Colorado Clouds

I just got back from Colorado last night (this morning?).
It was my annual trip to visit NCAR in Boulder, where I
work with people on a variety of projects. While there,
I took these cloud pictures for Rob:

View from "my" office. Enrique was sharing an office with someone who was out of town last week, so I got her desk - with window!

Same view, a few hours later. We got an inch of rain that day.

We hiked to Chautaqua one evening and this was the view from the trail.

Same storm. We saw lightning flashes between the ground and the cloud.

Fridge back together

So, I left you some time ago with the news that our fridge broke down. It turns out it was still (barely) under warranty so they sent us a new cooling unit. Rob called a couple of guys; one had no interest and the other said he'd come but didn't - twice. So we watched the 15 minute video showing how to do it - it looked not so difficult. It shows the use of "thermal mastic" so then we tried to find that in town, failed, ordered it online. Once it arrived, we started in on the dirty deed - only to find some thermal mastic in an interior box (but it would have needed a caulking gun while ours was in toothpaste tubes).

Anyway, we spent Tuesday night (after buying more ice and doing the cat sitting gig) taking the fridge apart:

The shelves are out, the doors are off.

Lay it down and start taking off the old cooling unit.

The burner assembly - note how much paint has burned off the tube to the left (up when standing).

Hacking at the foam seal behind the freezer.

I can see floor!

Next we brought up the new unit and tried to line things up. We gave up after midnight, saving it for a fresh attack. Back at it Wednesday (after cat sitting):

It's together again, for better or worse.

Note the bulged out back plate - the new one isn't exactly the same model. Also, there were very few screw holes so Rob had to make some new ones. We went through an entire can of spray foam filling in the gap where we'd carved out more foam than strictly necessary. Buying drill bits and spray foam happened during the day on Wednesday.

We got it back up, doors on, lit the burner - and watched smoke come out from burning paint. Now the new pipe should match the old one.

It's working and we can stop buying ice. All that remains is to claim our frozen food from a neighbor's house. Our feeling is that next time, we'll just buy a new fridge and stick to software.

2 AM

The other night I had a hot flash at 2 AM. I got up to do a few exercises and this was the view:

Note that this was just after solar midnight. The sun is shining on the virga off to the east.

Musk Oxen

We now have our replacement fridge part, but it hasn't been attached yet. We're still limping along with an ice box - and I think I killed my sourdough because it's just not as cool as a fridge and I got kind of distracted - a weekend of Tai Chi, then a quick trip to Seattle. I'm going to try the rescue, throwing away big wads of it, feeding the rest, repeat until something is bubbling in it.

In other news, we got invited to the musk ox farm to look at some yarn just back from a mill and to maybe make some shop samples. How could I resist? I'm trying to finish up some socks first, so I don't have any of it knit up yet. There is a qiviut-silk blend and a qiviut-wool blend (with extra-fine merino) - I have some of each to try. The qiviut isn't of the best because this is from the year they were having malnutrition issues (the animals weren't getting enough copper and cobalt), so they only had the blends made up. We talked about the fiber for a while, then we got to go see some animals:

Orphan female, still nameless.

Same little gal.

One of the mothers in another pen. Note the qiviut hanging just behind her ear. The farm people comb them out, but the animals don't like to be bothered near the face.

Just to prove that it's not just a musk ox farm, but a Large Animal Research Station. This is a caribou.

June flowers

Last fall I rashly bought some bulbs and planted them. The crocuses in front don't seem to have flower buds...

Labrador tea blooming too

Tulips up close - will they come back next year?

Iris plants - no flowers here either.

We've got a lot of tansy plants - we brought seeds from the dye garden.

In knitting news, I'm working on an advent scarf in colors mom wouldn't approve of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, our fridge died after less than three years of use. Our freezer stuff is in a neighbor's large freezer and we bought blocks of ice.

Gorgeous spring day

Sunset with virga

 

 This first picture was actually a few days ago. The sun was setting off to the left, shining on the clouds and their virga over the valley.

Birch just starting to leaf out

Zoom in to see leaves and flowers

One remaining snow patch below the driveway

Another snow patch

 The third patch is by the house and is looking more "snirty" (dirty snow).

Bulbs are sprouting - what did I plant there?

Cat and hat

We are now taking care of a cat. We first heard about this cat maybe ten years ago, when there were two sisters, Lola and Cola, staying with a grad student. That student went on to defend and leave town, leaving the cats behind. During their first winter, Lola got outside and came back missing some bits - a tail and the right hind leg.

 Both cats have been living with our friends Jenny and Pat, but now the sisters don't get along as well as they used to. They divide the house upstairs and downstairs, meaning that Lola doesn't get enough attention. So we're giving her a trial run, with the option to take her back if it doesn't work out or to keep her if it does. She's been super friendly and purry, wanting attention. So far, so good!

In hat news, I finally got my hat pattern up for sale on Ravelry: Baltic hat
My best picture of them is here:

The story is that I made the red hat first and made the mistake of wearing it into the yarn store where I got the main color. Someone there asked me how to do the Estonian braids and would I teach it. OK, fine. The yarn store policy is that I make a shop model from yarn currently available in the shop - which the Lopi Lite is not. So I picked some Cascade 220 in colors which aren't quite as exciting and made a shop model. In thinking about it, that's a lot of knitting for a class that meets twice, so then I made the small bag to be the in-class swatch. I taught two people, not including the one who bugged me to teach it in the first place - she wants another chance, so I said I'll teach it again in the fall.