I kid, but of course just below the surface lays some truth, although not all truth is understandable in the moment. Kristen hasn’t been to the property since 2020, and I believe a total of 4 times in the 4 years we have had it. It is disappointing and many times I wish she was up there with me. However, lately, I have enjoyed myself alone up there, that I miss her less often, less completely, less honestly. I know it is harder with Beth with us, but it is a minor complication, for which we have several solutions, and her work is busy and super stressful, and camping isn’t her thing, and she would just as soon sit on the couch with the TV and a magazine.

However, she came up with me this time and loved it, we had a great time. Beth got to go to stay with Aunt Vera and saw a ton of Anthony and Janie, and Rodger and the whole Potomac Street crew. Kristen saw how much work we have done up there at the property, so it is a much more elevated, elegant if you will, accommodation. Next weekend was the weekend I invited the entire family to come up, and although Dan and Laura confirmed, nobody else even responded, then Dan backed out so it sort of bled out to a slow and painful end. I was real disappointed for a while, but then Keir’s retirement gathering at his place in Loyalton popped up for next weekend, and now K came up this weekend, and my attitude has much improved.

K was bringing Beth to a Dr. appointment Friday morning and then we had to bring her to Aunt Vera’s, so I was prepared for an afternoon start. It was barely after noon as we got up onto 80 and headed East as fast as we could to get the heck out of Dodge. I was ready after not having been up for almost a month (seemed so long after going every 2 weeks without fail all year), I was excited to bring Kristen up, and I was happy just to not be doing it alone. We screamed up 395 and were at the gate in a tad less than 4 hours. I was happy because with the late start, and the early sunset, I was a little worried that we would have to rush to have a calm evening.

Instead, with no material to unload, and 2 people unpacking, it was done in a flash. We had plenty of time, so we decided to go ahead and BBQ our healthy chicken-apple sausage. K wanted a fire, so we got that going; I believe the first evening fire since the Spring. It was awesome. We had a nice cocktail hour and despite there not being a cloud in the sky, a beautiful sunset. We walked out to Bob’s cabin and on the way back saw a spectacular sky, blue on the bottom and orange on top, all the way around us. It was enhanced by the reflection of the kitchen windows. Behind the kitchen, the massive round moon was rising through the color, illuminating our hilltop the higher it got.

We had a lovely time around the fire, enjoying the warmth, the light, the color, and the quiet. Although the moon was super bright, there were a great many stars visible, which made for a tremendous night sky. One planet was especially close to the left of the moon, yet still super bright. The Dippers were there, the North Star was there, all the usual suspects were present. We maybe stayed up until 9 or so. I was done, but K read some in bed. I was not used to anyone else being in my bed, so it was definitely a tad crowded. I should have listened to my wife and left the bed spread wideways on the bed, but I did not and suffered the consequences. We had to smoosh together in the middle of the bed to stay under the covers, but slept well. We had both windows wide open and the door open which must have let all the dreams in, as we slept warm and well.

We lounged in bed making no effort to get up and going. It really was our only morning not to feel a little sense of urgency as we had to leave tomorrow, so we just took it easy, had a nice morning fire, breakfast, and coffee before we took to our tasks. We loaded all the barn boards onto the truck and drove it over to the wood shed and got after it. We got the important corner set in place and then began working across the front. K was immediately feeling the sun, and at some point that made me think we should be working along the West side to work in the shade as much as we could. With each board, our confidence rose, and our cuts got more precise, and we notched and cut a little more carefully.

After lunch we dragged a little and K was basically staying in the shade. Again, eventually the sun baked an idea into our brains that perhaps we should have picked up on way earlier, but eventually K backed the truck into the shade of the RV overhang and we were happy to be working in the sweet cool shade. We did some nice fancy notching and the boards looked as great as I had hoped. With the Great Spirit on our side, the last board went exactly to the end of the pallet wall; it could not have been planned any better. We had some time to customize the inside pallets on the ground, bring all the excess material and residue down to the bone yard, and organize all our tools for tomorrow. The wood shed siding looked great.

We had glorious showers, changed, made cocktails, then went around to the upper terrace to show K the view and enjoy the chairs already being over there and set up. It was fantastic to just walk around with a drink and plop down. The sun was just high enough still to warm the back of our heads and we gazed across the Madeleine Plain and into the Warners. We felt really good out there; it is like flying or hovering like a bird to be so close to the flat plain, but still so high above it. We felt like we were flying there for a minute or 3 as well; sweet sweet love.

Back at the ranch, we BBQ’d burgers and heated up the butternut ravioli for another delicious meal. Having put out so much energy, we indulged in some life nurturing pumpkin pie whilst sitting around the evening fire. It was as magical as the previous night, with the added satisfaction of a job well done. We were in bed perhaps even earlier this eve and slept great, having spent so much capital and rotated the bedspread so we had more width coverage so we could spread out a little. I was up before the sun and made a fire and coffee and a poo before the first rays crested Spanish Springs Peak. When K got up, we enjoyed the sweet, clean early morning glow before getting to it.

We had to leave by 2:00 at the latest to pick Beth up at Vera’s, and ideally we would leave about 1:00 so we could listen to the Niners on the way home. However, I was a little less than confident with this day’s job of fooling with the RV cover gutters and downspouts and hooking up the last of the rain collection into our new 3,000 gallon water tank. I don’t like being up on the ladder, I had to do some rough hacking on the gutter leaving many sharp and wicked pointy metal shards where I had to work, and I wasn’t seeing the final result in my visions, only bloody fingers and gnarly hands. So, of course this was the job I put off to the end, and now the end was near and we didn’t have as much time as we probably needed, but up I went.

I got the gutter downspout hole attached to the upper gutter fairly easily which buoyed spirits immeasurably. I had to move the ladder from front to back and then again, and perhaps again, but I got it done and felt good about it. I realized that I did not have to hack off the end of the gutter and make the mess I did at all in order to line up the downspout with the hole in the top of the tank as I could easily have flexed the downspout hole and the downspout to angle it into the hole, however, this is where we were. I may undo it all next year and extend the gutter the entire width of the roof as, the way it is now; we lose a couple feet of rainwater collection potential due to the shortened gutter. However, that is then, this is now.

Mid-sunstroke, I realized that I may be able to use this plastic flexible downspout gizmo for the lower gutter which is just inches higher than the water tank hole. Much to our delight, the thing fit entirely around the gutter end and I could easily bend it to dump right into the tank. We made a custom water screen and screen holder for the 16” hole of the tank, and felt like we had really nailed that end of the collection system. This other side of the gutter that collects the water from the other side of the peaked roof needed some major repairs as when it rained a few trips back; I saw that the end of the gutter leaked maybe a third or more of the water. As the collected water runs down this side of the peaked roof, it is running away from the opposite side of the roof where the water tank is, so it has to be collected in a gutter that runs along the slope of the roofline, then the collected water hits the end of the gutter at the end of the roofline and is redirected in the opposite direction to run back into the collection tank.

I don’t recall what customizationed mangling I did to get the gutter attached to the RV cover, but it was now preventing me from getting an end cap on this upper half to send the water back towards the collection tank. I had done some cutting last time I was up here in preparation for today, but clearly more was needed. I cut on the front, then the end, then cut from the inside. I moved the ladder to the left, then to the right, then under, then over, but I could not get both hands and eyes in a place where I could see what was needed. My hands were being shredded by the sharp jagged edges of metal, my blue gloves covered in blood and gutter glue. I just couldn’t figure out why this cap wouldn’t fit.

It was getting close to quitting time and close to end for me, and it was clear no amount of glue or strapping was going to fix this mess, so we pulled the plug and called it a day. We squeezed in time for Kristen to take the first poop in the trailer and flush it into our new organics collection site. It seemed to work. We replaced the failing plastic screen on the cabin tank with a new customized metal screen door mesh screen. Then we raged around, packed up, washed up, loaded up, and took up on down the road. K got to close and lock both gates down the hill and we were on the pavement at exactly 2:00. K dialed in the ballgame right away and that, along with cruise control, got us into Reno in record time.

We had to find a new station for the game in Reno, and the anticipated weekend traffic never materialized, masking the second half of the game and ride most enjoyable. Niners crushed the Panthers some 37 to 15, and we were home in exactly 4 hours, time enough for K to shower and head over in plenty of time to pick Beth up. It was another awesome trip up to the property. The weather was perfect, no insects this time. The sky was amazing as always. It was great to have fires and cocktails, and sunsets, and a sunrise, and sleep and dream and get some work done. But, of course, it was bestest to have K come up there and see what we have done with the place and really enjoy it. We had a great time together and she was a huge help with siding the wood shed and working on the RV cover gutters. Being together up there was best of all.

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