Project done

Finished the patio cover this weekend.  Just in time for a round of unseasonably cool weather.  Still, it was nice to finish my birthday by completing a project and having a glass of wine on our patio.

If you look closely you can see the actual wine on the table!

We put the shade fabric up on top. This intrigued Cailan who had wondered how a few sticks were going to make shade. He and Grandma had been walking around saying "there will be good shade as long as you stay under those little sticks." They thought that was pretty funny.

We planted a couple of new things to help the space out a bit. We put a honeysuckle by the post, which will hopefully grow up the structure and attract lots of humming birds. Since it was one of our projects, we had to ad a touch of unusual to it. We took an idea we used on our fence in Tacoma and elaborated on it to make two privacy panels with a flowering vine cutout.

We're very happy with the way they turned out. Heather and Cailan made the design and I got to do the jigsaw work.

Here's Cailan already at play in the new area! He has evidently decided that with the privacy screens in place, the patio is an acceptable "no pants" zone.

Shade seekers

Overall we love our house on the park, but there have always been a couple places that we've found a little lacking: there is no basement, which means there's minimal storage space, and there is no good spot for outdoor dining or even just hanging out in the back yard.  We have a sun porch off the dinding room, but the floor of it slopes badly, so putting our picnic table there didn't work.  Also, it gets pretty darn hot there in the middle of summer.  The sun porch opens onto a concrete patio but that too is blazing hot on a summer afternoon.  We've talked about demolishing the slanty sun porch and replacing it with a deck, but we actually get some use out of it as a play room. We've talked about replacing the flower bed on the west side of the sun porch with a patio, where we could take advantage of the shade from the big honey locust tree. And we've talked about building a cover over the existing patio.  The last option makes the best use of the existing structures and the yard, so that's what we decided to do.

During the early spring, we drew up plans and made lists of materials, but as soon as the weather got nice we were too eager to hit the trails to spend time on building projects.  The last weekend in April, however, is the Fruita Fat Tire Festival, an annual event that draws thousands of mountain bikers to the local trails.  The thought of fighting those crowds gave us an incentive to take a biking break and work on our patio instead.  This is how we spent the weekend:

Signs of Spring

It's April and we're seeing signs of spring, both at home

the forsythia in front of our house

new sidewalk chalk

and on the trail.

The most shocking sign of spring comes when we go from sharing the trails with just a few hardy West-slopers during the winter, to sharing with visitors from the more populous areas of the state. Once the ski resorts close, they drive on through the mountains to our neck of the woods.

Here are the details of our ride.

Double header

It finally feels like spring here! To celebrate, we tried to spend as much of the weekend as possible outside. On Saturday, this meant a picnic at a park, a trip to help some friends check out a bike for sale, and a family bike ride at 18 Road. We took 3 bikes: 1 tandem set up for a child stoker plus 2 single mountain bikes.

When we got to the parking area, we found several other cars: more crowded than it would be on a cold winter day or during the heat of summer, but less crowded than a weekend in May. The four of us (Chris, Heather, Cailan, and Utah) started out for a ride. We decided to take the dirt road up rather than the trail, to make it a little easier on Chris and Cailan. However, we remembered that roads are boring, so when there was an option to take a trail, we did so. There have been a lot of cows grazing in the area the last couple months, so the trails here are pocked with hoofprints and extra bumpy.

We ended up meandering through the campground, and then we got to the top of our climb. Time to swoop down Kessel's Run:

I like this picture because you can see how the trail dips and curves as it crosses back and forth over a dry creek bed.

Cailan is paying more attention to the scenery than to the act of biking - this was true on the climb as well!

After the first loop, Chris and Cailan hung out at the trailhead while I took my single bike and my trusty dog for a loop. Then it was Chris's turn to ride while Cailan and I took a short hike. Sadly, it is too early in the year for lizards, flowers, or insects, so we didn't get to discover many things on our walk. We ended the day with pizza at the Hot Tomato in Fruita.

Here's Cailan, after his post-ride shower, sporting his new red bathrobe.

Sunday, Cailan played with Bobbie while Chris and I went for a more-challenging ride at Lunch Loops. Here's me on the trail with the snowy Grand Mesa in the background:

We took a route with a lot of climbing, and a bit of hike-a-biking, but we were rewarded with this view at the top.

The Lunch Loops area sees a lot of change: trails get closed for revegetation, or re-routed for erosion control, and new trails show up pretty frequently. This year, a huge new addition opened up: a pump track and a jump park. Chris and I didn't ride there, but here's a picture for those of you who are interested in that sort of thing.

Cailan's story

 question  marks  kept    popping   up   in     all    the  places  of the spooky tunnel  in BACKYARDIGANS STORIES. I   think THAT  is FUNNY.   

  as i moved through the forest i saw vann in  a  bat  costume.