Ikea hack

Well, it took a lot longer than I planned, but I'm finally finished with my latest project. It's made out of reconfigured "Lack" components from Ikea.

I started by ripping two tops of side tables in half.

I also purchased five small coffee tables. I'll be using their tops and shelves.

I've got 14 legs left over. Wonder what I can use those for...?

Then I painted the undersides of the tabletops to match.

I assembled the ripped side tabletops and two of the coffee tabletops into a sort of bench using dowels. I love my new dowel jig! It's so simple and fun.

I almost left it just like this. But instead...

I added an upper section with the three remaining coffee tabletops. This area will hold a TV and a couple shelves. To quote my nephew Linc N sitting on his brother's brand new car seat: "Look, Mom! I fit!"

My last step was to install shelves and place the TV. The shelves were trickier than I planned. The shelves are shallower than the depth of the cabinet, and the middle of the cabinet is just cardboard honeycomb (see first photo). Consequently, I had to make rails that stretched from front to back so they could be screwed into solid wood. After that I could just lay the shelves across them.

Violà!

My next project may be to get a bunch of picture frames or something to dress up the shelves.

Drip, drip

I noticed a couple weeks ago that I was getting a drip under my kitchen sink. I didn't think much about it because I've always had a problem with the hose from the sprayer. Each time I used it, a few drops of water would travel down the hose from above. I kept a pan underneath, and it was dry most of the time. But this was different. I hadn't used the sprayer in a while. And the drip was getting worse. I finally decided to do something after one load in my dishwasher produced an inch of water in the pan.

My investigation did not take long. I merely touched the drain pipe, and it crumbled like wet tissue paper.

Metal drain pipes disintegrate over time, from the inside out. Pinholes develop and the pipe starts leaking like a sieve.

My biggest challenge was removing it. There wasn't much metal left to grab onto. The only part that hadn't disintegrated was located inside the bigger pipe (downstream, so to speak). As you can see, it wasn't much fun getting it out.

All fixed!

Sugar plums and figgy pudding

I wouldn't have the first clue how to make sugar plums or figgy pudding. So...

For Christmas dessert, I made myself a pumpkin pie. Mmmm!

It was only by sheer will that I didn't eat the whole thing. At least not yet.

Hams

My nephews have had lots of experience posing for Sarah's camera. They're such little hams!

Family Christmas

Our family Christmas was held at my brother's house on Sunday. It also happened to be his birthday.

Their basement is now finished. It's really bright and cheerful down there. And the floor made a great surface for the boys' new Matchbox cars.

Linc got a drum set.

Nash got Legos.

Very young children often find the cardboard box more entertaining than the toy it held. My nephews are well past that age now. So this contraption is both a cardboard box and a toy. (It's technically Linc's house, but I think the boys will have a lot of fun in it together.)

There's always one who ruins the picture... Hey, birthday boy! Straighten up back there!

That's better.

Merry Christmas!

*****

Packers 13-1. Sniffle.

Cookies!

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is decorating cookies with my mother.

This year, we did one batch of white and one batch of gingerbread. That's a lot of cookies! Each cookie is unique. (Okay, so after nearly three decades of decorating cookies together, we get a few duplicates. So what?)

The cookies have to dry, sometimes overnight, before they can be stacked in containers.

Naturally, there are a few that turn out (unexpectedly) great. Which is your favorite?
(Unlike most years, Ma and I both agreed that the Santa was the gold medalist.)

Did I mention we also made chocolate chip cookies and spritz?

Bon apetit!

Deer season

I headed north last weekend for my annual fall ritual. It's Deer Season once again.

Everyone gathered at Dan & Deb's cabin on Friday night. Katie wouldn't arrive until after midnight, but her son Mason had plenty of aunts and uncles and cousins to keep him entertained. He's such a happy little guy. I'm sure that DJ feeding him beer helped to keep him jolly. (Just kidding, Katie!)

The opening morning hunt is a wonderful tradition, and this was Trevor's first. He sat in Norm's stand.

I spent the morning in the Breakfast stand. Sadly, I didn't see any deer.

In the afternoon, I took off on a solo hike through the woods. There were deer signs everywhere. For the uninitiated, this photo ain't no Easter basket. That's moss covered with a few kernels of deer scat.

There are some very cool mushrooms growing out there.

I headed for the ground blind along the fence line. It had seen better days. The logs that had been concealing the chairs had collapsed upon them. I took it upon myself to make a few repairs.

How do you like my handiwork? Most of the logs were rotted through and couldn't be reused, so mostly I dragged new ones from nearby fallen trees.

It had started to snow by this point. The forest got very quiet and peaceful. I saw two deer. (Unfortunately, they were just passing through, and I wasn't quick enough to get my camera out before they were gone.) Overall, it was an awesome afternoon.

After dark we headed for Dan & Deb's cabin again. We celebrated an early Thanksgiving. None of the guys got any deer, so we were sans tenderloins for our feast. Still, we had a great meal of baked ham, cabbage rolls, cheese pirogis, root vegetables, and chicken soup. Yum!
The loft offered a great view of the dining room.

Those who didn't fit in the dining room were hanging out in the living room.

Troy brought a friend along this year. Her name is Christina. We've often said if you can manage to spend the night at the Farm, you pass the family's inspection. Well, Christina did it with flying colors. That's her playing with Mason and chatting with Troy.

Ma and booze? Nuh uh.

Well, we weren't very successful at killing deer this year, but we always have a good time. And great food!

See you all next year!

Pick a peck

These photos were taken last weekend. Sorry it took so long to upload them.

I had an above average year for bell peppers. I picked all of these last Saturday. I managed to pick several green peppers earlier in the season, too.

My front yard is a carpet of orange leaves. This photo doesn't do the color justice. It catches my eye every time I walk past a front window. And I love rounding the corner in my car and spotting my yard down the block. Spectacular!

These leaves typically drop just before Halloween. (My other huge locust is hanging on to its leaves for now.) Could an earlier leaf-drop be a sign that the front tree is distressed? I worry that the multiple excavations in my front yard have destroyed too many of its roots. I sure hope not! I love my huge locust tree. Actually, I love all four of my huge trees.

***

My garden is pretty much done for the year. I had an average year for cucumbers, a good year for lettuce, and a lousy year for snap peas. The wildflowers took a long time to develop, but they turned out okay. I'll use a different seed mix and start earlier next year.

Day 15: A very long drive

I was up before dawn. I couldn't sleep anyway. It was time to hit the road. We had over 900 miles to cover today.

We left the campground around 6:30 a.m. I'd driven the entire trip so far, but around midday, I needed a break. Ma drove for a couple hours while I took a nap.

The return trip was pretty uneventful. We saw lots and lots of motorcycles heading to or from Sturgis, South Dakota. We enjoyed the second Harry Potter book on CD. We lost an hour when we entered the Central Time Zone. We stopped at a few rest areas and got gas when we needed it. We didn't even bother to stop for lunch. We just ate whatever snacks were in the car. We did stop for fast food for dinner.

At about 9:45 p.m., we pulled into the driveway at my parents' house. Ahh, home at last.

***

We had such a great trip. No major problems. No significant experiences missed. I got to crawl through the center of the earth and hike to the top of a mountain. I do regret not being able to see a bighorn sheep. But we saw so many other magnificent animals, it's hard to grumble about just that one. I hadn't expected to see a moose, a bald eagle, a wolf, and a grizzly bear. We saw countless deer, pronghorns, elk, and buffalo, too. We fed burros and got drenched by a geyser. The wildflowers were amazing. Even the weather cooperated (for the most part).

***

Whenever Ma and I return from our trips, we're inevitably asked where we'll go next. Oh, so many choices! We've talked about Croatia. Or Canada. Or the American Southwest, perhaps joined by Maureen? I've never been to Ireland, England, Spain, or Portugal either. There are several trips that I expect I'll have to do solo, like India, Thailand, China, and Morocco. Would you like to join me?

Day 14: Devils Tower

We got an early start and said a poignant goodbye to Yellowstone National Park. We had had an amazing time!

Google Maps estimates the travel time between Old Faithful and Devils Tower at seven hours and twenty-four minutes. For some reason, it took us nine hours.

The Plains Indians hold Devils Tower and the surrounding area sacred. Each Nation had its own story about how it was created, but the Kiowa legend is the most famous. The People believe that seven little girls were out playing and were attacked by a bear. The girls' prayer for help was answered in the form of a rock. The Great Spirit told them to stand on top of it. The rock rose out of the ground and transported them up away from the bear. The bear raked the sides of the rock with its claws, leaving deep furrows. The seven girls still remain in the sky as the stars in the constellation known to us as the Pleiades.

A mistranslation of an Indian name led the early explorers to call it the "Bad God Tower". This was later changed to "Devils Tower".

In 1906, President Teddy Roosevelt made history by establishing Devils Tower as America's first National Monument. He went on to declare 17 more. He also signed legislation that created five National Parks and 150 National Forests.

You can see Devils Tower several miles before you actually get there. There's not a lot out here to block your view.

Note the striations. Steven Spielberg's 1977 move "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" made them famous. Richard Dreyfus's character, obsessed with the Devils Tower formation, uses his fork to imprint them into a mound of mashed potatoes. From this distance, they really do look like fork marks!

We'd seen many desperate signs throughout the west, but this one we found particularly clever. It says, "For heaven's sake! Please stop and eat before we both starve!" Nice try, but we just ate.

In a strange way it reminded me of the simple but witty signs we saw throughout New Zealand.

Wildlife isn't a major draw at Devils Tower, but prairie dogs were ubiquitous. There's a huge "town" of them along the road up to the site.

We'll walk the 1.3 mile Tower Trail which encircles the formation. Like Uluru, in the Australian Outback, each side was slightly different. And its appearance changed even more with the angle of the sun.

From this vantage point, the top appears flat. It is actually mounded and about the size of a football field. You'd find grass, trees, and even squirrels up there. The guidebooks say that it isn't much different than the landscape around us.

Up close, you can see that the striations are actually giant columns of rock. A boulder field surrounds its base. These boulders are actually collapsed columns that have tumbled down from above.

Some of the boulders are quite large and have probably been here thousands of years.

Rock-climbing is a very popular activity at Devils Tower. An estimated 4,000 climbers reach the summit every year. You need a permit to go any higher than I am here. The Native Americans consider Devils Tower to be sacred, and climbing it is a sacrilege. Tribal leaders feel that climbing should be prohibited altogether, but the government cannot outlaw climbing for purely religious reasons. The rangers have compromised, asking rock climbers to stay off the Tower during the holy month of June. The climbing ban is voluntarily. Still, requests for permits drop by 85%.

The first climbers used wooden stakes that acted like a sort of ladder. You can see a remnant of one of the stakes in the middle of this photo. Holes left from other stakes can be seen along the seam up to the left.

There are two climbers in this picture (just left of center). One is wearing an orange shirt, and one is wearing no shirt. It gives you some perspective on how large the tower really is.

The top of Devils Tower is 1,280 feet above the surrounding landscape (roughly a quarter mile). Scientists disagree about the origin of the tower (where did the magma come from? and why does it protrude above its surroundings?). But most agree about how the columns were formed. When molten rock cools, it produces crystals. If it cools slowly, the rock has time to shrink and crack into perfect 120 degree angles. This produces hexagonal columns, just like Sheepeaters Cliff in Yellowstone. Different rates of cooling also formed a few 4-, 5-, and 7-sided columns.

We were the only people to go to Joyner Ridge to view the sunset.

How perfect is this picture? It's a quintessential photo of the American West. All it lacks is a howling coyote.

The full moon was actually unwanted on this night. It prevented Ma from seeing the Perseid meteor shower.

***
We spent the night at the KOA Campground just outside the park's gate. (Literally; their driveway is just a few feet from the entrance.) Unlike all of the other cabins we stayed in on this trip, this one did not have the a sink, or bed linens, or even heat. You get a bare, tarp-covered mattress on a double bed and bunk beds, a central light fixture, and little else. On the plus side, it was clean and in good shape. And it had a porch swing and a fire pit out in front. I was not expecting the no heat-no linens situation. The reviews had said that the provided linens were gross, so you should bring your own. I was prepared to be disgusted, but not cold. Ma had brought a blanket. I hadn't. Instead, I slept in several layers of clothes. For me, it was a long miserable night. Looking back, I should have known better.
Oh, and I should have joined Ma on the big bed. Yes, Ma, you told me so.

Upper Geyser Basin: Black Sand

The sunlight was fading fast. We had just enough time to jump in the car and zoom over to the Black Sand Basin. Fortunately, there wasn't a soul around, so parking was no trouble at all. Unfortunately, the reason for the desertion is obvious: many of the pools rely on direct sunlight to reveal their stunning colors.

Ma opted to stay in the car. The Morning Glory hike was enough to tire anyone out.

This pool is called Sunset Lake. Regrettably, it doesn't look best at sunset. It's called Sunset Lake because of its brilliant yellows and oranges, but the low angle of the sun revealed only a tiny sample at its edge.

Cliff Geyser sits on the very edge of Iron Creek. An eruption is imminent when the crater is full to the brim and boiling. It is unpredictable, but it sometimes erupts twice a day.

Black Sand Basin gets its name from the black volcanic glass sand (obsidian granules) that is found in the area. Thermophiles contribute the reddish color in this photo.

Our sightseeing done for the day, we returned to our cabin at Old Faithful. What a great spot we got! This is a photo taken from our front door. We can see the geyser from here.

We weren't quite ready for our stay in Yellowstone to end. Restless, we grabbed ice cream cones and wandered out to the lodge's back porch to eat them. We completed the day by watching Old Faithful's last eruption in sunlight (just barely).