Tree Cutdown, Pods Unpacked, Pebbles Has A New Home......

Quick/short post with a few pix because I'M BEAT!

The tree guys came today and did a bang-up job! I can't say enough good things about Rist Canyon Forestry and Tree Service. I've seen trees felled before, and helped a couple of times, but I've never seen how real professionals come in and do a job like this.

WARNING! The link takes you to their FaceBook page. They're all young guys, and social media is how they advertise.

Anyway....my wife got here about 0800, and they were here at 0815, earlier than expected. There was a "high winds" advisory today, and they wanted to get the high-up work finished before the winds picked up.

Here's when I got to the house this morning, about 0900:

These are full-sized forestry trucks. The crew had just finished clearing a 100 yard wide, six mile long path for a power line install to a new repeater site. They were clearing stuff that was 24"~36" in diameter, and 75"~80' tall.

And they had a wood chipper that was powered by a 4-cylinder, turbocharged Diesel engine:

Steve Buscemi could not be reached for comment.....

And when they were finished, what was once a 65' tree, was now a 10' trunk, just waiting for Chainsaw Mama to turn it into some Colorado-themed yard art.

We're not sure what we'll go with, as she likes to look over the trunk and make recommendations. My wife was thinking maybe bear cubs or deer. I'm thinking maybe take that one small one sticking up to the right and have her carve a Saturn V or a Shuttle?

You'll have to compare this shot with the first one to get an idea of what it looks like with the tree gone:

The little red Blazer with the trailer belongs to Pro Pack Movers, the guys who unloaded the pods, moved the stuff into the house, put it back together, and installed the curtain rods my wife wanted so she could have window coverings today.

I simply can't do that kind of intense physical work in a timely manner any more, so we hired these young guys who did more in six hours than I would have done in a week.

A small sample of what they unloaded, and positioned exactly where we wanted it:

I'd post more, but I'm trashed........

Fence Opened Up, Tree Disappears On Saturday

GROAN.........

We got to the house early, and by 1000 the fence guy was there. I helped him remove the gate, and then he set upon the two posts for the gate. We had expected  (hoped, really...) to have the Bobcat available today, BUT....everybody is either on a high paying end-of-season job, or they're hunting.

I about fell out of my chair laughing when our "general contractor" sent my wife an email about getting all this stuff scheduled, and he ended it by writing "Oh, by the way. Hunting season starts this weekend".

I took me a good half hour trying to explain it to her, but she doesn't really "get it". She's a city gal, and never grew up around this stuff like my friends and I did back in Illinois. So "hunting season" to her is more like "baseball season" or "football season" than it is "Hunting Season".

I'm sure LL knows what I'm talking about.......

SO, right around noon, U-Haul delivered our "U-Boxes", the cheaply made pod-like containers that our stuff was packed into on September 20th. The pain of that whole pull-up-your-roots-and-move operation has mostly passed, to be replaced by a strange mix of happiness, and dread over getting all that S%$$RF unpacked and stowed away.

It felt like seeing old friends again as I opened the pods and saw the labeled boxes in there. And my wife is ecstatic that the stuff is there, and appears to have arrived none the worse for the trip. The pods themselves are about one step above throw-away construction. They have a heavy-duty pallet-like floor, and the rest of it is made from (maybe) 1/2" plywood braced and cornered with what appears to be a 3/4 scale 2x4. The hasps for the locks can be shifted 1/2" or more by the container walls shifting around. The containers have a molded plastic top, and the other 4 sides are wrapped with a heavy, vinylized canvas for weatherproofing. Just very cheaply made, and not very confidence inspiring when I first saw them.

We did 2-1/2 pods today, and that was all the lightweight, easy to reach stuff we could get. The movers are coming tomorrow to unload the rest, take it in the house, and put together the stuff that needs it.

Comcast is coming Monday to fire up their "Xfinity" service and test the cable jacks in the rooms that have them. My wife wants a couple of them moved, and she has no conception of what moving an outlet box requires. She thinks it's included in the install, but that's not usually so. I told her they probably won't do that kind of work on a basic install, and I got a blank look. She also thinks it'll be a snap to run Ethernet cables like I did in the old house. I've got 4 or 5 of the Linksys WiFi routers, all running "Tomato" firmware, that I'm pretty sure I can configure as clients to the Motorola cable modem/WiFi router. The Linksys boxes just connect to the desktop PC with an Ethernet jumper, and should be able to connect to the Motherola modem/router.

And we still have furniture to buy and have delivered. I wanted an Eames lounge chair and Ottoman from Herman Miller, but when she saw the price she about fell over while saying "NOOOOOOOooooooooo......".

Oh, well....you can't know of you don't ask.

I'm really going to miss living here well outside of town. I'm going to miss being out walking the dog in the morning and seeing all the cows grazing across the road. And how quiet it is here, and how dark the sky is when it's clear.

No word yet on when Pebbles will write "My Month In The Country".

So, Saturday morning the tree guy will arrive, and make the sixty-foot tall cottonwood tree disappear, along with trimming a large ash tree that needs it, and cutting back all the dead limbs hanging over on our yard from our neighbors dead/dying cottonwood tree. One of his "auxiliary crews" came by today between jobs to check the fence removal progress, and mentioned that they've removed TEN cottonwood trees this year from our subdivision. They're fast growing trees, give decent shade cover, grow about anywhere, and die after about 50 years, maybe 75 if you're lucky. This one was most likely planted in 1977 when the house was built, and is nearing it's life expectancy. It's loaded with dry, dead branches, has been shedding them in the winds we've had over the last couple of weeks, and is shedding bark everywhere. Fort Collins passed an ordinance a couple of years ago that bans cottonwood trees in new construction areas. Nobody here likes cottonwoods, except maybe the guys that make a good living removing them!

They'll be leaving somewhere between 6' and 10' of trunk so that "Chainsaw Mama" can come in and carve it up for us. Not sure what we'll have her do, as she likes to look at her "canvas", and make recommendations as to how and what she'll carve in to it. Yeah, I know, that's $1500~$2k that could probably be better spent elsewhere, but it's the one indulgence we're allowing ourselves to celebrate our escape from Kaliforniastan. Our property taxes are one-third what they were in SoCal, our house payment is slightly less than half, gasoline is 75 cents per gallon less expensive, my Jeep is getting over two MPG more than it did, and my wife's Elantra is getting THREE MPG more, and we're driving less. Food costs are less, car insurance is less, but homeowner's insurance is higher. State income tax and sales taxes are also much less then Los Angeles County.

All-in-all, it's significantly less expensive (for us) to live here, so we're splurging on the tree trunk.

The roofers will be delivering the materials for the new roof on the 10th, and weather permitting, will start the roof replacement the next day. They say they can do it in a day, but I'm skeptical. I've seen about 10 roofs being replaced in the month I've been here, and I'd say two days. We'll see......

Sorry, but I forgot the camera this morning, so no pix. The camera is now sitting by the door, so I'll be taking lots of pix of how they remove a 60' tree from a backyard, and pix of other progress.

Home Depot is Starting to Know Me by Name.....

Been pretty busy at the new place the last couple of days. HALF the light bulbs in the house were either dead or missing, and the other half had the wrong (too low) wattage installed, making them more of an "electric DARK" than a useful source of illumination.

SO, approx $400 later, every single bulb in the house, exterior lights included, is now an LED type of the appropriate wattage. A couple of the old ones were compact fluorescent (CFL) types, and they generated enough radio noise to pick up on the FM band of my wife's clock radio.

I shudder to think how much noise they put out on the HF (3~30MHz) radio band.

Add another ~$300 for all new, keyed alike locksets/doorknobs/dead bolts, and another couple of hundred for "misc items", like cleaning supplies, faucet washers, cabinet hinges, braided hoses for the new washer, and other items, and it adds up pretty quickly!

But we have all new light sources, some of which were sorely needed, new doorknobs/locks, and non-leaking faucets!

And I have to troubleshoot the in-sink-erator as it's dead as a door nail, even though the Home Inspection guy checked it, and said it was "functional". So I either haven't found the right switch, the breaker on the bottom tripped, or it gave up the ghost. I *did* get the trash compactor running again, simply by turning it "ON" with the switch inside of it. I don't know if you can even buy the special bags for it anymore, so it might wind up just being a relic of the late 1970's.

U-Haul is dropping off the "pods" containing the bulk of our stuff tomorrow (YAY! I'll have my TOOLS!), and the fence guy is coming to get started on the fence. Haven't heard back from the tree guy yet, The tree guy is coming Saturday, so the fence guy and I will guarantee he has a 12' wide opening to get his truck in there, and the roofing people are dropping off the materials on the 10th.

The tree guy can't get his truck in through the existing gate, so our fence guy is going to rebuild the single gate (it's rotted out and falling apart, so it needs replacing anyway) into a double gate big enough to get a 12' wide truck through. Seeing as the only thing *I'd* ever use the gate for would "Big Stuff" like tree trimming and tower/antenna work, the consequences (to me, anyway....) of a big, heavy, double gate are minor.

Posting may be light, as we'll be pretty busy through the weekend!

***Close Of Escrow!!!***

It actually went pretty smoothly.

Went through the final walk-through inspection, and then went to the closing.

Signed documents for about 30 minutes as the title agent explained various things to us.

After that, we went to Home Depot and had some keys made, as the ONLY key available in Colorado was the one in the lock box. The absentee owners in Kailifornia have the only other key.

I'll be completely re-keying the place in the next day or two!

One small snag in that the "voluntary" pool and tennis court association turns out to be NOT voluntary! It's $400/year, and was another screw-up by the listing agent, who didn't verify what the absentee owners had told her.

Since we have relatives that like to swim, and my wife's friends back in Kalifornia all swim, and will be visiting, we just sighed and accepted it.

Our agent is having a professional cleaning service go by Wednesday morning to clean the place top-to-bottom for us, as a "housewarming gift". My wife is overjoyed at that, as she was planning on spending a couple of days doing that.

And I have to go through the place top-to-bottom and make an inventory of light bulbs to replace, as there are quite a few either burned-out, or way mismatched in the fixtures.

The U-Boxes are being delivered Friday, and the fence and tree guys are scheduled for next week, and the roofers a few days later, weather permitting.

And we just realized that since the wood-burning fireplace has an unknown history, we need to schedule a "chimney sweep" to come and inspect/clean/report on the status of it.

And we're both TRASHED after all the running around today.....

T Minus Two and Counting......

Two, as in "Tuesday"....

Escrow closes, we sign all the final papers, and get the keys!

The "U-Boxes" will be delivered Saturday, and all the relatives are descending on the place Sunday to help us unpack, and move the stuff to the various places inside the house where we'll unpack it.

The fence guy will be there Monday (a week from tomorrow), and our in-laws son will bring the Bobcat by to pull ALL the old fence posts, and help reset the new ones, with the concrete properly built-up and shaped so the rain water runs away from the posts, rather than pool at the bottom, which is what caused the existing posts to rot out.

After careful evaluation of the existing fence, we decided to spend the extra money and just have that whole run replaced, and the single gate replaced with a new double-wide gate. It's going to cost about double what we had expected, but it will be ALL NEW, and coated with a "high altitude" version of a water seal product. Turns out the classic "Thompson's Water Seal" doesn't last more than a couple of years here due to the extra UV exposure compare to being at sea level. There's a competitive product made by a different company that's made for increased UV exposure, so that's what we'll be using.

Per our contractor, the new fence should be good for another 30 years, which is how old the existing fence is.

Then the tree guys are coming, and the cottonwood in the back yard will be reduce to an 8'~10' section of trunk, which "Chainsaw Mama" will turn into some yard art for us. The tree guys will also trim a large ash tree which has some limbs perilously close to the chimney, and they'll also take care of the large tree in the neighbor's lot which has a LOT of dead limbs hanging over on to our property.

Then the roof guys will come, weather permitting, and replace the roof.

And so, the adventure continues.

More to come, with plenty of pictures........

All Systems Are GO For Move!

The written appraisal report is in, and the final loan approval came this morning.

We're getting spun up to have the fence guy and tree guys there the first weekend of November, and the roofing guy will appear soon after.

U-Haul will deliver the pods, and we have a crew of young guys ready to unload them, and drag the stuff into the house and position it where required.

The fence guy is going over the the house this afternoon so he can get some measurements and give us a written quote. He's also got some ideas to make the single gate into a double gate so we can get the tree guys truck back there.

It's a bit bigger truck than I first thought:

Escrow Closes 31 Oct

Yay......escrow is closing a week early. Wife is busy setting up utilities, trash, etc, and I'll be looking into High-Speed Internet providers later today.

Going into to town for a brunch, and then to see the new "Blade Runner" movie.

Back later......

Best "EMP" Website I've Seen

From one of my Ham friends on the Iowa....

In particular, there's a very good section on common EMP myths vs the actual facts.

Futurescience EMP Website

Things are grinding along towards the close of escrow. Our end of it is 100% completed, and the appraisal, which was scheduled for October 25th, actually happened on the 21st.

The lender is waiting for the written report to be submitted and approved, but I don't know how soon after that the process will be completed.

And we've been furniture shopping at the various places around here. The sofa and love seat we brought with us will go down in the family room, which means we'll need new stuff for the living room, along with a dining room table and chairs, and a set of stuff for the grandkid's room.

We stooped in to an "Amish Furniture Showroom", and were amazed at the quality of the furniture.

Beautiful wood and finishes, and top shelf craftsmanship.

And prices to match!

A very nice dining room table, with two leaves and six chairs was.....wait for it...Eleven thousand dollars.

That's damn near our whole budget for the entire house.

Sure was pretty, though, and looks like it would last 100 years.....

Realxing But Busy Days, and Possible Early Close of Escrow

Just got back from our "new" house. We met our realtor there so she could open the place up, and my wife could run around making measurements of window openings for curtains, and lists of things like shower curtains, shower curtain rods, measurements of the room sizes to see if our furniture will fit (she has ZERO sense of spatial relationships, probably why she can't read a map), and I made some measurements of the downstairs rooms to see where the radio gear and cables will go, and where our carpenter friend will build the desk and workbench.

Stunningly beautiful day again, with CAVU skies and temps in the mid 70's. And it's supposed to be like this for at least the next week

This is looking across the road we're on:

I'm told the woman that owns this house on the top of the ridge trains "sniffer dogs". She also rents the ridge to a commercial radio place who has a tower with several microwave dishes and a large UHF "Bow Tie Array" on top of the tower.

Must be a nice view from up there:

Here's another view of the road leading into Bellvue, and then on to "Vern's Place", and Laporte:

This is looking back the other way. The corn in the field was still green when we first got here, then we had the snow and it turned yellow within a few days. They left if sit for another week or so to dry out, and then ran a combine through it, ground it all to silage, and hauled it away. It had pretty much been ruined for feed corn by the big hailstorm that came through here in September:

This is looking down the driveway. The stand of trees is home to several bears, and when the combine came through they all took off across the road, and up into the hills.

I'm told they WILL be back! I have my Remington 870 loaded with slugs, and my 1911 loaded with JHP. I carry the 1911 when I walk the dog late at night, and the 870 is within easy reach. I'm sure not looking for trouble when I walk Pebbles, but I want at least a (slim) fighting chance if something big, mean, and hungry comes at us. There's also mountain lions up here, but my relatives tell me that with the abundance of deer around here, the big critters generally stay well away from humans.

And finally, a view of the shop/bachelor apartment building we're staying in:

It's a bit on the Spartan end of things, but 'back in the day' this would have been a dream place for me. 10HP air compressor, MIG, TIG, Stick, and Gas welders, a plasma cutter coming soon, and it's well insulated and heated.

RACE CAR SHOP!!

And no HOA or CC&R idiocy, so I could have a 75' tower, and an electronics shop in the bachelor flat side of it.

Our realtor was telling us the the absentee owners of the place we're buying will be here next weekend for a few days to do some things, and she's contacting the lender and the escrow company to see if we can move the closing up a week. Our end of things is 100% finished, and both us and the seller are just waiting on the lender and the appraiser. The appraisal is scheduled for the 25th, and she's trying to get him to move it up a few days. We offered a modest "bonus" if they could accommodate an accelerated schedule, and she said she'd look into it.

So, we might just get the keys to the place earlier than November 6th, which is when everything is set to close.

I'll really miss living up here, but the kids are still here, so I'm sure we'll be coming back many more times.

DING! DING! DING! We Have a Winner!!

After much Strum und Drang, we decided on the "All Electric" house that the sellers dropped the price on rather than doing the roof themselves.

Which *I* think is a Good Thing, because I know we'll get a better job doing it through our 'family connections' than hiring Joe Schmo Roofing Company.

The listing agent sent us a quote for the job and it was $5700. I showed it to our in-law, and had to help him off the ground after his laughter subsided.

A more realistic quote using "30 Year High Impact" shingles, along with the proper weather proofing, underlayment, new flashing, "other" repair, etc is closer to $9200.

You gets what you pays for!

And the fence quote came in lower than expected. The "Fence Guy", who it turns out is a Master Carpenter and Finish Guy, came by yesterday afternoon and explained things to my wife. Afterwards, he, I and our in-law sat around doing the "Three Guys After Work BS Thing" talking about construction, motorcycles, family, and all manner of other Guy Stuff that the wimmens don't get, but allow the guys to do as it keeps us happy, healthy, and sane.

Turns out when the fence was put in back in 1970 something, they didn't set the posts in the concrete properly, the water puddled at the base of the post, and over half the posts have rotted out at the ground level. The individual fence panels are still about 80% "good", and will only need some new slats in spots.

So, we'll get ALL new, properly set posts, panels repairs "As Required", and a new, double-wide gate and posts, hinges and hardware for about $1200, a bunch less than all new everything.

The double wide gate is a nod to the future, as it will let the "Tree Guy" get his bucket truck back there the next time we need a couple of the big trees trimmed. It costs significantly less to get a big tree trimmed if he can get his truck to it, rather than having to climb. He said what he can do in one day with his truck, would take several days if he has to climb.

Escrow should close November 6th, as planned, and the fence and tree guys will be there the next day to knock out their work, weather permitting.

The roof will be the next major project, but we don't know the weather that far out. They won't do it in the rain or snow, or below a certain temperature . As the materials get a bit weird if you install them when it's below a certain temperature, and possibly will never seal correctly, they just won't do it below "X degrees".

And then there's the washer and dryer, a snow blower ( I am NOT shoveling snow!), window coverings, and a bunch of misc work to things like ALL the sink drains in the house, some Formica (remember that stuff?) damage on the kitchen cabinets, a completely missing lower hinge assembly on the kitchen cab under the sink, and I'm sure more little things than I know about now.

The tower and antenna can wait until spring. I can always operate with my Elecraft K2 and either my BuddiPole/BuddiStick, or my "big" vertical/SGC-230 combination and one of my other rigs.

Satellite operations from DN70kn are also a definite possibility in the next couple of months. And I could also do DN70jp here in Bellvue if I got motivated enough.

So, the last i's have been crossed and t's dotted in the offer/acceptance chain.

Next stop......close of escrow!

Seller Drops Price Another $10k

Been busy here the last couple of days helping around the little place we're staying at, and waiting to hear from the seller of the house we have the offer on.

They had until midnight Tuesday to respond, but our agent called us to inform us of their response on Saturday afternoon ( ! ).

They responded by dropping the agreed upon price from $385k to $375k and selling the house "AS-IS".

The $10k price cut will pay for a first-class roofing job with all the little upgrades our in-law recommends, with a little left over, but leaves the tree removal ($2500~$3k) and fence repair ($1500~$2k) up to us.

Oh, and add another $2k for washer and clothes dryer. I'll be buying rebuilt/reconditioned Speed Queen units from a place in Fort Collins that specializes in them. They look new when they're rebuilt, and have some crazy 10-year, anything goes warranty on them. I forget which reader suggested that route, but thank you very much! The little electronics place I worked at in high school built many little boxes and modules for Speed Queen, and just hearing the name brought back many memories.

And we'll need more furnishings, window coverings, and other "woman/wife/girly" stuff to finish it out.

The bad thing about this is that we can't start any of the work until escrow closes and the property is in our name. Both agents and our contractor in-law advised against it, even if we received the current owner's written permission.

And we still haven't decided yet to accept their offer or walk, and start negotiating on the other house we really like.

Both places look like you could squeeze another garage on the property and still meet all the codes, setbacks, and easements, but it would be a "1.5 car" sized garage, and I'm not sure if it's worth it. Both houses have fully-finished, INSULATED garages, but no heater in them. One house can take a 40' tower, and the other a "50 foot" tower with careful placement.

So I doubt if I'll ever get my own garage/shop, one of my reasons for moving here, but I will be able to get a tower and decent antenna, along with a new radio......or two.

SSSSSHHH!! She doesn't know the "or two" part!

I'm still undecided on which house. This has been the first time I've ever put this much thought into buying a house. My first wife and I had two criteria: 1)Where is it?, and 2) How much is it? We wound up with a nice sized house and lot in an "OK" part of town for a great price, but getting that place in order took all the "Sweat Equity" out of me.

I do very high quality work, but I'm SLOOOOOW at doing it. That house took me about two years to get finished, with my first wife constantly on my case about it.

NEVER again......!

So we have "House 1", which I posted some pix of, and "House 2", which I haven't. They're both very nice places, #1 being on the West Central side of town, and the other being out further East, on the 'far side' of I-25.

#1 has 5 bedrooms, 3 full baths, and half-bath just off the laundry room. It's a split-level, built in 1977, and packs 3386sqft of house on a 10,500sqft lot. And it has a beautiful sunroom on the NW side of the house. It's "NW" instead of West because of the way the house sits on the lot. It has a fully-finished basement with a LOT of storage space hidden behind doors. It's "ALL Electric", and will cost us about $100/month more to heat and cool it than #2. It has NO A/C installed, but our in-law tells us it's pretty easy to install "mini-splits" which are basically multiple, small heating/cooling units run from a central compressor/condenser unit.

#2 has 4 bedrooms, 1 full bath, one 3/4 bath, and one 1/2 bath. It's also a split-level, built in 1976, and has 2645sqft on a 14,170 sqft lot. No sunroom, but a refinished deck, a sandbox area for the kids, healthy trees, and a tree swing. It needs basically NOTHING done to it, and the couple that bought it put $35k into carpet, paint, new kitchen skylight, NEW ROOF, and a bunch of other things when they bought it three years ago. We could probably get that house for $385k, as the sellers are anxious to sell it. It also has forced-air gas heating, and central A/C.

I really like both houses. I suspect we'll go with the "#1 House" due to the finished basement, and it being much more "In Town" than the other one.