Wasp season

All summer, we had marveled at how much improved the wasp situation was. We had some wasps, of course, but nothing like the great swarms of the year before. Then, about two weeks ago they were back.

We had to get his and hers fly swatters because they got so pesky. We must have made a comic sight, both sitting on the porch, swatting madly.

Then I swatted my coffee off the table. That brought them all and kicked off what has come to be called the great wasp massacre. Thousands of wasps lost their lives. Or at least several, as Gerald is fond of saying.

We had to take action. We looked all around the house under the porch to try to find the nest. They were especially thick near the garage and the back door, but we couldn't find anything.

Not knowing what else to do, we reset the traps that had worked so well before. We cut off the tops of bottles and inverted the tops inside the bottoms and filled them with sugar water. The wasps are drawn to the sugar water and fly in but can't get out. We found that Gatorade bottles worked better than 2-liter soda bottles because the mouths are wider. We set several traps, including three near the garage where they were most concentrated. By the end of the weekend, there were noticeably fewer flying around.

Free at last

When we arrived at the land, we were glad to see Juan had started grading the roads, which were in pretty bad shape after the summer rains.

It didn't take long to do the few little things we needed to do to get ready for the inspection. I caulked a few holes in the floor and Gerald framed in the flue on the upstairs fireplace.

On Friday morning, Gerald busied himself with the guest shower and we waited for the inspector. About noon, Gerald took a break and we talked about having lunch. Then we heard the inspector's truck.

The inspector was there for nearly two hours, and it went very well. There were a few things we still needed to do: install a firebreak and some flashing for the upstairs fireplace, which he said we could do for the next inspection.

Also, we had not resolved the issue of how to heat the place. Our plans called for a furnace, but we were leaning toward thermostatically controlled gas stoves. If we did that, we needed to get the approval of the planning office and change our plans accordingly. Until we did so, we could not pass our combo inspection. But he signed off on everything else: plumbing, electrical, solar hot water. This was very good news. It meant we could connect electrical outlets and plumbing fixtures, and skin, insulate and finish walls. We were ecstatic.

It called for a celebration, so we popped a cork and some microwave popcorn (an excellent pairing, according to friends who would know, and we had to agree).

The next day, Gerald went back to the shower, while J.C. worked on connecting lights and outlets. J.C. showed me how to install outlets, and that's how I spent the afternoon.

Preparing for inspection (again)

Thursday had been unusually hot. It was 95 degrees in the late afternoon. Friday was also hot, and we had spent much of it in Prescott in the Planning Office getting the loft fireplace added to the plans. Our inspector had said the reason he was really pushing us to get it done now, is that it would cost us $300 if we added it later. So we were surprised when it cost us $300 anyway. $302 and change, to be exact.

While we were at Rumors Friday night for dinner, it started to rain pretty hard, so we rushed home to enjoy the rain on the tin porch roof only to find that our land was dry. It was disappointing, not only because we didn't get any rain, but if we had stayed put we could have enjoyed it.

On Saturday, J.C. was supposed to come up and so was Dave, the shop manager at Gerald's business. The plan was to get the flue installed on the loft fireplace and complete the fix for the missing I joist. Our engineer had returned from India and revised the fix according to what we had already done, but it would require some additional screws from the roof. When we woke up, it was cloudy, but no rain.

Dave called just as he was pulling into Yarnell to say it had rained all night at his house and all the way up until he reached the top of the hill at Yarnell. He almost didn't come because he was sure the project was going to be called for rain. But he came anyway.

Then, about the time he arrived with donuts, it started to rain. We were all sure the day would be shot, but then it quit. It had rained just enough to cool things off, and the clouds kept everything pretty comfortable. Since the bulk of the work would be done in the loft, which tended to be hot, and the rest on the roof, it was the perfect weather.

J.C. did some last-minute wiring, while Dave got to work on the flue.

Then Gerald and Dave built a higher platform for the fireplace and the three of them set it in place. It had taken a crane to put it in place the first time, so needless to say, it was very heavy.

Unlike the first fireplace, this flue went together easily.

Then J.C. and Dave went up on the roof to complete the fix for the missing joist.

Gerald got out all his paperwork, including past inspection correction notices and he and J.C. went over everything to make sure nothing got overlooked. They did a couple of additional little fixes and we were done.

It was a shorter day than we had expected. The weather was perfect. Everything went well. We all left in high spirits.

Barricading Bubba

Gerald and I were at our wits' end about Bubba.

When we first got the land, Gerald had a dream that we took him there and he disappeared down a badger hole, but he'd been a model dog for more than a year.

Then last weekend, he started disappearing for hours at a time as soon as he had finished his dinner. So Thursday evening, after he ate, I suggested we put up the barricades.

Gerald had to put something down in the garage and was going to block off the garage access when he got back. That was the last we saw of Bubba.

We had dinner reservations at Rumors, so when Bubba didn't show up about a half hour before, we started calling.

No response.

Gerald was sure he'd come when we started the truck. But he didn't.

We canceled our reservations and ate at the house. Meanwhile, Bubba finally showed up after dark.

We made dinner reservations for the next night and agreed that this time we would be quicker with the barricades.

On Friday night, about 15 minutes before Bubba's dinner time, he disappeared. We were floored. Bubba is never late for dinner. He usually starts staring at us about an hour before dinner and doesn't stop until he's fed. But he was gone.

I decided my attitude would be Little Bo Peep, as in "leave them alone and they'll come home." I was even prepared to go to dinner without him. Besides, we didn't have any more food for dinner.

Bubba showed up about 6 p.m., in plenty of time for us to get to Rumors for dinner. He ate, then went directly to the west porch, walked around the barricade and jumped off. I watched him do it. We got him back in, and Gerald beefed up the barricade, as in the photo above.

As we watched, Bubba looked like he was going to jump off the side of the porch, which was even higher off the ground. So Gerald erected barricades on that side.

Then, Bubba got so brazen that he knocked down part of the barricade and jumped off, with Gerald standing right there! Here he is getting mad at me for taking this photo instead of chasing the dog.

It was back to the barricades for Gerald.

Here's how the west side of the porch looked once it was done.

And here's Bubba still trying to find a way out. Sheesh!

More on spiders and a cafe discovery

We didn't get a lot of work done on the house this trip. I spent most of the time cleaning out the "casita," the travel trailer we had been using, which left Gerald on his own to put up some backer board in the guest bathroom shower so we could start tiling.

Meanwhile Bubba seemed to be feeling a little too at home at the land. On Thursday evening, he disappeared after his dinner and was gone for long enough to make us feel uncomfortable, especially given the recent mountain lion sightings in the area and the tracks I found not far from the house. We called and called and he finally came back, looking rather sheepishly like he'd had a fight with a mud puddle and the mud won.

Even the hose couldn't get him clean. The next night after he had his dinner, we erected barricades to keep him in the house or on the porch.

On Friday, Gerald met with a local guy who is liquidating an awesome inventory of reclaimed wood. Meanwhile I had an interview with folks from the Spider Pharm. We'd heard about the Spider Pharm from Siggy, the owner of Rumors restaurant, where we try to eat dinner at least once when we're at the land. A few months ago, Siggy told us Mike Rowe from the Discovery Channel show "Dirty Jobs" had been in to eat with his crew. Apparently, they had been filming a segment on the Spider Pharm, which was located in an unassuming pink house next door to the restaurant.

Turns out, this couple, Chuck and Anita Kristensen, collect and raise spiders and scorpions in this little unmarked house and milk them for their venom. They ship it all over the world for antivenom and medical research. The interview was fascinating. Chuck studied animal behavior, then got a degree in chemistry and put his education to work in this unusual way after he discovered that little was known about venoms because there was no supplier. Since then, research has found many therapeutic uses for substances found in the venoms, including treatments for stoke, diabetes and cardiac arrhythmias.

Anita was packaging up a shipment of scorpions when I got there, transferring them from mini habitats in containers of the type you might get at the deli full of potato salad and transferring them to Ziploc sandwich bags. She was funny. I asked her how she got into this business and she said, "I met my husband." She added drolly, "I had an idea that I wanted to work with animals."

Chuck and Anita recommended the Cafe behind the Kokopelli Antiques Store. Gerald had found it one day and we always wanted to try it, so after my interview we went. I couldn't believe it took us so long to try it. It was charming. I've included pictures here that, unfortunately, don't do the place justice.

The patio was sun dappled with sunflowers and vines everywhere. The tables were covered in oilcloth and shaded by umbrellas or canopies. Each came with a fly swatter, which we understood once our food arrived. An aviary housed finches and mourning doves. Chickens ran around loose. Two cute residences were at the back. It seemed they housed the owners of the antiques store and cafe respectively, and a hair salon.

The cafe has a walk-up counter where Gerald and I ordered a pressed paninni and a hamburger. Both were good. It's not a place to go if you're in a hurry. The food took a while. But it's a lovely place to sit with the paper and a cup of coffee.

Failed again

We arrived at the land full of optimism about passing the combo inspection. I had lost track of how many months it had been. When Paul Russell was out here working with the understanding that when he left we'd be ready, I took a picture of him working on the porch looking like he was freezing to death. Now, it was routinely over 90 degrees.

The day began well. We met with our neighbor, Kathleen, who is the property owners' association secretary and another property owner, Juan Garcia, about maintaining the roads. We had put out calls to a number of local contractors months ago, including Steve Hampton, whose company built the roads. But not one had submitted a bid, which was mystifying to us. But Juan was licensed and being a property owner we figured he'd be invested in doing it right. He agreed to the terms the Hamptons had done the work for last year.

Then Gerald and I got busy on the deck. The work was going well but by afternoon we were running out of boards. So we decided to try to use some of the more warped boards. We had had good luck drawing boards in using either a crowbar or, in some cases, a pipe clamp. Gerald was tightening the pipe clamp on a particularly warped board about the time Jeff, our inspector, pulled up. Instead of drawing in, the board split and Gerald was trying to pull it up as Jeff came up. It wasn't going well. Gerald talked with Jeff for a few minutes then went underneath the deck to try to work the board from the bottom. Eventually, he got the board out, but the ring-shank nails were another matter. The head from one came off the nail when he tried to pull it out, so he tried to beat it in with the palm nailer. Then the nail got stuck in the palm nailer.

In between all this, the inspector keep calling for Gerald. Why wasn't the flue installed in the fireplace upstairs? This is your third inspection, he scolded. "You never mentioned the upstairs fireplace," Gerald said, protesting that we didn't have the means to finish the upstairs at this point. The inspector said he wanted Gerald to read what was inside a box of fine print, saying he had been more than patient. The gist of the box was that he had the right to charge us for any more than two inspections. "The cost of the permit you bought includes two inspections," Jeff said. "I haven't charged you yet. I understand your an owner builder and I've tried to cut you some slack." But his tone was less understanding. He was sounding frustrated. So was Gerald. He was going by the last inspection report. There were three things on it, and he thought he had done those three things. We hadn't gone back to previous inspection reports to see if there were any outstanding issues there.

Gerald went back to trying to get the nail out of the palm nailer. I could hear him cursing at it, then the inspector would call him again and ask another question about something we had failed to do and Gerald would go back and curse at the palm nailer some more. There was a problem with the fix for the missing I-joist. The engineer had specified lag screws and we had used nails. Gerald said he had told him we were using nails and didn't understand why he put that and now he was in India for two weeks.

He was back at the palm nailer when the inspector called him again. He said we were going to need to get the manufacturers OK for drilling a glulam beam horizontally to accommodate the speaker wires. "Horizontally?" Gerald asked. He had thought it was only a problem if they were drilled vertically. "Horizontally, vertically, any which way," the inspector said. Gerald lost it. "I'm about ready to say I don't want any more inspections," he said. "I'm just going to build this house and live in this house." And then he went back to his palm nailer. The inspector made his report and left without saying a word to anyone.

We went back to working on the deck.
We didn't get much farther before running out of boards but at least we had turned the corner onto the one remaining side.

Here's how the south side looked. It's the longest side and where we spend most of our time. Now, we could get some porch furniture and not worry about stepping into a hole and falling through.

Gerald put it to good use.

After resting for a little while, he made a call to the inspector and left a message apologizing for behaving badly.

The next morning, we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast at the Ranch House. We were glad we did because we found this sign saying they would be closing because one of the owners, Shelly, was having surgery.

We love the Ranch House. It's practically an institution in Yarnell. The food is good and abundant, and just the kind of place you imagine in a small town, with a colorful clientele, and cheerful, down to earth servers who remember everyone.

Shelly runs the kitchen with her husband Steve. Some time ago, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. For a while, we thought she had it beat, but it returned. She's been an inspiration to everyone who knows her, refusing to let it get her down. Our server told us they are closing the place for a week so Steve can take care of her after her surgery, then will probably open as they have found someone who can help Steve in the kitchen. Shelly came out to say hello and seemed in good spirits. She was laughing and telling jokes about her post-surgery morphine pump. Amazing.