The house

Gerald had refinished some cabinets at the shop for the master closet. We set them in place.

Meanwhile, Gerald got busy grouting and sealing the new kitchen floor tiles.

We installed a wider cabinet to expand the kitchen and put the rest of the cabinets back in place.

We also installed the panels on the refrigerator, though you can only see half here. Still, with the little sample countertop (right) and the panels on the fridge, we were starting to be able to see what our new kitchen was going to look like.

The birds

When we arrived at the house, we found this dead flicker. It looked like he might have tried to fly through the glass door.

Gerald held him up so we could get a good look at him. Those orange feathers look really orange up close.

Meanwhile, a nuthatch had taken up residence and refused to leave. We saw it inside and out, so it apparently found a way in besides the doors.

Cows, cows everywhere

When we returned to the land, we saw cows everywhere. More than we had ever seen before.

A cowboy pushing maybe a dozen cows crossed the road ahead of us. We'd never seen that before, either.

We had to stop to let the cows pass, and I was frantically digging for my camera, but by the time I got it, the poor wrangler was yelling at us to "go on."

They seemed to like our meadow, near the stock pond.

Here they are coming up the driveway.

They turned around, though, as soon as Bubba and I went out on the porch to investigate.

Water, ice and the cows come home

The next weekend, Gerald uninstalled a row of cabinets so he could lay more tile to accommodate an expanded kitchen.

When J.C. arrived on Saturday, he and Gerald moved the refrigerator in place and hooked up the water lines. Before long we had filtered water and a working ice maker!

Then, Gerald went to work sheeting the master closet so we could begin installing the built-in cabinets as early as the following week.

The other big news was the return of the cows. First, we saw, er, signs, of them all over the roads and even on our driveway. We finally saw a small knot of a half-dozen or so cows as we were on the way into Yarnell for dinner Friday night. This mother and calf were near the ranch entrance on Saturday.

Ranching and Mining Days

The following weekend, we attended our second Ranching and Mining Festival, which is a fundraiser for the Peeples Valley-Yarnell Historical Society. The main component is the music, with something like 30 bluegrass, cowboy and folk bands performing.

This was the main stage.

One of the best things there was campfire cooking demonstration. This dish is called ox eyes. It's eggs cooked in a red-chili beef. We didn't get the ox eyes, but we did try the red chili and cornbread for lunch. It was good.

We had volunteered to help, and our assignment was the silent auction, which featured a number of really nice items.

It made for a long day, but it wasn't bad duty. For most of the day, we got to sit and watch the entertainment on the indoor stage.

The Lynx Creek cloggers were a crowd favorite. While they were dancing, it was standing room only.

Odds and Ends

When we next returned to the land, we brought a prototype of the countertop Gerald had been working on. We both thought it had just the right look.

Meanwhile, Gerald did the remaining work the inspector required on the fireplace upstairs.

Then built and installed the surround for the refrigerator. Once we got it in place, it looked monstrous in our little kitchen space.

We decided that in order to make it look proportional, we'd need to expand the kitchen outward a couple of feet.

On Saturday, we took the day off to entertain our friends Sharon and Jimmy.

They stayed just long enough to enjoy a beautiful sunset with us before going home.

Birds and other celestial wonders

For a quick round-up of observed natural wonders around the land....

I discovered a bird I hadn't seen before down at the meadow. Several of them actually, which I subsequently identified as dark-eyed junkos.

Gerald and I also saw this red-tailed hawk not far from the house.

I did a quick inventory of the birds I've seen at the land and here's what remember besides these two: roadrunners, says phoebes, phainopeplas, mourning doves, white-breasted nuthatches, scrub jays, northern flickers, Western kingbirds, hummingbird (type as yet unidentified), house finches, pygmy owl, ravens. There may be more, but I can't think of any others.

We also had some great sunsets. This one, taken when the L.A. fires were in the news, looked like our own sky was ablaze.

This was more recent. Less dramatic, but also lovely.