An alternate title might be “An Unplanned Day Off”.  Since I fly back to Seattle on Friday, there are a couple of things that really need to be taken care of first.  As I mentioned in my last post, the most important job at this point is the construction of a gate down at the bottom of the driveway.  To that end, I got up nice and early yesterday, loaded my tools and the fence posts into the truck and by 8:30, I was hard at work.  My hope was to get the holes dug, get the posts in, and call it a day before the afternoon rains and lightning started.  It really helped that the storm held off until after 5:00, but the ground is so rocky here that digging took far longer than I expected.

I tried to get a rock out of the last hole, but eventually just decided to leave it there and dig beside it.  I finished the last post as it began to rain and headed back to the trailer for a shower and some dinner.  I missed lunch, but I had worked straight through the entire day and was quite proud of my accomplishment.  My Fitbit even sent me an email telling me what a great job I had done; over 20,000 steps, 9 out of 9 hours of activity, and the equivalent of over ten miles walked.

When I went to bed last night, my plan had been to get a good nights’ sleep and then finish up today.  I still need to cut all of the posts to an even height, attach the two, 8 foot gates to the main posts, and then put up the twenty four, 12 foot rails.  But, when I woke up, everything hurt and I just felt exhausted.  This wasn’t just a little tired, or a ‘gee, I wish I could have slept for an extra 20 minutes’ feeling.  The physical activity and sunburn just knocked me out.  So, I decided I’d “take the day off”, regain a little energy, and get back to it tomorrow.

Did I mention my propane tanks went empty last night?  That means I didn’t have any heat all night and when I got up, there was no hot water.  Oh…..  and I apparently failed to completely latch the freezer last night, so everything inside was pretty well thawed out.  Our draw check took three days to clear the bank, so since the funds weren’t available last week, I missed the Friday payment deadlines on two credit cards we’ve been using to buy supplies.  And here I thought Mondays weren’t supposed to rear their ugly heads at us retired folks anymore.  I sat and paid bills and then, since I couldn’t cook anything, I headed to town for breakfast, then stopped off at the Ace to fill the propane tanks.  I came back up to the house and hauled out the generator so I could plug in the well pump.  I have almost 300 feet of hose running up the bluff to the trailer so I can fill the fresh water tank.  That process only took fifteen minutes or so to complete and then, just as I finished, the plumber showed up to install the hot water heater.  I got him started and then headed to Victor, another small mining town about 7 miles from here to do my laundry.

There is another, larger laundromat in Woodland Park, but it’s about 45 minutes away, it’s not very clean, it’s full of sketchy laundry-doers, and many of the machines are out of order.  The dryers that do work have odd stains inside and some even have mysterious stuff stuck to the inside of the drums.  The facility in Victor is certainly smaller, but it’s clean, the people (when there are any) are friendly, and the equipment all seems pretty new.  If you’ve ever had to wash your clothes in a public laundromat, you might understand when I say that the clothes just somehow seem to come out cleaner at the Victor laundromat.  I guess it will work until we get our own machines installed.

Hey, we technically have water, there’s a water heater in the house, and the electricity should be working tomorrow.  We just need to get everything tied together and connected, so we’re certainly getting closer.  A visit from Digger Guy with a new septic tank would be great so the water has someplace to go, but so far…  I haven’t seen him.

The bills are paid, I have clean clothes, the propane tanks are full and back where they belong, the fresh water tank is full and the water heater in the trailer contains somewhere around 6 gallons of piping hot water.  I feel refreshed after taking the day off.  The Motrin probably didn’t hurt, either.