Welcome again to Saturday Morning Home Repair blogging, where we talk about fixing houses, the things in them that are supposed to work for us, and fixing them up. I and an ad hoc cadre of building professionals and gifted amateurs attempt to answer questions that arise from raiders, and offer encouragement and advice for those inclined to do things for themselves, if they can. We all do a lot of things, collectively, and can probably help out with insights from our vast experience.
Or sometimes, we just gab, and I've been gone for two weeks, so I'll fill you in on some things going on around my place in New Mexico.
Over the fold for photos.
The Southwest is burning. We have been smelling the smoke from Arizona's largest fire ever, 300 miles to the west, and now we have our own fires, most notably New Mexico's largest ever fire is at the gates of Los Alamos, kept from overrunning the National Laboratories and the City itself by a huge effort given number one priority in the nation right now.
Land of Enchantment's detailed diary has all the details here and TheFatLadySings has more on this here here.
The National Forests are being closed to all access; sales of fireworks are being discouraged, if not outright banned in some communities.
Meanwhile, the Pecos River has pretty much come to a halt, flatlined, and after 3 months, the irrigation season is effectively ended until we get some rain to bring the river back up.
That's the entire river being diverted into the Tecolotito Acequia, yielding insufficient flow to fill the canal and carry it 8 miles to the end.
This is what it looked like June 21, when we did the work to clear the sand gate and be able to close it. Doing that brought the river briefly back over the spillway, that enormous chunk of cast concrete that caps the dam.
Did I mention the continuous haze from all the smoke?
Then there are the peafowl chicks that appeared while I was in Minneapolis, solving the problem of where had the momma peahen gone.
Two of the peafowl chicks have survived, and momma peahen has taught them to follow her up high to roost for the night, which is the natural thing for peafowl to do. These little guys have found a way up through the collapsed roof of the old ruin in back, hopping and jumping up the boards and vigas. They can't fly up there all the way, yet, but they will soon.
The chicks are tucked up under her skirts for the night.
The miracle, to us, of these peafowl is that they came here on their own, wandered in off the ditch-bank forest; first the hen, and then a month later, the cock. They stayed all winter and now have made these chicks, choosing to be here uncaged.
We have noticed that the hen has lost almost all of her color in her neck and blends in very well on the ground, where she nested, somewhere safe that she found on her own, perhaps in the ruin.
I want to thank, once again, those of you who helped me attend NN11. I couldn't have done it without your help.
I missed both substitute diaries of SMHRB while I was gone to NN11 and then to NoCal with the grandkids. I forget who was going to post them, and I didn't find them in the SMHRB group. I think it was exlrrp and DaNang65, but I can't find where they said they were going to do it, so I'm not sure. But thanks, anyway, and give me a link so I can see what you did.
It was good to be gone and go out there and see me some America; I had not been out past Albuquerque since Austin '08. That said, it is really good to be back home.