded like a lot of fun!
Unfortunately, the Albuquerque class was held in the shallow end, and they didn’t do special exercises for the water. They did land based exercises except they just happened to be standing in the water. And that wasn’t the worst of it. When it came time to use the foam weights, they held them over their heads, out of the water. There’s no point in that – they don’t weigh a thing out of the water! It was just silly. I’m sure Monica was disappointed with the class, but she was a good sport about it.
I, on the other hand, got bored and started swimming laps instead. The class only took up about half the pool – the other half was being used for laps. But it wasn’t crowded with experienced swimmers. Instead, there were older people with kickboards. That gave me what I thought was a good idea. I could swim laps with a kickboard during the aerobics class.
I knew that if I was going to actually enjoy the pool, I had to get used to it first. So I was determined to go back the next week. And I did. Twice.
One time there were no lanes available and I had to wait. I really cannot share a lane because I thrash around too much. And if I start getting overwhelmed in middle of the pool, my safe maneuver is to roll onto my back and put my arms straight out and float. Then I can relax, and breathe, and get my act together. Problem is, when I’m laying on my back with my arms stretched out, I’m taking up the entire lane and no one would be able to get around me. I’m basically a hazard unless I have my own lane.
Even when I did have a lane and could slowly make my way back and forth across the pool, I just wasn’t enjoying the experience. Both times I went were various amounts of awkward. My swim caps were failing to keep my hair dry, I didn’t like the locker room, I didn’t like the noise and echoes, I couldn’t see very well without my glasses, and I didn’t like really anything about it. And I had a hard time imagining convincing myself to get into the car and drive over there later in the winter, and put on a suit and get into water when it was below freezing outside, regardless of the indoor temps.
By the end of the week, after the two trips to the pool, I had a rash from the heavy amounts of chlorine they have to put in public pools, even though I did everything I could to wash thoroughly immediately afterwards. And, at the risk of TMI, I’m going to tell you that I also ended up with a UTI, which I never, ever get. I don’t think I had one of those since I was a kid. I was like, WTF? Then John read an article saying it could be from the public pool and I was just grossed out. I wasn’t enjoying the pool anyway, and it just wasn’t worth it. It was NOTHING like my experience with the private, outdoor pool in Tucson.
So that’s the end of my pool experiments for now. I still really want an outdoor pool of my own. Maybe someday. Here’s a picture of one at a house for sale we looked at in Tucson. But we aren’t actually moving anywhere (or buying any houses) in the foreseeable future.
The traditional flat roofs of New Mexico were originally designed to collect water, and channel it out spouts called canales for collection in rain barrels. That makes total sense given the infrequency of rain and the scarcity of water in the desert. However, nowadays, we just mindlessly turn on the faucet.
Having roofs that were originally designed to be water collection systems, also has its downsides.
I was standing at the sink in the bathroom one afternoon, minding my own business, when all of a sudden a large volume of cold water dumped down my back! It had poured out of the ceiling fan! I can’t describe how disorienting it is to have a large amount of freezing cold water suddenly dumped down your back when standing alone in your bathroom! I did not understand what was happening. I think the neighbors heard my scream for blocks away.
After some observing, I decided it was dumping a cup or two of water every 5 or 10 minutes. Apparently (we figured out later), due to a quirk of the fan design, the water was collecting there until there was about a full cup’s worth, and then dumping all at once. By total crazy coincidence, I was standing there in the exact position to get the first cup’s worth dumped down my back.
Collecting roof water in the bathroom:
John was unavailable, so I climbed onto the roof myself. Don’t ever say there’s no lakes in New Mexico! Here’s a beautiful, reflecting pond right on my own property.
The entire roof was covered, although some areas were deeper than others.
I decided to sweep the water through the canales with a broom. It would have drained through the canales eventually on its own, but meanwhile, it was leaking into the house.
As I swept, the water poured out the canales in big waterfalls, but I couldn’t take a picture and sweep at the same time. So here’s pictures of when I paused, and the water is no longer pouring off, and is back to its natural state of slowly dripping.
You can see the big puddle on the ground below.
When I started, it was mostly about to my ankles.
Here’s the section where the bathroom vents are located, after I’ve gotten a lot of the water swept off.
We did some patching up there. We’ll see what happens when we get a big rainstorm again. Someday.
Maybe New Mexico has become part of Mexico again. And I didn’t even have to move!
At least I’ll be safe from those Coloradoans.
John and I would be happy if it were always summer. Summer forever! But New Mexico has a surprising amount of winter. So we decided we’d splurge on two winter mitigation methods – a gas fireplace and a hot tub.
Our fireplace was wood burning with a gas-assisted starter. In my mind, if there’s already a gas line going to the fireplace, it would be a shame to not have a gas fireplace!
Gas fireplace inserts can be expensive, but they can also be extremely good heaters. I don’t like to run the furnace all the time because it’s very drying and our air in New Mexico is already overly dry. Plus the furnace heats the whole house indiscriminately, and there’s no point in heating back bedrooms. The fireplace is very centrally located, allowing me to heat only the rooms I use during the day.
I contracted to get a gas insert installed this summer. One of the things I made sure to ask for is an easy on-off switch. Our previous gas fireplace had a switch on the wall – it was great, just flip the switch and the fireplace came on. No messing with lighting it or anything. The salesman assured me that it would be even easier than that – it had several settings, all controllable with a remote. Great!
But then, when the installation guys came out to do the site check, they mentioned that there would be a plug coming out of the fireplace, running on top of the hearth, and plugging into a nearby outlet. I was like, what? That’s so dorky. I had requested a switch on the wall.
So I had to go back down and haggle with the original salesman. He and I had an agreement about the remote operation of the fireplace that did not involve a plug hanging off my hearth. He was resistant at first.
Then he noticed me looking at the hot tubs at his competitor’s store next door. In the end, he agreed to hardware the electrical line from the fireplace, which required a little bit of drywall work. He was hoping that if he kept me happy, he could sell me one of the ridiculously expensive hot tubs in his store.
But the hot tub project was on hold until I got the fireplace project done first. Good thing I started the fireplace project early this summer, because they took forever. Even after the fireplace was in, it took awhile to get the electrical done. And then we got to look at patched drywall for several weeks while waiting for someone to finally come and do the tape and texture. Even after they finally did the tape and texture, they never did paint it. I ended up doing the painting myself.
But it looks great and works great now. It puts out a lot of heat!
The next step was to redo the mantle. Here’s what our fireplace mantle looked like when we bought the house.
The oversized clock was part of the staging, so it was gone once we took possession of the house. But I disliked the stark white mantle, particularly because the brick is actually darker than it looks in that picture. Also the style of my furnishings is muted, with gray and beige tones, and a bit rustic.
I wanted a more natural looking mantle. I also didn’t like the clunky style of the support pieces. I briefly looked into buying a new mantle, but decided I would try to sand off the white paint myself.
My goal was to sand off nearly all the white paint, leaving just a few flecks to make it look aged. As I ground through the paint, I discovered a thin layer of dark stain. I wanted to leave little bits of the stain on, to encourage a weathered look. The stain ground off much faster and easier than the white paint, so mostly I either undershot – and left on too much white paint, or overshot – ending up with the stain ground off with the last of the white paint. But in the end, I got it to a mostly sanded state that I was happy with.
When the previous owners had painted the mantle white, they made a lazy mistake – they didn’t take the mantle down off the brick first. They must have assumed it would be difficult to remove and replace. Turns out the mantle pops right off. It sure would have been nice if they would have realized that. Instead, they left streaks of white paint on the brick, outlining the mantle and its supports. We tried to use a solvent to get the paint off the brick, but in the end we had to grind it off.
John also installed a new support system for the mantle, which is thin and black, just along the bottom edge of the mantle where it meets the brick – it’s barely visible unless you bend down and look under it.
The ends of the mantle were the most challenging to sand, because the wood was roughest on the ends. The ends were very pitted and the paint had sunk far into the wood, requiring lots of sanding.
Done!
After the fireplace was done, we ordered a small hot tub from Home Depot, and installed it ourselves. It cost a fraction of what the fancy ones in the hot tub stores cost. And it just plugs into a regular outlet, no electrical work needed.
The delivery agreement was just for them to drop it curbside. We were worried about getting it into our backyard ourselves, but it turned out to be easy. The guys dropping it off left it up on its end, on two of their roller dollies, so we could move it into the backyard ourselves. (I tipped them well for the gift of the dollies.)
Then all we had to do was move the boat, maneuver the hot tub through the gate and lower it onto the deck we had built for it.
Here’s our simple, little 2-seater, plug-in hot tub, all set up and ready.
We’re ready for winter now!
I’m a little behind on my blog posts, but I can’t omit mentioning that Monica came and spent a very nice two weeks with us last month.
The weather was perfect. September is the best month in so many places in this country, including here! September is when I want to be in 10 different places at once…the Sierras, the Cascades, the Pacific Coast, Boston…and it’s also just about perfect right here in New Mexico.
While Monica was here, John took some partial days off and we went on a variety of local outings.
I’ve blogged before about globalquerque; we go every year. It’s always great. I didn’t get very good pictures this year, but these will give you an idea. It starts in the early evening and goes quite late. There are two outdoor stages and one indoor theater.
They bring high quality musicians from around the world. It’s a great time to discover new and different music.
Another day we went to the botanical garden, which I always enjoy.
Here’s a bunch of photos from the butterfly enclosure (where visitors can go inside the enclosure with the butterflies). The butterflies were being very cooperative for their photos.
This is a local wild roadrunner. He/she is not caged, there’s just a fence in the background and it’s reflecting on the rock
We also went to the zoo, but I didn’t take any pictures there. I’m not very fond of zoos. I hadn’t been for a long time, and now I remember why. Don’t like the zoo. I love the botanic garden though.
Monica and I also went furniture shopping, which was fun. We went to a couple of stores that didn’t have anything remotely of the style I was looking for, before we ended up at an enormous store that had pretty much any style anyone could want.
I really enjoyed Monica’s visit. It’s nice to have someone around. I’m used to having an office job with coworkers every day, and I really miss them. John’s not home a lot of the time, so it gets to just be me and the dogs wandering around this house.
The dogs appreciated having her here too!
Monica and I made a deal – she should visit New Mexico more in the summer when it’s hot and humid and miserable in Houston (although it’s pretty hot in the summer here too, but at least it’s dry), and I should visit Houston more when it’s icy cold here in the winter. In particular I struggle with the early spring, when it’s brown, dry, and we have bitter cold, high winds and dust storms. So Monica is going to have a housemate this spring. Sweet green grass and bluebells, here I come!