Family Mellmann

Between the rain (almost every other day all summer) and the heat (which comes with humidity), this has not been a good year to be an exterior painter.  Though I am not an exterior painter, I do have exterior painting jobs to do.  The biggest one, a project begun two years ago, is finally getting the attention it needed. After a brief stretch of nice weather, we finally have a weekend that might be just right for a painting a fence which surrounds surrounds the field across from our house (which we own).  Piece by piece we replaced rotted boards and scraped old paint off.  Laziness, distraction (a college graduation, for example), a summer road trip, and rain, have kept us from this last step.  Today was the big day. Ten gallons of paint and about 15 man-hours later and we see some progress.  We didn't quite make it to the quarter way around, but we can definitely see progress.  Here is a picture of the fence before and after (or after and before since...

I was ready.  Gardening clothes pulled out of their basket.  Muck boots lined up by the door.  Garden gloves at the ready.  Mental exercises (to get psyched up for doing battle with burs and thistles) completed.  Let the gardening commence. Oh, wait.  First, I have to fix the tractor tires; three were underinflated and one was completely off the rim.  Launch YouTube.  Find video on how to inflate unseated tire.  Dig up a tie-down strap and find a screw driver.  Locate battery-powered tire pump.  Locate battery-powered tire pump...battery.  Whose dumb idea was this?  Locate car jack.  Weave and climb around two motorcycles and a ladder to retrieve the jack (how is it that with two cars in a four-car garage we still can't get at the tools?).  Weave and climb, while carrying heavy car jack, back to the tractor.  Is it time to start drinking yet?  Put a tourniquet on the completely flat tire.  Oh, firs...

My garden this year is a disaster.  We started out with a busy spring; Patrick’s graduation, helping get him ready to launch and move across the country, then our own scramble to prepare the house for the painter.  Throw in a little rental "turnover" for added excitement and there you have it.  Then I was gone for nearly a month as I traveled to Arizona (to deliver Patrick’s junk to him), visited with family, and drove around checking out property.  By the time I returned to Vermont, it was brutally hot with the requisite insane humidity.  If that wasn't enough to ensure that no garden work got done, it rained almost every day...to the point of flooding.  Needless to say, my garden has been...neglected. I didn’t get much spring clean up done, no weeding, no Preen-ing, and no mulching.  I haven’t planted ANY annuals for that splash of all-summer color.  My roses have bloomed and “gone over” and several had started to form hips before I could get ou...

Well, we made it back to Vermont.  What a ride. After Tuba City and Zion National Park (just the southern tip), I arrived in Ogden to connect with my sister and her family while I enjoyed some do-nothing days of reading, knitting, and...yep, just reading and knitting.  We talked and laughed, enjoyed some television in their media room, and caught up on all the news.  After a few days, it was time to meet Joerg (who had been in Oregon on a business trip) at the Salt Lake City Airport.  For the rest of this journey, we would be together and able to share the driving. We headed north for Montana by way of the western edge of Wyoming, but before we could make it to Livingston, where we had an Airbnb waiting for us, we would have to contend with one of the challenges of the west...flat tires.  Many of the road we traveled as we looked at property were dirt, rock, or gravel.  Eventually, it was bound to cause trouble as one of those rocks hit just the right angle...

Patrick and I enjoyed one last meal together and said our farewells...again.  This time, it will be more than three weeks before we see each other again.  I'm sure I'll get used to this eventually... I hit the road around 10:00 and headed north.  My first stop was Tuba City, Arizona.  Tuba City sounded like a fun place to visit given my high school band experience (I played tuba), but then I learned that it has some history.  Tuba City is in the Navajo Nation.  Several Navajo citizens were part of the Code Talkers of WWII.  Marine Corps leadership selected twenty-nine Navajo men who created a code based on the complex, unwritten Navajo language.  This code was used to communicate military tactics and plans.  This system enabled the Code Talkers to translate three lines of English in 20 seconds versus the standard 30 minutes with existing code-breaking machines. The Code Talkers participated in every major Marine operation in the Pacific the...

Patrick and I finished out our day at Rustler's Rooste in Tempe.  Situated atop a...hill...it gave us some great views of the city below and a lovely sunset.  And the steaks and homemade baked beans were fabulous.  

Last night, Patrick and I had dinner out at a local restaurant and then walked around town a little enjoying the architecture.  This building struck us both as an architectural representation of Arizona; the orange and tan parts of the building are reminiscent of the rock and stone colors common to the area, and the blue of the glass mimics the sky quite accurately. This morning, Patrick had an early morning flight with an owner of a flight academy where he is being considered for a job.  When he was done with that (by the way, it went very well and resulted in a job that Patrick is very excited about) we took a drive to check out some local scenery. We went to Papago Park where we could see the Papago Ponds, the Desert Botanical Garden, and Hole in the Rock.  As we drove through the botanical garden we saw this eye-popping green tree with green branches and trunk (the Palo Verde).  It was beautiful against the cloudless blue sky.  We also snagged a photo op wit...