Family Mellmann

 We're seldom shy of a good show from porch here.

 Good morning.

I brought one peck of peaches back from Utah and turned them into one of our favorite desserts, Peach Crisp.  I use my great grandmother Lydia Trimpe's recipe for this treat but most of the time I have to use apples or cherries since ripe peaches are impossible to get in Vermont.  But I don't live in Vermont anymore and it seems that ripe peaches are more accessible here, especially if you can drive about six hours south to Utah. :) One peck seems to be enough to make four 8x8 inch pans of Crisp.  I made this 9x13 inch pan for tonight and will freeze the rest of the peaches for a treat later.

When I returned from Utah, I took a run to Absarokee to see how things are progressing. More lumber has been delivered.  This should be everything we need for the framing of the house, which begins next week. The floor joists are in and ready for the sub-flooring.  That will happen early next week. The cement guys poured the garage floor.  It was a beautiful day for a cement pour (gentle breeze, cool day, and partly cloudy skies all help to prevent the cement from drying too quickly in this low-humidity climate). And electrical service has been brought to the house in the form of a temporary post.  That temporary post will go away when the full electrical panel goes in later in the construction process. Cement work is surprisingly man-power heavy.  There were five guys on the ground moving cement and one guy in the truck.  They each know their job and as long as cement is pouring, they are moving fast in order to get it where it needs to be before it begins to set.

I had an opportunity to take a little road trip to Utah; it was one of those two-birds-one-stone deals except I had three birds.  I could help my folks, give Joerg a little space, and spend time with my sister and her family all in one trip. Anyway, while we were there we had a chance to take in some local community life.  The community jazz band entertained local residents who were in the park to enjoy the many food truck dining options.  Dinner and a show, you can't beat that. We also got to experience true ripe peaches for the first time in a very long time (decades maybe).  Just a couple days before we arrived, Ogden Utah celebrated their Peach Days which means we arrived right when the peaches were at peak readiness and could be found at almost every roadside produce stand.  My nephew, who likes to cook and bake, made a Peach Pie and a Peach Cobbler for us to enjoy...and enjoy we did.  I enjoyed those peaches so much that as we drove out of town on our way back to Montana, we

When I arrived on the construction site today the place was buzzing.  The builder was removing a load of lumber from the delivery truck, the excavators were moving rock and dirt for the next phase of the project, and gravel was delivered (used for the garage floor and patios before the cement gets poured). I had some questions that needed to be answered so we took care of that while the construction crew distributed lumber around the foundation for the "sill plate".  We learned about the "sill" back in 2007 when we built the house in Vermont.  On the day the modules of the house were to arrive and be put in place, we learned that the foundation wasn't ready - it needed a sill plate.  Our contractor wasn't scheduled to arrive until the next day so I had to find a local crew that could help us.  These two guys showed up with the supplies and taught us what to do and we all went to work; Joerg, Patrick, and I (Katherine was there, but too young to help).  Fortu

As I was going to the back door to put some recycling in my car, I noticed a crowd gathering next to my car.  One of them looked up but they didn't really mind my presence until I decided that I was done waiting for them to wander off and just walked through the door.  THEN they walked around the trees so that I couldn't see them anymore.  They must think my eyes are pretty bad because they weren't really that well hidden 🙄.  But, at least I could get to my car.  

I drove to Columbus (the town just off the highway on the route to Absarokee) to return some counter top samples and then planned to go on to Billings to run some errands, but I couldn't resist a quick detour out to our property.  It's a 30 minute drive from Columbus to our house so it was entirely possible that I would lose an hour of my afternoon for nothing more than a view of a quiet construction site.  However, when I arrived, there was activity happening. The electric company was on site bringing electrical power from the transformer to our property.  This will make the builder very happy.  It seems that generators are better than nothing when you need power, but for some reason they are hard on power tools. And the excavator was busy moving dirt.  With the foundation walls complete and cured, he can back-fill around the foundation and prepare the garage area for the floor cement to be poured. Meanwhile, wildfires west of us have reduced our mountain view to a mountain si

A little weather rolled through Livingston today.  I didn't get any rain but the mix of sun and cloud did bring us another beautiful double rainbow.  

Moving from our home in Vermont to our temporary housing in Montana involved a notable down-sizing of space.  For the most part, that's fine because nearly all of our earthly possessions are tucked away in storage units.  Yet, as this is temporary housing, the opportunities for the usual "around the house" activities have been reduced to almost zero.  No garden to manage.  No garage to tinker in.  No house projects to undertake.  Admittedly, I generally spend large chunks of time sitting at my computer, sometimes working and sometimes playing, but I do like to move around and find different places to sit and take in a different view. In the evening, when the mosquitoes and gnats are not out in force, I enjoy sitting on the patio as the sun sets and the valley below turns to a sea of black with the little sparkles of house and street lights and the headlights of moving traffic.  Until the moon rises, my space is lighted only by the glow of screens and a small task lamp tha

As a former tuba player, this cartoon made me laugh.  I hope it brings a smile to your face as well, even if you have never heard a tuba.

It was quiet on the worksite when I arrived, but the foundation walls are poured and curing.  

In the midst of rental projects, house construction, chauffeuring Katherine to and from work, and household duties, I enjoy sitting on the patio getting some stitches in on my current knitting project.

In twenty-five years of living in Vermont, we saw some wild weather; big snows, ice storms, high winds, lots of rain...but I don't think we ever had so much rain fall from the sky at one time that the roads turned to rivers and the air turned to water.  It doesn't last long (the rain slowed down to a more civil "drizzle" in less than ten minutes) but it's pretty amazing to watch.  This raid took place on Monday (August 12th). When it rains like this, rocks and dirt get washed into the streets.  Within one or two days, the town sends out their street sweepers (the big machines that vacuum up debris and clean the roadways) to clean things up.  I have seen more sweeping action here in two months than I saw in twenty-five years in Vermont. This is one of the street sweepers.  I captured this picture at the end of the 4th of July parade.  In Vermont, the end of a parade is declared by the police car that rolls through as the last vehicle.  Here in Livingston Montana, i

For the past few weeks, it has been quite warm here in Livingston.  On top of the heat, we have been "socked in" (surrounded) by smoke from wildfires burning west of here.  In the past few days we have received some rainy weather which brought cooler temperatures and it cleared the air a little bit...for a little while. While I was working at my computer, I saw some weather rolling in and decided to record it.  Next time I'll record it in time-lapse, but if you grab the progress bar and scroll forward (or back) you can see how the clouds hide the mountains and then clear away.  Or, you can spend six minutes and just listen to the wind and rain. :)

According to Maslow's Hammer, or the law of the instrument, it is common to rely on one tool for most routine jobs.  We have twisted this "law" into a saying that is commonly used; "If you're a hammer, everything is a nail.".  Have you ever bought a new car and then notice that everyone seems to be driving the same car? Well, it turns out that when your son becomes a commercial pilot, you start seeing airplanes everywhere. On my way back to Livingston, after visiting the construction site, I caught up to a freight train heading west and carrying six commercial jet bodies.  Since my highway speed limit is higher than the train's speed limit, I passed it eventually. Back in Livingston, which is home to an active train yard, I found that same train idling in the yard.  I wonder where the wings are. So, trains moving on to Billings or Bozeman (Montana) will stop here in Livingston to pick up extra engines (let's call them "booster packs") to he

The foundation work has begun.  Footings were poured today.  The rest of the foundation work will hopefully happen next week, once the ICFs (insulated concrete forms) arrive. While I was on site to take a few pictures of the foundation preparation, the cement trucks started to arrive; first the pump truck then the cement trucks (4 cement trucks would come for this part of the job). The guy in the white shirt (with a long beard) is the man in charge.  And the skinny guy with the baseball cap is the one who controls the flow of cement. The moral of this photo...be the guy with the tech if you can; the rest have to do the physical labor.