We Can See Our Vision

You gotta love technology!  While digging tumbleweeds Monday morning I had the phone in my back pocket and was thrilled to receive a video chat from the Germany folks–Laci and Lora with John in the background adding a comment or two on occasion.  Lora, the excited beyond reason for Christmas great granddaughter took the phone and gave me a tour of their house at 4 year old speed.  I was getting dizzy things were whizzing by at such speed–Mimi, here’s the tree, here’s Gemma (the dog), this is our house, this is my tea party.  I love technology!  And I love that we can ship items to them via USPS One Rate boxes–same price as if they were in the US.

They had received a box of cookies and little gifts for Lora.  I also included something special for Laci.  When Laci joined the USAF straight out of high school she sent her much loved Grandpa Nat a cap embroidered with US Air Force.  Nat treasured that cap and when we were cleaning his house after his death I found that cap hanging where he always hung it.  I washed it and sent the cap to Laci–she was very glad/sad to receive it.

Last night’s freak, quick storm brought us a beautiful day on Tuesday.  As I was driving to Elfrida for yoga this morning I marveled at the scenery surrounding us.  Mountains as far as the eye can see, rocks and dirt with a pink hue, blue skies, green alfalfa fields, stark pecan trees with no leaves–yes, we like our little corner of Arizona. Except for those dang tumbleweeds! 😉

Here comes the storm, the wind roared about 9pm and brought a brief rain shower.

The storm clouds were hanging over all the mountain ranges.

It was visitor day–Linda came out (we really need to exchange phone numbers!) to give me the details for Wednesday’s trip.  Then our neighbors to the south dropped by–Charlisa only comes at Christmas time bringing her friend Margaret and this time her son.

The Cowboy after reading the blog on Sunday told me we were far from being finished with the demolition–one can hope, can’t we???   He was in demolition mode again today but also fitted another post under the supportive beam between dining and living rooms.  After yoga, lunch and visitors I started working on our growing trees–the man at the nursery told us to put “chicken wire” around the base of the trees so the varmints would not destroy the trunks.  We also put large woven wire cages around the trees to deter the deer and jackrabbits.  Well, the trees have outgrown the chicken wire.  I removed the chicken wire and placed it around the outside of the large woven wire cages–we aren’t taking any chances on nibbling varmints!  The trees look great!  Two trees finished–six more to go.

The beam is supported–the main house had a living room on the southeast corner and three small what we think were bedrooms along the entire western side of the house.  We are incorporating the southwest corner bedroom into our living/dining room and it will have west facing windows looking toward the Dragoons.  We will knock out the west outside wall of the other two bedrooms giving us a covered west facing patio.  The kitchen windows will look out over that patio and toward the Dragoons.  The Cowboy installed the last support post today–we’ve gone from this:

To this:

 The beam was original and has been painted an ugly brown color on both ends–my goal is to strip the brown paint, sand the beam and leave it exposed.

Emmi is standing in the original living room and the brick wall in the living room is to her right out of the photo.  That one window will be replaced with three larger windows. Just beyond the trash can on the right hand side of the photo there will be a sliding door going out to the covered patio.  It’s taking shape, we are beginning to see our vision!

I went to lunch today with a great group of ladies–Linda organized the lunch group and also wanted me to meet Marsha, a quilter and retired nurse–think we had anything to talk about??  Off to Willcox we all went, nine of us from all walks of life–an archaeologist, an architect, a nurse, a social worker, a lady originally from Germany, etc.  We made a quick stop at the grocery store before returning to Sunsites.

Our weather was just amazing today–almost 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky–we can handle that kind of weather!